Shaw66

That's classic!!! For me, I've like them since Super Bowl I. Granted, they beat the Bills to get there, but I so wanted the AFL to beat the NFL. It didn't happen, but they got job done in Super Bowl IV. Chiefs and Chief fans are among the good guys around the league.

Thanks for coming by. It was an unbelievable game. Good luck to you and the Chiefs.

I’ve written this column for about 15 years. It varies from week to week, sometimes about the stadium experience, sometimes about an important play, sometimes about what players or coaches did or didn’t do. I write about trends, prospects, shortcomings and needs. Sometimes it might be funny, sometimes quirky, and certainly sometimes boring or pedestrian. When I start writing, I don’t always have a plan – the essay just seems to go where it needs to go. Last night in Kansas City, in the second round of the playoffs, the Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills in overtime, 42-36. This morning, I sit before my keyboard, numb. I’ve got nuthin’. If you watched the game, you understand. If you didn’t, I cannot go all Grantland Rice on you to explain. I’m not Shirley Povich. Where is Frank Deford when we really need him? I’ve been a fan of the Buffalo Bills since 1960. There were several years when work and family and geography left me less involved with the team, not going to games or being able to see them on television. Still, fan-wise, I’ve had a pretty good run. I can say figuratively, if not literally, I’ve seen it all. The only way to describe what happened last night is that it was Wide Right, 31 years later. (If you don’t know what Wide Right was, look it up. It has its own Wikipedia article.) I was in Tampa that night, I sat in the stadium stunned as the winning field goal sailed past the right upright. (I was in Buffalo on the Monday night when the Cowboys beat the Bills with a long field goal on the final play – that game gets honorable mention, but wide right and Chiefs-Bills stand together on top of the “OMG -what-just-happened?” list.) The day after Super Bowl XXV, I walked aimlessly through Epcot Center, and it seemed every third person was wearing a Giants sweatshirt. This morning, everything is Chiefs red. When your team loses a game like that, and my team has done it twice, I’m here to tell you that everything in your life goes numb for a day or two. It’s not a tragedy, it’s not life changing; after all, it’s just football, but when you’re emotionally invested and a game like that happens, it’s stunning. It’s as though you’ve seen and heard a large explosion, so large that for a few seconds or minutes or even hours, your eyes are recovering from the flash and your ears are ringing. “OMG! What just happened?” A week before the game, I thought that this game might be the real Super Bowl, that these were the two best teams playing for all the marbles. No, that couldn’t really be true, because the King was back leading the Titans, there was the G.O.A.T., trying for another repeat, and if it wasn’t going to be Brady in the Super Bowl, it was going to be Rodgers. Then, one by one, Derrick Henry lost, Rodgers lost, Brady lost, and the surviving teams lacked the key ingredient – the star quarterback. Burrows may be a star on the rise, Stafford may be a star postponed, and Tannehill may be, well, a nice guy, but nobody is crowning any of them as a legendary signal caller, at least not yet. So, by Sunday night, the game between the Bills and the Chiefs actually was looking like the Super Bowl, without the halftime show. These were the two hottest teams in the playoffs, each coming off blistering blowout wins the previous week, each having overcome early season inconsistencies to look now like powerhouse winners. Each with an already certifiable superstar quarterback. Before the opening kickoff, people knew it was a big game. I got my pizza and sat before the TV. What happened was epic. There have been a lot of great football games with spectacular plays and dramatic finishes. I can’t sit here this morning and say that Chiefs-Bills was the greatest, but it has to be in the discussion. This was two great teams with two great quarterbacks playing their best games. Two teams and two guys refusing to lose in a game where ultimately someone would win. A couple of days before the Bills-Chiefs game, I looked up the playoff passer rating records. If you’re not a fan boy like me, know that the passer rating is a number that is calculated using a formula and some of the more important statistics that demonstrate passing effectiveness. The passer rating isn’t perfect, but it’s a pretty good measure of who’s the best. After last week’s games, Patrick Mahomes (did I mention that he is the Chiefs quarterback?) was number 1 on the all-time playoff passer rating list. Josh Allen, the Bills quarterback, was fourth. Now, that data is skewed by a variety of factors, so it isn’t necessarily the definitive measure of greatness, but it isn’t bad. Bart Starr and Kurt Warner, two legendary QBs who are in the Hall of Fame, were number 2 and number 3 on the list. Hall of Famers Joe Montana and Troy Aikman are in the top 20, along with future Hall of Famers Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees. This morning, Patrick Mahomes is still number 1. Josh Allen is number 2. The game was a display of modern quarterbacking excellence that rarely has been seen in the NFL, dual excellence that probably never has been seen in a playoff game. Mahomes and Allen performed superbly from the very beginning of the game, passing and running, confounding the opposing defenses. But their excellence through three quarters was simply prelude. When Harrison Butker kicked a field goal to give the Chiefs a five-point lead with less than nine minutes remaining in the game, there seemed to be only one question: could Josh Allen and the Bills mount one more drive for one more touchdown and win the game? That, as it turned out, was merely the first question. Allen and the Bills went on an excruciating 17-play, seven-minute drive for the touchdown and, with the two-point conversion, a three-point lead. Mahomes answered with a touchdown in five plays, dashing the Bills’ hopes for a victory. Incredibly, truly incredibly, Allen returned the favor in six plays to retake the lead. And yet, in the 13 seconds remaining, Mahomes managed to get the Chiefs in position for the tying field goal. The Chiefs won the coin toss at the beginning of overtime, and Mahomes continued the scoring onslaught, hitting Travis Kelce with another touchdown pass. The overtime rules didn’t afford Allen and the Bills the opportunity to respond, and the Chiefs won. Undoubtedly, this morning thousands of Chiefs fans are talking about how great their team is and how this decision or that play won the game. Thousands of Bills fans are talking about how that decision or this play lost the game. I can’t do that, not now. My only consolation after Super Bowl XXV was that for fifteen or twenty years, sportswriters and fans everywhere said it was the greatest Super Bowl ever. I could be proud that my team was part of it, but it hurt to think about it. Eventually, memories dimmed and other games awed the fans. Eventually, I didn’t have to respond politely to people who thought they were making me feel good when they said, “You’re a Bills fan? That was the greatest Super Bowl of all time!” “You’re a Bills fan? Bills-Chiefs was the best playoff game I’ve ever seen!” Yeah, right. Thanks.

I forgot about the McCarthy thing. Disruptive prima donna in those days.

Absolutely right, we're not at practice, we really don't know. However, part of Rodgers' job is to develop QB-receiver relationships over the course of the season, so that he has some reliable routes and receivers. Look at Allen and McKenzie. McKenzie isn't any better than Lazard or Cobb, but Allen's found a way to get the ball to Isaiah. And, of course, the knock on Favre was that he made dumb throws. However, I'm of the view that if you never make the risky throws and fail, you never know which risky throws are good risks and which aren't. If it's true that Rodgers plays to protect his passer rating, well, in crunch time that can hurt your team. Finally, other people have commented about this: He seemed kind of detached last night. His body language seemed to say "I'm going to make my plays, and we'll win or lose, and either way it will be okay." It seemed like it was just another day at the office. In the NFL, that attitude isn't enough. Since when do hockey teams play basketball teams?

Hard to argue with this. Interesting take. Without saying it, he essentially said Rodgers doesn't have the one thing Favre had - fearlessness. Favre wasn't afraid to throw the interception.

Marino

That's very true. But: 1. It's fun. Some of those tweets are really funny. 2. Rodgers is arrogant, as opposed to humble. Yes, he has backed up his arrogance with outstanding play - there's never been a playmaker like him, but he chooses to be arrogant. He alone set himself up for this stuff. Very few people celebrated when Drew Brees lost, or Peyton.

Who knows? Mostly, when I went to the article, I was amused at how much stuff is written just to fill up space and catch your attention. Nobody knows what the Bills' philosophy about squats has to do with their injury report. All I know is that I'm going to take too seriously an article that says the Bills have no injured starters.

Well, I wonder about this article. First, how many other teams don't do squats during the season? Second, maybe a little research would help. He says the Bills don't have any injured starters. They just have injured bench players, like White and Feliciano. Okay, maybe Feliciano is back.

I think you agree with me completely. Some plays stand out as more obvious, it's the sum of all the plays that determines the outcome. For example, you can look at Taron Johnson's interception and say that play won the game against the Ravens. You can say if Jackson reads the defense properly, he finds the TD elsewhere, or they get a field goal or whatever. But it's just as easy to look at any of a dozen other plays and say if X makes this cut or Y makes this tackle or Z doesn't hold, the game's different. Those plays are happening all the time. It's just that some are more obvious than others. And it's magnified in low scoring games. I was in a discussion yesterday about why Johnson's INT was a greater play in Bills history than Hyde's INT against the Pats. Not because Johnson's was a better play, but because it was a more important play. When your offense is scoring 40, your INT just isn't as important as when your offense is scoring 6. So, these plays stand out even more in low scoring games, but that's just how we see it. The fact is that the outcome always is determined by how 11 guys executed against 11 other guys on a lot of plays.

This response, and what Hapless said, all point to one thing: It's a team game. It takes complementary football. The games are long, and you have ups and downs throughout the game. Everyone plays the game together, and winning or losing is the sum of all their collective efforts. The truth is that no matter how spectacular a game Josh Allen plays, the Bills win or lose because of the sum of all of their efforts. So, yes, if you win, you didn't deserve to lose (unless you're the Patriots and the officials give you the game). If all we look at is Garoppolo's stat line and say he deserved to lose, well, then we should look at Rodgers' stat line and say the same thing. Every 49er is thinking today "we could have lost that game," but none of them is saying "we deserved to lose." They won, they know they won, and they know they won because they all worked together to win.

In some ways, it's semantics, but it's real, do. Did the Bills offense lose the AFC championship game last season, or did the Chiefs defense. This isn't Madden. It's real players with real strengths and weaknesses on both sides of the ball on both teams. Sometimes the defense is just better than the opponent's offense. Yes, you can say the offense should have done something different, but the offense doesn't always have the right different thing to do. The Packers offense, which has been incredible lately, didn't all of a sudden forget how to do all the things they'd been so well. The 'Niners, and the weather, stopped them.

I watched Rodgers walking off the field, looking around the stadium, and I wondered, like a lot of people were wondering, whether he was taking in the sights and sounds of Lambeau for the last time. We all know he's from California, we all know he's got an ego, and we all know he's in-your-face demanding of his teammates. I imagined him thinking "F*** this cold, f*** this food, f*** these guys not getting open and dropping perfect passes. Davante and I are going someplace warm."

Or six points against the Jaguars on the road. If you want to be a winner, your offense always has to find a way to put points up. The Packers' offense couldn't. Credit the 49er defense. They stifled the Pack. Just like the Pack shut down the 49er offense. That's why, as the commentators said, the game was decided by special teams. That's where the plays were made that won and lost the game.

Yes, that's true. It's always true. But looking at it that way tends to obscure the point about Bojo, which is important. It's a team game, and wins are the product of a collection of about 100 people, players, coaches and others, all doing their jobs. Learn your job, perfect your craft, do it cooperatively. It's rarely about one play or one player, but it is about having the right players. Bill Polian and Marv Levy moved on from Ron Harmon for the same reason Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott moved on from Bojo.

Ahh! Got it. Thanks.

Yeah, but there are a few things about that list that undeniable. As someone said, for Bart Starr to have put up that passer rating playing in that era is incredible, small sample size or not. It meant he was playing near perfect games. in the biggest games of the year, he didn't turn it over, and he moved the ball, passing. That's pretty impressive. Pretty surprising to find Brady so far down the list. No small sample size there. And ask fans which young quarterback in the league do you want for your team. Your pick, any quarterback in the league or in college. Doesn't pretty much everyone pick Mahomes or Allen? Maybe there are a few Burrow fans in there, and Justin Herbert, but isn't the smart money on Mahomes and Allen? There they are, sitting at the top of this playoff passer rating list.

Yeah, well, wait until Josh matures. I mean, what do you expect - the guy's only played four seasons. Seriously, that's awesome. Fourth highest career playoff passer rating. 1 Patrick Mahomes 105.12017-2021kan 2 Bart Starr+ 104.81956-1971gnb 3 Kurt Warner+ 102.81998-20092TM 4 Josh Allen 100.92018-2021buf 5 Matt Ryan 100.82008-2021atl 6 Aaron Rodgers 100.52005-2021gnb 7 Nick Foles 98.82012-2021phi 8 Alex Smith 97.42005-20202TM 9 Drew Brees 97.12001-20202TM 10 Joe Montana+ 95.61979-19942TM 11 Russell Wilson 95.32012-2021sea 12 Mark Sanchez 94.32009-2018nyj 13 Ken Anderson 93.51971-1986cin 14 Tony Romo 93.02004-2016dal 15 Joe Theismann 91.41974-1985was 16 Tom Brady 91.02000-20212TM 17 Joe Flacco 88.62008-2021rav 18 Troy Aikman+ 88.31989-2000dal 19 Cam Newton 87.72011-2021car

Yeah, I loved that. Guy's a Patriots fan, and his first reaction is that his bet is going down the shitter. That's why I don't bet on games, and particularly not on Bills games.

That video is fabulous. That guy is obviously a good football fan, taking it all in, and we all know that kind of disappointment. So cool how as they're watching they can see it's a touchdown, it's a touchdown, it's a touchdown! Wait, what? One thing that surprises me is how so many people thought Agholar caught it or it was incomplete. From where I was in the stadium, the only question was whether Hyde got his feet down and held the ball when he hit the ground - it was obvious he'd caught it. As far as the greatest, I'll just repeat what I've said before. Best INT in Bills history? Yes, probably. Probably one of the best in the history of the league. Greatest? No. Twenty years from now, looking back, Bills fans will STILL be talking about Bill Simpson's INT to clinch the playoff game against the Jets in 1981, and they STILL will be talking about Johnson's game-winner against the Ravens, and they STILL will be talking about Josh Allen and the offense against the Patriots. Hyde's catch, spectacular as it was, will be a footnote. I put Hyde's catch in the same category as McGee's kickoff return against the Saints and Beebe's play in the Super Bowl - one of the greatest plays ever made by a Buffalo Bill. When you look at the stills in this thread, you can see that the ball is dropping in over the receiver's shoulder right into his hands. That is exactly where the receiver wants the ball. It was perfect. Now, maybe the receiver slowed down a bit to get the ball in that position, in which case you're right. But he didn't slow down much. Throw it much deeper and, yes, Hyde can't make the play, but the catch gets tougher for the receiver. Three yards deep, the receiver has to lay out. It's all fun to talk about, but in the end it doesn't matter what we say. Every time we watch the replay, it just gets better!

I couldn't go to sleep that night. Woke up my wife and told her she wouldn't believe what just happened. She went back to sleep. Saturday night was unlike any game I'd ever gone to. It was absolutely electric. Zactly.

I don't think he had a horrible arm. I can imagine him being a thrower like Andy Dalton as he develops. But you're right, he'll never make that throw look easy. If he learns his craft, he will learn to do the little things that will make him either not make the throw at all, or look off the safety, or release it a little earlier. But, and I think you agree, just because the ball was coming down perfectly into Agholar's hands doesn't mean it was a good throw. His job is to get the ball there before the defender gets there, and he failed at his job. It's got to be discouraging to Jones to look at the film of his throw and then look at Allen's throw to Sanders and realize that there are some things he just never will do on a football field.

Great comment. I mean, it was a great play by Hyde. Beautiful. Perfect. But he isn't the only guy who's ever made a play like that. I disliked Sanders. He was a jerk. But he was an absolutely extraordinary athlete who dedicated himself to developing his cover skills. Hyde is dedicated like Sanders was, but Sanders brought athleticism to his craft that Hyde only can dream of. And, on the question of whether Jones made a good throw, yes, he can make the throw he needs to make, he can learn to look off defenders, he can learn to recognize defenses (Allen's throw to Sanders, there was no way the safety was coming over the top - it was pure one on one), yes, Jones can learn to do all that, and I think he will, but on Saturday night he showed that he hadn't yet learned it, and that's why it was a bad throw.

Watch Hyde. He gives himself up. He doesn't take hits.