dave mcbride

This game is over.

And Washington has zero points. I realize and hope that changes momentarily …

Omg - did not realize josh johnson was still rostered! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Johnson_(quarterback) The ultimate pro football scavenger! Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2008–2011) San Francisco 49ers (2012)* Sacramento Mountain Lions (2012) Cleveland Browns (2012) Cincinnati Bengals (2013) San Francisco 49ers (2014) Cincinnati Bengals (2015)* New York Jets (2015)* Indianapolis Colts (2015) Buffalo Bills (2015) Baltimore Ravens (2016)* New York Giants (2016) Houston Texans (2017) Oakland Raiders (2018)* San Diego Fleet (2018)* Washington Redskins (2018) Detroit Lions (2019) Los Angeles Wildcats (2020) San Francisco 49ers (2020)* New York Jets (2021) Baltimore Ravens (2021) Denver Broncos (2022) San Francisco 49ers (2022) Baltimore Ravens (2023–2024) Washington Commanders (2025–present)

Fair point! But … AFL. The NFL was way more talented in the first half of the 60s.

If the Bills beat KC, this is actually a good thing for the Bills.

??? - SF is 26th in points per game, 13th in yards per game, and 21st in points per drive. See my post above about the corresponding Bills’ metrics.

The Bills are currently 4th in points per game, 3rd in yards per game, and 4th in points per drive. The rushing game is 1st in yards, 2nd in TDs, and 3rd in ypc. Allen has his second best qb rating of all time (after 2020) and is on pace for 41 total TDs. There is a huge problem at the boundary receiver position that has to be dealt with, but the last 1.5 seasons may be the best coordinated o-line game in franchise history. Brady has flaws, but he absolutely has strengths.

But entirely expected. Hopefully Sanders’s development can be accelerated. That said, I have no idea how severe whatever injury he has is.

Cook is the league's leading rusher on a per game basis. The Bills have played one less game than Indy.

Anyone interested in Calais Campbell? He'd have to agree to a trade (no sure thing), but he's still productive: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/C/CampCa99.htm. AZ's season is probably over given that division and I can see them being sellers.

Haha! I give the prize of worst of all time to Marangi. Marangi had the benefit of handing the ball off to arguably the greatest RB of all time (he's certainly in top five) and an excellent line. Indeed, the whole electric company played pretty much every game that season (Joe D, Reggie McKenzie, Mike Montler, Dave Foley, Paul Seymour, and Donnie Green) and OJ led the league in rushing (1,503 yards in 14 games). And Bobby Chandler was a great player at that moment in time. Considering the relative contexts, I think you gotta give the prize to Marangi: a 35.3 percent completion rate, 7 TDs, 16 INTs, an 8.7 percent sack rate, and a 30.8 rating. Peterman's two ratings were 38.4 and 30.7, but he was on low-talent squads (especially 2018).

FWIW, I thought Davis caught that pass and that the Bills would have won a challenge. It wasn't a sure thing, though, and it was too meager of a gain to waste a challenge on.

Shaheed has had 215 touches in his career (receptions, rushes, kick returns) and has had 4 fumbles. Seems normal, more or less. Maybe slightly on the high end in terms of percentage, but it's in the range of normal.

Unfortunately, I fully expect the Chiefs to blow the Commanders out and cover that huge spread with ease.

I watched it! I was 9 at the time. It was a thanksgiving day game and while he was unstoppable, the Bills lost because they were rolling with the worst QB in franchise history, Gary Marangi. Marangi was 4 for 21 for 29 yards, a pick and 1-2 lost fumbles. Greg Landry had a Joe Montana-like day in comparison: 8 of 20 for 143 yards, 2 TDs, and a pick. That Bills team was TERRIBLE, mostly because Fergy missed the entire second half of the season.

Good post. A weird thing: Allen has the second highest QB rating of his career right now (103.6), is tied for his YPA high (7.9 ypa), and has his second highest completion rate (68.0). Yet his QBR is the worst since 2019: 62.0. He's usually a beast in that category, but his 6.64% sack rating (highest since 2019) is likely dragging it down. It's not as if the line is bad either; it's actually pretty great. I do think that QBR number better captures where he is right now than the other metrics, but he's certainly capable of stringing together some elite-level games. Go time starts this Sunday, with a bunch of tougher opponents on the menu in coming weeks.

Agreed, and I'll add that it wasn't nearly as close as the score indicates. The Bills were up 40-3 with a minute and a half to go in the third quarter! They could have scored 50+ with relative ease.

You know, after that sack where he held the ball for 11 seconds, the Bills scored TDs on their next five possessions. To be fair, a couple were quickies after a turnover.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6752393/2025/10/26/bills-panthers-win-wide-receiver-ed-oliver-injury/ If you want a microcosm of the Bills’ passing experience enveloped in one play, look no further than their third-and-6 play at the beginning of the second quarter in Panthers territory. Allen, with Keon Coleman, Khalil Shakir, Elijah Moore, Dalton Kincaid and Ty Johnson on the field, took the shotgun snap and hung in the pocket, going through his progressions for 4.35 seconds — well past how long an offensive line generally gives its quarterback to throw. No one was open. Then, wanting to give his receivers another chance to get open, Allen spun out of the pocket and rolled to his left, holding the ball for an additional 6.51 seconds — at one point running through someone grabbing and ripping part of his uniform — before ultimately taking a 16-yard sack. That’s right, almost 11 seconds, and absolutely no one was open down the field, even in a scramble drill scenario. Allen always takes the blame head-on, saying he didn’t trust his feet and that he needs to be better at going through his progressions. He brought up one throw he missed to Moore, which, to be fair, he did, but the reason he’s probably beating himself up over it is because it was the only time all game a wide receiver was uncovered enough more than 15 yards from the line of scrimmage to warrant a target. You read that correctly. That target was the only time, all game, that Allen attempted a pass to a wide receiver that went further than 15 yards. … On all 19 of Allen’s passing attempts, his receiver’s average depth of target was 6.11 yards down the field. On his 12 completions, the average depth of the target shrinks to 3.92 yards per completion. That means 71.2 percent of Allen’s passing yards were after the catch. If you think that’s worrisome, let’s isolate the wide receivers. Of Allen’s 12 attempts to the wide receiver group on Sunday, his average depth of target decreased to 4.75 yards. He completed eight of those passes, with an average depth of target of 0.75 yards. In total, Allen gained only six yards with his arm to receivers through the air. The other 104 yards came after the catch. Allen did not complete a single pass to a wide receiver over 8 yards. He only completed a pass of over four air yards one time the entire game. Now to the anti-magnum opus — let’s remove Shakir from the equation and focus solely on the boundary receivers. Allen completed only two passes for 22 yards to those receivers, all game, with a 40 percent completion rate. Coleman had both receptions. The Bills aren’t always going to be facing teams with a backup quarterback surrendering the ball all game long. They can’t depend solely on the running game every week. They are going to be down in some games and need to rely on their passing attack to get them out of trouble. There will be teams that, like the Bills saw in Weeks 5 and 6, will dare them to throw by bottling up their ground game. If the Bills don’t have an answer early in games, there really isn’t much confidence they’ll be able to do it late. There have been no signs since the first week of the season that the Bills can be a consistent enough team, outside the numbers, to win through the air. … The Bills desperately need another boundary receiver. They need to be able to challenge defenses past 20 yards through the air. Heck, they need to challenge defenses past 10 yards. If they want to unlock their MVP quarterback and reinstall some of the magic the offense has lost, they must go out and strike for a receiver who can instantly become a starter, and potentially Allen’s top target outside the numbers. And in doing so, it might make their running game even better. It will be costly, and the Bills will want to find the right situation, but the need is as clear as day. It all depends on how much the Bills are willing to spend to get the right receiver.

Here’s the thing: despite having the worst receiving corps of his career, he has the second highest quarterback rating of his career this season. It was 103.2 going into today, and his passer rating today was 108.0. They were 4th overall in both points per game and yards per game before today, and I assume they’ve moved upward in both categories after today’s performance.

Love is extremely good. Not sure of your point.

The Times of India has some rag-like qualities and isn't an outlet I'd cite for US celebrity news. I sorta regret saying this, but I know of what I’m speaking of because I’m the politics publisher at Princeton University Press and used to have the same position at Oxford UP. In both places, I have published a LOT of books on contemporary India, and I can tell you that the Times of India occasionally makes the New York Post read like NPR. It, and much of Indian media, is super clickbait-y. As a consequence, I treat the source as mostly trash when it comes to issues like this.

No, married with multiple children.

He hasn’t led a 4th quarter comeback … yet most people would say he did a version of that versus the Bills.

Please stop. And maybe go away for a period.