14 teams in the Playoffs confirmed. Are we a lock?

[Cripple Creek]

11 minutes ago, Gugny said:

 

I would, yes.

 

Just like I didn't feel like the drought ended when Cincinnati got us into the playoffs.

 

I think the key, here, is that it would be the first one.  If the Bills already had a Lombardi and subsequently won in a shortened season, then I'd be all over it.

 

But not for the first.

I'm sorry for repeating myself, but, there's really only one appropriate response to this drivel.  

 

boo*****inghoo

[BuffaloHokie13]

2 hours ago, machine gun kelly said:

Peterman, I broke it down yesterday and over 10 years as I broke it down, 13-20 had a winning record, and the rest were 8-8.  Not one team would be a wildcard team with a losing record, and in that same decade there were two division winners, with a 7-9 record, most notably Seattle.

 

people that keep purporting a wildcard team will have a losing record did not do their homework.  Don’t take my word for it, I simply went year by year on a google search from 2010-19, and the facts are clear.

Not refuting your point, as you're correct, but Carolina was 7-8-1, not 7-9. *pushing glasses with tape on bridge up emoji*

[Gugny]

58 minutes ago, Cripple Creek said:

I'm sorry for repeating myself, but, there's really only one appropriate response to this drivel.  

 

boo*****inghoo

 

In fairness to you, I will probably feel the same when I'm your age.

 

Have a lovely day, sir, and be well.

[Artem Lipatov]

I can't understand the moaning about playoffs expansion from fans of franchise which could not clinch playoff spot for 17 years!

 

When you are in division with powerful dynasty you are fightnig every year for just 2 wild card spots. Your odds are 2 of 12 other teams who can't win division. If you have  2 guaranteed  losses (like we and Pats almost every season) your chances to watch your team in postseason are minimal. And you must wait for a decade to watch 1 game (loss). 

So I am absolutely happy about expansion. And it must be not 14 but 16 teams in PO like in NHL and NBA. 

[Cripple Creek]

45 minutes ago, Gugny said:

 

In fairness to you, I will probably feel the same when I'm your age.

 

Have a lovely day, sir, and be well.

If you dance on my grave I'll haunt you.

[GunnerBill]

2 hours ago, Gugny said:

 

I would, yes.

 

Just like I didn't feel like the drought ended when Cincinnati got us into the playoffs.

 

I think the key, here, is that it would be the first one.  If the Bills already had a Lombardi and subsequently won in a shortened season, then I'd be all over it.

 

But not for the first.

 

I enjoyed Cincy getting us in a lot. Because the Bills had earned their way in over a long haul of a 16 game season. The simple fact is that while it came down to a play right at the end of the season when all the points were tallied up and all the tie breakers were applied the Bills earned their spot. 

 

And it is that same reasoning that leads me to disagree on Cincy that leads me to agree on winning a Superbowl after a shortened season. One of the reasons a Superbowl win is so special is that you start earning it in the grind of training camp on hot July afternoons. You have to withstand that barrage of weather, injuries, officiating and exhaustion that is thrown at you over 16 long weeks and then you have to stiffen your resolve once more to find your way past 3 (2 if you are the #1 seed) of the best teams in the league in back to back weeks to get a shot at the prize. And even after that you have to be able to put aside all the distractions of the fortnight build up to the big game, to ignore the hype and to look past the enormity to stay in the moment and perform under the highest scrutiny and pressure on the biggest stage of all. 32 teams set off on that road and only 1 is left standing. 

 

Winning a Superbowl after an 8 game season would be nice. But it wouldn't quite feel earned to me in the same way. And on that point I totally agree with Gug. 

[NoHuddleKelly12]

Poor Bengals, poor Browns—how embarrassing to still prolly miss the playoffs for the next 10 years even with an expanded field where anyone with a pulse will likely get in now! 

[ndirish1978]

17 hours ago, MJS said:

It's not hard to understand. It's lower quality because you are letting two lesser teams into the playoffs. Worse teams = worse quality. Not to mention you will increase the number of blowouts because you have fewer teams with a bye and the top teams will now be facing worse teams.

 

Condescending answer and completely wrong. It's not hard to understand that a weak division with a division-winner who ekes in to the playoffs at 8-8 is a worse quality team than the 10-6 team that came in second in their division and missed the playoffs because of tiebreakers.

[MJS]

3 minutes ago, ndirish1978 said:

Condescending answer and completely wrong. It's not hard to understand that a weak division with a division-winner who ekes in to the playoffs at 8-8 is a worse quality team than the 10-6 team that came in second in their division and missed the playoffs because of tiebreakers.

 

Such a situation is rare. Usually division winners are strong teams.

[Franco_92]

4 hours ago, Gugny said:

 

I would, yes.

 

Just like I didn't feel like the drought ended when Cincinnati got us into the playoffs.

 

I think the key, here, is that it would be the first one.  If the Bills already had a Lombardi and subsequently won in a shortened season, then I'd be all over it.

 

But not for the first.

I can follow your baseball reasoning, but the Bills/Bengals in 2017 is nowhere close to the same thing. The Bills were objectively in the top 6 AFC teams by the established rules, and no matter how they got in there, any team below them was infinitely less deserving of the spot. Was Baltimore supposed to get in after failing to beat a weak Bengals team when that was all they needed to do to get in?

Edited April 1, 2020 by arcane

[Warcodered]

Thinking about the seeding with who gets to play who and really all that's changed is the 2nd seed doesn't get a bye anymore and has to play the 7th best team everything else is the same.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Warcodered

[RalphWilson'sNewWar]

Probably the most significant improvement for me with the league going to 14 playoff teams is...

 

ELIMINATE

 

The phony benchmark of simply ‘making the playoffs.’

 

belitve me when you are fan that has sunk as low as Buffalo is...you see first hand how quickly many are to crown even the slightest achievements.

 

a team simply making the playoffs or winning a division should always be incredibly low on any accomplishment level.  And yet simply making the playoffs has saved or extended many a coaches career in certain towns when they were obviously not the right person for the job.

 

it should only be about one thing Super Bowls.  Simply making the playoffs now does (as it always should of) mean squat.

[billsfan89]

8 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I don't agree. The last couple of years the Thursday night games have been really good. I know the players hate them but the quality has been much better and the overall product is far superior. I know ESPN is now owned by Disney but they might as well have Donald Duck presenting and Micky and Minnie Mouse in the announcers box. 

 

If you just prefer the Monday Night time slot to the Thursday time slot that is fair enough. But as products MNF has been absolutely atrocious for a long time now. 

 

The Monday night time slot is much better for the NFL week and the players than the Thursday night slot. But while I will agree that the Thursday game last season was in general better than the Monday Night games; but over the past 5 years I think the Thursday game has rarely been good (Usually it is typically a sloppy game that is a blowout), whereas the Monday night game has been more consistent despite not having marquee matchups anymore. I will agree that both have paled in comparison to the Sunday night game. 

 

I think that the Monday game serves as a fun final NFL game to cap a week. Whereas the Thursday game happen only 3 days later and isn't an effective way to kick off an NFL week. The decline of Monday Night football stems from Sunday Night Football getting the "A slate" of games and the Thursday game coming just a few days later (thus eliminating the whole last chance to see football for 5-6 days thing.) 

 

ESPN's poor presentation has not helped either. If I were in charge of the NFL I would gut the Thursday game (Except for Thanksgiving and opening week) and focus on rebuilding MNF as a big prime time event. I would try to keep SNF as big of a deal as it is but try to force ESPN to make broadcast improvements while getting as good of a slate of games as possible. Maybe I am just antiquated but I never really enjoyed TNF.

[GunnerBill]

55 minutes ago, billsfan89 said:

 

The Monday night time slot is much better for the NFL week and the players than the Thursday night slot. But while I will agree that the Thursday game last season was in general better than the Monday Night games; but over the past 5 years I think the Thursday game has rarely been good (Usually it is typically a sloppy game that is a blowout), whereas the Monday night game has been more consistent despite not having marquee matchups anymore. I will agree that both have paled in comparison to the Sunday night game. 

 

I think that the Monday game serves as a fun final NFL game to cap a week. Whereas the Thursday game happen only 3 days later and isn't an effective way to kick off an NFL week. The decline of Monday Night football stems from Sunday Night Football getting the "A slate" of games and the Thursday game coming just a few days later (thus eliminating the whole last chance to see football for 5-6 days thing.) 

 

ESPN's poor presentation has not helped either. If I were in charge of the NFL I would gut the Thursday game (Except for Thanksgiving and opening week) and focus on rebuilding MNF as a big prime time event. I would try to keep SNF as big of a deal as it is but try to force ESPN to make broadcast improvements while getting as good of a slate of games as possible. Maybe I am just antiquated but I never really enjoyed TNF.

 

So I'd cut MNF. And I wouldn't even think twice. Nostalgia is the only argument I can see for keeping it. The games have sucked for years and the product sucks even worse. 

[GoBills808]

Yes

[stuvian]

On 3/31/2020 at 4:18 PM, BigBillsFan said:

 

My former business was run on sponsorships or what would be called influencer marketing today. The central influencer was the head of a forum, but he stayed neutral and made money from ad revenue and sponsoring only certain products. Then he started to sponsor a product daily, then he made divisions of the site and sponsored multiple products a day and after 12 months the business was shut down from over-exposure but he did pocket some good coin. He would have done better not spamming the daylights out of the members and created a long-term business. The problem is you don't think it will disappear. Your arrogance blinds you and it's too late to fix.

very insightful article. If I ever get a web business going you might be my go to guru

[machine gun kelly]

10 hours ago, BuffaloHokie13 said:

Not refuting your point, as you're correct, but Carolina was 7-8-1, not 7-9. *pushing glasses with tape on bridge up emoji*

Hey Buffalo, I don’t have the time to look it up if you meant Carolina was a division winner, as that was not the point.  All of this misinformation, again not by you, or anyone per se, but there would not be a wildcard in the last 10 years with a losing record in the wildcard which was the conversation.

 

Added, NFLR quoted from one of the sports data sources in the last 30 years, 44 of the 60 teams had a winning record if they were in as the 7th team, and 10 of those had 10 or more wins and didn’t make the playoffs.  Only 1 of 60 ( .0166% ) in 1990, the Dallas Cowboys would have made it in as a wildcard as a 7th team.  I think we can put to bed the argument of the extra wildcard could have a losing record.  Nothing we could do about a division winner as that will never never change.

[billsfan89]

3 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

So I'd cut MNF. And I wouldn't even think twice. Nostalgia is the only argument I can see for keeping it. The games have sucked for years and the product sucks even worse. 

 

I think the players would much rather play on Monday than on Thursday for that reason alone I would just keep MNF and ditch the Thursday games. That's the best argument against the Thursday games is that the players really express disdain for it. Monday being on a 24 hour difference is something no player has expressed concerns over. I also argue that unlike the Thursday games where a lot of the play is sloppy due to lack of practice and a quick turnaround the issue with the Monday games not being of the highest quality is fixable  by getting them a better slate of games and improving the broadcast. 

[GunnerBill]

3 minutes ago, billsfan89 said:

 

I think the players would much rather play on Monday than on Thursday for that reason alone I would just keep MNF and ditch the Thursday games. That's the best argument against the Thursday games is that the players really express disdain for it. Monday being on a 24 hour difference is something no player has expressed concerns over. I also argue that unlike the Thursday games where a lot of the play is sloppy due to lack of practice and a quick turnaround the issue with the Monday games not being of the highest quality is fixable  by getting them a better slate of games and improving the broadcast. 

 

I guess I just think the sloppy play on Thursdays thing has solved itself to an extent. It took the clubs a few years but they seem to have worked out how to adjust their schedules to it and the quality of those games has improved. They have also improved for exactly the reason you say as well though - the Thursday slate of games last year was just a better slate than MNF. 

 

I do get that the players don't like them. My second preference is to just move the Thursday night package (the games, the production, the announcers, the network deals) lock stock and barrel to the Monday slot but that won't happen while ESPN are around. I am not against Monday Nights as a concept. I am against it as a product. The product sucks. At the moment MNF is living on reputation and little else. 

 

From a purely selfish perspective I prefer the Thursday slot to the Monday slot. I can stay up and watch the first half of a Thursday game knowing Friday is my quietest day of most weeks and I can catch up on any sleep over the weekend. If I am up at 3am UK time on Monday night / Tuesday morning that is my sleep screwed for the week.  

[billsfan89]

50 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I guess I just think the sloppy play on Thursdays thing has solved itself to an extent. It took the clubs a few years but they seem to have worked out how to adjust their schedules to it and the quality of those games has improved. They have also improved for exactly the reason you say as well though - the Thursday slate of games last year was just a better slate than MNF. 

 

I do get that the players don't like them. My second preference is to just move the Thursday night package (the games, the production, the announcers, the network deals) lock stock and barrel to the Monday slot but that won't happen while ESPN are around. I am not against Monday Nights as a concept. I am against it as a product. The product sucks. At the moment MNF is living on reputation and little else. 

 

From a purely selfish perspective I prefer the Thursday slot to the Monday slot. I can stay up and watch the first half of a Thursday game knowing Friday is my quietest day of most weeks and I can catch up on any sleep over the weekend. If I am up at 3am UK time on Monday night / Tuesday morning that is my sleep screwed for the week.  

 

I agree with your assessment that they should transfer the slate of games from Thursday to Monday, that would fix the tremendous problem of the games being bad. I guess my point is that the issues with MNF are fixable whereas almost no matter what you do (unless you mandate the teams playing on Thursday's have a bye the week before) the short turnaround for TNF is almost always going to be an issue. 

 

Whereas MNF doesn't have that same huge logistical barrier, they just need to improve the selection of games and the broadcast. I know hardcore football fans who really love TNF for the reasons you stated. I think TNF is really loved by the hardcore fan as long as the quality of the games is decent. BUT I think for casual fans and the quality of the product TNF should go.