seattlebillsfan

RIP Carl and has great wisdom about how to “get a stew on” !!!

Bummer

I was there; first home playoff game since the Kelly era. I really had a feeling when the touchback took place and the Allen fumble was recovered that the football gods might finally be on our side. Then getting down to the 25, first and 10, a plausible path to beat the clock and keep Mahommes off the field…it just felt like it was meant to be. Something special in the air. Then it all went south in ways being discussed ad nauseum on threads here. The instant Bass trotted out to kick I looked up at the sky, and said, “and here comes Patrick Mahommes. Why god?” So for me the disappointment was big in the sense that I went from a feeling that fate might be turning, to—very rapidly—the opposite. All in the space of about 3 minutes (if you include the 2 minute warning TV timeout). But as soon as the “our time has come” spell was broken I kind of took it fatalistically, which is how I am feeling now. My other feeling is a deep sense of relief that it did not seem, from Highmark, as though Ed Hochuli cost us the game. That would have been very hard to take. This was different: Hope. Poof. Resignation.

4 of the 7 were members of the Philly officiating team

So it looks like 4 of the 7 refs (Hochuli, Holt, Killen, and Padroza) for the Chiefs game on Sunday also refereed the Eagles game in November. The remaining 3 (Fremont, Hall, Meyer) were not on the crew that gave the week 12 game to the Eagles. Never clear of course how much of the bad officiating is free lance stuff based on personal bias or incompetence and how much is imposed from NY based on the perceived financial interests of the east coast media elites and NFL. What we do know is that 4/7 of the crew, either on its own or at the behest of NY, was part of a set of egregiously bad calls that nearly put a dagger in the heart of the Bills’ 2023 season.

Ravens divisional win in January 2021. Stifling defensive performance.

A key question is, who is the accountable decision maker? A strong GM would fire McDermott tomorrow and probably would have after the Broncos or Pats games. But Beane did not do that then and is unlikely to do so tomorrow. Is that because Beane is compromised in some way given his tight interrelationship with McDermott throughout their tenure? And if that is the case must Beane and McDermott go together? And if that is the case how much confidence should we have in Terry getting these choices right without Kim there to call the shots as she may well have done when they drafted #17? Or is there another path forward? Can Terry just call Beane in the morning and say look, I need to roll the dice with one of you chuckleheads, clearly it’s not Sean; he is a loser. The whole world can see it … so bring me a plan in 7 days for how to turn this thing around or else you are done, too? it is an interesting management and governance moment…

The reality is that the NFL remembers how Super Bowl ad rates stagnated during the Bills’ Super Bowls. They will never let the Bills back; too expensive.

I am still simply blown away and incredulous at the challenge

When I say that I mean it; what kind of desperation move is that, with what’s sort of imbalanced perspective on pros and cons at this stage of the game, would lead to a challenge there? McDermott is not sane

Literally insane to challenge that

Wow, 20 minutes versus 7 minutes time of possession advantage for the bengals; miracle we are only down 7

I feel very good about this game; believe the team recognizes it should have lost 4 straight, but didn’t, has played its worst football, has reinforcements coming in, has #17 about to explode, and is headed for 14-3 and home field advantage. This is game 1 of an epic run.

Watching McDermott is now making me feel like I am at work, watching a low performer somewhere in my team underperform and knowing there is better talent out there but I don’t have time or energy to convince the guy’s manager to do the hard work of writing up a new job description and working the recruiting process, or the painful work of cutting the cord with the low performer. Then you finally do it and lo and behold you find someone great and say, “why didn’t we do this 2 years ago?” I am not sure who is the manager afraid to pull to rip cord in this case. I also know it gets easier with more experience to know it is time to make a tough call. Perhaps the fact that Beane is a first time GM and Pegula still is a relatively new owner is slowing things down: they don’t have much experience moving ahead with this uncomfortable move, and knowing that it will be better in the end. Too bad because they have the trump recruiting card in #17. Would not be hard to find a great replacement. Perhaps they just don’t know and fear the unknown…

Goodell probably has a secret division that sells chemicals to the Iraqis