MPL

1. You've been a fan since I was born into this mess. I don't remember a before time. I'll say 1990 because I was 4 and that's where my memory begins. 2. Your first Bills memory I vaguely remember talking to my sister's friend about Buffalo and Washington prior to Super Bowl 26. Some better formed first memories involve some pretty epic meltdowns during Super Bowl 27 and 28. 3. One of your favorite Bills memories My older sister showed horses when I was growing up. And in the early 90s when I was little, I'd get brought along to the horse shows. One of the horse shows took place at the New York State Fair and we'd stay on the fairgrounds in a camper for four or five days (which is awesome when you're a kid). The show runs for 5 days, I think, and all these different farms and stables come with their horses and riders and carts and wagons, etc. And all these horses get stabled in this giant horse barn—rows and rows of horses—and every farm and horse stable gets their own little area. It turns into a horse city and our area was right on main street. Anyway, the State Fair always overlapped with the first weekend of the season. There was another stable on the same aisle as ours that had a little 13" tube TV. Every year I'd go down to their area and watch the first Bills game of the season—just me and the old man who managed their stable. I don't remember his name but he was a Chiefs fan. The Bills always won those game and I'd be running around horse city throwing a football to myself and replaying the game for the rest of the day. A close second is listening to The Comeback live on the radio while we were on our way home from my Grandparents'. 4. Your favorite player of all time and your favorite player currently... Thurman Thomas was my all-time favorite. Current favorite is Josh Allen.

My anxiety with 4th quarter leads goes way further back then "13 seconds." There was that whole music city miracle thing, and that 2009 season opener against the Pats, and that Hail Murray last year.

I think the real question here is would you rather be someone who says "youse guys" or someone who says "yinz?"

"There are two rules in this house: listen to your mother and we don't speak poorly of Josh Allen." - me in like, 20 years, probably.

I'm mostly excited about all the "Andy Reid is wasting Mahomes' prime" talk that must be happening in Kansas City this morning. Or, is that just a Bills fan thing?

We need to figure out how to clone Josh Allen and have a whole offense of Josh Allens and then get defensive Josh Allen and clone that Josh Allen and have an entire starting lineup of Josh Allens.

Can we just pin this to the top of any "McDermott" thread?

If he's not the head coach and the starting QB I am going to be severely disappointed.

Is there a sign-up sheet for this "Red Helmet Brigade?" I would like to join.

"The best dang defense you ever saw, unless you watched the Colts game and like five Damien Harris runs." Too long?

As a fellow Lawson, I approve this move. FWIW, they also signed Kenny Stills for the playoffs last year and I don't believe he ever dressed.

Great. So now we've lost 10 Super Bowls?

Well, it's like they always said... football is a game of inches pathogens.

I'm ready to stamp a big fat asterisk on this season and write-off all the end results as meaningless, flukey, and bogus... unless, of course, the Bills win it all.

Hypothetically.

Probably because we have no way to control the situation, and in an effort to reduce our anxiety about things completely out of our control we look for solace in data and hypothetical scenarios... or something.

If Vegas can beat Cleveland tonight we'll be in good shape. Otherwise we'll be officially out of the #7 seed and "in the hunt" this week. It still a high likelihood we get in either way, though. Beat New England this week and we've got a good shot at the #3 seed.

The 3rd round is clearly the best round to take a running back.

I'm so done with this century.

Cleveland is a team to watch and root against. I played around with a lot of scenarios in the ESPN playoff machine and if Buffalo and Cleveland both finish 10-7, Cleveland gets in and we do not. That's the only scenario I've been able to find where 10-7 doesn't get Buffalo in. But, hopefully we just win out and finish 11-6.

It is more common than not that a team that loses the conference championship regresses and finishes with a worse record the following season, or is bounced from the playoffs in an earlier round. I know there have been some exceptions to this in the AFC over the past decade, but what we're experiencing right now isn't uncommon. We didn't add any pieces and ran it back with 21 of 22 starters from last year. Teams had the whole offseason to study our offense. We haven't adjusted or adapted quick enough. That said, they've got a franchise QB who is one of the best in the league and one of the best WRs in the league. They should be able to retool the roster this offseason and come back better next year.

Oh the weather outside is... weather.

The toe, I believe.

Well, Star has officially been ruled out for Sunday, sooooo...

Sheesh—all this talk every week about what this game or that game means for Josh Allen's status. I wonder if Broncos fans debated this weekly in the 80s regarding Elway. I wonder if Packers fans felt this anxiety every time Brett Favre took the field in the early 90s. How about Dolphins fans and Marino for 10+ years? Or is this just a Buffalo thing because deep down, we expect the rug to be pulled out from beneath us at the last moment?