Bangarang Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 People love to preach culture then say it’s okay to lose to the team that’s been curb stomping is for the last 2 decades? it doesn’t matter if the Pats were unlikely to lose to the Dolphins. It’s about showing them that we’re not going to be pushovers happy with moral victories and we can go to their place and kick their ass. You want to change the culture for real and make some noise? Then how about shutting up NE in their house. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil The Thrill Posted December 22, 2019 Author Share Posted December 22, 2019 21 minutes ago, kjack151 said: Phil, I do see your perspective and I appreciate you being rational about the situation. For so many years we have been out of playoff contention by the second time we played NE, that I can see if those games didn't matter to the players. In this case, I do think that this would have gone a long ways for their confidence. Additionally, look at how we lost - couldn't stop the run, couldn't get to Brady - this has happened so many times that I'm sure they wonder if it will ever happen (beating the Patriots). You seem to be conflating the players and the fans. The majority of players on this team are new. They don’t have a long history of losing to the Patriots. The fans do! That’s why I don’t think the game will have effect one way or another. They had a 92% chance of being the 5 seed either way. I don’t see a win versus NE suddenly propelling this team to start dominating in the playoffs. I also don’t see a loss hurt their chances of winning a playoff game either 3 minutes ago, Nextmanup said: You are engaging in denial or bargaining. This is the third of five stages in the grieving process. Bills fans know this process well. ??? This is funny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
row_33 Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 (edited) Sour grapes tells us the game didn’t matter after the Bills lost Edited December 22, 2019 by row_33 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil The Thrill Posted December 22, 2019 Author Share Posted December 22, 2019 1 minute ago, Bangarang said: People love to preach culture then say it’s okay to lose to the team that’s been curb stomping is for the last 2 decades? it doesn’t matter if the Pats were unlikely to lose to the Dolphins. It’s about showing them that we’re not going to be pushovers happy with moral victories and we can go to their place and kick their ass. You want to change the culture for real and make some noise? Then how about shutting up NE in their house. Again, you are overanalyzing this game. Losing to NE will have no effect, other than it will disappoint fans who want the satisfaction of beating the Patriots in a meaningless end of the season game 1 minute ago, row_33 said: Sour grapes tells us the game didn’t matter after the Bills lost Sour grapes....or reality. A win or loss was unlikely going to chance their playoff standing either way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwistofFate Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 2 hours ago, Phil The Thrill said: Of course... but a loss here isn’t as devastating as a lot of fans are making it sound and a win would be pretty much meaningless after a week or week so. We lost the division. It's pretty devastating to people who care. It wasn't a meaningless game and not one player in that locker room feels that way. This is a losing mentality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCbillsfan Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 2 hours ago, Boatdrinks said: I think the effort was there by the players ( not necessarily the execution) but the coaches went 99% simple and vanilla. They knew a win wasn’t going to improve their spot and they need their best defensive work to win in the playoffs. The passive gameplan vs a hobbled and slow Brady said it all. They we’re far from embarrassed , and players got valuable experience vs a top defensive unit. However, they weren’t going to waste their best stuff ( or put new things on film) in this game. If the game was for the AFCE and a bye week, they would have went after Brady relentlessly. His numbers this year when pressured vs not pressured are a stark contrast to previous years. It took me a few hours to come to this same conclusion. The Bills tried to win with a very basic/conservative game plan but didn't execute very well. If the Bills could have won the division on their own without help from Miami next week, the game plan would have been rather different imo. Since that wasnt the case, they played very vanilla in many ways. They didn't want to show anything special to Houston or KC. 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bangarang Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 4 minutes ago, Phil The Thrill said: Again, you are overanalyzing this game. Nah, I don’t think so 4 minutes ago, Phil The Thrill said: Losing to NE will have no effect, other than it will disappoint fans who want the satisfaction of beating the Patriots in a meaningless end of the season game Losing today doesn’t change our playoff standing but the game itself wasn’t exactly meaningless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil The Thrill Posted December 22, 2019 Author Share Posted December 22, 2019 Again I get the disappointment from the fan base but let’s call this loss for what it is - a game that likely had no bearing on the playoff round in a few weeks Don’t pretend that this loss is going to have some sort of negative psychological effect on the players. It won’t. The Bills lost a heartbreaking game to NE Then won 3 of the next 4 The Bills beat Dallas handedly on the road Then lost by 1 score to Balimore at home The Bills beat Pittsburgh on the road Then lost by 1 score on New England My point is that this a resilient, even-keel team and these losses they seem so “devastating” to the fan base, often have little effect on players. On the other hand, big wins are guarantee of momentum. Just because the Bills beat a good team in Dallas was no guarantee that they would beat a good Ravens teams. And a loss to NE is no future indicator that the team is going to lose in the wildcard card round. 8 minutes ago, TwistofFate said: We lost the division. It's pretty devastating to people who care. It wasn't a meaningless game and not one player in that locker room feels that way. This is a losing mentality. Right some Bills fans have a “loser” mentality but the players don’t...thank goodness. You do realize that even after a win, in order to win the division the Patriots had to lose to Miami: There was an 8% chance of they happening 3 minutes ago, Bangarang said: Nah, I don’t think so Losing today doesn’t change our playoff standing but the game itself wasn’t exactly meaningless. Ok maybe but I don’t think the outcome will have any kind of effect one way or another on the playoffs. Fans need to chill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwistofFate Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 3 minutes ago, Phil The Thrill said: Right some Bills fans have a “loser” mentality but the players don’t...thank goodness. You do realize that even after a win, in order to win the division the Patriots had to lose to Miami: There was an 8% chance of they happening 8%? Who comes up with that garbage. Bottom line is we LOST the division tonight. They clinched it on our backs, not Miami. Losing it on a ton of tie breakers is one thing, losing it head to head is another. A bigger kick in the balls would be a Miami upset next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boatdrinks Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 16 minutes ago, TwistofFate said: We lost the division. It's pretty devastating to people who care. It wasn't a meaningless game and not one player in that locker room feels that way. This is a losing mentality. The division was lost when the Bills didn’t beat Cleveland. A win today wouldn’t have given the Bills the division title, no matter how much we’d like to believe Miami could win in NE next week. I’ll concur that no player in the locker room felt this game was meaningless. I also would venture their confidence wasn’t shaken one iota by the result. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil The Thrill Posted December 22, 2019 Author Share Posted December 22, 2019 6 minutes ago, TwistofFate said: 8%? Who comes up with that garbage. Bottom line is we LOST the division tonight. They clinched it on our backs, not Miami. Losing it on a ton of tie breakers is one thing, losing it head to head is another. A bigger kick in the balls would be a Miami upset next week. “they cliched it on our backs?” What the hell does that mean? Would it be any better if they won the division in the Miami game and not against the Bills? Who cares? Who gives a damn? Silly argument. So you are saying losing it on a tiebreaker makes a difference? I thought there were more victories!?!?!?’b 9 minutes ago, TwistofFate said: 8%? Who comes up with that garbage. Bottom line is we LOST the division tonight. They clinched it on our backs, not Miami. Losing it on a ton of tie breakers is one thing, losing it head to head is another. A bigger kick in the balls would be a Miami upset next wee 5 minutes ago, Boatdrinks said: The division was lost when the Bills didn’t beat Cleveland. A win today wouldn’t have given the Bills the division title, no matter how much we’d like to believe Miami could win in NE next week. I’ll concur that no player in the locker room felt this game was meaningless. I also would venture their confidence wasn’t shaken one iota by the result. Ok sure.... I can admit that meaningless was the wrong term. But this game likely has effect on our playoffs standing. That was my point Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwistofFate Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 (edited) 10 minutes ago, Boatdrinks said: The division was lost when the Bills didn’t beat Cleveland. A win today wouldn’t have given the Bills the division title, no matter how much we’d like to believe Miami could win in NE next week. I’ll concur that no player in the locker room felt this game was meaningless. I also would venture their confidence wasn’t shaken one iota by the result. The division was lost tonight. What are you talking about? NE clinched the division because they beat US. Edited December 22, 2019 by TwistofFate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brianmoorman4jesus Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 2 hours ago, Phil The Thrill said: They should hire you as a special assistant coach. That would help them cut down on dumb tendencies I can tell you with 100% certainty if they hired me to be in charge of clock management, there would be a significant improvement. A 13 year old playing madden knows when to call time outs and when to turn up the urgency at the end of a half or game. We are running the clock out on ourselves when we are losing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil The Thrill Posted December 22, 2019 Author Share Posted December 22, 2019 2 minutes ago, TwistofFate said: The division was lost tonight. What are you talking about? NE clinched the division because they beat US. You don’t get it.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troll Toll Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 2 hours ago, Boatdrinks said: I think the effort was there by the players ( not necessarily the execution) but the coaches went 99% simple and vanilla. They knew a win wasn’t going to improve their spot and they need their best defensive work to win in the playoffs. The passive gameplan vs a hobbled and slow Brady said it all. They we’re far from embarrassed , and players got valuable experience vs a top defensive unit. However, they weren’t going to waste their best stuff ( or put new things on film) in this game. If the game was for the AFCE and a bye week, they would have went after Brady relentlessly. His numbers this year when pressured vs not pressured are a stark contrast to previous years. This guy gets it! No need to give away what you would do in a playoff game from the Bills vantage point. We went super vanilla and went the distance. This was the best possible outcome and a blessing in disguise for most fans. Now Bills can rest players if they want to against the Jets and the Jets won’t have motivation of costing us the division. We can treat Week 17 like a Bye. Our Bye was very early this season and our guys could use a rest. I would hate to exhaust our guys against the Jets, only to have New England squash Miami and take the division anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boatdrinks Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 3 minutes ago, TwistofFate said: The division was lost tonight. What are you talking about? NE clinched the division because they beat US. Their records going in were not the same. If the Bills had won in Cleveland ( as they should have) today’s game would have essentially been for the division title. As it stood, a Bills win today would not have given them the division title. It more than likely would have just delayed NE clinching until next week. Pretty simple stuff, really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nelius Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 I'm not disappointed at all. Today was great, the disappointment floor was so much higher since we're already in the playoffs, and then we made it a game in their stadium. I thought this was progression all around. I'm sure this has been said, but when was the last time we made it a 4th quarter game in Foxboro, let alone for a game that mattered? I'd rematch that Pats team any day, how long has it been since you could say that? People are underrating the Pats, which hurts my soul to even type, after a few weeks of down play. It's how the world works now, but make no mistake, the Patriots are still one of the top 2 teams in the AFC. Overall this was an affordable loss in all reality and I liked what I saw from the Bills. Allen throwing 2 TDs and no nterceptions, in their house, in a game that matters in late December, is fantastic. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwistofFate Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 3 minutes ago, Boatdrinks said: Their records going in were not the same. If the Bills had won in Cleveland ( as they should have) today’s game would have essentially been for the division title. As it stood, a Bills win today would not have given them the division title. It more than likely would have just delayed NE clinching until next week. Pretty simple stuff, really. Its very simple. Who cliched the AFC East ? prior to tonight's game. Answer - no one If Buffalo won tonight, who clinched the AFC East ?? Answer - no one It all would have ridden on week 17 to determine the outcome of the division. We lost any chance of winning the East by losing tonight. No game is a give me and anything can happen in any given week. NE clinched by defeating US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nelius Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 2 hours ago, Boatdrinks said: This isn’t the worst Patriots team in 20 years. Totally agree. Where is this coming from? They've been kind of off their game, for like 3 weeks? They're 12-3 defending champs and people are acting like they're not the same Patriots. I do not understand it, Belichick and his weird kid have been stepping up their psyops apparently. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoPoy88 Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 55 minutes ago, Bangarang said: People love to preach culture then say it’s okay to lose to the team that’s been curb stomping is for the last 2 decades? it doesn’t matter if the Pats were unlikely to lose to the Dolphins. It’s about showing them that we’re not going to be pushovers happy with moral victories and we can go to their place and kick their ass. You want to change the culture for real and make some noise? Then how about shutting up NE in their house. All this. We already scored our moral victory when when played them close earlier this season. I didn’t need another one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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