Logic

But in actuality...

I haven't read through the entirety of this thread, only a few comments here and there, but... I'm with Hunter S Thompson on this one. He was a rabid 49ers fan. When people used to ask him to sit down and calm down, he'd shout back at them "THIS ISN'T THE ***** OPERA! IT'S A FOOTBALL GAME!". Now I'm not as crazy as Hunter S Thompson (nor as medicated), but I agree with his basic point: you've come to an inherently loud, inherently rowdy sporting event. The gladiator games of the modern day. Furthermore, the team for which you are rooting feeds off of the frenzy of the crowd. So I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with people who want to stand during the entire game. If I was that concerned with having an unobstructed view and no inconveniences to my sight lines, I would have stayed home and watched the game on an HDTV. I really try my best when attending games to only stand for 3rd downs, big plays, kickoffs, and red zone plays. The problem right now is that the Bills are so damned good that they're constantly in the red zone or forcing the opposition into 3rd downs! At the Monday night game, I did my best to only stand when it was "appropriate", but it was "appropriate" to stand for quite a lot of that game! The two things that DO bother me at games: 1. People who insist that everyone sit the whole time. "Down in front! Yeah, you! SIT DOWN!". Like...no, man. It's an exciting game. I flew 3,000 miles and paid $200+ to be here. I'm not sitting all game. Especially when the Bills are on the two yard line or the opponent is in 3rd and long. Get real. 2. People who make a ton of noise when the Bills are on offense, particularly on 3rd or 4th down. There really should be a "when to make noise and when not to make noise" educational video for football fans.

It's fine. The Dolphins don't pose any real threat to Buffalo's dominance of the division. Their defense is nowhere close to ours, and Tua is nowhere close to Allen. The 2022 Dolphins are just the drought era Bills, occasionally stringing together a few wins, getting some media attention, and saying "BRING ON THE PATS!". The Bills, meanwhile, are what the Pats were then -- an inevitable machine that just grinds onward, quietly crushing opponents, taking their souls, and showing them what pretenders they are. Let them and their fans be excited. The AFC East is the Bills' division for the foreseeable future.

I don't really have words for awful of a post this is. You really broke the mold here.

I watched the entire Dolphins-Ravens game. Credit to McDaniel and Tua for the 4th quarter comeback, but....color me not impressed. First of all, the Ravens were a fumble on the 1 foot line from being up 42-14 at the start of the 4th quarter. Second, Tua was not particularly good for the first three quarters, including throwing two picks. Third, Lamar and the Ravens offense moved the ball absolutely at will against the Phins defense. If they had that much trouble stopping the Baltimore offense, it's hard for me to imagine them stopping the Buffalo offense. Obviously, when someone comes back from down 21 points to win a game, they deserve credit. For the MAJORITY of the game, though, the Dolphins looked the same they always look to me: mediocre quarterbacking and mediocre defense. Their offense may score more than usual against the Bills, but unless Josh Allen is somehow forbidden from getting off the plane, the Bills win going away.

😳😬😍

Thought it might be interesting to re-visit this thread now that week two is in the books. Looks like I may have been right about the Vikings, Steelers, Packers, and Cardinals. I was probably wrong about the Dolphins and maybe the Ravens?

Thanks for this writeup, @Shaw66. I flew in from Portland for the game. Spent the day before the game exploring Buffalo, which was abuzz everywhere we went. Ate wings at Bar Bill Tavern, two tables down from AJ Epenesa. Boy, professional defensive ends look enormous in person! Like you say, the pre-game lots were a party. I mean, they're ALWAYS a party, but oftentimes there is nervous "I hope we can pull it off today" energy buzzing around. Not on this day. It was party time. It's not many years that see the home opener being a Monday night game, coming off a demolition of the defending Super Bowl champs. Special atmosphere. Speaking of special atmosphere...I second the notion that it was so loud that I couldn't hear Kelly or Marv. I saw them on the big screen, I saw their mouths moving, but I couldn't hear a darn thing over the massive roar of the crowd. Ditto for the pre-game player announcements. The only thing I could judge from those is that Diggs got the second biggest cheer, and Allen the biggest (Duh). Deafening. I agree that there weren't many Titans fans in sight, but there happened to be several sitting around me. They were all polite, all quiet, all well behaved. They were all cheers on the Titans touchdown drive. After that, they didn't have much to cheer about the rest of the night. I almost felt bad for the two little kids in front of me in Derrick Henry jerseys...but then I remembered the many Sundays that I was the one in the stands on the wrong side of a blowout over the years. "Bills fans deserve this", I thought. As I watched the Bills score all five of their touchdowns on the end of the field in which I sat, I thought back to the painful prime time memories I've had in the stands in that stadium. 56-10 against the Pats. The Cowboys Monday Night debacle. The Browns Monday Night debacle. So many dejected exits, so many long drives home. Not this time. This time, I had the weird experience of watching essentially a preseason game for the entire fourth quarter. Strange. Leaving the stadium? A whole lot more partying. On the flights back to Portland, I crossed paths with several Bills fans, flying back to wherever it was they came from to attend the game. Sometimes we exchanged "Go Bills!", but often we just looked each other and grinned like the Cheshire cat. It's a special time to be a Bills fan.

Yeah, it's a weird thing. Assuming White comes back and plays well, you're looking at two of Dane Jackson, Kaiir Elam, and Christian Benford spending a bunch of time on the bench. The Bills predominantly play nickel, and I don't think they're taking Taron Johnson off the field any time soon. Jackson, Elam, and Benford are all boundary corners, any way. The good news, I suppose, is that they can ease White back in if they want by spelling him with the youngsters. I wonder if they'll do a little bit more rolling waves of substitutions in the defensive backfield than they've done in the past, similar to (but less than) how much they rotate the D-line. You don't often think of corner as being a position that gets subbed out the way a defensive lineman does in a McDermott defense does, but hell...if a limited snap count can help Von Miller remain fresh for the fourth quarter, why couldn't it do the same for a guy like Tre White?

Let him or her who has not rendered oral sex to a stranger in exchange for an item of clothing on a Sunday morning cast the first stone!

HEY! I resemble that remark!

The Jets were 4-13 last year. If they were to have a similar record this year, in the fickle market that is New York City, I can't completely rule out the possibility of Woody Johnson wanting to move on from Robert Saleh, particularly if the right shiny, attractive candidate came along. I think it's unlikely, but I feel it could at least be in the "outside chance" column. That's about the only one I could think to add. Anyway, the Bills are likely going to be a good to very good team for the next decade, so we probably should get used to losing coaches and executives to other teams.

Thanks. The Packers lost 38-3 to the Saints last year on opening day. They wound up 13-4. I don't think this year's Packers team is necessarily going 13-4, but I expect them to be much better than they looked in week 1, just like they were last season. As for the Vikings, well....see what I just said about the Packers. Hard to judge how good the Vikes really are, given how bad the Pack looked. The Cardinals...you're probably right about the Cardinals. I may just be ranking them based on last year's reputation. This may be the last year for Kliff Kingsbury if things don't go well.

Well answered on your part.

It's just a matter of hours until Del has a "Don't Blink" shirt available on 26shirts.

I agree that the Vikings are good. I just don't think they're the dominant buzzsaw that they looked like in week one. The Packers turned in a typically putrid week one performance, so it's hard to judge how good the Vikings actually are. Perhaps I should have added a "more information needed" column.

Teams who aren't as good as their week one performance might indicate: - Miami Dolphins - Washington Commanders - Pittsburgh Steelers - Minnesota Vikings Teams who are better than their week one performance might indicate: - Green Bay Packers - Arizona Cardinals Teams who are as bad as they looked: - New England Patriots (stink-o-rama) - New York Jets (gonna be a loooong year) - Dallas Cowboys (woof) Teams who are as good as they looked: - Kansas City Chiefs - Buffalo Bills - Baltimore Ravens

I know it's ridiculous for me to think such things so early, but... Friday morning, I was driving to work thinking "I hope we get Dorsey for more than one season before someone hires him away to be head coach". That may seem like a crazy idea, but hiring the en vogue young offensive mind from a contender seems to be more and more common in recent hiring cycles. If Dorsey keeps calling great games and the Bills offense balls out this year, it's not crazy to think Dorsey could get some interviews. I know, I know...cart way before the horse on this one.

That is truly horrifying, and yet sadly not surprising. I've seen some truly disgusting, depraved, ridiculous things at Bills games.

Indeed, but I kind of like the steel drums on it. Also, I was actually a Buffett fan before I discovered the Dead, so I heard Jimmy's version of Uncle John's Band well before I ever heard the Dead do it. The fanhood doesn't seem to go both directions, though. No Buffett covers by the Dead. I think they would've knocked A Pirate Looks at Forty and Change in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes out of the park, but what do I know?

Different kinds of potential downfall: Parrot Heads are likely to be too drunk (and potentially too stoned) to make it into the show. Deadheads are likely to be too busy traversing the furthest realms of the astral galaxy due to over-indulgence in mushrooms, acid, and strong pot brownies to make it into the show. Unfortunately for me, I am both a Parrot Head AND a Deadhead.

I hear ya. I've seen many passed-out-before-they-can-enter-the-stadium Bills fans in my days attending games (and concerts). I also once saw, prior to the game, maybe 11:30am, a totally hammered guy who couldn't stand upright, held up on either side by buddies of his, being walked back in the opposite direction of the stadium. The too-hammered-to-walk guy was drunkenly slurring "Is it over? Di...did we win?". I am definitely not that type of fan when I go to games. No shade to those who are, I guess, but I like to actually REMEMBER the game come the next morning. I spend too much PTO, effort and money getting to a game to even consider being too inebriated to enjoy it properly.

Does anybody SCARE me? No. Do I think it will most likely be Bills-Chiefs in the AFC title game, and that the Chiefs will still pose a significant challenge for the Bills? Absolutely.

Flying in from Portland for the game. Spending all day Sunday in Buffalo, eating and drinking my way through the city. Spending all day Monday in the lots, of course, responsibly enjoying adult beverages and cooked meats and yelling rude but good-natured things at any Titans fans I see. Spending three hours Monday night yelling until my voice is gone and trying to get the idjits in my section to quiet down when the Bills are on offense. I have seen Josh live three times. He was not good in any of the three games. I'm really hoping that this one is the one where I finally get to see nuclear Super Saiyan Josh Allen. Fingers crossed. Can't ***** wait.

Here's a hot take: I think Josh Allen is going to go down in NFL history as the most dangerous, unstoppable red zone QB of all time. I already think he's the best red zone rushing threat of all time from the quarterback position. He's 33 rushing TDs away from being the Bills' all time leader. That means he's statistically more likely than not to end his career as the Bills' all time leader in touchdown rushes, ahead of two Hall of Fame running backs!! Just ridiculous. If you're a defensive coordinator against Josh Allen in the red zone, what do you do? How do you defend him? You just kind of...CAN'T. "Unicorn" is right. "Creature" is right. "One of one" is right. He's special.