This might be why Bills fan's are concerned despite the Bills 5-2 record. There will be math.

[Richard Noggin]

11 minutes ago, BillsFanForever19 said:

 

The Chiefs are playing a tougher schedule though. The worst team they've lost to is the 4-3 Jaguars. Their other losses are to the 6-2 Eagles and the 5-3 Chargers in the 1st 2 Weeks. And they defeated the Lions. The only team we've played with a winning record is the Patriots.

 

Totally get the disparity in quality of wins and losses. Can be indicative of future performances. Even the Bills wins, minus Panthers and Jets, were competitive, frustrating affairs for much of those games. The Bills have not played terribly well overall to date. (Which is all technically in the past, of course.)

 

But also, statistically, winning early (first quarter of season, for example) and often also has an outsized negative influence on those early opponents' records. And, of course, the Bills could reasonably improve and go on to win games against playoff-bound teams despite those early scraps. This is why the cliche "Week 1 is a liar" exists, because the sample size is  small enough to be simply binary: 1 or 0. Can't really tell a meaningful story with that one data point. So this week will add a LOT more to our developing understandings of the 2025 season. And still it's early.  

[DrPJax]

23 minutes ago, Richard Noggin said:

 

Totally get the disparity in quality of wins and losses. Can be indicative of future performances. Even the Bills wins, minus Panthers and Jets, were competitive, frustrating affairs for much of those games. The Bills have not played terribly well overall to date. (Which is all technically in the past, of course.)

 

But also, statistically, winning early (first quarter of season, for example) and often also has an outsized negative influence on those early opponents' records. And, of course, the Bills could reasonably improve and go on to win games against playoff-bound teams despite those early scraps. This is why the cliche "Week 1 is a liar" exists, because the sample size is  small enough to be simply binary: 1 or 0. Can't really tell a meaningful story with that one data point. So this week will add a LOT more to our developing understandings of the 2025 season. And still it's early.  

      All great points.  Agree with the point made.  However , I’m sure like me there are those on here that have watched the bills or football for 30-40 years. The eye test , your gut feeling, your basic football knowledge, intuition, whatever you call it is a real thing and probably just as valid judging a teams play quality by mathematical analysis or other metrics. You know when the Bills look good and have that swag.  
 

     This year it’s not there , at least yet. Yes we beat the ravens by 1 point , after they just did things to collapse and we did force some lucky turnovers. 9/10 times we lose that game but that night things went our way by ONE POINT after our d gave up 40!  We all know giving up 40 usually is a loss. So in my eyes it’s a win , but that’s about all to say about it. Then we beat poor teams like the jets, saints , panthers. We lose at home where you normally are given a 3 point edge , to a qb just starting his second year , a new head coach just beginning to build his roster , and we looked bad on 0 , scoring what 20, after Beane baby chastised a radio host because we lead the league LAST YEAR SCORING 30 a game.  Where was 30 that game Beane baby. First real evidence that take cook away and WRs can’t get open.  Plus we saw a player Beane had praised be disciplined , fumble in the pats red zone , and drop passes while flailing his arms !  Not the true 50/50  , greatly improved guy we were told about in camp. Beane digging in on his delusion. We proceed to go to Atlanta. Everybody knew we had to stop 2 people , Robinson and the receiver. We gave up an embarrassing 335 yards in the first half and our offense looked terrible as cook was easily shut down. Josh looked confused as did the o line. Terrible game. Since the fins demolished the falcons as did another team and we saw how great the fins were tonight. Two bad losses when many on this lard touted an undefeated season or how it was a given for the 1-seed!  You know who you are ! 
 

     Every football analyst like Orlovsky , the nfl films guy on brownies bills show , even fitzy tonight on prime stayed the bills are not playing as goood as the chiefs or colts and it comes down to 3 things. Like Steve smith said , thus is a wr corp of 3’s and 4’s and Coleman is not that guy now , and is playing lazy snaps and so afraid to be hit he didn’t even look at the db on a slant , just caught the ball with his body and turtled rather than catch w his hands and get yac.  They all state this wr corp is not sb quality. They all also point out Josh’s decrease in performance and no ones sure why tho a terrible receiving corp he lacks confidence in may play a role. Even Josh admitted his fundamentals are off. Finally , but not least , all who are honest know this d has been a mess until last game. But do you trust your analysis playing a terrible team with a horrible perfidy by dalton to say thus d is now good?  I don’t. Dalton is no Mahomes , and Reid wasn’t coaching Dalton. My point is, trust your eye test and your bills knowledge. Reid is 4-0 against McD in playoffs , while we are 4-1 in regular season games. 
 

    This is not a typical regular season game. It’s critical in the standings first both.  If we lose , kiss the 1 seed which Beane and Mcd  stressed so much as the path to the SB all offseason!  Pats will prob take the division based on schedule. We lose and KC , colts, ravens , pats are all suddenly looking to be peaking at the right time , November, and we are fighting for a wild card in all likelihood.  So far we have beaten only poor teams except for the very lucky win against the ravens, and watching them tonight , if we play them again it’s likely we lose. They are getting more healthy , we aren’t and we are filling our roster with guys we previously let go over a year ago ( and they were also let go by other teams ) , and our starters like benford , Milano, our undersized mlb , Coleman , white are not living up to expectations as we wait to see if Hancock and Hairston can catch up.  We even have a ? At kicker now.    Palmer is out and Oliver is out , not good for a game we’re already overmatched talent wise ( an opinion by most analysts , and both sides of the ball). So , yes , we have a record of 5-2. BARELY!   My eyes tell me this roster is not SB quality , and perhaps Josh can do enough if he plays better , to get us a wildcard birth and outside shot  at the division should we lose against KC. I dint have faith in Beane doing anything but protecting his own reputation and pride. While the world calls for a wr addition like olave, I’m betting he does nothing to help Josh w a wr. He will point out Gabriel is on the way!  He was terrible in Jax!   Not all wins are equal. If so , we have the better record , playing at home ( yet we’re home dogs) so we should beat KC , right?  Hey we could get a cowboys like running type win, but spags is no cowboy.  What does your gut , your eye test of bills play say to you?  Mine says if we get behind at any time by more than 1 possession, it’s over. My eyes also tell me it will lead to more losses with a wr corp that like Steve said , is poor and filled with WRs who scare no other team.  Another wasted year of a superstars career that is half over or more.   Quality of opposition, quality of wins is predictive of future play. If you dont believe that , then explain how Vegas sets odds and why they are so successful at attaining wealth ? 
 

     Can the Bills win Sunday ? Yes if they run well and win the turnover battle by 2 imo.  My eyes also  tell me we beat crap teams so far , KC is getting better and they have a larger margin to make mistakes and win.  I think they pound this d , Brady abandons the run , and this wr corp can’t get open to make up any deficit. Bills possibly miss playoffs with a loss, while a win to me means they have embraced being a run team and they make Josh the superstar , a manager as Beane won’t get quality WRs. That’s not great to watch in all honesty but winning is all that matters now.  Prior games have meaning and so far this roster looks below par being lead by a true star whose career is flying by. Beane is nice? I see him as arrogant. Happy Halloween! 
 

 

[BillsFanForever19]

I can't help but laugh at the juxtaposition of the top two posts on this board being this one and "Are Beane and McDermott building a secretly elite offense?"

[Bruffalo]

10 hours ago, BillsFanForever19 said:

 

This is true. But if the teams we're playing are "dogwater", if we're a true contender, we shouldn't have lost 2 games.

 

The teams we've beaten have a combined record of 10-29 and the teams we've lost to have a combined record of 9-6. We got taken to the woodshed by a 3-4 team that was down 2 of their top 3 WR's.

 

Beating up on a .500 team that couldn't stop the run and were rolling out Andy Dalton at QB with a broken thumb hasn't instilled confidence in me.

 

The problem for me is we've been to an AFC Championship and gone deep into the Playoffs. That's no longer good enough. It's Super Bowl or bust and this doesn't look like a Super Bowl team to me. I'd love to be wrong, but I just can't see it happening this year with the roster we have now.

I wasn't really even making an evaluation of how good or bad I think the Bills are, just that the mathematical model is reactionary. It's an okay correlate measure for success, but it's not necessarily predictive of future results. 

 

The Bills are a decent football team. Probably not the best, but also not as bad as a lot of folks think they may be.  I'm happy to just see where the chips fall here. It's frustrating that they aren't the world beaters we thought they could be, but that's just sports.

[Chaos]

56 minutes ago, Bruffalo said:

but it's not necessarily predictive of future results. 

I have back-tested the PageRank model for NFL seasons on both a retrospective and prospective basis. It demonstrates validity as a prospective model, comparable to ELO models. (Of course the retrorespective results are better) There are inflection points that indicate outcomes as close to certain as one encounters in sports. This week, two such opportunities exist: the Rams over the Saints, and the Chargers over the Titans. However, the oddsmakers offer only -1100 odds on the former, which does not represent a value opportunity. The latter, at -500, constitutes a genuine value bet, albeit an unexciting one. 

So far its 1 for 1, this week with the Ravens over the Dolphins. 

Actually, the following games do not have a large enough difference in page rank, to actually be expected to have any predictive value. 

 

Edited 7 hours ago by Chaos

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

21 hours ago, Bruffalo said:

You can only play who is on the schedule.

 

It's not the Bills' fault those other teams are dogwater. 

 

 

 

Ravens with Lamar and all their other starters week 1 is gonna shake out to being a great win id imagine..  I think Miami is still pretty bad but a much better flavor of bad with tyreek playing as well 😂. So looking at our opponents current records midseason  isn’t always a perfect system..  obviously it’s fine to do with like the jets and saints 

this is a weird year so far…colts might coast to the 1 seed so if the bills end up a wildcard team because NE capitalized on a much easier schedule it won’t sting as bad as it could’ve.    Then next year NE will get stuck with those harder ‘matching division placement’ games (idk if there’s a good name for those haha).  If we’re assuming the bills fell off a bit, NE has the easiest schedule I think I’ve ever seen. Giants instead of eagles 

and raiders instead of chiefs is wild 😂. 2 of their games went from two of the best teams in the league for us to two of the worst for them based on last years results 

 

In the cursed scenario where NE wins the division and we’re a wildcard, it might even be us playing them in the first round so there will likely be an immediate ‘revenge’ chance where no one even cares who won the division 

Edited 6 hours ago by Generic_Bills_Fan

[TheyCallMeAndy]

Wins don't seem to count and losses seem to count double

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

4 minutes ago, TheyCallMeAndy said:

Wins don't seem to count and losses seem to count double

I’ve always said that haha I saw a lot of bills fans on social media talking up the ravens offense last night but if that exact performance was us, bills fans would be saying 4 three and outs in the first half against a bad team we’re doomed! Lol