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the bills approach the regular season very differently than KC. the chiefs are very willing to throw rookies into the fire if it means they'll be better in january than going all in with veterans in september/october. i do think the bills (when fully healthy) had a better overall roster than the chiefs this year. but that was largely due to having such a veteran defense (led by guys like poyer, hyde, miller) whereas the chiefs were giving big playing time to a collection of six or seven rookies. going forward, that changes a bit. the chiefs' rookies will take another step next year and they'll be able to pursue some quality free agents, on top of having another dozen draft picks (of which they will hope to hit on 4-5 of them); whereas the bills are likely to say goodbye to a few key veterans and perhaps won't have a ton of wiggle room to replace them.

the 2022 chiefs is the worst chiefs team of the next three years. the bills need to give strong consideration to trading diggs. i know it sounds crazy, and probably is crazy, but i'm very skeptical of them being able to build a good enough roster to overtake the chiefs given the current roster/cap/pick situation of both teams.

i think the chiefs are pretty good at drafting, but i don't think they are leaps and bounds better than other teams. i think their real strength is having conviction in their picks and looking to find out what they've got at the earliest possible time. beyond mcduffie, the chiefs had three other DBs drafted in the mid to late rounds. all three got significant playing time early in the year. all three had their fair share of struggles early in the year. but all three got better over time, and all three contributed to the win over the bengals. good or bad, the chiefs want to know as fast as humanly possible if a drafted player is likely to be a long-term answer. they want to get their answers in actual games, not in practice, and they live with the results even if it doesn't look pretty in Sept and Oct. same with pacheco. it would have been easy to string along a 7th round pick, give him occasional reps, then see if he can deliver in 2023 or 2024. the chiefs decided to name him starter midseason and now he's clearly their top RB going forward, allowing them to likely move on from a prior mistake (CEH). skyy moore proved to be the biggest bust of the chiefs' draft so far. but they gave him a few packages every game this year and named him starting punt returner (an experiment that failed so horribly moore asked off the job.) but then moore kept working at it in practice, and when called upon due to injury vs the bengals, he ripped off the big return that set up the winning score.

This is 100% a preemptive move. Rodgers will be a New York Jet next year.

say what you want about the chiefs but they have a healthy respect for the bills. these bengals are cocky SOBs.

the overall roster for 2023 kinda sucks. assuming poyer is gone and hamlin perhaps doesn't return, it's an entirely new safety position with the lone returner being hyde at 33 years old coming off a serious injury. the CBs are fine, but only if Tre White returns to pre injury form. LBs are okay with Milano and Edmunds, but if Edmunds walks it's a bit more uncertain. the DEs/DTs are mostly under contract, but this was a unit that didn't perform to expectations (especially after Von was injured, and he himself will be 34 and coming off an injury.) WR room is trash outside of Diggs, the upside of Shakir not withstanding (increasingly don't think Gabe is a real #2). TE is fine with Knox. RB is meh, nothing special. Offensive line is underwhelming and will need to be rebuilt. QB is great. There's not too many areas of clear strength vs the other elite teams in the AFC imo. The draft classes haven't panned out as you'd hope, which puts a lot of pressure on this year's draft.

There are very few teams I would say this for. But I make exceptions for the Bills and Ravens. I think Eric Bieniemy would be a fantastic coach at both places. I get the skepticism that he's a product of Andy and Mahomes. But he was highly regarded before then. He can coach the s*** out of the run game. He will coach a team that is disciplined and physically tough. He would construct an offense built around the run while maximizing Josh Allen's specific skill set, and allow him to shine in the pass game. I really think he would be a great fit in Buffalo. Why it won't happen: Buffalo isn't firing McDermott, and KC would get two free 3rd round compensatory picks.

one thing i'd add to the original post, and it's an important point: even if the chiefs lose to the bengals or don't win the super bowl, the 2022 season will be viewed by them as a monster success. they identified eight new rookies who will be a big part of their future - some of them are already looking like future stars - and they reset their salary cap situation in a major way. there's a brand new core in place for the next 3-4 years regardless of what happens. when you go veteran heavy like the bills did, and deemphasize in-season player development (intentionally or not), the future outlook starts to look pretty dark when you don't get the outcome you hoped for.

the marty comparison is a good one. marty was a great coach with great teams. but he got stuck in a conference with jim kelly and john elway. mcdermott is a great coach. he's stuck in a conference with mahomes and now burrow. it is what it is. if the bills were in the nfc, they'd have made a super bowl one of the last three years.

the 2022 season was always about securing the 1 seed for the bills. the chiefs got worse in the offseason (or so we thought) while their afc west rivals got way better (or so we thought). the bills schedule looked easy. the chiefs schedule looked brutal. the bills wanted to be great from the get-go. most teams do. they had the rams and the tough part of their schedule in september into october, with the measuring stick game vs the chiefs, which many thought could decide who gets the 1 seed. buffalo started great and then beat the chiefs, 5-1 overall, with three truly dominant wins vs rams, titans and steelers. this was also when the bills peaked. we didn't really see many unexpected breakout players emerge the rest of the year outside of elam and perhaps a few others. the chiefs, similar to most teams, wanted to start the season great. but from the very beginning, you could see that it was more important for the chiefs to be great by the end of the season. they always thought they could be. so they started the year playing almost entirely rookies on defense. their secondary featured 1st rounder mcduffie (cb), 2nd rounder cook (safety), 4th rounder williams (cb) and 7th rounder watson (cb). these guys all got significant playing time. their second 1st rd draft pick karlaftis (de) also got significant snaps on defense, as did leo chenal (lb) the 4th rounder. so the chiefs went to war with six 2022 draft picks on defense from the very beginning. they took their lumps early. the chiefs D was scaring nobody. but the chiefs were content relying on mahomes' brilliance to squeak out wins while the D got their reps. andy would often say after games, including losses how "this made us better" or "we'll be better for this down the road." he said it after the chiefs lost to the bills. with andy, it's always "down the road." with wr skyy moore (another rookie), the chiefs slowly found a way to work him into a role he could handle. with rb pacheco (another rookie), they started him as a backup then named him a starter by late october once he showed what he could do. after they traded for wr toney, the chiefs slowly ramped up his snap counts and he just had a season high touches vs the jags. rb mckinnon, they knew he was a threat all along, but they unlocked something special with him as a red zone threat in november and december. anyway, the chiefs have been a flawed team all season long and were undoubtedly a worse regular season team than the bills. but i think the chiefs were constantly using the regular season to sort out their flaws, max out their strengths, bring new players along, and try to be the best version of themselves when it matters most. did the bills do this? which players got better? what leaks were plugged? which strengths were identified? we all saw shakir come out smoking in the preseason and thought he could play a big role. he finished the regular season with 10 catches. mckenzie returned (somewhat unexpectedly) this year and was targeted more, but he didn't perform to expectations and became a non factor down the stretch and into the playoffs. the lack of development with pass catchers led to them bringing back cole beasley and john brown! james cook, drafted to possibly be the eventual answer at rb - and hopefully a big threat in the pass game - got about 12 non garbage time carries all year before the browns game, and he was targeted 1 time or fewer as a pass catcher in 11 of the bills' 18 games. the bills relied on the run game a few times late season, but you never really felt like it was something they trusted. did anyone see a backup OL emerge as a viable long-term option? again, who got better? on defense, the bills opted to shore up an already veteran roster with more veterans. but hyde went out. von went out. tre white didn't look like himself. poyer didn't play to his standard. who stepped up? who got better? you could argue elam. edmunds got better. but who else? the pass rushers? i'd say no. schematically, did the offense or defense evolve? did the play calling improve? new packages, new wrinkles, changes in strategy, anything? this to me is the biggest difference between how the bills and chiefs are run. the chiefs entered the year in a clear rebuild-on-the-fly and rebuilt it on the fly. trust, patience, development, bigger picture. in doing so, they gave eight rookies big roles and added tyreek's future replacement via trade w toney. the bills entered the year in win-now mode, came up short, identified two or three new players (at most) who will be part of their long-term future and will now have to say goodbye to a handful of the veterans who couldn't help them win anything of significance.

the bills began the year as super bowl favorites. they were super bowl favorites at midseason. by the end of the season, after suffering season ending injuries to hyde and miller, arguably the two pillars of the defense, and after the horrible hamlin incident which led to no longer being the #1 seed in the AFC, the bills were essentially still co favorites to win the Super Bowl. in the opening round, albeit vs a third string QB, the bills were the biggest favorite in playoffs history. in the divisional round, the bills were 6-point favorites vs the bengals (who are just as good as last year's team, when they won the afc and came within a drive of winning the super bowl). had the bills won, they would have been a near pick em vs the chiefs in the neutral-site game in atlanta. but despite what is stated above, being super bowl favorites only carries a 7-to-1 chance in the preseason. it carries a 4-to-1 chance entering the playoffs. it carries a 2-to-1 chance once you make it to the championship round. in other words, in a single game, bad things can happen. granted, they seem to happen more often to the bills, but they can happen. it's happened to the chiefs twice in four years. they lost to the patriots, they lost to the bengals. they might lose to the bengals again. it's fine to be pissed, angry, disappointed. but to say this wasn't a super bowl caliber roster is flat out wrong. the last three years they've had one. it just so happens the bills are up against an all time coach/qb combo in reid and mahomes, and now a bengals roster that is firing on all cylinders. many teams felt the same way the bills feel now in the 90s. shula's dolphins. marty's chiefs. cowher's steelers. all that being said, the last three years presented the bills' best chance in this current window. it will be hard to field a team next year that's better than the last three.

The Bills are the 1990s Marty Schottenheimer Chiefs. Good regular seasons, division titles, high expectations for playoffs, a bit of success. And then just when you think the breakthrough is coming, think again. Disappointing loss. Soul crushing defeat. Wipe out.

if it was as easy to stop kelce as people suggest, surely someone would have found a way by now. mahomes to kelce is the nfl's stockton to malone. it's sixth sense stuff. and while kelce is actually open a lot, many completions involve an incredible throw or an incredible catch (or both). the best players in this sport - in any sport - are going to get theirs.

in an nba regular season, it can be argued that players aren't max motivated every game. in a college football regular season, it can be argued that players aren't max motivated every game. even in the nfl regular season, it can be argued that players aren't max motivated every game. but this is the NFL playoffs. the divisional round. two teams desperate to move on to the afc title game. this ticket stuff makes for a cute storyline of manufactured bulletin board material, but it adds nothing - nothing - to the motivation of the bengals. if you were't already max motivated to begin with you've got serious problems.

as of the nfl release the bills had sold 25k seats and the chiefs had sold 23k seats. a new set of nosebleed seats (between the upper 40s as well as a section of upper endzone) were released earlier today on the bills side only. that was probably another 3000 seats or so. all were sold. so as it stands, the bills have sold 28k seats. they've also probably bought up close to 1000 seats on the chiefs side (resale market). so that will be about a 6k seat advantage for buffalo let's say. once the sale extends beyond the presale, it should be pretty 50/50 from there as demand for the remaining 15k or so seats will remain high. but bills fans will be more aggressive buying re-sale tickets since this game means more to the city, so when it's all said and done, i'll predict the split will be something like 40,000 bills fans 30,000 chiefs fans

if he was a betting man, he would know that the bengals have about a 35-40% chance of winning based on the odds.

i agree with you. the difference in demand for bills vs chiefs fans in this game comes down to three things: 1. regionality. there's far more bills fans in the southeast than chiefs fans. i know bills season ticket holders who go down to florida for the winter and are thrilled this game is being held in atlanta. 2. recent history. chiefs fans (season ticket holders in particular) have been able to attend four straight afc championship games in their own stadium. bills fans haven't been able to attend an afc title game, home or road, for close to 30 years (the afc title game at kc was limited capacity due to covid.) bills sth's see this as an opportunity and chiefs sth's probably view this as a burden. 3. chiefs fans probably still think they'll host an afc title game, whereas most bills fans don't think the jags will beat kc. it's a big ask to tie up your money in expensive tickets for two different games in two different cities (to say nothing of flights, hotels etc). these tickets shouldn't have been sold until sunday evening imo.

Just a heads up, they released THOUSANDS of bills tickets just now.

it's a unique code tied to your season ticket account.

There were just 10,000+ tickets added on the Ticketmaster site in the Chiefs sections. When I checked not long ago, there was less than 2,000 tickets left. Now there's tons. Not sure what they are doing over there.

the word seems to just be getting out on chiefs side. the team didn't even send an email out informing their season ticket holders that there was going to be a new release of tickets. seeing a bunch of furious chiefs fans on twitter. it was supposed to go by seniority with three separate releases. i'd be pissed.

can someone post the text of the cancellation email.

it's basically only solo seats available in the lower levels. i'd estimate about 20 seats left. in the 200 level, there's about 20 sets of seats (in 2s and 4s), probably about 300 seats overall. in the 300 level, there's about 100 sets of seats (in 2s, 4s, 6s and 8s), probably about 500 available seats in all.

there's only a handful of pairs left in the lower level and 200 level in the entire stadium. scattered singles however.