finn

I missed that (and the game) and really, really would have enjoyed seeing it. Who was bickering? Then he calls for the flag!

The new system of having just one team per conference having a bye is absurdly unfair. Witness last year, when the Bills were in a dogfight, injuries accumulating, while KC watched the game on TV, resting up a full two weeks before hosting the winner in their own stadium. Give the team with the best record the homefield advantage, sure, but an additional week off in addition--and only for them? That's tipping the scales way too much at the end of the season, when players are hurt and exhausted.

If Collinsworth were one of the announcers, he'd make it sound like Patrick Mahomes was outplaying Herbert.

And who's behind them if one of both of them go down? Covington? Hancock? Lewis? The water boy?

Truthfully, no. Aside from national games and games against the Bills, it's mostly his highlights I've watched. That's when I noticed that most of the highlights were runs and throws to wide-open receivers. Again, this isn't to say there aren't some remarkable throws, just not (subjectively) more than any other QB's highlight reel. But I am persuaded by the stats you provided. (Thanks for pulling those together.) They represent objective evidence that he really is an elite passer. I'm ready to eat crow. I still would take Allen over Lamar every time, though.

Allen is hands-down the best player. No contest. He is approaching Lamar as a runner (because he can truck people) and far surpasses him as a passer. Watch any game, any highlight reel, and you'll see Lamar running brilliantly. But throwing brilliantly? Not so much. No more than any other starter in the league. He throws a pretty ball, I grant you, but I don't see any consistent brilliance, not like you see from Allen, Mahomes, and Burrows, even Stafford. I think people expect great passing from Lamar, since he's such a good runner and throws a pretty ball, and they see what they expect to see, not necessarily what is there. Flame away!

Maybe ball control, inching down the field, milking the clock even early, using Allen's legs and the tush push to eke out fourth downs. And hope the Ravens don't score on every possession. Too pessimistic? Allen is a god, easily the best player in the league, and he'll make a few spectacular plays. But will that be enough?

You can say that again.

So I can watch the Bills every Sunday with NFL+ premium? (I live in Maine and the "home team" is the Pats*)

MVP! MVP!

I agree, but aside from this board, I haven't seen or heard anyone recognize just how incredible that throw was. Allen also made a less impossible but still jaw-dropping throw against the Jets a few years ago in the face of a fierce rush, with a damaged elbow and the game on the line, hitting Gabe Davis in the chest in stride 60 yards downfield. Yet, because Davis dropped it (see emojis in OP), that throw, which might have been recognized as one of the best in the history of football had Davis not choked, has been wiped from collective memory. My point is not that his teammates suck or that other players don't make incredible plays that don't count, but rather that these plays should count--in the sense that we (fans, commentators, the league) should celebrate them instead of dismissing and forgetting them. Not to the degree of "legitimate" plays, of course, but more than they do now. For god's sake, how many one in a million plays--literally--does an average fan see in their lifetime? Let's geek out and enjoy it! Same goes with extraordinary game-long performances that get wiped from the memory banks because the player's team lost. Exhibit A: Allen's performance in the 13-second game. Had the Bills won, it would have been rightly considered one of the best playoff games by a QB in league history, along with Allen's previous "perfect" game against the Patriots. But because they lost that second game, both games are either forgotten or shrugged off. I get it: Just win, baby and enjoy the (disproportionate) glory. Still, I'd love to see a compilation reel of the best plays that didn't count for whatever reason. That evidence, besides being very entertaining, might change some minds about who the best players really are.

Didn't know that.

That's why Nadal was always injured: he regularly outplayed his own body, making it do things it couldn't do without breaking.

I hope that's not the case, since the Ravens were #1 in rush offense AND rush defense last year. Frankly, the Ravens are better across the board, with two exceptions: offensive line and quarterback. Is that enough to win? Probably not, but I don't think it was a fluke that the Bills won in the playoffs last year. They had more grit than the Ravens, who seemed (to me) to think it would be a cakewalk for them. I think the Bills could have won in the regular season, too, if Brady hadn't gotten cute with that pass to Allen when they had the momentum. Anyway, that grit/resilience, along with Allen and the O-line, might be enough to win again Sunday.

I agree, although I'm not sure why Lamar supporters think this way. Maybe because he is both black and was undervalued early on, which makes him a double underdog? I don't think it's about merit, since the argument that he's a better QB than other three is pretty thin. Involving "motivated reasoning," as it were. No, something else is going on, especially re Allen. Again, could be race: Allen is the ultimate big white boy, so maybe people feel triggered measuring him against a smaller black man. The unconscious is a funny thing. Those talking heads are spouting emotion before their brain engages, and then they double down. You can tell their own identity/ego is involved; they might as well put subtitles under their rants: "I AM worth something! I AM big enough down there!" Fear underlies it all, I would say. They relate to Lamar, so if he's not as good as Allen, whom they perceive as the Other, then they're not as good as the Other, either, which is existentially horrifying. If Lamar went on IR for the season right now, he's still get votes from some of these people. Of course, to me, Allen can do no wrong and walks on water, so I'll get off my high horse now...😕

Apologies, I didn't mean to be insulting. My point really is pretty obscure, and I wasn't very articulate expressing it. I'm trying to get at a phenomenon I haven't seen described elsewhere, and it's hard to pin down. Let me try once more: I see two teams, seemingly even overall, face off. One wins, barely. Here is the phenomenon: Commentators disproportionately praise the winners, downplaying or ignoring their many mistakes, while condemning or lamenting the loser, focusing on their mistakes while pretty much ignoring the good things they did, which might even exceed the good things the winning team did. Even if the difference came down to a single bad call by the ref, or a player slipping in the mud, the one team is Glorious, the other a Loser, the one enjoying nothing but admiration, the other little but criticism. That strikes me as lazy thinking, a surrender to emotion (on the part of both sides). I get that this emotional response is part of the fun of being a fan. But the Spock in me rolls my eyes whenever I hear, for example, Mahomes lauded as The Holy One and Allen as the guy who can't get it done. If I'm Mahomes, after any of those playoff victories against the Bills, I'm saying to Allen, "Man, that could so easily have gone either way," and my triumph would be accordingly tempered by this humbling fact.

I'm not saying the games are coin flips. I'm just pushing back on the notion that we can't talk about many variables in play without being accused of making excuses. The coin analogy was meant to illustrate probability, not to claim every game comes down only to luck. Obviously, many factors contribute to probability. That said, I do worry that losing four times to KC will get into the head of this Bills team. That might have happened to the Kelly-era Bills. I'm convinced that if they had beaten the Giants, they would have won at least one more Super Bowl, maybe more than one more. Kelly's nerves were jangled against the Redskins, and Thurman quit against the Cowboys. Those were two warriors, too.

You should join my critical-thinking class. In fact, we'll be addressing the Straw Man fallacy next week. I don't use sarcasm on my students, but I'll use it on you since, as a veteran poster, you should know better. "Yes! In fact every success in every sport is due entirely to luck. Thank you SO much for understanding my position!" I urge you to re-read my post. I said when teams are this close, probability plays an outsized role, and you can get lopsided results that do not reflect just how even the teams are. Yet shallow thinkers, never trained to bracket their knee-jerk reactions and actually think, insist that Destiny or Greatness are the real reason for the result. So Mahomes is far better than Allen, and the Bills are inferior as a whole to the Champions. I'm very glad I don't live in that world. I'm sure it's comfortable, but I would miss using my mind.

Flip a coin ten times, with heads your "team." It comes up tails four times in a row, and fans of the tail team are strutting around talking trash. You can point out how easily it could have gone the other way, but the tail fans will just call you a whiner making excuses. They'll boast that tails are dominant, they own the heads, their team (and, by extension, they themselves) are winners, heads and their fans losers. Put ego aside and think objectively. The Bills could just as easily won the past four matchups as lose them, and it's likely true going forward. There's no magical mystery powder when teams are this even. There's only probability. (Except for the cheating refs. 🤨)

You're soothing my nerves. Maybe I'll watch the game after all.

It does feel like it's going to be that kind of game, doesn't it? I don't see this defense stopping Henry and Jackson--except via turnovers, a big exception--and I'm confident that even the Ravens defense will have trouble with Allen and Cook. But the relative difference between the units is lopsided. To put it another way, Allen/Cook > Jackson/Henry, but Ravens D > Bills D. To put it still another way, the Bills O would absolutely destroy, shred, mutilate the Bills D, while the Ravens will merely destroy it. 😕

Maybe you're right. I was assuming that he wasn't ready, but I suppose he could learn on the job. Ok, I feel a bit better. You've changed the image of my head from a truck heading toward a brick wall to a plane taking off with the mechanics running after it making last-minute repairs to one of the wings.

Yes, it seems Taron and the safeties will need to help out the second corner no matter who he is. But do you really start a guy who is promising but clearly wasn't ready even before he missed weeks of training camp, as well as the first four weeks of the year? I mean, you do if you're the Browns, but not if you expect to go to the Super Bowl. Right, hence my expectation that a trade is in the offing. The problem is just too glaring. Trouble is, you don't want to give up too much with a promising first-round pick ready to start next year, probably, so you're not going to get much, either.

I'm not sure what Beane has in mind. What's the best-case scenario, realistically? That White is adequate and stays healthy all year? That seems risky, given his age and injury history. If he goes down or has hit the wall (or both), the cupboard is bare. Strong? He's promising but raw. Ingram? Yikes. Hope against all evidence that Hairston can fill in despite missing much of training camp as well as the first four weeks of the season? I'm waiting for a trade announcement just like two years ago, with a slate of extensions to make salary cap room. Not where you want to be with the season starting next week. Someone make me feel better.

Maybe Samuels. Addition by subtraction.