Virgil

For the first time since I've started writing these, I find myself struggling to talk about new thoughts that haven't come up in previous weeks. I've had a few weeks over the past few years where I had similar struggles, but that was when we could barely put any points on the board. The struggles now are for a reason I didn't see coming. What do I write about when there really aren't many opportunities on the team and we just keep steamrolling opponents? How many times can you talk about how great Allen and Diggs are? Even more-so, when such high performance becomes an expectation, is it even worth mentioning? Either way, here we go..... 1 - The Burn - Going into this game, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that we were going to win this game. People talked up the Pats dominance of the Bills and how close the last game was. In talking about it with my father, the closest scenario I could come up with was a single score victory because the Pats scored late and we benched ours starters. Many of us were waiting for this epic moment where we defeated the Patriots to win the division and establish ourselves as the pride of the AFC East. The problem is, if you can even call it that, we settled that weeks ago and before we even took the field. To me, and I know there's a varying opinion on this, but the best thing we could have done is make this game completely irrelevant. Yes, playoff seeding and playoff match-ups, blah blah blah. But that's all icing on the cake. That's after the fact concerns. We played our week 16 game, on Monday Night Football, in Foxboro, against the Pats, and there wasn't even a concern for what the game results would mean. Please let that sink in. We, the Buffalo Bills, made this game not even matter. However, we still went out and did what we've done the past few weeks and absolutely imposed our will. 2 - Allen - One of the biggest knocks on Allen in his first two seasons was making throws across his body, into the middle of the field, and on his back foot to where he dangerously created a potential turnover. Besides putting up over 300 yards and breaking the passing touchdown record, Allen's ascension can be described in two plays. Allen rolls out to his right, throws completely across his body, and finds a wide open Diggs 15 yards downfield. Later, Allen rolls to his left, barely stops and throws against his momentum 20 yards down field and perfectly into the covered hands of Diggs for a touchdown. My point? Allen didn't stop making those mistakes, he's perfected them and made them almost an expectation. If Allen has a next level, the entire league should be very afraid. 3 - Diggs - Why? Why would you talk trash to the NFL's leading receiver in receptions and yards? In typical Diggs fashion, he was slow in the first half as the offense evaluated what the Pats were throwing at him. I don't know if it was Jackson's trash talk or what, but Diggs subsequently put on an absolute clinic. Diggs showed break away speed on his 50 yard TD catch and run. He showed power on his double breaking tackle in the slot, to then walk into the end zone. Lastly, he showed great hands on the previously mentioned "Allen" throw for his 3rd touchdown. Diggs didn't just take back the receptions and yards lead, he made a statement in prime-time as to why he is one of the best receivers in the league. Like Allen, to break these records before finishing the game and having a week left is nothing short of incredible. 4 - And 100,000 tons of steel, made to roll. The brakes don't work and this grade's too steep, her engine's sure to blow. And 100,000 tons of steel, out of control, She's more a rollercoaster than the train I used to know. 5 - Offensive Line - For a line that hasn't played together healthy for an entire game, Allen's jersey looked awfully clean in this game. By the end of the game, Allen only was hit one time, and had all day to throw. The Pats showed numerous blitzes and brought more than 5 quite a few times. Their results? A whole lot of nothing. This offensive line still has opportunities to run block early in games, but they show up at the end when it matters to close the game out and they overall give Allen enough time to do what he does best. This unit has adjusted to injuries and a barrage of successful opposing team pass rushes. Among all of that, this was still one of their best overall games, and that's saying something. 6 - Milano - Frazier said a few weeks ago that he didn't think Milano wasn't going to 100% for the rest of the season. If this wasn't Milano at 100%, hide your children because he was a monster out there! Milano played both coverage and at the line. He has his obligatory destruction a halfback block into the quarterback. He took up blocks that allowed other D-Lineman to get to the quarterback. However, and to me this is the greatest sign of his strength coming back, he made multiple tackles in the flat and open field where he stopped the runner in his tracks. He came at guys like a missile and took away the check down plays which the Pats normally heavily rely upon. We need to find the money to bring Milano back. 7 - Poyer - While it wasn't a great look getting dinged up trying to lay a hit on Cam, Poyer also had a really solid game. There were two play in particular where a pass was incomplete because of a perfectly timed his by Poyer as the ball arrived. In typical Poyer fashion, he played all over the field and delivered multiple punishing blows. Poyer being snubbed from the Pro-Bowl is a crime and I hope that motivates him to continue on his excellent performance into the playoffs. Side note, when Marlowe came in, I don't know how Cam didn't fumble on his blitz. Marlowe laid the wood on Cam. 8 - Special Teams - Besides Bass kicking a lot of field goals (sorry, we were to busy scoring touchdowns), this may have been one of our better Special Teams games of the season. The Pats did have a solid kickoff return to start the game, but there was a blatant block in the back penalty not called. Beyond that, Bojo boomed his only punt, the fake punt was perfectly executed, Bass is right down the middle, and Roberts another huge kickoff return. This unit doesn't get a lot of attention because they aren't needed, but to see them make the most of every opportunity is another reason why this team is poised to make a run. 9 - Knox - Going forward, all passes to Knox need to in traffic and away from his hands and center of body. Knox continues to be an enigma as he dropped a wide open touchdown, but then proceeded to make two consecutive difficult catches. Knox was great with blocking and made some great plays in the field. The drops are killer, but he does seem to overall be getting better with the mental mistakes. Fortunately, Allen is used to having to score multiple times on the same drive. 10 - Class - One thing that really bothered me during the Pats 20 years of dominance was their complete lack of class in both running up the score and going after records. In this game, while already have 38 points going into the 4th quarter, McD pulled the starters. I don't believe for a moment that the Hoodie would have done the same. The Bills easily could have score two more touchdowns with how they were playing and put up a similar blowout numbers that the Pats used to do to us. That's not how McD works and I personally am grateful for it. Like the hero against the bully in movies, the Pats just weren't worth it. We didn't have anything to prove. There was zero doubt who the superior team was and the Hoodie's visible frustration taken out on his phone was all we needed to see. We walked off the field winners, with class, and having established dominance. Absolutely dominating the Pats felt a lot better than I though it would. I really thought the meaningless game against a broken Cam and Belly wouldn't resonate much with me. I was wrong, very wrong. When Diggs caught that 2nd touchdown, I yelled and jumped off the couch. There's a lot of buried residual emotion towards the Pats and this felt like a cleansing. We are 12-3 and a miracle catch away form 13-2. Really think about that, considering the schedule we played. This is real everyone. This is very, very real. Go Bills!

Has anyone said Diggs yet?

Honestly, who cares anymore. We did one better by making the Pats game completely irrelevant

I’m more concerned about playing the Ravens than the Titans. Maybe I’m crazy. If we rest our starters in Week 17 and the Titans win out, they would take the 2 seed from us as they beat us head to head and we have the same 12-4 record. Am I wrong?

You need the Titans to lose also, who play the Packers. I’m right there with you. I want nothing to do with the Ravens

I’m just gonna say this now. I don’t want to be the 2 seed this first year it doesn’t get a bye week, and then we lose at home to the Ravens. Say what you want, but they are finding their groove and getting dangerous. I’ve been wondering what that kick in the junk moment to bring all this down would be.... That would be it. I’m officially pulling for the Colts to beat the Steelers and Dolphins to beat the Raiders. Then we can rest our starters in week 17, to host the Dolphins in the playoffs

He can go ***** himself. I could never stand him

This is what I’m hoping for. The longer the deal, the more you can manipulate it to free up other money.

Terry is cheap

I'm taking a "who hurt me more recently" approach. So, F the Pats. I'm not afraid of either of them in the playoffs

Fair point

Wtf did you just say......

I hope the Dolphins humiliate them

This should be it’s own thread

I was in the same boat and thought winning the division was the expectation this year. However, I didn’t see them doing it like THIS. They’ve crushed expectations

And we didn’t want to lose Foster 😂

I had notes to write about it and Allen’s comment about “how many times do we need to score?” was perfect. I just didn’t want to kill the mood. Even Mahomes had a tweet about it, which also shows he’s paying attention to the Bills....

In writing these, I've always tried to respect the original author, Bill From NYC, by giving myself enough time after the game to gain some rationale perspective. One never wants to write a review when they are too happy after a win, or angry from a loss. When you do, you lose the bias for your team or get carried away in the moments; and in my opinion, lose credibility. As the hour passes from the final whistle, I realize that emotion has to be part of these thoughts. You don't break a 25 year drought without reminiscing about all the "almost" moments, all the players who got so close and all those who stayed very far away. With that, these thoughts are going to be a little bit different, as I believe this milestone deserves it. 1 - Allen - Besides Lamar Jackson, there wasn't a quarterback I wanted least in the draft than Josh Allen. No part of me believed you could teach a small school quarterback how to both win and be accurate. When the Bills announced they were trading up in the draft and I heard the word Josh, I got excited at the prospect of Josh Rosen leading us to the playoffs in a few short years. When the last name of Allen was said, I was in a full blown meltdown for roughly 48 hours. One thing I will give myself credit for is my ability to embrace any player on our team. Once that grace period passed, Allen was my quarterback and I've supported him since. Allen joined the 4,000 yard club today and has multiple single season franchise records in his sights. Allen hasn't only been good these past few games, he's shown the poise, command, skill set, and leadership we've waited 25 years for. It would be easy to talk about a number of plays in this game, but I'm only going to talk about one. The Broncos showed a defensive back blitz from the guy covering Beasley in the slot. Allen had 20+ seconds on the play clock to fake some snaps and see what the defense was looking to do. Josh recognized the blitz, audibled the play, and snapped the ball. On the play, he faked the throw to Beasley, waited for the middle zone linebacker to jump inside, then he actually threw the ball a half second later to the outside of the linebacker for a 20 yards gain over the middle. This one play shows just how much the game has slowed down for Allen and how far he's come. Yes, the 55 yard bomb to Diggs was nice too. Same with the Kumerow touchdown. Oh yeah, don't forget the first down pass to Diggs while he was getting sacked. There's a lot to choose from. Anyone who wants to pick on Josh Allen's game can no longer be listened to or taken seriously. Allen has shown high level performance against multiple top defensive talent and hasn't slowe down at all. He's a franchise quarterback who deserves to be discussed as not only MVP, but as a top quarterback in the league. His stats and performance on the field tonight should be an expectation now, not a hope. 2 - Diggs - Honest question, do teams know they are allowed to cover him? When we traded for Diggs, I knew we were getting an elite receiver and I did have concerns about his public dissatisfaction with the Vikings. And as I've watched other elite receivers like Michael Thomas, I couldn't figure out how teams let them go uncovered. Now that Diggs has been here all season, broken our single season receptions record with two games left, and continues to get wide open, I realize that I didn't truly know what an elite receiver was until now. Previously, I believed the other teams were just trash or didn't want to abandon their scheme. In these past few weeks of watching Diggs get wide open time after time, when everyone on the field knows he's the primary target, has just blown me away. Diggs was a monster again tonight, making catches all over the field, finding the first down marker time after time, and even breaking one deep. From Evans, Moulds, to Stevie, we've had a lot of good receivers play for the Bills over the division drought, and Diggs has outperformed all of them in only one season. 3 - Tre - For the second time in as many games, the opposing teams inexplicably made comments about our team team that added just a little bit of extra motivation. Now, why Drew Lock of all people would make those comments about Tre is beyond me. While I want to talk focus on the play where Tre played a shallow zone, saw the pass going just behind him, and adjusted back enough to get a hand on the pass; that wasn't his most impressive play. In taking a play out of Poyer's book, Tre played up on the line a few times and was able to make some backfield stops. None, more important than the strip sack of Lock which led to the Hughes defensive touchdown. Tre had to run around the entire offensive line and chase Lock down from behind and never took his eyes off the ball. It was a truly beautiful revenge moment that you only see in movies and allowed us to score out second touchdown in under two minutes. 4 - You who have found it please help me along. I'm a man, I'm a man, - I'm not made out of stone. My needs they are simple, I don't want anything, but I surely want to fly on those wings, on the run, one more time. 5 - Daboll - Like Josh, I remember exactly where I was when Daboll got hired. I couldn't put my phone down to stop trashing the hire. Why would we hire a guy who hasn't proven anything at an NFL level who seemed to make his career by being friends with well regarded coaches. Josh was going to be doomed and the offense was going to take a step back. Have I mentioned how wrong a lot I am? While I don't want to hate on any player from this game, Ike got a penalty called on one of the best executed Statue of Liberty plays I've seen. Allen sold the crap out of it and Singletary walked right into the end zone. Seriously, if you missed the game, try to find it on Youtube, as it was that well done. Daboll deserves as much credit for this offensive output, the careers bests for Allen, Beasley, and Diggs as anyone. He's created a scheme that's so powerful that you are almost surprised if we don't get 3rd or 4th down conversions. Even when we were 1st and goal from the 30, you couldn't completely dismiss that we weren't going to get six. Then, combined with Josh's arm and Daboll's play calling, Allen found Kumerow over the middle for a beautiful touchdown pass. Even better, Daboll's found a way to make our rushing attack relevant to close out games. Like Allen, getting 30 points out of this offense should be the expectation going forward. 6 - Gilliam the Unsung - High profile players get you to the playoffs, but depth and rotation is where teams become next level. Gilliam is a prime example of a guy making the most of his opportunity. On the long Allen touchdown scramble, Gilliam had not one, but two key blocks that allowed Allen to score untouched. If there's a second play to Youtube, this is it. Gilliam's field awareness was superb and made all the difference. While this was one of many scoring plays, this one really shows how this team plays as a unit on the field. 7 - Defensive line - While Frazier is still dialing up the extra pressure blitzes, the front 4 has done a great job recently getting pressure on their own. Hughes may get the glory this week after the fumble recovery touchdown, but Oliver and Addison were monsters out there today. Oliver blew up quite a few plays and have a dominating sack. Addison continues to impress me with his speed as he chased down a surprisingly fast Lock from behind a few times. Maybe it's the fear of additional blitzers coming in, but the front 4 is showing the pressure we haven't seen since the Cold Front a few years back. 8 - The Swing - How many times over the past 25 years have you seen the Bills dominate a game, look to be in control, then one turnover and score causes it all to come crashing down? Over the past few games, we've seen moments like this where the Bills bounced right back, and today was no different. The Bills were up 14-0, just forces a 3 and out, then Roberts muffed the punt, bringing the defense right back out and allowing a touchdown. Previous Bills teams would have collapsed in those moments. This Bills team walks right back out on the field and imposes their will that much more. In fact, until garbage time, the Broncos didn't score again. Mistakes by the Bills don't shut the team down like before, and I would challenge it only motivates them even more. Roberts even brought one back into Broncos territory for his own personal redemption. The point is, this is a very different, very resilient team, that I believe would have handled that 16-0 Texans collapse very differently. 9 - Comradely - My favorite pre-game ritual is hearing Beasley screech "I love you Josh Allen" after each pre-game huddle. As much as Fitz was, and still is, loved by this community, I can't remember a Bills team as close as this one. And yes, I'm including the early 90's team. When Kumerow scored, he may have been the least excited player out there. The entire offense was in the endzone to congratulate him. After the Hughes touchdown, it was dance party on the sidelines. We've seen this for weeks, but this team genuinely loves and supports each other. These guys play for each other more than themselves. It's infectious, it's leading to wins, and it's all in credit to.... 10 - McD - If a team comes out flat, it's on the coach. When a team, wraps up the division with 2 games left by absolutely dominating another NFL team, and has built a roster that can compete with ANY team in the league, then the coach gets that credit too. McD won't take any credit, and was quick to thank the Pegula's and everyone else for the win, but his process has built a team that should have all teams scared to play us. When McD was hired, I didn't know what to think. He wasn't a flashy hire. The clapping seemed hollow and the ex-Panthers signings became comical at times. Like Allen and Diggs, McD should be a top candidate for coach of the year and I have zero doubt that McD is going to keep this team a top the NFL for years to come. Of the personal foul call against Allen, where he was shoved out of bounds, you could see him run up to Allen before Josh could say anything back to the defender. McD knew exactly what Josh was about to do and tried everything he could to prevent his star QB from getting a retaliatory flag. That's a coach who knows his team and keeps his eyes on the big prize. Listen, I know I didn't go deep into a lot of specifics about the game. In a blowout game where the offense goes off, the defense shuts down the opposing team, and everything was all Buffalo, there's a lot to talk about. For me, and I apologize if I missed the mark, but the biggest take away was the entire team personality and performance. We dominated the Broncos. This game was never in doubt. In a season where people were trying to predict total wins and wonder how important the Pats and Dolphins games would be, the Bills removed all the suspense. I don't think anyone saw this season coming from Allen, Diggs, and our overall record. The Bills did exactly what an elite team is supposed to do in this game and that's put away a weaker opponent. Am I predicting a Super Bowl run? No. Would anyone be surprised if it happened? No. And to be able to say that is the greatest victory of all. Go Bills!

They have 3 weeks to heal

Hey, no porn on the site!!!

I’ll be honest, this meant more to me than I realized. No tears, but a lot of memories. Beyond that, just knowing we have a real team that can beat anyone. Knowing we have a defense again. Knowing we have our Franchise QB and Receiver. To absolutely know we’ve arrived and it’s real....

This game is like an anger bang. Just getting it all out

This might come off like a bit of a dick, but no. I think that’s a losers mentality and we are past that. Making the playoffs was a huge moment and I wouldn’t begrudge anyone for that. A lot of things had to happen in that moment and there were so many deserving players on that team, like Kyle. Winning the division was an expectation this year and it means nothing without a playoff win. Anything less than a playoff win would be a disappointment of a season. I’d rather make it in as the 7 seed and get a win or two than just win the division. The issue for is, we’ve surpassed expectations almost too fast. Josh wasn’t supposed to be this good already. The defense wasn’t supposed to bounce back like this. Diggs wasn’t supposed to lead the league in receptions. If we made baby step improvement, or if Brady was still owning our division, it would be a different story. But we could have locked it up last Monday. The fact that we could win the division with two weeks left makes it almost anticlimactic. Expectations have changed very fast and winning the division is nice, but it’s the price of admission going forward

Why don't the goal posts have that camera on them anymore that looked straight up? Seems like an easy solve

I haven’t looked it up, but I heard differently on a other game. They said it could be directly over and part of the post and be considered good.