Ray Stonada

It’s not clear that being the 2 seed is an advantage. I would rather play the Broncos or the Chargers first round, and the Ravens might be the 7 seed. in that case I’d rather be the 3 seed. It’s just too early to know much. Better to focus on the things I can control… oh, shoot. I’ll go back to planning what to eat during the game…

I know that feeling from the beef shank stew I make—cooks for 6-8 hours and gets thick like jello when it cools…

“Nah man, I’m pretty fricking far from OK”

Douglas and Rapp out would be tough. Might need Elam, and… Hyde??

I live 10 minutes from the Olympic stadium. Hope the Bills play there next year!

Would it kill us the play some 4-3? Is Taron that untouchable?

I’m bummed that the Chiefs are on track for the 1 seed again.

Current standings and opponents in the race for the top seeds: Chiefs 12-1 ---@Browns, vs Texans, @Steelers, @Broncos Bills 10-3 ---@Lions, vs Pats, vs Jets, @Patriots Steelers 10-3 ---@Eagles, @Ravens, vs Chiefs, vs. Bengals The Texans, Ravens, and Chargers are all 8-5. We will probably go 3-1 or 4-0, depending on the Lions game. The Chiefs could easily lose two of their games, with three road games against decent or good teams. The Steelers have a tough road to hoe. If they lose the battle of PA this weekend, 1-3 is a possibility.

Always enjoy this thread. @HIT BY SPIKES, you have inspired me to try making Detroit style 'za for tha game. My kids should be into that too. Though with the 10:25pm start time, for us, dinner will be three hours before game time. During the game I'm probably just gonna drink beer, assuming I have enough pizza. By the way, @Dukestreetking, do you have a recipe for the catfish?

I wish I was this confident. But I have my doubts that Williams will get the start in the playoffs, even if Milano continues looking like this. The Bills played A.J. Klein over Dorian Williams last year, and Von Miller when he was doing nothing in many games we needed to win to make the playoffs last year. They have a general tendency to play a veteran whose athleticism is compromised over younger guys they don't trust as much in the scheme. We had a better chance to stop the Chiefs last year with Dorian. We never stopped them at all with Klein.

Josh had 51.88 fantasy points in the game Sunday. The second best all time for a QB was George Blanda in 1961 (!!) which would have scored 49.72 points (had fantasy football existed then). They also mentioned that the most fantasy points ever recorded in a game was Blanda's teammate Billy Cannon with 68 points also 1961. How about them '61 Oilers?

About the MVP: Allen put up the best fantasy football game ever by a QB. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5982189/2024/12/09/josh-allen-best-ever-qb-nfl-fantasy-football-performance/ And we lost... that right there tells you he is the MVP. The other top QB performances since 2004 were all in blowout wins: Nick Foles 2013, Eagles won 49-20 Aaron Rodgers, 2011, Packers won 49-23 Peyton Manning, 2013, Broncos won 49-27 Michael Vick, 2010, Eagles won 59-38

Wouldn’t this mean losing in the Super Bowl?

Allen had the greatest single game of all time on Sunday, in terms of fantasy football. ”Leading NFL MVP candidate Josh Allen had the best fantasy performance by a quarterback ever in Week 14, logging an incredible six touchdowns(three through the air, three on the ground) en route to 51.88 fantasy points.” (The Athletic) In the other games on the list, the player’s team had a blowout victory. 😰

I’d like to see us run a fake tush push… The man in motion who usually stops behind Josh keeps running and goes out to the left corner. Josh takes the snap and rolls right instead of sneaking. Meanwhile the tight end or lineman on the right side of the line, runs to the right corner of the end zone. One of these guys will be open for an easy TD pass. Or Josh just jogs into the end zone. And if we run it once it will make defenses think twice going forward.

So we should have tried an onside kick no matter what? I think our defense had a better chance to get a 3 and out than our vaunted special teams to recover an onside kick.

I hope you are right. The Bills tend to play older, less athletically capable guys over younger less proven guys. I feel like Dorian Williams should have played the playoff game with the Chiefs last year rather than Klein. Maybe Williams would have a breakdown or two, but he might have made a play or two, which would have been more than Klein was able to do.

It was a really weird play, hard to understand. There were 7 seconds on the clock, Rams up by two. The Bills knew this was almost certainly the last play of the game--it takes a couple seconds to get the punt off, and a good hang time is 4-5 seconds. First off, I counted only 9 Bills on the field (you can't see Codrington until later in the shot, and there are 8 guys on the line of scrimmage). 9 guys. Next, they don't have the punt rush OR the return set up. On the last play of the game, you HAVE to go for one or the other. It's your only chance left to win. Finally, Codrington doesn't even field the ball. It lands just inside the 1 yard line with 0 seconds on the clock, but he's running away from it--as if he was told not to field it, even though the game ends if he doesn't. I mean, I know the chances of a 99 yard punt return, or a blocked punt returned for a touchdown, are pretty low. But that's all we had. Shouldn't we have gone for one or the other? Instead we didn't even have enough players out there. What were the special teams coaches doing? It's like the players had no guidance for that moment and no one in charge, no one with a strategy.

I think great defenses try to take away your best thing and let you try to beat them with your second best. Josh puts you in a bind, though, because if you stop one thing he can do the other. That’s why he’s impossible to stop and is scoring touchdowns at an unprecedented, historic rate over the last five years. But the Bills’ D too often lets the other offense do their best thing, staying rigidly in their 4-2 nickel.

I agree with this. There are lots of examples of great receivers making catch after catch against the Bills. Nacua and Cupp yesterday, Nico Collins until he got hurt in the Texans game, Justin Jefferson, Hopkins, Kelce, and more. Stopping those types of dominant offensive players is not the Bills’ forte.

I agree with you that Stafford, Nacua and Cupp played off the charts. However I wasn’t waiting around to castigate McDermott—I just voted that I see him as better than in the past and learning from his mistakes. This game was a recurrence of his late game blunders, though, which I hope is just a one-time relapse.

Fair enough. I estimate it as higher than trying an onside kick. I guess I consider our defense to be the most specific creation of our head coach. Not our offense or special teams. So losing a game where the offense scores 42 with no turnovers falls at least partially on the defensive head coach too. And then the coaching gaffes do too.

His presser was typical coach-speak, but I would hope McDermott could level with the team and not just pretend all was fine. He could say we have to be better as coaches too, and that they'll review the late game decisions. Also, maybe he could address the last play of the game in meetings this week. It should not be acceptable for the Bills have too many or not enough players on the field for the final play of a game, as in Denver last year (12) and this game (9!?).

One play didn't lose the game, but in that moment, that play reduced our chances to pull out the win by a lot. Couple that with McDermott's record of making strange calls late in close games, and you might understand people getting a little upset. It's not every game an offense scores 42 points with 6 TDs and 0 turnovers and loses.