Buffalo had the hardest path to the Conference Championship, but won't get any credit for it

[Punching Bag]

If Bills win Superbowl it will be talked about all off-season.  It Bills lose it will be ignored.

[transplantbillsfan]

3 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

 

Why is that important?

 

Also, it's worth noting that the Bucs lost to the Saints twice this year.  You left that out.  Also, the Colts were the only team the Steelers beat in their stunning (1-5) end of season collapse.  Also, "the Browns" beat the Colts.

 

It's important because the Bills have had one of the toughest schedules in the NFL and have one of the best records in the NFL.

 

And they have had the toughest path to the Conference Championship game.

 

What don't you get?

[transplantbillsfan]

3 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Can I find an article making this one specific point otherwise it proves the Bills don't get any credit? That doesn't make sense. You know that, right? In the last fortnight I have read FMIA, MMQB and The Athletic all write in detail about the fantastic work McDermott and Beane have done and the development leap Josh has made and this playoff run being the culmination of that. I have watched Chris Simms talk in depth about how well they played Saturday. Mooch talked on Sunday about the great coaching job by McDermott and Frazier. We had Brian Baldinger on the UK broadcast saying the Bills were great.... I don't get it. Who are the people you want to give the Bills more dues? Is it the people on those shouty table programmes? Is that really what we are talking about? Is it Skip and Steven A? Nick Wright? I mean come on. Why do we take to heart what those sorts of clowns say? 

 

Buddy, you know the thread title is pretty specific in terms of that credit, right?

 

I'm not here saying the Bills are a crappy team, but as another poster said, you living in England and (perhaps???) not having WNY roots might not help you to actually see that most of the conversation nationally right now is about the Bucs, Packers and Chiefs.

 

I asked you to find something involving someone talking about how tough the teams are compared to those other teams' competition.  Honestly, based on the gap in competition, it seems like someone nationally would have talked about it at some point.  It's an obvious talking point for someone.

 

So I asked you hoping you'd heard someone talking about it, because you seemed to insinuate they've been given credit for it.

3 hours ago, Sharky7337 said:

Well this added practically nothing of value 

 

It's who he is...

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

No need to find moral victories, they are producing actual victories 

[transplantbillsfan]

3 hours ago, FireChans said:

How? He is saying beating the Chiefs without Mahomes will set up a narrative that we didn’t “beat anybody.”

 

Like that is fundamentally not true. We already got praised for beating our other two opponents. It is fundamentally untrue.

 

I agree.  It's fundamentally not true that we didn't beat anybody.

 

I GUARANTEE that if Mahomes doesn't play, the media narrative will be that we escaped the Colts because Rivers missed a guy in the EZ, we beat the Ravens because Jackson was out for a quarter and a half and missed an easy TD on the 3rd down right before that INT,  and we beat the Chiefs because... well, obviously they don't have Mahomes.

 

Now, I don't agree with the first 2 of those, but those are actually narratives that are already spinning out there right now.  It'll just get stronger leading up to the Super Bowl if we beat the Chiefs without Mahomes.  Give me Mahomes.  Let's beat him.  And let's go into the Super Bowl brimming with confidence.

[FireChans]

7 minutes ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

I agree.  It's fundamentally not true that we didn't beat anybody.

 

I GUARANTEE that if Mahomes doesn't play, the media narrative will be that we escaped the Colts because Rivers missed a guy in the EZ, we beat the Ravens because Jackson was out for a quarter and a half and missed an easy TD on the 3rd down right before that INT,  and we beat the Chiefs because... well, obviously they don't have Mahomes.

 

Now, I don't agree with the first 2 of those, but those are actually narratives that are already spinning out there right now.  It'll just get stronger leading up to the Super Bowl if we beat the Chiefs without Mahomes.  Give me Mahomes.  Let's beat him.  And let's go into the Super Bowl brimming with confidence.

Those narratives aren't really happening right now.

 

I've heard, "The Colts are a good team with a good defense that the Bills beat" and "Josh wasn;t spectacular vs the Ravens but they shut down the run and dared Lamar to throw."

 

Not sure that's going to change.

[BADOLBILZ]

3 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Yea. If Mahomes doesn't play Sunday it is probably a story in the build up to the Bills playing in the Superbowl. It might linger into the dead months of the offseason "ah but what if they played Mahomes?" By this time next year? Ancient history and absolutely nobody cares. All that matters is who hoists that sticky Lombardi.

 

 

Exactly.

 

As @Zerovoltz said in a thread earlier this week........nobody cares if you likely only won because of another teams injury.

 

It's football........the most important ability is availability.

 

 As I said in that response.......the 1976 Steelers might be remembered as the greatest team ever........but for losing both of their 1,000 yard rushers in a blowout of the Colts in the divisional round.   

 

Without them the Raiders survived and advanced versus the Steelers.......winning SB XI versus the Vikings.......thereby eliminating the narrative that they were chokers in the playoffs.    

 

Totally changed how people viewed the Raiders organization and nobody remembers the bad break for the Steelers even though it was right in the middle of 4 other SB wins.

 

IMO both Peyton Manning SB wins were the result of bad health/injury breaks for the Patriots in those seasons as well.

[US Egg]

"Buffalo had the hardest path to the Conference Championship, but won't get any credit for it"

 

Caring about what others think? Not me.

 

Bills have given their fans satisfaction.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

15 hours ago, Bronxbomber21 said:

Doesnt matter the excuses are all ready set for when the Bills Win. But but but Mahomes was INJURED and shouldn't have been out on the field. That KC beat themselves and the Bills didn't win . That Pat's bad game wasn't because of the Bills defense but because of his concussion or it was his toe  lmao

It is comical how much play they've gotten out of the 'the team the bills were playing beat themselves' bit haha I could see using that for a few regular season games but we are 15-3 with one hail mary loss and the fact that our qb was injured for the other two losses apparently means nothing 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Nextmanup]

3 hours ago, RunJoshRun said:

Why are many worried about the Bills getting recognition or National attention?  That's a small town attitude.  Who cares?  Just win all the games and someone, somewhere will notice.  GO BILLS! 

Buffalo is a small town, and many here suffer from this need.

 

 

 

 

[transplantbillsfan]

6 hours ago, FireChans said:

Man if Mahomes plays well and we lose, I will hold you personally responsible for this outlandish take.

 

If Mahomes plays and plays well and we lose, we just aren't quite there yet.

 

I prefer the Bills being the Patriots of the Brady/Manning era rather than the Colts.

[transplantbillsfan]

3 hours ago, FireChans said:

Those narratives aren't really happening right now.

 

I've heard, "The Colts are a good team with a good defense that the Bills beat" and "Josh wasn;t spectacular vs the Ravens but they shut down the run and dared Lamar to throw."

 

Not sure that's going to change.

 

We're watching different stuff.

 

Lately instead of actually watching all the shows in order to get a relatively small amount of meaningful Bills discussion I've been going on YouTube just typing in "Buffalo Bills" for the latest analysis on the latest games.

 

The narratives I posted above have come from plenty of outlets and respected analysts who are NOT ESPN or Skip Bayless.

 

Today on GMFB, just as a single example, they were debating Josh Allen and potential Superstar status. I think it was Schrager who basically said Allen needs to be spectacular against the Chiefs to reach superstar status because he's been underwhelming in the playoffs.

 

Underwhelming? The only reason we won the Colts game was because of Allen, who threw for over 300 yards, rushed for over 50 and had 3 TDs and 0 turnovers.

 

Allen was fantastic against the Colts who have one of the best Defenses in the NFL.

 

But for a highly respected football guy--and that's what Schrager is--it was forgotten.

 

As for the whole "small town attitude" some of you are referencing... well... yep. I'm from WNY and am darn proud of what my team's doing while I live 6,000 miles away. Forgive those of us who have WNY roots if we feel our team deserves more honest attention.

[machine gun kelly]

I am born and raised in Hamburg, and could care less about national attention.  We’ll get all the attention some people need when we win.  If we lose, we were not the better team on that day.  It’s going to be a great game, and as long as we play our best, I’m happy.  I expected to win the last two games, but just hoping for the best this Sunday.

 

Just expect everyone all week will predict a Chiefs win.  I could care less.  It makes it that much more enjoyable of we win.  Then if the SB opponent is GB, I’ll expect for two weeks we’ll hear about how they are the better team.  Win that one and we’ll get all the recognition some desire as SB champs.

[GunnerBill]

4 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

Buddy, you know the thread title is pretty specific in terms of that credit, right?

 

I'm not here saying the Bills are a crappy team, but as another poster said, you living in England and (perhaps???) not having WNY roots might not help you to actually see that most of the conversation nationally right now is about the Bucs, Packers and Chiefs.

 

I asked you to find something involving someone talking about how tough the teams are compared to those other teams' competition.  Honestly, based on the gap in competition, it seems like someone nationally would have talked about it at some point.  It's an obvious talking point for someone.

 

So I asked you hoping you'd heard someone talking about it, because you seemed to insinuate they've been given credit for it.

 

It's who he is...

 

No it was yet another "nobody respects the Bills" threat. They are utterly and completely tiresome.

[GunnerBill]

51 minutes ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

As for the whole "small town attitude" some of you are referencing... well... yep. I'm from WNY and am darn proud of what my team's doing while I live 6,000 miles away. Forgive those of us who have WNY roots if we feel our team deserves more honest attention.

 

Exactly and it alters your perception of the reality on this stuff.

[No_Matter_What]

First of all I don't get why so many of you care so much what people in TV say but it is what it is.

 

@transplantbillsfan I still don't get your post. Are you complaining that we don't get national attention in general, or are you complaining that we don't get enough credit for hardest path so far? Has anybody actually said that some other team had harder path? It is hard to believe.

 

But when it comes to judging the path, you are doing exactly what you blame others for. You have narrative and agenda. Let's talk about facts. Chiefs and Packers played one game so far, so they are not even in conversation. We have played two 11-5 teams at home, Tampa has played 7-9 and 12-4 teams on the road. I say it is pretty similar, with our games being slightly harder overall. I don't think many people would argue that Tampa had harder path.

 

But what you say is agenda. You are trying to tweak everything so it sounds we had the worst of it, and omitting everything else. You are talking about missed FGs, teams being hot, scores in the middle of the game, scope of game film, etc. You are cherry-picking and intentionally omitting anything not fitting your narrative.

 

To be clear, as I said above I do agree with you about harder path, but I comment on the way you are manipulating facts. And I also agree with everything else you said - I want Mahomes to play and I think we can/will beat every team we face.

 

And for those of you who are already commenting what will happen when we beat Chiefs with Mahomes - i.e. that some talking heads will discredit us due to him not being 100%. And what is wrong with that? Many posters here are comparing AFCCG with our first game against Chiefs and never fail to mention that Josh had his shoulder hurt. How is this different, except for the fact that Mahomes' injuries (toe and head) are much more visible? If he is limited in the game, it is pretty normal that people will mention it. But it will obviously doesn't put any asterisk on our potential SB win.

[Thurman#1]

15 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

I don't get where the "they get no credit" narrative comes from. Everyone I watch, read and listen to is giving the Bills a ton of credit and deservedly so. There is that bozzo Nick Wright who likes playing a WWE heel type character but who else isn't giving them credit? 

 

 

Yup. And apparently the Bills are the same.

 

Fairburn and Buscaglia were cracking up about that this week on their podcast. They told several stories about how the Bills at various times had said things along the lines of, "We know you all thought we were gonna lose." And the reporter would crack up and say, "You know half of us picked you to win this week, right?" And the players would say, "No, we meant the national media."

 

And yet the national media had also been picking the Bills. Buscaglia said the Bills thrive on it. They love that feeling, the way the Pats for years, even after winning championships would find ways to think everyone doubted them.

 

What good it does for fans though, I just haven't a clue.

[Bill from NYC]

9 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 As I said in that response.......the 1976 Steelers might be remembered as the greatest team ever........but for losing both of their 1,000 yard rushers in a blowout of the Colts in the divisional round.   

 

Without them the Raiders survived and advanced versus the Steelers.......winning SB XI versus the Vikings.......thereby eliminating the narrative that they were chokers in the playoffs.    

 

Totally changed how people viewed the Raiders organization and nobody remembers the bad break for the Steelers even though it was right in the middle of 4 other SB wins.

 

It amazes me that you remember this stuff. 😲👍

 

That Raider team was GREAT. I was just a kid and the Raiders vs. Vikings Super Bowl was the biggest bet I have ever made in my life, even to this day. The Raiders were only minus 4 1/2, and they were twice the size of the Vikes. Their receivers were fantastic (including TE Dave Casper) and the had what just might have been the best OL of all time. Stabler was the perfect QB for this bunch of psychos too. Opposing receivers were scared for their life to go over the middle against Tatum and Atkinson. Stabler wrote in his book that he was actually a bit scared of a few of his teammates. 

 

Were they as good as the Steelers? Nah, the Steelers were  a complete, perfect team, but I really am glad that this Raider team got to win a Super Bowl!!!

 

 

[Thurman#1]

10 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

Buddy, you know the thread title is pretty specific in terms of that credit, right?

 

I'm not here saying the Bills are a crappy team, but as another poster said, you living in England and (perhaps???) not having WNY roots might not help you to actually see that most of the conversation nationally right now is about the Bucs, Packers and Chiefs.

 

I asked you to find something involving someone talking about how tough the teams are compared to those other teams' competition.  Honestly, based on the gap in competition, it seems like someone nationally would have talked about it at some point.  It's an obvious talking point for someone.

 

So I asked you hoping you'd heard someone talking about it, because you seemed to insinuate they've been given credit for it.

 

It's who he is...

 

 

To see that nationally most of the talk is about the Bucs, Packers and Chiefs, he would need not just WNY roots, but also a willingness to ignore reality and probably some alcohol besides.

 

There's a ton of Bills talk out there.

 

#2 in power rankings:  https://www.thelines.com/betting/nfl/power-rankings/

 

#3: https://www.arrowheadpride.com/2021/1/19/22238594/conference-championship-ap-nfl-power-rankings-the-best-possible-final-four  

 

 

#3:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_Wn1PwNNuk

 

#2:  https://walterfootball.com/nflpowerrankings.php 

 

#3:  https://www.sportsnet.ca/nfl/article/nfl-playoff-power-rankings-conference-championship-x-factors/

 

#2:  https://www.radio.com/sports/nfl/gallery/nfl-power-rankings-who-are-the-postseason-favorites   

 

It goes on and on and on.

 

 

Haven't yet found one where we're #4. There are long clips of Cowherd, Simms, the NFL network groups, Eisen, and on and on and on talking about and extensively praising the Bills. I haven't seen anyone rank them #1, so I guess there's that, but why would any neutral person rank them over the 14-2 Chiefs, assuming their QB plays? But I also haven't seen people giving them no chance over the Chiefs, outside that buffoon Bill mentioned above.

 

 

 

[Thurman#1]

Oh, and as for the hardest playoff schedule, of course they do. The #1 seed never has a hard schedule. That's how the playoffs are set up. Whoever faces the #1 seed, assuming they make it, as they have, will of course have a harder schedule.

 

And yes, the AFC playoff field was a bit harder than the NFC. So of course they do. Difficulty of playoff opponents isn't a big mention because it generally isn't, unless somebody beats the #1 or #2 seed.

 

Win or lose, and eke by or dominate, that's going to be the story every year.