Rew

Yes, we can clinch next week if several games go the right way.

What were the characteristics of the play that would have put it on a film of greatness?

That's only of you're confident in BAL. There are many scenarios where KC gets the 2 seed and Ravens lose to us/Miami/Cleveland/etc. I'd still put a 1 out of 3 shot that AFC championship is in KC this year. Most likely is Bal, followed by KC, then i'd put BUF/MIA even odds but slightly behind KC.

It is misleading. There was no lane that would have got him a touchdown. The blockers were too far ahead, and the blockers are O line blockers, not punt team blockers. Safeties were also in play, just not in frame. With the speed we had out there (relatively) there was no way he was getting through. It's an incredibly low probability play that we covered well.

10-6 brings more teams into the mix. We have a decent chance, and could be higher after this week. It's not a sure thing by any means though. There is a path where 10-6 could be locked into a slot by the end of next week though.

Disagree. We outplayed them on offense and defense. We managed to lose the turnover battle by 3 and still won. The team showed up to play against a team that was playing with a ton of emotion.

8-9 still had a path to a wild card spot. Pretty much every game had to go a certain way over the next 3 weeks, but possible. I guess, in TBD terms it was a "somewhat probable" chance to making the playoffs.

You commit to scoring or commit to burning clock. Against this team, each play where the clock kept running increased our chances of winning. If we scored quick, we had to make a 2 point still.

Still a bit over a coin flip

Your crusade is all off. You start spouting unprepared 20 seconds into the game. The team looks prepared. Chargers are playing with a bunch on of emotion. If you want to talk about special team execution sucking, then talk about it. Over dramatizing your observations into disconnected statements reduces the impact of what you state. Special teams has been below par all year in one way or another. If that's what you mean, say it. Claiming McDummy this, McDummy that is a totally different point. The defense that you started harping on has looked ok.

Still feel good about the double digit win. Chargers came to play. It's a good game and bills are fighting hard. I'd love a game like the Dallas game, but it every game is like that

Can we get the defensive breakdown of that drive?

Have you watched the game? 1 drive held to field goal. Another drive 3 and out. Another drive turnover basically in the Red zone. Defense has been fine. Nit awesome, not terrible, just fine. How frustrated are you going to be when the Bills blow them out this game?

11-9 Reid (Eagles) 11-9 Harbaugh 11-10 McCarthy 11-11 Carroll 2-2 Siriani 8-9 Tomlin 4-5 McDermott 2-3 Vrabel 2-3 LaFleur 3-5 Rivera His record seems inline (within random error) with most of the rest of his colleagues. The only consistent with "good" coaches is that they go the the playoffs a bunch of times. They win some they lose some, but converge on 50% wins over extended time. 1-2 deeps runs would have McDermott 's playoff record among the leagues best coaches current and historically (as far as playoff win %). Almost every coach with a playoff win % over .580 only made it to the playoffs 2-3 times ever. There are like 5-10 examples in the history of the league that managed to make it to the playoffs more than a few times and won "most" of their games. Reid and Billy are the only recent coaches that stick out with 4 or more playoff seasons and having a shockingly high win%. McDermott is currently 11th in the league (among active coaches) in total playoff wins.

I think McDermott is a better head coach when he is not coordinating, and a better coordinator when he is not head coaching. We have had more struggles this year that are related to too many in game context switches or mixed priorities. The head coach needs to make in game decisions without their coordinator hat on, but it is impossible to eliminate this bias. Every awesome mid game game adjustment that McDermott makes defensively is an offensive drive that he is not fully engaged in. This same thought applies to other coaches (offensive or defensive) that try to do both jobs simultaneously. It can work in limited spurts, but it's not the path to best performance as a whole team leader.

You standing by what you said is the challenge. You were wrong then, and you are wrong now. If you said "it's unlikely they win out" or "if they play like they did against the pats they could lose out" I doubt anyone would have an issue. Being so absolute that them winning out was/is impossible is just crazy. Any team "could" win out. Even the Panthers or Cards at this point could win out. It would be unlikely, and surprising, but not unprecedented and not breaking the laws of the universe.

Who calls their plays "29 tex" and "28 tax"? Aren't play calls supposed to be verbally distinct to combat noise? He says the horn disrupts that, which seems exaggerated ...

It's really hard. 5 teams that would be competing for the 3 WC. The colts and Texans play week 18, so that would eliminate one of them. The browns play the Texans and Bengals still, so that is 2 more losses somewhere. I'd haven't looked at conference records after yesterday's games, but to get 4 teams at 11-6 you need the Texans to lose to the colts and browns, and the browns to lose to the Bengals. Also, the Bengals would have to win against the chiefs. I think that's the only path to missing at 11-6.

But that's not even close to true. If the bears win, we are guaranteed a playoff spot if we win out.

Ty

The challenge you are having is you over value several teams and have a hard time finding all of the scenarios where we get in at 10-7. There are a lot of paths for 10-7 to get us in, but there are also many paths where we miss. Best odds are if we go 3-0 against AFC. Before today's games we really do have better than 50/50 shot at wc if we end 10-7. I'm not happy with 50/50 (or even 60/40), and would much rather win out so we don't have to worry about it, but you seem to be oblivious to the real chance that we get in at 10-7.

Bengals winning wasn't horrible. The point of this thread was that all of the log jammed wildcard teams weren't going to win out. Some people are simulating half a dozen mediocre teams winning out and seeing that the Bills have no chance. Yesterday 2/4 of the 7-6 teams lost. That's likely to continue. There will be a team that wins out. Who knows which team it will be. But no matter what you think of a teams schedule, they are likely to still lose a game or two that they shouldn't or win one you thought they had no chance in. It's why if the Bills go 3-1 (this is a scenario assumption, not saying it will happen), they still have a pretty good shot at the wildcard. They also have a decent shot at missing at 3-1. People can't handle that 60% means we are more likely than not to be in at this point. It also means we may still miss the playoffs.

At this point in the season I'd put it as Dak's to lose. Purdy, Hill, CmC, Hurts, and Josh as distant #2. For Dak not to get it, the boys would have to go 1-3, he'd have to end with more than 10 turnovers, and put up pretty bad numbers over the next 4 weeks. CMC only gets it if Purdy craps it up and the niners keep winning. Purdy only gets it if CmC becomes injured this week and the niners keep winning with him out. Hill only gets it if he fights through injury, gets to 2K, and Miami gets to 12 wins. Allen only gets it if the bills win out, he has 3 no turnover games (out of next 4), and he maintains more than 5 total td lead. Allen and Dak in the same game late in primetime is really going to stick in voter's minds. I know its a season award, but this week probably means the most for Allen's MVP chances of any remaining individual game. The kicker is if Dak falls apart and none of these strong backup candidates close it out you have Lamar with a quietly decent individual performance backed by stellar team performance. I don't think Lamar is going to have to numbers to win it unless all of the above have a poor last 4 games.

You aren't including the Dolphins and KC schedules in your view. The dolphins have a much harder schedule than the chiefs. Also, we play the dolphins and the broncos do not play the chiefs. Also, if we tie the dolphins it means we very likely beat them and have tiebreaker. If broncos tie the chiefs, KC likely still has tie breaker. The net of this is that we have a (using OP numbers) 24% change of division and 24% of wildcard. The broncos on the other hand only have a 7% chance of catching the chiefs, but a 37% chance of getting a wildcard spot. The broncos are more likely to get a wildcard than us, as you suspected.

Miami would win division. They would have better division record.