Kansas City at Buffalo in the Divisional Round!

[zow2]

Just now, pennstate10 said:

The punt average and holding for Haack are fine. 
 

My worry is punt blocks. He is the slowest Bills punter this century in getting punts off. 

 

The kicking specialists battle on Sunday is a no contest.  It's completely one sided for KC.  If we win any portion of the kicking/punting battle it's gravy.

[Wayne Arnold]

1 minute ago, SWATeam said:

Cam Lewis

 

Hopefully McDermott can design a 5-2-4 defense this week.

[wjag]

19 minutes ago, EmotionallyUnstable said:

Bolton would be my guess

 

Bolton or Gay..  both a pretty fast LBs

[newcam2012]

1 hour ago, PBF81 said:

 

Well, they didn't shut down us, the Packers, Eagles or Raiders in recent weeks before that and lost all four games.  

 

Hence the data.  

 

 

 

Also, they haven't beaten a playoff team all season other than for Miami.  

 

Talk about playing with house money.  

 

 

I can't argue with the data. Somehow, I feel like the data is or should be diluted with the Chiefs. Come playoff time Mahomes, Kelce, and Reid just win. Last year was a great example of that. To this day, I don't think they were that good. 

[hondo in seattle]

2 hours ago, PBF81 said:

Balanced Offense

 

The Chiefs are 3-5 when their opponents run for 118+.

 

1-3 at 123+.

 

The Chiefs rushing D is not good.  Cook & Co. with a few Allen runs sprinkled in for good measure should be enough regardless of the D.  

 

 

 

Agreed.  

 

With our defense in the hospital, our offense is going to have to be productive.  

 

Their DBs are very good.  We need to have patient, stick-moving drives with heavy use of the TEs, Cook (both as a receiver and runner), and Josh's legs.  

[WhitewalkerInPhilly]

3 minutes ago, The Wiz said:

 

Nothing better than reading the replies about the pit.

I did not know anything about the pit until Monday, and now I am ready to start a cult over it.

[SaulGoodman]

16 hours ago, Einstein said:

I posted on that forum for a while. It was fun (although a cesspool), but they were obsessed with thinking that I was another Bills fan who had posted there years ago, because we share a first name. Nothing could convince them that I wasn’t. Good times though.

 

Im surprised how confident they are, just because they were very doom and gloom a couple weeks ago. I guess a win over the Dolphins gave them a boost of intense hope.

 

And why are Bills fans so confident? Because Toney's foot was a few inches offside? A month ago, many of you expected to miss the playoffs. 

Edited January 17 by SaulGoodman

[Mango]

Just now, Beck Water said:

 

Your opinion is duly noted.

 

A logical person might point out a few things - starting with the fact that I went to the entymological root of the word fan and common definitions of it, then moving on to the point that I did not say that was MY definition - only that one really can't call something faulty logic when it's based on a commonly understood meaning of a word - and in fact I make clear that I consider the admittedly negative Newcam2012 a fan

 

I really don't want to interfere a bit with your froth of righteous indignation, though.  Did you have to work yourself up to that, or did it come naturally, like a fine poop?  Has this been building up for a while?  Did you feel better afterwards?  A sense of release?  No, never mind, I don't want to know.

 

Yeah, I'm gatekeeping fandom.  Sue me.  Someone who's negative and admits it, like @newcam2012, can be a fan to me.  Someone like Filthy Beast who is unrelentingly negative and rooting for other teams to win to our detriment is not a Bills fan.  Neither is he objective or credible.  And if you find that condescending and disrespectful nonsense, I 100% can live with that.

 

In fact, it really won't bother me a bit, that's how comfortable I am with that judgement.    Feel free to read my posts or ignore them, as best suits you - but I really think frothing on about HOW I FEEL and MY MOTIVATIONS TO POST, both of which you know nothing about, says way more about you than about me.  That's not one I need my hypothetical logical fallacy cheatsheet to decode - that's called an "Ad Hominem", where a person personally attacks the arguer, rather than the argument.

 

Cheers! 

 

What a blow hard. 

I cannot believe your response is to dig your feet in, get on your high horse, and continue to patronize people. 

I am not participating in your delusional discussion about what a "real fan should be" because I find the discussion self serving to you.  I am not having any sort of ad hominem discussion because I actually do not care to discuss this topic, as I find the entire idea of you force-feeding us your holier than thou essays about how woefully misguided other fans are when compared to yourself disrespectful. 

 

You are conflating my attempt to discuss your behavior as an attempt to somehow out wit you or win this argument. And that is far from the case. I am discussing your behavior because it sucks and you should cut it out and stop looking down on people. 

Get over yourself and participate in a real conversation that doesn't prop yourself up as some sort of arbiter of intelligent thought or Buffalo Bills fandom. 

[BillsShredder83]

1 hour ago, ScottLaw said:

I think Johnson plays and Bernard is out. 

i hope so but think not likely based on the slow procedures for concussion protocol. ESPECIALLY, on a quick turn around.

its like:

 

CONCUSSION PROTOCOL

day 1: baseline neurological test - pass and go to step 2, fail try again tmrw

phase 2: light cardio, then baseline test - pass and go to step 2, fail try again tmrw

phase 3: red jersey? or maybe just drills, then baseline test, fail = repeat

phase 4: full practice participant, baseline test-------------- pass and you can play, fail = repeat

 

so even the lightest, quickest healing concussion is 4 day process minimum (i believe, going off memory).... tough road to pass on 6 days rest, and it not being his first of the season

[WhitewalkerInPhilly]

6 minutes ago, Wayne Arnold said:

If our defensive MVP Taron Johnson can't go (I don't anticipate he can) who is our nickel back?

Psssh, Josh can be an entirely secondary. That's why he's the quarterback! He can be five nickel backs!

[hondo in seattle]

7 minutes ago, Cheektowaga Chad said:

Hopefully we score touchdowns and don't need to see haaks slow punts 

 

I remember when our punter was the loneliest, least active guy in the NFL.

 

I'm hoping for that kind of game from our offense.  

[Straight Hucklebuck]

7 minutes ago, Warriorspikes51 said:

 

Oliver, DaQuan, Linval, Phillips, Settle  

Rousseau, Epenesa, Floyd, Oliver, DaQuan, Settle, Joseph, Phillips active against the Chiefs.

 

Sit Von. 

[Warcodered]

4 minutes ago, Mango said:

 

What a blow hard. 

I cannot believe your response is to dig your feet in, get on your high horse, and continue to patronize people. 

I am not participating in your delusional discussion about what a "real fan should be" because I find the discussion self serving to you.  I am not having any sort of ad hominem discussion because I actually do not care to discuss this topic, as I find the entire idea of you force-feeding us your holier than thou essays about how woefully misguided other fans are when compared to yourself disrespectful. 

 

You are conflating my attempt to discuss your behavior as an attempt to somehow out wit you or win this argument. And that is far from the case. I am discussing your behavior because it sucks and you should cut it out and stop looking down on people. 

Get over yourself and participate in a real conversation that doesn't prop yourself up as some sort of arbiter of intelligent thought or Buffalo Bills fandom. 

I'm not going to do this thing that I'm currently doing.

[Warriorspikes51]

1 minute ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

Rousseau, Epenesa, Floyd, Oliver, DaQuan, Settle, Joseph, Phillips active against the Chiefs.

 

Sit Von. 

 

Um, No.   Did you see him on the Steelers final drive? He had 2 pressures and would have sacked Rudolph but the pump fake made it look like Mason threw the ball so Von pushed him thinking he needed to avoid roughing the passer. It was a definite sack otherwise. 

[Mango]

Just now, Warcodered said:

I'm not going to do this thing that I'm currently doing.

 

Bahaha. Very fair. Also hilarious. 

[Yobogoya!]

42 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

Allen, Brady, and Kromer need to have a plan ready for their blitzes. That is the key. For my money Spagnuolo calls the best blitz packages in the league. The first game against the Chiefs was by far the worst game of the season for the OL and I think primarily it was just an issue of getting the protection calls right. Chris Jones is elite but the rest of their DL is not so good that they should totally dominate us like they did last time...

 

Everybody just needs to have a plan. Allen be ready to replace the blitz with the throw, pass catchers make sight adjustments, Brady have a few blitz killers in the bag, OL use homefield advantage to communicate pre-snap and be 100% ready. If our pass protection executes twice as well as it did last time I am confident we will win.

 

 

I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll have an easier time dealing with that at home. I feel like KC defense takes great advantage of an offense using a silent count on the road, and that combined with Spags great pressure scheme leads to bodies instantly in the backfield.

 

At home it should, in theory, be a much different story.

Edited January 17 by Yobogoya!

[Slippery Rubber Mats]

19 minutes ago, The Wiz said:

 

Nothing better than reading the replies about the pit.

 

Slide down, gracefully. On drugs.

[juno999]

12 minutes ago, zow2 said:

 

The kicking specialists battle on Sunday is a no contest.  It's completely one sided for KC.  If we win any portion of the kicking/punting battle it's gravy.

Keep kicking those PATs Bass!

[SaulGoodman]

17 hours ago, Tulsabillsfanz said:

When thinking about playing KC in the playoffs, how can you say Allen’s always had very good defenses!  Allen led Buffalo to 2 TD drives that put Buffalo in the lead AFTER the 2 minute warning and we still lost the game in OT!  
 

Any kind of defensive stop by Buffalo late in the game & Allen’s performance in that game would be called an all time great playoff performance. The entire perspective of Bills vs Chiefs would be different.  

 

That's one game. In half the matchups between KC and Buffalo, the Chiefs have scored 20 or less, and they've had the best offense in the league virtually every year until this season. 

 

Your example of a poor defensive year is a season in which they were #1 in the entire NFL statistically. That says it all right there. I realize they played a weak schedule that year, but it was still a pretty good defense. They just went up against a very good offense and a great QB (KC averaged 36 ppg the second half of that season, and that's what they scored in regulation in that game). 

 

I'm not sure how that game supports your argument of KC having better supporting casts anyway. They allowed the same number of points in regulation as the Bills that night, and had lesser numbers all year. In fact, that defense was statistically one of the worst ever for the first couple months of the season. They improved, but were still average. 

 

[Straight Hucklebuck]

3 minutes ago, Warriorspikes51 said:

 

Um, No.   Did you see him on the Steelers final drive? He had 2 pressures and would have sacked Rudolph but the pump fake made it look like Mason threw the ball so Von pushed him thinking he needed to avoid roughing the passer. It was a definite sack otherwise. 

Umm yes he’s an absolute ghost, yes I saw his one spin move to the inside where he attempted to shove Rudolph and Rudolph escaped and then drew a 15-yard flag on Floyd. 
 

I also saw the “pressure” on Rudolph where he flushed and couldn’t catch him right at the end of the game.

 

The Bills keep using him as this “closer” and really we’re just playing 10 on 11 when he’s out there. 

 

He’s done nothing all year. 
 

The Bills weren’t getting pressure on the Steelers, there was no pass rush, so I don’t expect much in Kansas City, but they have been able to bat down balls at the line. 
 

You’re going to need Joseph in there at times against Pacheco, but Phillips gives you 6’6” and can get his arms up. 
 

[hondo in seattle]

18 minutes ago, Logic said:

I just hate that the Chiefs have the league's youngest defense, coordinated by Steve Spagnuolo, and that it's already very good this year and is likely only going to get better.

Between drafting a physical freak QB who thrives out of the pocket a year before Buffalo, fixing their o-line a year before Buffalo, and now going with a youth movement on defense, it seems that the Chiefs are always one step ahead of the Bills.

Add to that the fact that they get to have Spaguolo locked in as defensive coordinator, and that he is very unlikely to get poached by another team to be head coach, and I'm even more annoyed. They have the stability of Andy Reid -- one of the greatest offensive minds ever -- to run the offense, and Spagnuolo -- one of the best defensive minds in the game today -- to run the defense.

I am irritated, I am jealous, and I am sick of losing to the Chiefs in playoff games. I hope the Bills beat them by three scores. I do hope that Ms Swift has a nice time at the game, though. She seems like a nice person, and the people who get upset at her for merely existing are weirdos.

 

I was in Arrowhead when we beat them 38-20 in the regular season.  I thought that was the changing of the guard.  It wasn't.  

 

I do think maybe this year we have a somewhat better overall team - if Milano, White, Von, et al. were all healthy.  But, frustratingly, this Sunday they'll line up the better roster.  But that doesn't necessarily mean they'll win.  I'm hoping Josh is hot and Mahomes is not, and the ball bounces our way.  Another 38-20 victory - at home and in the playoffs - would be very sweet.

 

I'll worry about next week, and next year, later.  

[EmotionallyUnstable]

Longest week ever. What time is practice? Maybe I’ll go find my cleats see if they need any scout team help as a tackling dummy. 

[HappyDays]

9 minutes ago, Yobogoya! said:

 

I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll have an easier time dealing with that at home. I feel like KC defense takes great advantage of an offense using a silent count on the road, and that combined with Spags great pressure scheme leads to bodies instantly in the backfield.

 

At home it should, in theory, be a much different story.

 

I saw a stat that KC's defense ranks 5th in DVOA at home, but just 17th on the road. So there is definitely something to this.

[Beck Water]

29 minutes ago, Blank Stare said:

When healthy…no question. But not with one arm dangling and unusable (see Jordan Philips last year). 

 

A couple things here.  I feel sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but the Bills plan to replace Milano seems to have been to use Dodson on possible run downs (about 65-85% of the snaps) and replace him on obvious passing downs by bringing Poyer into the box as a sort of "dime" back, and backfilling at safety, usually with Rapp.

 

What we don't know, is if even a healthy and two-armed Dodson can play MLB  capably for the Bills, let alone with one arm supported by a sling and maybe not able to lift it to tackle.  That's been Terrell Bernard, then Klein moved over and played very well for him.

 

In 2020, when the Chiefs beat us at home, Allen's L arm was in a sling and it affected his throwing motion.   We were also trying to replace Milano in "next man up" fashion by plugging in AJ Klein.  Eventually, Klein played admirably in relief of Milano, but Frazier talked about how Milano-Edmunds-Johnson were interconnected and they had to re-distribute coverage responsibilities with Milano out.  It took them a couple of games to work it out.

 

I *think* that McDermott is less conservative and more willing to re-work the defense on a game-by-game basis for injuries than Frazier was, but I do think McDermott sometimes gives injured players too much "benefit of the doubt" in whether they're able to play or not, when they really want to and say they're good.   Thus we get Milano allowed to play against the Jets and NWE in 2020 when he was unable to lift his arm to tackle with his torn pec and brace; Cody Ford allowed to play when he couldn't lift his arm to punch against the Titans etc etc.

We especially need realistic assessments of capability from the trainers this week, because it's a playoff game and everyone is going to want to be out there.

 

2 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

I saw a stat that KC's defense ranks 5th in DVOA at home, but just 17th on the road. So there is definitely something to this.

 

That's hopeful, actually.

Edited January 17 by Beck Water

[boyst]

missed the news of someone jumping into the pit? did that happen again?

[Success]

Kind of tired of the 'Chiefs own the Bills' narrative.

 

It's been 2 games in the playoffs.  In the AFCCG, we were underdogs and the Chiefs were just the better, more experienced team (not to mention that our top 4 WR's all had injuries that game).  The 13 seconds game was literally a coin flip game.

 

So, yeah - they're 2-0 right now in the playoffs.  They way people talk about it, this is been some ongoing thing for a decade or something.  I mean, this is literally the 1st time Mahomes is making a trip to Buffalo.

 

[Logic]

7 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

 

I was in Arrowhead when we beat them 38-20 in the regular season.  I thought that was the changing of the guard.  It wasn't.  

 

I do think maybe this year we have a somewhat better overall team - if Milano, White, Von, et al. were all healthy.  But, frustratingly, this Sunday they'll line up the better roster.  But that doesn't necessarily mean they'll win.  I'm hoping Josh is hot and Mahomes is not, and the ball bounces our way.  Another 38-20 victory - at home and in the playoffs - would be very sweet.

 

I'll worry about next week, and next year, later.  

Yeah...

I'd be lying if I said I felt confident about this weekend. I WOULD...if our roster wasn't so decimated by injury.

Knowing how good Mahomes and Reid and Kelce are at taking advantage of the middle of the field, and knowing the Bills may be without Bernard, Dodsen, Johnson, and Rapp (and will definitely be without Milano, obviously), makes me just feel...sad.

I feel like we finally are getting our home playoff game against the Chiefs, but they get a two day rest advantage, our defense is absolutely ravaged by injury, and our team may miss one or two practices this week due to bad weather. That's not me making excuses, that's just me acknowledging the crappiness of the Bills' situation this week.

It will take a few of our injured players returning to the field, a "playoff Josh" game from #17, and an insane Highmark Stadium crowd to turn this game into a victory for the Bills. But gosh, I'd sure feel a lot better about things if we weren't a walking MASH unit right now...

[stevewin]

41 minutes ago, The Wiz said:

 

Nothing better than reading the replies about the pit.

It's decided then - Mattar will be this week's sacrifice to the pit

[Solomon Grundy]

Willie Colon, The Carton Show, former NY Jets/Pittsburgh Steelers is ANOTHER Bills hater!! Fox Sports breed Bills haters

[Einstein]

29 minutes ago, SaulGoodman said:

 

And why are Bills fans so confident? Because Toney's foot was a few inches offside?

 

Who says we are confident?

I'm nervous as could be. I see the game as a coin-flip that comes down to the final series.

 

29 minutes ago, SaulGoodman said:

 

A month ago, many of you expected to miss the playoffs. 

The Chiefs went 4-4 to finish the Season.

The Bills went 6-2 to finish the season.

 

The only reason the Chiefs weren't expected to miss the playoffs at any point is because they play in a bad division.

[Solomon Grundy]

43 minutes ago, The Wiz said:

 

Nothing better than reading the replies about the pit.

I'd rather get hit by a car!! 😎

[Wayne Arnold]

31 minutes ago, SaulGoodman said:

 

And why are Bills fans so confident? Because Toney's foot was a few inches offside? A month ago, many of you expected to miss the playoffs. 

 

I'm fairly confident because Chiefs aren't very good this year, the DLine is very healthy and playing well, and we have Josh Allen behind the best OLine he's ever had and young guys like Cook, Kincaid and Shakir have stepped up into reliable performers.

[dorquemada]

1 hour ago, Aimee75 said:

Since Chiefsplanet people are constantly lurking here 👋 and linking to posts on this site, I have a few things to say..

 

1. To those of you taking shots at the City of Buffalo, or saying things "who want's to go to Buffalo?", please stay in your lane. You live in Kansas City, not exactly some cosmopolitan spot. You are in the middle of nowhere.

 

2. We did not "steal" the Shout song from another team! It has been our theme song since 1987. How do you even come up with that?

 

like 5% of the posters there are good, as in they have a realistic view of their team and this game.  The rest are sociopaths who are focusing their mental illness (one might say projecting!) onto this game.  I bet the incidence of domestic violence is a few standard deviations above average for that crew, matched with room temp IQs and a web 1.0 design make that place painful.  But hey they have lots of colorful descriptions of what they are going to do sexually to the Bills so there's that I guess.

[Solomon Grundy]

1 hour ago, RichRiderBills said:

 

No...Dodson has arguably been a borderline pro bowler. This argument is so 2022. 

So is Tua/Dak🤷

[Beck Water]

9 minutes ago, Logic said:

Yeah...

I'd be lying if I said I felt confident about this weekend. I WOULD...if our roster wasn't so decimated by injury.

Knowing how good Mahomes and Reid and Kelce are at taking advantage of the middle of the field, and knowing the Bills may be without Bernard, Dodsen, Johnson, and Rapp (and will definitely be without Milano, obviously), makes me just feel...sad.

I feel like we finally are getting our home playoff game against the Chiefs, but they get a two day rest advantage, our defense is absolutely ravaged by injury, and our team may miss one or two practices this week due to bad weather. That's not me making excuses, that's just me acknowledging the crappiness of the Bills' situation this week.

It will take a few of our injured players returning to the field, a "playoff Josh" game from #17, and an insane Highmark Stadium crowd to turn this game into a victory for the Bills. But gosh, I'd sure feel a lot better about things if we weren't a walking MASH unit right now...

 

This is where I am.  Jebus, that Injury Bug has just killed us.

 

I actually feel fairly confident in McDermott's ability to create a defensive game plan that will make good use of the bodies he has.  But so many guys went down, we're not playing backups, we're playing backups backups.

 

McDermott sounded pretty confident that they had a plan to bring guys into the facility for practice, I hope he's right, because when you can't practice, you have to go with the status quo and our status quo would feature plugging backups backups into roles that don't best suit them (not to mention, it's hard to rehab if you can't get to the facility and work with the trainers)
 

I think it's a positive that we signed Haack.  Glad he was willing to come in, despite getting cut a couple years back.

[Straight Hucklebuck]

For the people on ChiefsPlanet, and Bengals fans are like this too, why do they act like they helped build the team? 

 

Like you were in the room convincing Brett Veach to draft Mahomes when he originally had Trubisky on his card. 

 

You're common fans with no impact on the decisions that actually get made on Sunday's. 

 

But like Bengals fans, the entitlement and arrogance just go through the roof. 

[Solomon Grundy]

1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

 

So you'd take our best DL off the field? How does that help? The problem with expecting the middle of the Dline to collapse the pocket consistently in this game is that Guard - Centre - Guard the Chiefs OL is as good as anyones. Their weakness is at tackle. 

Yeah, but Mahomes love to escape through the middle of the pocket. Rousseau length is why I'd like him in the middle. Jones absorbing two blockers in pass rush situations only

[Straight Hucklebuck]

Just now, Beck Water said:

 

This is where I am.  Jebus, that Injury Bug has just killed us.

 

I actually feel fairly confident in McDermott's ability to create a defensive game plan that will make good use of the bodies he has.  But so many guys went down, we're not playing backups, we're playing backups backups.

 

McDermott sounded pretty confident that they had a plan to bring guys into the facility for practice, I hope he's right, because when you can't practice, you have to go with the status quo and our status quo would feature plugging backups backups into roles that don't best suit them (not to mention, it's hard to rehab if you can't get to the facility and work with the trainers)
 

I think it's a positive that we signed Haack.  Glad he was willing to come in, despite getting cut a couple years back.

It's amazing to me too because going into Miami we were 95% of the team we were opening day minus Matt Milano, and counting Douglas as Tre White. 

 

Since that point we've lost 10-12 people. 

 

It's absurd. 

 

 

[Punch]

5 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

I think it's a positive that we signed Haack.  Glad he was willing to come in, despite getting cut a couple years back.

 

Continue sitting on the couch out of spite or get an NFL paycheck? Hmmm, tough call.

[wjag]

5 minutes ago, Success said:

Kind of tired of the 'Chiefs own the Bills' narrative.

 

It's been 2 games in the playoffs.  In the AFCCG, we were underdogs and the Chiefs were just the better, more experienced team (not to mention that our top 4 WR's all had injuries that game).  The 13 seconds game was literally a coin flip game.

 

So, yeah - they're 2-0 right now in the playoffs.  They way people talk about it, this is been some ongoing thing for a decade or something.  I mean, this is literally the 1st time Mahomes is making a trip to Buffalo.

 

 

All television opinion suffers from macro recency bias based on W-L results and not on why a W-L occurred.