DabillsDaBillsDaBills

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I don't see how the Steelers was the most complete game of the season. Our offense had 4 punts, 2 turnovers, and scored 3 points in the first half. It might've been the best defensive effort of the season, but I think the Dolphins, Raiders, Seahawks, and 49ers games were each better overall games.

Not a lot of analysis going on in the OP so I followed those guidelines. To elaborate a bit on my reasoning: The Bills have two basic paths to hosting an AFC Championship game. We can get the #1 seed and win our first playoff game (after week 1 bye). Or we make the playoffs as a lower seed, win two playoff games, AND have all higher seeds than us lose. Given that the Chiefs are 2 games up on us, and also have the tiebreaker it's highly unlikely that we end up with the #1 seed. We'd need to get 3 more wins than the Chiefs do in the final 4 games. We'd also have to pass the Steelers, who we are 2 games back on. That's not as unlikely given that we play them this week and would have the tiebreak and only 1 game back if we win. Even after that we'd still have to win our first playoff game to host the AFCCG. For us to host the Browns, the Browns would need to qualify for the playoffs and then win 2 playoff games. The odds of that are so low it's not worth mentioning. There's a lot of potential paths for the Bills to host the AFCCG as a 2-6 seed, but they all boil down to Bills winning consecutive playoff games, AND to have EVERY higher rated seed lose. Pretty slim odds. My guess of 1% might've been a little pessimistic, but anything over 5% is just a pipe dream. Now if we're talking the chance that the Bills MAKE the championship game? I think that's more like 20%.

It's definitely as crazy as it sounds. While none of your individual scenarios are that ridiculous the idea that all of that would happen is. I'd say there's about a 1% chance that the Bills host the AFC Championship game. And more like 0.01% chance that we'd host the Browns.

I'd put Wentz in the Tannehill/Carr/Stafford/Cousins category of QB. Better than average. Good enough to win a lot of games and make the playoffs with a strong supporting cast. Probably never good enough to win a SB.

Mario Addison played on 67% of snaps? I don't think I noticed him on a single play last night

I loved it. Refs have left so many roughing calls on Josh uncalled this year. If he needs to snap his head back to get a call for a late hit then he needs to start doing that every time. Bit of a tangent... How many times did 49er players spin the ball towards the Bills defenders? We should coach our players to point at the ball and cry for a flag in those situations

It's interesting that Ben has never played very well against the Bills, but is 4-0. Guess it helps to play against JP Losman, Ryan Fitzpatrick, EJ Manuel, and Tyrod Taylor 2007 Ben went 21/34 for 242 Yards 1 TD 1 INT 2010 Ben went 20/33 for 246 Yards 0 TD 0 INT 2013 Ben went 18/30 for 204 Yards 1 TD 1 INT 2016 Ben went 17/31 for 221 Yards 0 TD 3 INT - the worst game I've ever seen from him. Leveon Bell had just shy of 300 yards and carried Steelers to victory The Steelers haven't been playing well for the past few weeks (they just lost to the Football Team), and if that trend continues the Bills should win the game

To expand on your simile, I think this situation would be if the husband went from in shape to 400 pounds, and then the wife goes on TV and says she needs to do a better job preparing healthy foods and putting him in a situation where success is possible. I'll also point out that Gase did not say Darnold is a "failed" QB. In fact, he never said "fail" at all. The reporter used that specific word to describe Gase's comments. If you read Gase's comments I think they are fair. He takes responsibility for how Darnold is playing: "We need to do things well around him, but at the same time, it's on me to get him to play better than what he's played," Gase said. "I haven't done a good enough job." "Yeah, it's frustrating," Gase said of the touchdown drought. "For him personally, I'm sure he's bothered by it, knowing things like that. "I look at it as we've got to do a better job as a staff. We've got to put these guys in the best position possible, and those guys have to go execute. It's on all of us. We have to find a way to do a better job. We have to find a way to put the ball in the end zone."

Not really sure how it's an "irrational rant" to point out that Klein made a big mistake on a play that was his responsibility and it cost the Bills points. There's a difference between making a mistake like Klein vs Bosa who was blown up by blocks on a few plays. Even with the mistake Klein still had a good game. I just think Bosa's game was significantly better.

How could anyone watch the Bills Chargers game and come away thinking that Klein was the defensive player of the week? Bosa was significantly better. I'm still annoyed by this play on the Chargers first TD drive: 3rd & 10 at BUF 22 (8:08 - 1st) (Shotgun) J.Herbert pass short left to A.Ekeler pushed ob at BUF 8 for 14 yards (A.Klein). Klein bit on a screen play and wasn't fast enough to chase down Ekeler. He cost us a probable 4 points on that play.

Klein might not be as bad as I thought, but I still don't think he's a good player. Some of his sacks were scheme based and he was unblocked en route to the QB. Props to Klein for making the sack, but that's the expectation when you get a free run at a QB. How about this play on Chargers first TD drive? 3rd & 10 at BUF 22 (8:08 - 1st) (Shotgun) J.Herbert pass short left to A.Ekeler pushed ob at BUF 8 for 14 yards (A.Klein). Klein took an extra step towards Herbert and didn't have the speed to chase down Ekeler. Cost a probable 4 points that play.

I'll change my mind if the defense plays that well the rest of the year, but for now, "lucky" is definitely the word I would use. Definition of lucky 1: having good luck 2: happening by chance

1) I'd say it's fairly lucky when our below average defense allows only 3 points off of 3 turnovers 2) I made up the 33% number, but the way the Bills played would normally not win a game. <200 yards passing, outgained in total yards, lose the turnover battle -2 (with 3 turnovers in the 4th Q). It was good enough for a win against a mediocre Chargers team that made a lot of mistakes, but (probably) wouldn't be good enough in a playoff game 3) After Allen's INT the Chargers had the ball at their own 44 with 6 minutes left and down by 7. The Bucs scored a TD with 4 minutes left to cut the lead to 3, but never got the ball back after they kicked off. Per ESPN stats the Chargers had a better chance of winning than the Bucs did

I feel like people are writing off the 3 turnovers in 7 plays because the Chargers didn't capitalize and it didn't cost us the game. This thread is about "narratives" and the narrative after the Chiefs/Chargers game was that the Chiefs survived and pulled out a win in a game that they really should have lost. OP was complaining that the narrative after this week is that the Chiefs "dominated" in a 3 point win, while the Bills "struggled" in a 10 point win. Having watched both games I agree with the narrative.

So did this one. Had the Chargers chosen to kick some easy FGs this also would've been a 1 score game. The Bills took their foot off the gas against the Rams, and ended up needing last second heroics (and a borderline DPI call). The Chiefs took their foot off the gas against the Bucs.... and needed to run the clock out on their last possession. The Bills dropped to a 16% chance of winning that game. The Chiefs only dipped down to 84%. Pretty big difference there.

Would you rather play like the Bills did and win by 10? Or play like the Chiefs did and win by 3? Which game was "closer" ? The Chiefs were playing pretty close to flawless football against a pretty good team. They were up 27-10 before taking their foot off the gas and letting the Bucs back into the game. The Bills were playing pretty decent football (up until the 4th Quarter), against a fairly mediocre team (Chargers are talented, but have a bad record). I'm not trying to be too negative here, but we went into the 4th quarter up by 10, and then proceeded to turn the ball over 3 times on 7 offensive plays. We're very lucky the Chargers didn't turn those turnovers into more than 3 points (with all due respect to our defense). The way the Bills played would result in a win maybe 33% of the time. The way the Chiefs played would be a win about 95% of the time.

Aaron Donald from earlier this year? I can't believe the Bills gameplan for Bosa today, we showed him 0 respect. Unblocked more than once, and we had multiple plays where we had a WR or TE try to solo block him. Unbelievably stupid.

Monkey paw curls The Bills beat the Chargers, and then the rest of the season is cancelled due to COVID outbreak.

Good thing he was asking to "here" me out!

There was a moment there were I thought my remote was going to go through the TV. Angriest I've been at officiating since 2016 Seahawks game. Any thread about officiating also needs to include the 1998 "just give it to them" game vs the Patriots.

Can you elaborate on the ticky-tack calls against Arizona? I included this in my original post, but there were only 2 penalties on the Cardinals that were not pre-snap violations. They had an offensive holding that was 100% the right call, and a hands to the face that I don't remember a replay on. I do watch a lot of football outside of the Bills, and yes, refs are generally bad. However, this was one of the most biased games I've seen this year. There might not have been any egregiously bad calls, but every single close call went against the Bills (with some blatant no-calls against the Cards).

That's why I waited a day... I didn't want to have an overly emotional reaction to the game. I've been stewing on it since and haven't changed my mind. I realize that bad calls and no calls happen in every game, but I think it's worth bringing up when there were 5 bad calls against the Bills and zero for the Cardinals. Not to mention 2 critical no-calls that favored the Cardinals. That's more than enough to change the outcome of a game. This was easily the most lop-sided game by the officials all year. The INT call during the Rams game was the worst individually called play, but that game ended up fairly even (including a borderline call to get the Bills the last second TD). I don't think I'm being a homer here, but wanted to post to see if people agreed with me or not.

Not sure if this deserves it's own thread, but the bad calls in the game yesterday have been eating away at me all day. The final stat line doesn't look that uneven, but watching the game I felt the refs gave the Cardinals a handful of borderline calls/no calls that helped change the outcome of the game. The Cardinals had 7 penalties for 40 yards and the Bills had 9 penalties for 69 yards. 5 of the Cardinals 7 penalties were pre-snap violations, and the remaining were for an illegal hands to the face (don't know if we got a replay of that) and an offensive holding (Murphy got mugged plain as day). Critical penalties that were not called: On Murray's 2nd TD run there is a pretty clear offensive holding, as well as a blatant block in the back. Josh Allen scrambling to the right, throws it away, and is hit a good 2 seconds after releasing the ball. I understand that defenders get more lee way against mobile QBs, but that hit was not remotely close to being legal. Critical penalties that were called, but shouldn't have been: Unnecessary roughness by Singletary. Singletary gave the defender a slight nudge <1 second after the ball fell incomplete. I don't think there was enough there to warrant a 15 yard penalty. To add insult to injury the refs ruled it a dead ball foul, so the Bills lost the down as well. Holding by Winters (the play where Brown made a heroic catch, and the play directly after the bad call on Singletary). This would've been a ticky-tack call by 2019 standards. It's absolutely atrocious to make that call in 2020 when the league is only calling offensive holding if it's clear and obvious. DPI by Worley. There was a tiny bit of contact, but not nearly enough to warrant a call (the refs had been letting a lot of contact go by both teams the entire game). Cardinals should've been facing a 3rd and 6 from the 24 yard line, instead they got a 1st down at the 15. Block in the back by Knox. This penalty had his own thread, and I'll add that the call on Knox was ticky-tack. It's nonsense to me that the defense actually benefited by committing a penalty. Had the Cardinals not jumped offside, the Bills still would've gained ~10 yards on the play as Knox's penalty would've been a spot foul that occurred well down field. Holding by Neal on a punt return. We never got a replay, although CBS did show Neal was quite upset by the call on the sideline. TLDR: The Cardinals scored on a play while committing blatant penalties. Bad calls/no calls killed 2 Bills drives in the 2nd half (the Singletary/Winters calls, and the non-call roughing the passer). BOTH of Josh Allen's interceptions came immediately after borderline calls (Knox and Neal). Maybe he wouldn't have tried forcing those throws if the refs had not made bad calls on the previous plays? Maybe with balanced officiating this game isn't close enough to be determined by last second Murray/Hopkins heroics?

Bills 31 Cardinals 27

The official rule is if there's a clear recovery of a loose ball after an early whistle that team will be given possession. In this replay you can see #36 pick the ball up right before the camera cuts to Peters celebration.