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The Bills would be better served hyper focusing on the draft. Free agency is a poison pill if trying to land a big name guy. You're competing against other teams trying to fill the same positional need, and to get the player you desire, that almost always means overpaying (that will be especially true this year with added cap space.) Most important, you're overpaying for a player who performed well in someone else's system. How they'll translate to your system, or what made them successful in the prior system, is often highly unpredictable.

Based on what exactly? Reid went 22-26 in his three years without McNabb and twice missed the playoffs. He won one playoff game in five years with KC/Alex Smith.

McNabb was easily one of the 10 best quarterbacks of the 2000s. I don't know why you're acting like he's Jeff Garcia or Brad Johnson. He was highly regarded coming out of college and lived up to the hype. He's one of only nine Eagles in their history to have his jersey retired. It wasn't like he was an undrafted free agent. Andy Reid/McNabb were a slightly more successful version of Sean McDermott/Josh Allen in the playoffs.

It's not a troll and it's not a bad faith argument. Just because you can never actually provide any substance in your posts and instead resort to getting personal doesn't mean the post is meritless. McDermott: 73-41, 64% win percentage, 5-6 playoffs Andy Reid (pre Mahomes): 183-120, 60.3% win percentage, 11-13 playoffs Marvin Lewis: 131-122, 51.8% win percentage, 0-7 playoffs Marvin missed the playoffs (9 times) more often than he made it (7 times) and won his division four times in 16 years.

He had a 6-time pro bowler in McNabb who they drafted 2nd overall for that entire great Eagles run, the best defensive coordinator in the NFL, and they were always loading up their roster with skill position talent.

Andy was the classic "good regular season coach" just like McDermott. He gave boring platitudes about "process" and "sticking with it" at press conferences. He came up just short in the playoffs over and over again. He had issues with "clock management." He was constantly criticized for "abandoning the run." He blew big leads. Not just in Philly but also in Kansas City. In 2013, his first year with the Chiefs, they blew a 28-point lead in the playoffs to the Colts. In 2015, trailing by two scores to the Patriots, Andy oversaw a late scoring drive that basically wiped out the entire game clock and talked afterward about the "importance of calling the right plays." A year later, in 2016, Andy's Chiefs scored two touchdowns, gave up zero touchdowns, and still lost to the Steelers in the playoffs. The next year, in 2017, Andy's Chiefs lost to the Titans led by Marcus Mariota who completed a touchdown pass to ... Marcus Mariota. Andy was 11-13 in the playoffs. Many Chiefs fans wanted Andy out and wondered if he would ever win the big one. Philly fans laughed from afar, especially after Doug Pederson got them the Super Bowl Andy could never get: "Yep, that's the Andy Reid we knew. Playoff choker." Andy's entire reputation has been transformed since Mahomes arrived to town.

Do a search for "Superman" on this forum. You'll retrieve 1856 results and 75 pages worth of usages. More specifically, do a search that includes both "Josh" and "Superman" and you'll find 330 results and 14 pages. Hope this helps.

Analytically speaking, I agree. Touchdowns are never guaranteed. Turnovers happen, inexplicable holding calls happen. You take touchdowns when you can get them. That being said, if you were to ask 100 Chiefs fans: "Would you rather the Bills complete a first down to Diggs for 10 yards or get an immediate touchdown to Shakir," every single one of them is taking the immediate touchdown. A first-down completion likely meant overtime at absolute best for KC. If the Bills completed the TD pass to Shakir, Mahomes gets 1:55 to drive down the field against a defense he was torching for much of the game.

He wasn't anywhere close to perfect in the AFC title game loss to KC or the '22 Divisional loss to the Bengals.

He needs his QB to perform more consistently in the biggest moments. 1st-and-10 at the KC 27-yard line, 2:40 left, down by 3. Ball is in Allen's hands. He couldn't lead his team into the end zone. Purdy had chances to close out the game vs the Chiefs and couldn't do it either. Is what it is. I definitely prefer Big Ben to Allen in the clutch for what it's worth.

Playoff loss #5: 26-for-39 for 186 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INT, 24 points, vs Chiefs in '23 divisional round. Not good enough. Playoff loss #4: 24-of-42 for 264 yards, 0 TDs, 1 INT, 10 points, vs Bengals in '22 divisional round. Not good enough. Playoff loss #3: 27-of-37 for 329 yards, 4 TDs, 0 INT, 36 points, vs Chiefs in '21 divisional round. Good enough! Playoff loss #2: 28-of-48 for 287 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT, 24 points (two garbage time scores late) vs Chiefs in '20 AFC title game. Not good enough. Playoff loss #1: 24-of-46 for 264 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT, 19 points vs Texans in '19 AFC Wild Card. Not good enough. Allen clearly wasn't good enough in playoff losses #1, #2, #4. He was arguably good enough in playoff loss #5, but couldn't lead his team to any points in the final three possessions, in the same situation where Mahomes routinely comes up clutch (including in all three Super Bowl wins.) Allen was great in playoff loss #3. On the whole, Allen has been good — but not good enough. McDermott has clearly not been good enough — but has also had the hardest degree of difficulty assignment in football three of his last four playoff losses (stopping Mahomes.)

Andy Reid was Sean McDermott before Mahomes. Tony Dungy was Sean McDermott before Peyton Manning. Bill Cowher was Sean McDermott before Big Ben. Sean McDermott is still Sean McDermott with Josh Allen.

It's a market that consists of pro bettors and public bettors. NFL playoff games command the highest limits of any sports betting market in the world other than the World Cup and the Super Bowl. It is the single best predictor of game outcomes that we have available to us. It is why, if you blindly picked the favorite to win every game, every year, that you would get roughly 70% of your picks correct. As a 2.5-point favorite, the Bills had an implied probability of 56-57% chance of winning. Going back to 1985, there have been 653 NFL games with exactly a 2.5-point closing spread. The favorite in those games won 370 times and lost 283 times (56.7). If you feel betting lines have minimal predictive value, then I'd like to offer you a $100 bet every NFL game going forward with exactly a 2.5-point spread. I'll take the favored team to win straight up, you take the underdog to win straight up. We'll see who has more money in the end.

Josh had TWO completions beyond six yards the entire game. One of them was a spectacular catch by Shakir for a touchdown. There were for sure a few catches that should have been made - that need to be made - downfield. But the Chiefs' banged-up defense, playing without four starters and two backup safeties, turned an elite quarterback into Russell Wilson.

1) Allen threw 28 of his 39 passes within five yards of the line of scrimmage and completed zero passes of more than 15 yards (only attempted four of them) working against a KC secondary without two of their top 3 safeties (a 4th round rookie played every snap but one) and a LB corps without their best coverage linebacker (Willie Gay). Buffalo's offense went 4.7 yards per play, the lowest output other than the season opener vs the Jets (4.6 ypp), and Allen - not McDermott - was on the field late with a chance to win the game and couldn't do it. Allen very nearly fumbled the game away on a 3rd-and-10 on the final drive. 2) Kelce caught only two passes the entire game vs Klein, one in the first quarter and another early in the second quarter. The first TD pass he caught was the result of busted coverage by Johnson, Hyde and Poyer (Klein was on the other side of the field). Kelce caught just five passes all game, tied for his all-time playoff low in the Mahomes era, and caught just one pass (vs Poyer) in the final 26 minutes of the game. 3) Chris Jones moves to the outside regularly on passing downs. The Bills weren't caught off guard here and it certainly wasn't a coaching error. Jones just made a great play, as he has done late in games throughout his career (including the AFC title game vs Bengals last year; and the Super Bowl this year.) 4) Thuney exited in the third quarter and a former 7th-round draft pick took over at LG. At what point do you hold the players accountable? Or at what point do you give credit to the elusive Mahomes, who is elite at avoiding sacks. (Josh Allen is his equal in this regard, and took zero sacks in this game also.) 5) Buffalo's offense didn't score in the final 18 minutes, 23 seconds, after taking a 24-20 lead late in the third quarter. They ran 23 plays for 59 yards on their final three drives, a whopping 2.56 yards per play. Two of the three drives were 3-and-outs. The third drive required converting a 4th-and-3 and recovering an Allen fumble just to get them within range of a missed Bass field goal. 6) Buffalo's defense struggled all day but did make two critical stops late in the game - forcing the Hardman fumble after KC took over a short field, and forcing a punt on the next drive after overcoming a drive-extending penalty - and the offense couldn't put points up on the board as they attempted to dink-and-dunk their way down the field. 7) Spags is a great defensive coordinator, but the idea that he pitches playoff shutouts on the regular is a myth. In 12 playoff games prior to this year, KC's defense allowed 31, 24, 24, 31, 36, 27, 35 in seven of their games. This year's playoff performance was the outlier. KC has had playoff success in the Mahomes era because the Chiefs routinely score 30+ points and average 29.5 points as an offense. This was the first year the defense outplayed the offense in Mahomes' six years as starter.

It's even higher than that when you take out the vig.

Buffalo was without: -Matt Milano (starter) -Terrel Bernard (starter) -Gabe Davis (starter) -Taylor Rapp (useful) -Christian Benford (useful) -Baylon Spector (useful?) *The Bills had 11 players appear on their injury report (excluding three vet rest guys.) The Bills were also without Tre White who was injured early season but his injury prompted the trade for Douglas, so for all intents and purposes, wouldn't define this as a loss. **Appeared on injured report but ultimately played: P Sam Martin, CB Taron Johnson, S Micah Hyde, LB Tyrel Dodson, QB Josh Allen ***Injured during game but returned: WR Shakir KC was without/lost on opening series: -Bryan Cook (starter) -Mike Edwards (starter) -Willie Gay (starter) -Derrick Nnadi (starter) -Jerick McKinnon (impact player) -Skyy Moore (barely useful) -Kadarius Toney (psycho) -Justyn Ross (package player only) *The Chiefs had 14 players on their injury report. The Chiefs were without LT Wanya Morris, who started several games late in the year, but Donovan Smith returned for this game so didn't include Morris in the "without" category above. I also didn't include LG Joe Thuney above as he played the entire first half before exiting with injury in the third quarter. **Appeared on injury report but ultimately played: CB L'Jarius Sneed, LB Nick Bolton, DB Deon Bush, TE Noah Gray, DE Charles Omenihu, WR Rashee Rice, LT Donovan Smith, WR Marques Valdes-Scantling. No matter how many times it is stated, the Bills simply weren't as injured as people want to believe. The entire offense outside of Gabe Davis—the ENTIRE offense— entered the game healthy and finished the game healthy. Both teams were without 3-4 starters and a couple backups. The Bills largely entered the game with a weakened LB corps and had to play AJ Klein more snaps than they desired, while the Chiefs had a weakened group of safeties and ultimately had to play a 4th-round rookie every snap. KC was without two of their three best safeties and their best coverage LB and yet the Bills didn't complete a single pass longer than 15 yards on 39 pass attempts and didn't have a play longer than 18 yards out of 78 plays. Again, I keep hearing how the Chiefs kept exploiting Klein all game (a falsehood, Klein gave up two catches in coverage vs Kelce the entire game, both in the first half) yet no mention of the Bills largely playing a dink-and-dunk offense with Willie Gay out of the game and they were unable to put pressure on KC's safeties downfield. Josh Allen's 39 pass attempts consisted of: -17 passes at or behind the line of scrimmage (16-for-17) -11 passes within 5 yards of line of scrimmage (8-for-11) -2 passes within 6-10 yards of line of scrimmage (0-for-2) -3 passes within 11-15 yards of line of scrimmage (2-for-3) -4 passes 16+ yards of line of scrimmage (0-for-4) -2 passes didn't appear on the NextGen chart (0-for-2) Buffalo's offense turned in a decent performance, producing scores or scoring opportunities on five of eight possessions (counting the Bass miss.) But they really had to labor their way down the field, facing 17 third or fourth-down plays (half of them 3rd-and-7 or worse) and probably overachieving in that regard overall. This wasn't a dominant KC win, but it was far from a lucky one, and wasn't the result of KC having some sort of monster injury advantage. Buffalo's offense was just 4.7 yards per play compared to 7.7 for KC; both teams essentially had a turnover (Bills fake punt followed by Hardman's fumble out of end zone). If anything, the Bills were very fortunate to recover Allen's fumble on the final drive that set up the game-tying FG opportunity.

These types of markets typically have tiny limits with huge sportsbook hold. A $100 bet....yes, $100...can often times move the odds substantially. Books offer these markets typically for the promotional value rather than actually trying to generate any sort of meaningful profit. The current favorite, along with the Texans, is the Chiefs at 10-1. The Bills would never trade him to the Chiefs, and the Chiefs would never make that trade. They have seven players on their entire roster age 30+ and five of them are backups or deep reserves. Kelce is the elder statesman on the team.

Bills-Chiefs is my only recent point of reference for attending a game at Highmark, but is the stadium always so toxic these days or was that just a Chiefs specific thing? The widespread behavior I witnessed (not isolated) was abhorrent and embarrassing. I understand there's a non alcohol section in the 200s level, which is actually a great idea, but I wouldn't be caught dead bringing a kid to the lower level or 300s if that's how it is all the time. Gives me a different perspective on videos like this, because there's too many people who take being a fan way too far.

The people on this forum have convinced themselves that Klein did horrible on Kelce. It's not even remotely true. Kelce caught five passes for the game, tied for the fewest playoff catches in the Mahomes era. Kelce's catches vs Bills: Catch #1 (1st quarter, 6:45 left): Kelce beat Klein downfield for 16 yard gain. Catch #2 (2nd quarter, 12:15 left): Kelce beat Klein downfield for 28 yard gain. Catch #3 (2nd quarter, 3:33 left): Kelce caught 22-yard TD pass on blown coverage (Poyer, Johnson, Hyde). Klein was nowhere near the play and was actually on the other side of the field. Catch #4 (3rd quarter, 11:49 left): Kelce caught 3-yard TD pass, perfectly blocked screen pass, clearing out Johnson, Rousseau and Jackson, with Klein nearly coming over to make the play short of the goal line. Catch #5 (3rd quarter, 2:45 left): Kelce catches 6-yard pass with Poyer isolated against him in coverage. Kelce caught exactly two passes against Klein, both in the first half, and Kelce caught just one pass the final 26+ minutes of the game. The busted coverage that was the combined effort of three vets in the Bills secondary was far more damaging than the two catches Klein allowed against Kelce. The bigger issue in this game was MVS (!!) beating Taron Johnson one-on-one downfield and then catching a pass between Hyde and Douglas downfield later in the game; and the Bills' entirely healthy D-Line generating zero sacks.

The point is, his outing this game isn't all that different than his outings vs the "fully loaded" Bills defenses. What from the past convinces you he wouldn't torch whoever the Bills put on the field? Kelce has posted numbers basically every playoff game of his entire career, including the past two years while surrounded by nobodies at wide receiver. (By the way, after his TD early in the third quarter, Kelce caught one pass for six yards the final 26:48 of the game.)

Kelce's career games vs Bills: 13 catches, 118 yards, two TDs ('20 afc championship) 5 catches, 65 yards, two TDs 8 catches, 96 yards, one TD 6 catches, 57 yards, one TD 8 catches, 108 yards, zero TDs 6 catches, 83 yards, zero TDs 5 catches, 75 yards, two TDs ('23 divisional round) Kelce's best-ever game vs the Bills in the 2020 AFC championship game came against a fully-healthy Bills roster with in-their-prime Poyer, Hyde, White, Johnson, Milano, Edmunds all on the field. Arguably his second-best game vs the Bills—easily his most memorable given the game-winning catch in OT—came against another completely healthy Bills defense. Kelce has cooked basically every defense he's ever played in the playoffs. We've seen Kelce run circles around Milano in two prior playoff games and caught the game-winner over him in the divisional game. In fact, Milano has gotten crucified in the past for getting beat in playoff games, and how many times have we read here, "Why is Kelce always open!" Mahomes targeted Kelce on 39.5% of his pass attempts in the 2020 game. He targeted Kelce on 26% of his pass attempts in this year's game. The Bills haven't had an answer for Kelce for four years now.

And yet despite this, the Bills closed as 2.5-point favorites and the over/under for the game was bet lower, closing at 45.5 and 46 everywhere. If losing a LB and a replacement level backup was significant and meant as much as people here suggest, we would have seen money come in on the Chiefs or we would have seen money come in on the over or we would have seen Travis Kelce over catches/yards get bet way over. We didn't see any of these things. The global betting market, which accommodates enormous six-figure limits at most sportsbooks, kept the Bills as 2.5-point favorites; and the prop market, which is lower limits but still very sharp overall, barely budged on Kelce's game projections. The Bills defense, who had as many regulars missing as the Chiefs did (KC entered without starting safety Cook and starting DT Nnadi, then lost safety Edwards and LB Gay early) were tasked with stopping a Chiefs offense that consisted of: Patrick Mahomes Travis Kelce Isaiah Pacheco Two HORRIBLY graded tackles (Smith, Taylor) A very strong interior OL (All-Pro LG Thuney exited 3rd quarter with injury) WR's consisting of: Rashee Rice, Justin Watson (0 catches), MVS (2 catches), Hardman (1 catch, 1 backbreaking fumble), Richie James (0 catches). Three of KC's receivers from this horrid group missed with injury (Skyy Moore, Justyn Ross, Kadarius Toney) as did their best pass-catching back (Jerick McKinnon.) Again, if you can't stop this offense, not sure what to say.

It hadn't really occurred to me - and it gets lost with the greatness of the finish - but if the Bills didn't convert the 4th-and-13 with 1:54 left in the '21 divisional game, what became the best playoff game in NFL history would have likely finished: Chiefs 26, Bills 21 KC: 359 yards on 6.2 ypp BUF: 347 yards on 6 ypp Mahomes would have finished 23-for-31 for 188 yards and one TD. Instead, he finished 33-of-44 for 378 yards and 3 TDs entirely inside the 2 min warning and OT.

The Chiefs have scored 31+ points in 9 of their 18 playoff games with Mahomes. They average 29.2 points per game and 6.3 yards per play. Only the Bucs and Ravens kept them to less than 20 points—and if we're being honest, the Chiefs could have had more vs Baltimore if it was absolutely necessary. These stats are despite KC playing five games in freezing temps, five with a compromised Mahomes (left early with foot injury vs Browns '20 and didn't return, played hurt vs Bills in '20 AFC title game; left early with high ankle vs Jags '22 Divisional but came back, played hurt vs Cincy '22 AFC title, reinjured ankle vs Philly Super Bowl) and despite them blowing out six opponents where they lost incentive to keep scoring. To be clear, the Bills defense has definitely come up short vs KC in the playoffs. There's no doubt about that. But they're hardly alone.