Success

I'm still torn on his take re: the Super Bowl, which I think is accurate in terms of how Bills fans felt, but who knows if it's reality. Looking at the game, it does seem like we could have won it, and probably won it easily. But football is all about match-ups, and part of me still thinks we just didn't match up well w/ that Rams team. I mean, we'll never know, of course. I've really gotta move on from that.

I have to say - curling is still inexplicable to me.

Relationships are tough. The magic wears off after a bit, and you argue about stuff like who left the cap off the maple syrup.

I used to be a huge fan - he was one of the best writers out there. Boston's sports success made him pretty insufferable. He's had praise for Allen & the Bills lately, but in general, he's hard to listen to these days. He's one of the hot take leaders in sports punditry. He's right about Mac Jones & the AFC, though. I enjoy the thought of Pats fans looking at the landscape & realizing that they'll need an enormous amount of luck to ever contend in the division or conference w/ the talent disparity at that position.

I've lost count of the # of "Bills window is closing" comments I've seen on twitter & the rest. Please. With Allen, the window is wide open and will be for a decade. He is the one.

I mean, Manning SHOULD have more SB's. He was always in position to get one, pretty much every year. It didn't help that it took him years to figure out Belichick, but I can't recall seeing a team blow as many chances at the Colts, often when they were favored. That could happen to the Bills also - but it would take some really bad luck.

"Their window is closing" is popular on the internet. I'm not sure why - I don't really see it, if Beane is able to continue to manage the cap well and we have an elite QB. Other vet QB's who were in the top tier had windows as long as their careers....

The 2nd half of the season compared to the 1st half was night & day in terms of the line & how much time Allen had. And we saw what a difference it made. That's the only thing you can hope for when you're playing a team w/ an elite QB like Allen: poor line play, so you can get to him & disrupt his effectiveness. We saw that for 2 decades w/ Brady, and for much of that time, NE had one of the top lines in the league & it just added to our frustration, even when we had a great pass rush. I'm all for keeping that as a top priority every offseason. And during the season, running Allen MUCH less. I feel like any OC can push the "easy button" and run him more if they're just looking to keep their job, but I'm hoping the new OC has a more long-term view on that.

I'm much more worried about getting past Mahomes. Burrow is good, but he's nowhere near Allen & Mahomes (imo).

I was happy for some of the players on the Rams. But for that fanbase, it's just a minor distraction from drama w/ the Lakers.

I'd have an easier time answering a question like "are you losing interest in your right leg?"

I thought that would have been 4th & 9 - I'm probably not remembering it correctly. 4th & 9 would have been tough the way Cincy's D was playing, but 4th & 4 would be much more feasible. Overall, I appreciated the job the refs did. They're never going to be perfect. We've all seen much worse games w/ multiple blown calls.

The only bad call the last 2 minutes was the holding that gave LA a 1st down. But that was a bad call - without it, it's 4th & long, and the Bengals have an excellent chance to win the game. Still, the only time the Bengals scored the entire 2nd half was a clear OPI. I don't know how Bengals fans can claim injustice, or that they "deserved" to win in any way. Their offense didn't make the plays when they needed to, and the Rams offense did. The game was kind of a mismatch. If OBJ didn't get hurt, it probably would have been more lopsided in the Rams favor.

People are complaining about the refs too much, imo. Even that holding call at the end, while bad, wasn't completely phantom. From one angle that they showed, it looked like he was grabbing the jersey. It was flimsy, but that wasn't the reason the Rams won the game. If I'm a Bengals fan, I'm not thinking about the one bad call. I'm thinking about all of the chances the Bengals had in the 2nd half to put that game away. When they got that pick early in the 2nd half, they were in perfect position to go up by 2 scores - which would have basically secured the victory in that game.

People keep saying that, but we didn't crush too many good teams this year. If it was Bills/Rams, it would have been a dogfight, imo. 50/50.

I don't know - we were playing better than anyone at the end. But I'd be hard-pressed to say we were the best team in the league this season. We dropped too many winnable games. Next year, if they're the best team, they need to secure the #1 seed.

I thought the playcall was kind of inexplicable there. Burrow was dropping back like it was 3rd and 5. That isn't the kind of play you want your QB surveying the field. It should have been a quick slant or jet sweep or something quick. The Bengals kind of blew it at the end. The Rams deserved the win. In a very defensive 2nd half, they were the team that put together the one big drive to win it.

I put almost not stock into those stats, or our #1 ranking, which to me was a mirage. We built those stats against bad teams and middlin' QB's. The Bengals had a better line. They could pressure the passer in a way that I don't think the Bills could have. It kept that game close. There is no way to really know. It's just how I see it - I don't think our line would have had an impact.

When have we seen perfect Super Bowls? In the SB, more often than not, defense tends to shine. That makes for a more "sloppy" looking game. Think about what happened to the greatest show on turf in '01, or to Brady's Pats in '07. It's a pretty psychological game, so it can often be disjointed and have no real pace. The refs were fine - they missed one PI, and called a hold that was kind of phantom, but those completely evened out. I grew up during the blowouts. Yesterday's game was great - a nail biter & down to the final series.

I agree. The Bengals D kept them in that game - I don't think the Bills D would have been able to do the same.

It was a great Super Bowl. I'm not sure what people are talking about when they say it was sub-par. It was a really hard-fought game that came down to the last minute.

It was a great game. I hear some on twitter & elsewhere say it was "boring," but I grew up in the age of the SB blowout. This whole generation has had pretty amazing, hard-fought SB's for the most part. The reffing was good. There were 2 bad calls/no calls, and they evened out (imo). On a side note, we all complain about the coaching in the 13 second sequence, but there were some head scratchers last night from both coaches, and really, throughout the playoffs from the good teams. No coach is perfect. I think McD & his staff are as good as anyone out there right now.

We're right there. It's not like another player puts us over the top - though a pass rusher would be nice. Still, no reason tonight couldn't be us - w/ the way the team is right now.

"Choke" should be outlawed for everyone who hasn't played the sport at the highest level. The Bengals played great. No one on that team "choked." That's an embarrassing commentary, imo.

I had hoped for a SB that would make me think, "I'm glad that's not the Bills." This ain't it. We would have won this game.