SageAgainstTheMachine

He's having a great time and I'm sure that's what's important to him right now. I suspect that later on in life no amount of memories of getting laid by strippers can make up for the fact that you blew your opportunity to be great at something.

I definitely prefer the Dolphins matchup. I just think any threat to our mojo right now is a bigger deal than any particular opponent. We've been stealing lunch money and rubbing faces in the dirt since the bye.

My bad, I didn't understand this.

There's no such thing as a meaningless game where you play the same opponent the next week. Handing over a mental advantage could be drinking poison. I already acknowledged that I'm fine with playing the backups in this scenario but purely because of the injury concerns. Do you really expect McD to address the team and tell them to intentionally lose? He wouldn't be able to look at them after. To be clear if you have a desperate team of starters vs a team of backups actively trying to lose in an NFL game the score would be something like 55-3. That's not the team morale I want heading into the playoffs. Give me a swaggering Bills squad against the Ravens over a simpering one against the Dolphins trying to pick their dignity back up off the floor.

I don't think I am. I'd like an easier opponent in the first round but not at the cost of turtling in a game because we're afraid of a bubble team.

I completely agree with resting the starters but not with your premise of intentionally losing. I'd hope the backups beat them soundly.

The Ravens are designed to get an early lead and then choke you out like a python. They really do struggle playing from behind though and we're the type of team to put them in a hole. Honestly I think any of the AFC teams can beat any of the other AFC teams. Some results would surprise me but none would shock me. We play our game and we can beat any of them.

I love how the team is a steaming locomotive right now and so many of the fans seem content with just scoring the easiest possible wildcard matchup and winning one game.

Honestly though, why worry about this? We'll likely need to beat the Titans and Chiefs anyway on the path to the SB and they're both better than the Ravens this year.

***** losing. I've seen enough losing.

Absolutely not. Make Ben drive 90 yards. He's been bad.

Titans would have the tiebreaker on us.

The times are a changin'. Increasingly young players do not respond to that.

"Mike Tomlin has some of the best sayings in football and you wonder what he'll say at halftime." I mean you'd think two bad losses in a row would have already called for some sayings.

2 yards of total offense for Pittsburgh. And that's without a sack. Just straight up 13 plays for 2 yards.

He's pretty washed. 41 receptions on 88 targets.

Steelers don't stand a chance against anyone but Miami in the first round.

I get where you're coming from but it's just as easy to say that the Bills could kneecap their SB chances by rolling into the playoffs with a rusty Josh and coming off two Barkley-led losses. I think you play Josh in this one until you feel the game is securely won or lost.

Is that the dude who comes on when Josh decides to keep the game interesting?

Absolutely. And the SB should be the week after the Championship games and be played with home field advantage.

Oh that's actually super neat. I'd easily watch that over the Pro Bowl.

There actually won't be a Pro Bowl game this season, just the honor.

I assume in places where the dominant language is read from right to left they do graphs this way too.

Well it's not a major concern of mine personally but for fans who do focus on that I don't think it's hypocritical at all since their desire has no detrimental impact on the team like it does when a player feels that way.

Would truly suck. If we lose I'll take solace in the fact that we have a franchise QB and will be back every season that he's healthy. The fact is that every AFC contender thinks they'll make a deep playoff run and 3 of them are going home immediately.