Billl

BS call

Being risk averse has actually worked really well for the team the last few seasons. It’s frustrating sometimes, but if the Bills don’t turn the ball over, they almost always win.

He got pretty deep into crack during his days with the Jets.

It’s pretty wild that they were the favorites coming into the season. Two years ago, they had their best team ever and still couldn’t get out of the AFC. Not sure why anybody would put their money on them do get it done this season when they had the lowest odds…total sucker bet.

There’s a ton of room between “instant star” and still having the tags on your jersey. That said, if there’s any organization that deserves the benefit of the doubt regarding players who are slow out of the gate, it’s the Bills. It’s one of the reasons I think McDermott deserves a lot more credit than some give him. He can flat out develop players.

I’ll go one further on your point regarding their drafting. They tend to draft very closely with the consensus of the major mock drafters. If there’s a player who has “slipped” versus his draft projections, the Ravens tend to draft him. Then when that happens, the narrative is that Baltimore made a great pick because the people pushing that narrative were the same people who had projected him to go earlier.

Vegas still has the Ravens as mortal locks to make the playoffs at -475.

That’s absolutely insane. McDermott really is an excellent coach.

You pretty much nailed it. There’s an incredibly fine line between winning and losing in the NFL. They’ve been a team that’s made the play when the game was on the line for years, and so far this year they haven’t. I don’t see some fatal flaw in the team, but I’m not sure I see the next wave of superstars either. I’ll reserve judgement until Rice comes back and hope they find a way to get there at 3-3. The biggest reason for concern is that there has been a lack of difference-making draft picks since 2022. Drafting at the bottom of the round for years catches up with you eventually. It’s not enough to simply out-perform your draft slot. If your goal is to win championships, you’ve got to do that and still get lucky. Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy were great picks with star upside, but there hasn’t been enough production around them to backfill the outflow of talent via free agency and Father Time. The flipside of that is Josh Simmons. If you had told Reid and Veach that he’d be 100% healthy and gave them the first overall pick in the draft, that’s who they would have taken. So far (and that term is carrying a ton of weight), he’s been completely healthy. What’s more is he’s been everything we hoped he’d be and then some. Injuries notwithstanding, he’s a franchise LT right now. The early returns of the rest of the draft look promising, but I’m nowhere near ready to say that they’re ready to take the torch. All that said, January is an eternity from now in football years, and I haven’t seen anything in the past 2 weeks that tells me they won’t be a factor when the playoffs come around. Any team that thinks they’re going to win the AFC had better plan on knocking out Kansas City along the way.

Bills 31 Jets 16

That was ***** bonkers. Game of the year just happened in week 1.

Hell of a start.

I’m sure that would have been their preference, but it’s hard to attract a FA to sign a veteran minimum deal that isn’t even guaranteed.

Ex-Panther, how original…

They brought Christian Wilkins in for a tryout, and he pulled everyone’s groins. Something’s going on for sure. Line’s moved 3 points in the last 24 hours.

“Hey Chat GPT, what are the characteristics of a ‘homer’ as it relates to sports fans?” Blind Loyalty: A homer fan's belief in their team is unwavering, even in the face of poor performance. Excuses: They consistently find reasons for a loss, such as bad officiating or luck, rather than acknowledging the opponent's skill. Biased Analysis: When it comes to their team, a homer's analysis is often skewed, focusing only on the positives. Emotional Reasoning: Their passion for the team influences their perceptions more than objective facts or evidence. How it's used Fans: A fan who believes their team is the best, regardless of statistics or current form. Example: A sports fan who argues their team's rival team got lucky and won a game, rather than admitting their own team was outplayed.

Ravens 31 Bills 22 Buffalo was +3 in the turnover margin in the playoff game and squeaked out a win after Andrews dropped a gimme 2 pt conversion at the end. During the regular season, the turnover margin was even, and Baltimore won 35-10. Bills will need to be +2 to win, IMO. Last season, they were historically good at +24 during the regular season and +4 in the postseason. I expect that to move substantially towards the mean this season.

There’s a case to be made that the Chiefs and Bills both losing could be the worst case scenario for Buffalo, as it would mean they’d be chasing an extra team in terms of playoff seeding.

If you read the article, this isn’t a prediction. It’s one random version of a simulation they ran. Usually they run 10,000 and aggregate it.

Titans made the divisional round? Impressive

What would you have given for him in January?

The past two times the Bills and Chiefs have met in the playoffs, there have been a total of 9 fumbles. Buffalo got possession all 9 times.

For the most part, judging GMs by their misses is a poor method of evaluation. They should be judged by their hits. Beane missed on Elam but hit on Benford. If it had been the other way around, nobody would even care.

Yeah, that Jaguars defense was great a couple of years ago, much better than the Eagles. Obviously that must be why they scored 27 against Jacksonville but 38 against Philadelphia. But to your point, what is “playoff Josh Allen”? Postseason Josh Allen is the exact same as regular season Josh Allen. Players and teams simply don’t elevate their play based on situation. I know that because you’ve told me so repeatedly in this very conversation. The confirmation bias is you starting from the conclusion that the Chiefs score more against the Bills in the postseason not because the Chiefs do something to influence that outcome, but because the Bills just play poorly and then working your way backwards from there.

It’s more than just pace of play, though. It’s the willingness to take risks pushing the ball downfield, going for it on 4th down, letting Mahomes run, and using your “special occasion” plays. The Ravens couldn’t move the ball against the Chiefs in the AFCCG 2 years ago, so Reid was happy to sit on the lead and lean on his defense right up to the point when he needed a drive to ice the game. He wasn’t going to take risks on the offensive side of the ball and give Baltimore a short field. That’s not an option when playing Buffalo. The Chiefs played an entirely different brand of offensive football in last year’s AFCCG because they had to. They went for it in the second quarter on 4th down from their own 39. Mahomes had 11 carries. They knew they were going to have to score a ton of points, so they gambled a little more than they would have had the circumstances been different. This shouldn’t even be controversial except to those who abjectly refuse to give credit to the winning team and instead reduce year after year after year of the same ending to “your team only won because of (insert reason that doesn’t involve Mahomes being a historically great QB)”. It’s like watching Scooby Doo for 7 season and always being shocked that the ghost is a guy in a rubber mask. Yet time and time again, when the team needs it most, there’s a WR in the end zone all alone for a TD on 3rd and goal from the 1. Why was that guy so open? It’s because they spent an entire season putting something on film so that they could break tendency in the biggest moment of the season. Why was Josh so surprised that the Chiefs brought a strong side blitz on 4th down? It’s because they spent the entire game (and the game in the regular season) blitzing from the weak side. It’s what they do.