Mikie2times

What QB has ever won the MVP with a 29 and 18 TD to INT ratio. Never has happened. Voters don’t like INT’s. See Purdy. INT’s are probably viewed as more important than even TD’s and the ratio is critical to your chances.

I agree. But being a Detroit native, I can't help but look at how those fans acted this year, especially the NFC championship. It was "thank you for the memories Lions" We love you Detroit" All this touchy feely. Sort of like "See you at the Air Port Buffalo". It just made me think how good they have it right now, just like we did. All that hope. How the climb up the mountain is likely more enjoyable than just about anything else but the summit. Certainly more enjoyable than being stuck at base camp for what feels like all of eternity. Can anything be worse than knowing you're ten or twenty feet away from the peak and you can never get there? I feel like I have a horrendous case of blue footballs.

Each era has gad something to offer if you love this team. It was fun in the drought years hoping things would be different. Following the draft and coaching changes and hoping we got our guy. You learn to enjoy different elements of the game and the team when you aren't as competitive. It was similar to how it felt post Kelly when we fought to be relevant again. Both those eras led to a lot of frustrations but so does losing every year in the divisional round. I struggle to rank my frustration to be honest and never felt like I should be "thankful" for this or that. I love the Bills, I enjoy the team regardless. It's always entertaining and I suppose anything short of a Super Bowl will end up being frustrating (for different reasons depending on how close you get).

I wonder how his X's feel

It's a more nuanced analysis

I'm 41 A$% Hole

This

I don't recall any threads on this forum discussing what could have potentially went worse than it did. I can point to dozens of threads discussing how our injuries are the reason we didn't advance. Then that concept has sister threads about why McD should be trusted. Then that concept has sister threads about Allen swapping with Mahomes or having more weapons. The whole forum is filled with hypothetical situations trying to make sense of why we can seemingly be the best team in the NFL and not get past the divisional round. If you want to ignore everything I just said even people like myself will not say we should have failed to make the playoffs or we should have actually been in a worse situation than how it panned out. I will put a light on the possible negative outcomes only if people want ignore they exist. In the end they blend with the potential for positive outcomes that didn't actually occur. The truth being what we saw and have seen. The probability gods have a way of sorting all this stuff out in a pretty balanced way if you can stay neutral on what should or shouldn't be. Bills fans have taken a real short stick but that's on the team. Not some notion of bad luck. The team has mad its own bad luck and we are the victims of it.

I forget who it was but I recall reading an article last year that had a very good WR saying he was the most underrated WR in the NFL. Which I believe. Would be thrilled to have him.

KC has averaged 40 points against us in the two other playoff games in which our defense was rated much higher than a healthy version of the one you're talking about. If we were healthy we somehow hold them to what under 20? I'm the crazy one for thinking that mindset is crazy? It's ok if you don't take me seriously.

If history is any indicator, yes

I mean, the Bengals had most of the offensive line out in 2022 and just destroyed us. Baltimore had basically its entire team out last year and nearly upset the Bengals in Cincinnati. Who on this board is actually taking inventory of other teams injury situation and then storing it long term so they can have perspective on any of this? Nobody on this forum has context outside a situation or two. Nobody has any actual value to assign to rankings but an opinion which isn't even educated as it relates to this subject. Meanwhile oddsmakers had us as a 3 point favorite. They said we should actually win the game. Neutral with home field just like it was when we went to KC. How wrong was that line? We had the ball last and didn't score. On comes the yahoo who says it's not oddsmakers job to predict but rather to split money. Sure, but they also aren't missing a line by a lot in a divisional playoff game. You got your QB? It's enough to win. We lost and we lost because we weren't as clutch (AGAIN). That is why. We need to be better.

I have a bright red stapler in my office and nobody is allowed to use it

Reid, Spags, Mahomes McDermott, Brady, Allen Allen is the closest in that comparison but still. Being slightly worse with our coaching on both sides. Then Mahomes is a tick better than everybody else. Chiefs are going to win more of the coin flips than they lose and certainly when it counts.

And I will say this @Success I'm happy we have some people to drowned out the Nancie's like myself. It would be pretty miserable if that wasn't the case. But part of the pain of this era is knowing that things can appear a certain way but not actually happen and with remarkable consistency to boot. We can appear like we are the best or that we are ready and then it doesn't work out that way. No amount of success in the regular season or speculation on what we could be will make me feel like this team is ready. They will be ready when they beat the Chiefs and same goes for the Bengals as they seem to be more difficult for us to match up with.

It's a dumb question. It doesn't matter. I could have made a similar hypothetical after 13 seconds and the following year we got blown out at home vs the Bengals. Further, why do you think the "better" team always wins? That's not how this works. What is even the definition of the better team? The one that can beat up on average teams in the regular season more consistently. Ok, then we probably are the better team.

I remember when I used to play a close friend of mine in basketball. It was always fairly close. Depending on the score you might even say we were just about even. But he rarely won. Somehow I always seemed to win. Always. So you could argue it was close, but it really wasn't. Those couple of points might as well been five times as many for as hard as it was for him to overcome. If this thread is your version of logical I'm thrilled you don't think I am.

No team is light years ahead of anybody but I think you're underestimating how far ahead the Chiefs are. They have never failed to reach an AFC championship game since 2018. Patriots also won by small margins. That didn't mean anybody was close. We might as well be on another planet until we beat them in the playoffs. Same goes for the Bengals.

Becoming exhausting to be honest

If Josh's fumble is recovered by Kansas City he doesn't even get the throw to Shakir. If Kansas City doesn't fumble in our end zone that drive doesn't matter. If Toney isn't Offside we don't make the playoffs. It's funny how these what if's only seem to work in our favor.

I don't sit here and say what if Valdes-Scantling caught that long throw vs Green Bay at the end? What if KC had a defense in 2018 when Brady came back against them in the AFC Championship? What if Toney wasn't Offside? The rather hilarious thing about this forum of late as it relates to Josh and McD is people only want to play the revisionist history for things that didn't go our way. So the things that went our way are apparently earned but the things that didn't are unlucky. Toney isn't Offside and we don't even make the playoffs. Josh's fumble on the last drive is recovered by KC as it should have been and the game is over. He had 3 downs and 2 passing downs. If he completes one pass he might earn another. He didn't make it happen. I don't micro analyze every successful or unsuccessful game winning drive absolving the participants for things that occurred on singular plays. Nobody remembers these things about other players, just our fans and our players and really, just Josh and McD. The list would go on forever about the would of should of could have beens if you really want to play this game.

This one is close to the Stevie catch, if not better considering the entire outcome. This is among my all time favorite plays. Always was a huge Moulds fan. Wait for the replay. Pretty sick.

We did or didn't. Tired of the hypotheticals on why we didn't. Our entire forum is hypotheticals on why we didn't. Meanwhile Mahomes and KC had it's own 13 seconds in 2018 vs the Patriots we never heard about it again. Go figure.

This thread is about game winning drives. Which was ironic to me because the Bills were sent home on a failed game winning drive. I do not feel particularly great as it relates to Allen on game winning drives in the playoffs. He had chances vs Houston before regulation and in OT, a TD wins. He had chances against KC, a TD wins. In fact name one time in Allen's career the game ended with us scoring a TD? How many times has it even happened under 2 minutes? A few sure, but this is far from a sure thing given he's the "best" at it. Field goals have been different but we didn't just watch Mahomes win on a FG did we? He ties it in such fashion but still needed to do what Allen has never done in his career to win it. I used his 3rd down data to discuss one of the reasons why I feel that way. When you have one singular drive against an elite team I don't think being off schedule benefits you. You can't run like you can in other spots so that process you talk about that works in the regular season gets taken away. We see the same thing with Josh and OT. He is not the guy you want if you need a TD and have one drive to do it.