What a run since Denver and 5-5

[BRH]

Think about where the Bills were at the end of the Denver game.  5-5 with a bunch of embarrassing, almost inexplicable losses (Jets, Jags, Pats, Broncos), a fired OC, and injuries (Milano, Tre, DQ) that seemed poised to emasculate our defense.  Then the Ty Dunne hit piece on McD, plus people like Timmy Graham intent on manufacturing Diggs drama for clicks.

 

The road ahead looked like this:  games against Philly, Kansas City, Dallas, and Miami (three of them on the road), plus the Jets and Pats again, plus a west coast trip to play the Chargers on a short week.  And they had to go at least 6-1 against that stretch to get to 11 wins or we were going home at the end of the season.

 

And they did it, and they were a ridiculous 59-yard FG in the rain away from going 7-0 over that stretch.

 

In this league?  That's ***** incredible, people.  I never want to hear from the "fire McD" or "trade Josh" people again.

[Doc]

Beane saved the season with his trades and acquisitions. 

[BillsPride12]

The way everything went down this year this one was by far the most satisfying Division title.

[T master]

3 minutes ago, BRH said:

Think about where the Bills were at the end of the Denver game.  5-5 with a bunch of embarrassing, almost inexplicable losses (Jets, Jags, Pats, Broncos), a fired OC, and injuries (Milano, Tre, DQ) that seemed poised to emasculate our defense.  Then the Ty Dunne hit piece on McD, plus people like Timmy Graham intent on manufacturing Diggs drama for clicks.

 

The road ahead looked like this:  games against Philly, Kansas City, Dallas, and Miami (three of them on the road), plus the Jets and Pats again, plus a west coast trip to play the Chargers on a short week.  And they had to go at least 6-1 against that stretch to get to 11 wins or we were going home at the end of the season.

 

And they did it, and they were a ridiculous 59-yard FG in the rain away from going 7-0 over that stretch.

 

In this league?  That's ***** incredible, people.  I never want to hear from the "fire McD" or "trade Josh" people again.

 

Agree especially the fire McD people they can all go P**S up a rope !! But even though they are all jumping on the Bills wagon as it goes by them to the play offs & home field but they will still find something to complain about because they are never happy especially if the Bills lose then McD is a POS HC ...

 

GO BILLS !!!! 

[Captain Hindsight]

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

I’m sure I’m in the minority but a couple of those felt pretty explicable to me lol. That defensive depth chart we had available mid jags game through NE(and especially NE because no Ed Oliver in that one either) was one of the worst units that took the field for any team this year talent wise.  Even the bad defenses have 1 or two big time disrupters on the defensive side and we just had no one 
 

if Douglas was acclimated in the defense and on the roster right when tre white went down I think we win 13 games and maybe 14.  Still an inexplicable loss to NYJ though 😂

Edited January 8 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Bferra13]

It hasn't been pretty, but McD said it best himself, "resiliency." These guys ride and die together. So proud of them this am.

[K-9]

Well, my prediction turned out to be a 6-1 heater with an overtime loss on the road at Philly the only blemish, but I’ll take it. 

Edited January 8 by K-9

[SoCal Deek]

Did anyone notice/hear Diggs and Josh telling each other “four more” as they hugged following the game last night? I was impressed that they demonstrated that mind set….and they did it with hands clasped over their mouths as if they didn’t want anyone outside the inner circle to know that’s the way they’re thinking. 

[nedboy7]

Very impressive team.  I think we found our new head coach going forward. 

[Buffalo_Stampede]

They did this during the 13 second year also. But this climb up was much more difficult because we had Eagles, Cowboys, Chiefs, and Dolphins left on the schedule. I buried them. Predicted 7-10 when they were 6-6.

[wppete]

We should’ve won the Philly game. We let them have that one 

[BBFL]

37 minutes ago, Captain Hindsight said:

Need smaller than that. A shot glass maybe?

[LabattBlue]

51 minutes ago, BRH said:

I never want to hear from the "fire McD" or "trade Josh" people again.

“Never” is a long long time. 😂

[Coach Tuesday]

Who is saying “trade Josh”?

[Rubes]

"This year is nothing like 2021. The schedule is much harder this year. No way they win out and make the playoffs this time."

 

[nedboy7]

26 minutes ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

They did this during the 13 second year also. But this climb up was much more difficult because we had Eagles, Cowboys, Chiefs, and Dolphins left on the schedule. I buried them. Predicted 7-10 when they were 6-6.

 

Shame!

[Freak-O]

So with Dorsey we were 5-5 and without him 6-1 (with more injuries and facing Miami, KC, Philly and Dallas). Even though it hasn’t always looked pretty with Brady I’d say firing Dorsey was the right thing to do. 

[PayDaBill$]

34 minutes ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

They did this during the 13 second year also. But this climb up was much more difficult because we had Eagles, Cowboys, Chiefs, and Dolphins left on the schedule. I buried them. Predicted 7-10 when they were 6-6.

No shame in that, I did as well. We were playing awful and Dorsey didn’t look like the answer, we were starting to see injuries, JA was completely out of sorts & the schedule remaining was pretty difficult.  As an objective fan I saw it the same way. It looked daunting.

 

Edited January 8 by PayDaBill$

[TheWei44]

One of many factors in the amazing run is by being in playoff mode, it freed Josh to run more (which seems very natural to him and fires him up). Much harder to defend us when he can run on any down and in any situation. 

[Beck Water]

Reid Ferguson has advice for Nick Wright:

 

 

[Dubie54]

8 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

Reid Ferguson has advice for Nick Wright:

 

 

These commentators don't know jack and I think all of this Steve K dockers pants % figures for the odds of this and that happening is just useless. 

[Buffalo_Stampede]

24 minutes ago, PayDaBill$ said:

No shame in that, I did as well. We were playing awful and Dorsey didn’t look like the answer, we were starting to see injuries, JA was completely out of sorts & the schedule remaining was pretty difficult.  As an objective fan I saw it the same way. It looked daunting.

 

It wasn’t Dorsey for me it was the injuries. I didn’t think we could overcome them. I don’t really think the Dorsey firing was much of an impact like people want to believe. But that’s a different topic.

[nedboy7]

Wish we could revisit everyone's W/L predictions from the preseason so we can all see how useless of an exercise it is. 

[Bills fan since 87]

1 hour ago, BillsPride12 said:

The way everything went down this year this one was by far the most satisfying Division title.

 

Hard to beat the first one in 25 years but this one is really close.  Now lets go win the whole thing

[folz]

1 hour ago, wppete said:

We should’ve won the Philly game. We let them have that one 

 

Let's face it, the refs let them have that one.

 

First half, when the Bills were rolling and Philly was struggling, the refs called 10 penalties on the Bills and only one 5-yard false start against the Eagles. And the Eagles weren't flagged again until :38 seconds left in regulation There were so many blatant Eagles penalties that they didn't call. And many of the Bills penalties were BS or ticky-tack calls. And then there was the Eagles fumble at the end of the game that they called an incomplete pass. Game would have been over right there with a Bills win if they made that one call correctly. And with all of that, the Eagles still needed to hit a miraculous 59-yard field goal to stay alive.

 

We may not have gotten the W in the win column, but we won that game.

 

[BRH]

1 hour ago, Coach Tuesday said:

Who is saying “trade Josh”?

 

You don't visit the gameday threads much (which makes you better and smarter than me ), but you'll find those folks in there.

[RoyBatty is alive]

1 hour ago, Doc said:

Beane saved the season with his trades and acquisitions. 

Rasul Douglas!!

[Doc]

3 minutes ago, RoyBatty is alive said:

Rasul Douglas!!

 

Joseph as well.

[Jauronimo]

Every team we have lost to missed the playoffs or has had their season go up in flames.  Jets, Jags, Pats, Denver, Bengals all missed the post season.   Philly has gone 1 - 4 since beating us and their players are dropping like flies.  Total disarray.  Its really bad karma to beat the Bills. The rest of the league should probably forfeit and look out for their best interest.

Edited January 8 by Jauronimo

[Logic]

Three main tangible factors:

Brandon Beane's mid-season defensive acquisitions. I'm not sure the Bills would've won some of the games they did without Rasul Douglas and, to a lesser but still appreciable extent, Linval Joseph.

Sean McDermott's defensive about-face after the bye. Coach said that he and his staff took a long, hard look at the defense during the bye week and did a lot of tinkering, and boy, did it show. Ever since the bye week, the Bills defense has been lights out. They held the Cowboys, Dolphins, and Chiefs each under 20 points. The last few games, they're giving up something like 16.5 points per game. An incredible turnaround, especially given the injuries and mid-season replacements.

Joe Brady. No, it has not been perfect. No, I'm not sold that he's the long term answer at OC. Still, his insertion as playcaller came at just the right moment to save the season, IMO. He focused on the run game when he needed to, oversaw an offense that turned the ball over less, and injected some spark and life and fun into this offense. 

And one main intangible factor:

Resilience. Call it perseverance, guts, fortitude, toughness...call it whatever you want. Even with all of the above factors...for this team to come together the way they did, shut out the haters and national perspective on them, overcome the turmoil around the McDermott article, and take care of business the way they did is extremely impressive. "Mental toughness" gets used so much that it can sometimes be eyeroll-inducing. But in this case, it's absolutely an accurate term. Kudos to these players and coaches. To win the AFC East and secure the 2-seed after everything they went through this year is massively impressive, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

 

[PBF81]

3 minutes ago, RoyBatty is alive said:

Rasul Douglas!!

 

THANK YOU!!

 

without his pick-6 and Harty's PR/TD, we'd be the same .500 at 3-3 and 2-4 in the division.  

 

Meanwhile, Diggs has been at half his prior production, all but literally, with only one TD, Allen's passing numbers are down, or PPG are down by 1.2, and Cook's YPC average is 3.6 in six games apart from one Dallas game as an extreme statistical outlier with his next two best having been earlier this season, and with not one other even slightly impressive rushing performance in those games.

 

It's that a good thing.  Asking rhetorically.  

 

 

[BigAl2526]

Buffalo has the longest active win streak in the league right now.

[RoyBatty is alive]

1 minute ago, PBF81 said:

 

THANK YOU!!

 

without his pick-6 and Harty's PR/TD, we'd be the same .500 at 3-3 and 2-4 in the division.  

 

Meanwhile, Diggs has been at half his prior production, all but literally, with only one TD, Allen's passing numbers are down, or PPG are down by 1.2, and Cook's YPC average is 3.6 in six games apart from one Dallas game as an extreme statistical outlier with his next two best having been earlier this season, and with not one other even slightly impressive rushing performance in those games.

 

It's that a good thing.  Asking rhetorically.  

 

 

Re Diggs, he had two steps on his defender yesterday and ALLEN MISSED HIM Badly or that would have been an ESPN highlight!

[Beck Water]

30 minutes ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

It wasn’t Dorsey for me it was the injuries. I didn’t think we could overcome them. I don’t really think the Dorsey firing was much of an impact like people want to believe. But that’s a different topic.

 

I think it did have a positive impact, and maybe more strongly than people think.  Not because of profound changes in the scheme or personnel usage or anything like that, though I'm not sure Dorsey could or would have put that Dallas offensive game plan together and that was f*'ing brilliant (just in terms of Dallas DC sitting there going "Bills power run game mowing us down I did NOT have that on my bingo card".

 

I think Dorsey had a particular way of coaching and interacting with Josh based on his "38-2" college career, and I don't think it was working, or if it was working, it was working negatively.  I think it wound up with a "death spiral" of negativity.  I mean, c'mon, we all saw it in the aftermath of Miami.

 

I think Joe Brady has a different way of interacting with Josh and it's important when things go badly and need to get turned around.

Edited January 8 by Beck Water

[peterpan]

The best game over that stretch was the Eagles game too 

[Dr Krentist]

1 hour ago, Freak-O said:

So with Dorsey we were 5-5 and without him 6-1 (with more injuries and facing Miami, KC, Philly and Dallas). Even though it hasn’t always looked pretty with Brady I’d say firing Dorsey was the right thing to do. 

 

It was refreshing to see they didn't try to run it from shotgun on 4th and 1 last night.

[Coach Tuesday]

17 minutes ago, BRH said:

 

You don't visit the gameday threads much (which makes you better and smarter than me ), but you'll find those folks in there.

 

I do visit them and I was super critical of Allen last night for the first few quarters because he was playing like a meathead.  But trade him?  My goodness.  I haven't seen that.

[Buffalo_Stampede]

4 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

I think it did have a positive impact, and maybe more strongly than people think.  Not because of profound changes in the scheme or personnel usage or anything like that, though I'm not sure Dorsey could or would have put that Dallas offensive game plan together and that was f*'ing brilliant (just in terms of Dallas DC sitting there going "Bills power run game mowing us down I did NOT have that on my bingo card".

 

I think Dorsey had a particular way of coaching and interacting with Josh based on his "38-2" college career, and I don't think it was working, or if it was working, it was working negatively.  I think it wound up with a "death spiral" of negativity.  I mean, c'mon, we all saw it in the aftermath of Miami.

 

I think Joe Brady has a different way of interacting with Josh and it's important when things go badly and need to get turned around.

Brady has more energy and McDermott did mention Brady’s energy.

 

The offense goes as Josh goes. I don’t think it matters too much at this point who’s calling it. 

[PBF81]

5 minutes ago, RoyBatty is alive said:

Re Diggs, he had two steps on his defender yesterday and ALLEN MISSED HIM Badly or that would have been an ESPN highlight!

 

Just saying.

 

Poor offense has not improved from a scoring perspective nor had Allen's passing games improved.  Neither has or running game other than we're logging more carries.  Our YPC is down significantly.

 

I'm trying to figure out out, but the best that I can come to with is that Allen's become more of a game manager than a big-time-arm QB.