Utah John

The only games on the schedule the Bills had any business losing were the Chiefs, Titans, and Bucs. Pittsburgh was not on the list. Shouldacouldawoulda doesn't count in the NFL so it's there, deal with it. So there are two games remaining where losing would not be a big disappointment. Split those. take care of business, finish 15-2.

Looks like the Chargers will win AFCW, but I can't believe KC will miss the playoffs how that they let dozens and dozens of WC teams in. Or so it seems. Most top teams falter after a couple of years at the top. McBeane seem determined to avoid having this happen to the Bills by having a long-term plan that limits the number of elite players that get huge money. They have a system where a lot of guys make good money and play well, and they will be rotating rookies in to keep salary costs down. This process is underway already -- Lorax and Kyle Williams are long gone, and the arrow keeps on pointing up. Next year Jerry Hughes and Mario Addison will probably be gone, as will Feliciano and Ford. Spencer Brown looks amazing.

To make that work you have to have a deep set of D linemen, who can all play. Most teams don't have that. By rotating so many guys in, they stayed fresh, while the O linemen for the Chiefs all played every snap (as far as I know). The Chiefs ran a lot more plays. Ordinarily that's an advantage for the offense because the defenders get tired more quickly. Frazier McBeane showed how to flip that. Of course it would have been better if Milano had played, but with this game plan I'm not sure how much better. Frazier's game plan protected Klein, letting him do good things and not letting him get burned.

During the AFCCG the Chiefs defenders were holding our receivers egregiously, and they were all injured. They're not particularly injured at the moment, and I think the league put a stop to letting the Chiefs get away with holding. I'm very optimistic that our offense pretty well matches theirs, but our defense is considerably better than theirs. Advantage: Bills.

NFL Sunday Ticket is on DirecTV, not Dish Network. I have DirecTV specifically to get NFL Sunday Ticket. I just checked and I'm getting NBC now, so whatever happened with Dish Network is not affecting me. NFL Sunday Ticket doesn't include Sunday Night Football, anyway.

To me the right approach is to be prepared if the weather forecast is accurate. This puts a premium on getting a lead so that if the rain and wind kick up, it's not going to derail a comeback with passing. Not that this isn't obvious. Who wouldn't want to get a lead in the first place? The only way this could come into play is coaching decisions on whether to go for a fourth and short, or kick a field goal vs trying for a first down.

For one drive, he looked like an NFL quarterback. Which is something I never thought I'd say about Geno Smith. After that, I wasn't impressed. He didn't seem able to take the yardage the Rams were offering, short to mid range in the middle of the field. Going forward, when he has a chance to take more reps in practice, he might be better able to react to the circumstances.

Weather forecasting has improved drastically over the past 20 years, but a forecast more than 3 days out is still not very reliable. Check back in a day or two and you'll have a forecast that's more likely to be accurate. There's no reason Allen can't handle rain or wind. He has a strong enough arm to get the ball where he wants it to go.

The real risk is that by his body naturally protecting the injury, his mechanics will be thrown off and this can possibly lead to another injury somewhere else. He will still try to make the throws, and there will be compensating muscles brought into play. He could twist his back or neck, or who knows what else. The Browns have a strong team and a decent backup QB. They should sit Mayfield for a few weeks and bring him back halfway through the season to get them into the playoffs. So I assume the physical therapy device Mayfield will use is the Dave Matthews Band. Sorry, it was just sitting there.

Carolina will be paying a whole lot for a guy who can still play but not play as well as he used to. They're falling into the trap of being all-in on a particular year, instead of building steadily. Carolina is aiming for the playoffs, but their goal should be to win the Super Bowl, and they're a long way from being a contender.

Check for us and see if everything's still up to date there.

You can't blame the Chiefs for being upset. They beat the Bills in the AFCCG through defensive holding on our receivers, and then they were shocked shocked they couldn't get away with it in the SB.

One reason the Chargers D looked so good is that the Chiefs O line has not come together yet. Here's hoping Frazier was watching that game and figuring out how to adapt the Charger's defensive approach to the Bills personnel.

Maybe he's trying to get ahead of the curve, anticipating that the Bills will exploit KC's weak defense and win 42-35 or something like that. If the Bills can pull that off, and I think they have a better than even chance to do so, they'll earn the #1 ranking.

It was just a couple of years ago that the Dolphins were the worst team in the league. Then Flores rah-rah'd them up and convinced them they could beat anyone, and they turned it around, not with better players but by playing better. They were the odd man out of the playoffs last year, with the same record as teams that made it. But their last game was a complete thrashing by the Bills, and that seems to have taken away most of their juju. Even with Tua to start their game with us this year, they weren't playing as well as they did last year. And when Tua went out so did the rest of the juju. They're now losing the close games that they would have won last year. This is what bad teams do and as a Bills fan I recognize the syndrome. It's like they got somewhat better, stuck their head up and saw what it takes to be a good team, and then laid back down in a wagon wheel rut so all the other teams could roll over them.

So far this year the defense has outplayed the offense, which would have been unthinkable the last couple of years when the offense exploded and the defense couldn't do as much. I'm waiting to see the Bills put the A+ games out there on both offense and defense in a game against a quality opponent. Next Sunday night would be a great time for that.

If it's true that the Bills ran up the score on the Texans because the Texans didn't hire Frazier as their new HC, then I'm a little torn. As much as I like Frazier and have good wishes for him, I am simply delighted that no team hired either him or Daboll away. The message the Bills are sending is, hey other team, you'd better come hire one of our coordinators away and make us less dangerous, or we're going to embarrass you in front of your fans. Whenever either or both of them IS hired away, I'll see them off with high regard and fond wishes for success. Assuming they stay out of the AFCE of course.

Poor guy. He's sitting there minding his own business and some young woman he doesn't know starts rubbing her butt in his general direction. And everyone jumps to the wrong conclusion. Happens to me all the time.

I think the Jags job is just a placeholder until he can get promoted to the SEC.

Spikes was a great LB in his day, but I don't think he was fast enough to play today. Every player except QBs, linemen, Ks and Ps have to be really fast. The day of the big powerful thumper at LB is pretty much over.

Watch Allen's drifting and I think you'll see he often is giving himself a better angle for the pass. On the rocket to Sanders deep in the left end zone, if Allen doesn't move a yard or two to the left, the DB has a better angle at defending the pass. By moving left, Allen improved his angle.

Beane's intention was to PS him. Obviously he preferred a chance to get on someone's 53.

I watched two evenly matched mediocre teams last night. I think the Bengals are good enough to ascend into the perpetual 7-9 (now 7-10) trap, good enough to give their fans delusions but not bad enough to get top draft picks. The Jags will not be far behind. Another year of bottom feeding and they too will ascend into that no-man's land. We know that place well, having lived there for so long. The Bengals only real hope is to try to improve gradually while the other teams in their division get old and slow, but both Cleveland and Baltimore are at least a year or two from falling off that cliff. Cincy in, say, 2023 or 2024 makes sense, if they can get some help on their O line.

I find that strangely NOT funny.

Lots of good young QBs right now, but it's still gonna be rough for the teams who haven't landed their guy yet. Some of those good young QBs are going to have to endure a few years of misery before winning. Zach Wilson for example will have to get beat up for four years with the Jets before getting to go to an NFL team.