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

thoughts on London travel…I live in Seattle but have spent 35 nights over the last year in London for work. Jet lag from the west coast is obviously much worse than from Buffalo, with an 8 hour time difference instead is 5. So…I have a routine. The way the flights and time zones work out, I have to depart at 7pm on, say, a Sunday night, sleep as much as I can in a flat bed pod, land around noon on Monday, take a shower and get clean clothes on at the airport, head downtown on the Heathrow Express, go straight to the office, am in meetings from 2:30-6pm or so, have dinner with colleagues, go for a swim in the hotel pool around 9pm, try to get to sleep by 10:30 or so, and hope desperately to sleep for a 4 or 5 hours before waking up in the middle of the night. Sometimes I get back to sleep and sometimes I don’t after that 4-5 hour burst, but that is typically enough to make me fully functional the following day. Bonus is if I don’t start until 10:30am or so on Tuesday, as that often enables me to get a second burst of sleep. It kind of works. I am in good shape on Tuesday. But Tuesday night is almost always worse. Up for hours tossing and turning. Zombie on Wednesday. And total crap shoot from there until I return home on Friday and then am a mess for several days on the other side. So based on all this I have a few reactions on the NFL games in London and what we just saw: 1. it is brutal that the NFL makes teams play in London. Shame on the owners for going along with this; I bet plenty of these guys have experienced the challenges of trans-Atlantic travel in their business lives. The disrespect for the men who put their bodies on the line week in and week out is extraordinary. 2. Everyone’s physiology is different and goodness knows the challenge of playing a brutal, high speed sport at the highest level is completely and totally different from effectiveness in meetings!!! Still, based on my sleep experience, I would say the Bills picked the worst possible strategy for flying over because of the “night 2” sleep challenge. Their night 2 was Saturday night…I suspect it would have actually been much better for their sleep if they had flown on Friday night, muscled through Saturday, gone to sleep at a hotel by the stadium, and rolled into the stadium to prepare for the game as late as their schedule would permit on Sunday. 3. Interesting to wonder what obligations the NFL places on teams, though. Would the scenario above even have been permissible, in light of London press conferences and the like that the team is on the hook for? 4. If the “Friday night flight” option is not available for those reasons, then I think the only way to do this is to fly over as soon as humanely possible in the week before the game. Like Monday. That would provide enough time to get acclimated well enough to sleep well on Saturday night, I bet… 5. …while also ensuring that the following week the team would be zombies because of reacclimatizing to east coast time. So kind of a “screwed no matter what you do” situation. All of this, in my mind, underscores how awful the London games are, and how significant a physiological advantage the Jags had on Sunday. They may, however, have challenges during the week ahead because of their jet lag upon returning to Jacksonville. Just one man’s opinion…

This is amazing. Thank you so much! At what point do you think you will be heading to seats? I am flying into Newark for work (landing at 5:30pm) and decided last minute to get tix to game. Meeting a couple of friends coming in from Manhattan and will need to fix meeting point with them…

Perhaps the Bills can bring him back for road games versus the Steelers, to wave the coat during “Renegade”

Kim is from a suburb of Rochester, not Buffalo (Fairport High School, class of 1987). The point stands though; western NY roots run deep!

This could be good. Von plays as hard and well as he can, anchors a Super Bowl championship defense, and then retires early, saving the Bills cap space in return for an apprenticeship in the GM’s office. Miller is smart and would be a good GM. Kellen Winslow type.

Curtis Brown off right tackle to go up 21-10 over the Steelers on the way to a 9-3 record in week 12 of the 1980 season. Pittsburgh was the defending Super Bowl champion and it felt like a changing of the guard to this then-6th grader, watching with my dad in Rochester. I still remember, 43 years later, him leaping up and signaling “touchdown” as Brown surged through the Steel Curtain to score…

that was the game for sure. I was sure the bills would use the halftime flip to go up 21-17. But they just couldn’t do it. Sad.

Hope so!!!

This is the 258 million dollar elephant in the corner that I hope is getting serious attention, starting immediately: how much damage has already been done to Josh Allen’s right elbow, what is the plan for sorting out whether rest alone is enough or if something surgical is required, what are the implications for his off-season depending on which scenario he is in, etc. There is precedent in another sport for a late-blooming super-talent to dominate at super-human levels for a few years and retire at age 30 due to elbow pain; his name was Sandy Koufax….

I would love to see data on whether the Bills became more big play oriented after #17 had his elbow injury. My sense was that the frequency and effectiveness of short passes was down from the Jets game onward, and I recall seeing remarks from another QB who had experienced a similar injury some years ago, that his short game accuracy and touch was affected more than his long game. Have been wondering whether some of the head scratching play calling and decision making was a function of these physical realities. If that were the case no one would ever talk about it, to avoid tipping off opposing coaches, but it might help explain some of what we have seen over the past 8-10 weeks. This is pure speculation though; as I said would love to see some data on these tendencies pre- and post- the early November Jets game…And most of all if true I hope #17 completely shuts down to recuperate for the next couple of months and figure out if anything else is needed to get him back to 100%…