Utah John

The rules apparently AREN'T the rules. The second half kickoff was, by rule, fumbled in the end zone and recovered for a TD. The correct call was made on the field, and it was overturned for no real reason at all.

After so many people moved from Buffalo to Charlotte over the past 20 years, it's nice to see some going in the other direction.

I wonder what would be viewed as success in this regard. Is there a target number of black HCs that would lead everyone to say all is well? I think the purpose of the Rooney Rule is to make sure some qualified black coaching candidates at least get into the room and have a shot at impressing the management. That's all that anyone can really ask for.

The forgotten man on this year's team is Spain. He played all the time -- maybe 100% of the snaps, I'm not sure -- and I hardly ever heard his name called, which for an O lineman means he didn't screw up. I read that he didn't give up ANY sacks this year. Isn't he good enough to get the kind of attention our other FAs get? He seems to be invisible which is amazing for such a large human. It's not really clear what will happen with Ford next year. Spain and Feliciano seem to have the starting guard positions nailed down, and Ford seems a long way from being an NFL-capable tackle. Does our second round pick become a backup player, because we got two FAs who are better than he is? It seems like he's a very good guard but could still end up looking like a bust. Or maybe either Spain or Feliciano head out, and Ford takes over.

I read an article a few weeks ago about how it's really the system that's holding back hiring more minorities. Not that anyone has that objective, but here's the theory -- Offensive coordinators get a lot of attention as prospective HCs. A lot of OCs grow up from being QB coaches, and teams have historically hired white QB coaches to work with their white QBs. So, the pipeline (if there is one) is slanted toward white QB coaches becoming white OCs and then white HCs. This can't be the whole story. A lot of HC hires aren't coming in from being an OC. Also there are a lot more black QBs than there used to be so why can't there be black QB coaches? But, to the extent that this has been true over the past decade or so, it could have skewed the statistics toward making it harder for a qualified black coach to get started. Also there are some really good black coaches. Tomlin probably should be coach of the year after the Steelers pulled it together. Unless Brian Flores gets it -- his front office raided the team of all its best players, the team started out playing miserable football, and yet he got Miami back in shape and competitive. Beating NE in NE in a game NE really wanted to win, is damned impressive. (Of course, the next week Tennessee did the very same thing, so maybe not so impressive...but the Titans were recognized as having a much better team.) I consider Miami with Flores a much bigger threat in our rear view mirror than the Jets with Gase, to challenge the Bills after the Pats finally come back to Earth.

All players miss plays, and all players have games where they don't play as well as they do in others. Poyer has been excellent and he deserves to be paid.

Why has it been so long between the previous great young core and this one? Ridiculously bad DRAFTING. Go back to the drafts of the past 10 years, and you'll see very few players that stuck around in the league very long. A couple of years ago I looked at the results of the previous five years drafts, and I think there were only three players still on the roster. Now, even the guys we cut are playing somewhere else. We're simply, finally, getting professional personnel people on board, which we haven't had since John Butler left after 2000. Look at the GMs since then: Donahoe, Levy, Brandon, Nix, Whaley, and now, finally, Beane. Also the combination of McDermott and Beane is finding players with good skills who will contribute to the team, instead of just being good on their own.

WR definitely. RB probably because I think Gore isn't coming back. QB2, yes, Barkley is a help for Allen but he can't play well enough to keep us winning consistently. Another O lineman to keep adding skill and depth to a good group. On D we need an edge rusher, 2 LBs and another starting CB. Wallace and Johnson are good but not very good, and we could lose Poyer and/or Hyde if they keep playing so well, unless we pay them (which they deserve). We're almost done building, at which point we're maintaining. It will be great. Next year's schedule will be challenging, playing the AFCW and NFCW with all that travel. But, the other AFCE teams will be doing that too so the AFCE championship is within reach. With that travel, probably won't get a first round bye, but we get a home playoff game. 2021, we win it all.

Agree about the call on Ford. He hit that guy from about 10 o'clock -- more to the side than the front, but DEFINITELY not from behind. The announcer said the block was not necessary because Allen was past him, but Ford couldn't know what was going on. The guy he hit could have ended up making a play.

The Bills played better than most of the teams they played, and they won 10 out of 15 (the last Jets game doesn't count). Going into the season we heard what sounded like the same happy talk as every year -- we've got good players to fill in the holes from last year, we have some playmakers, yada yada yada. We perpetually optimistic but toughened up fans took all that as blather. But it turned out to be right. Most of the gaps were filled by good players, and the draft worked out great. I think Ford underdelivered, Oliver eventually came on, and Knox and Singletary in the third round were steals. FAs worked out. The difference was the closeness and cohesion and focus of the team. For the whiners complaining about McDermott, go suck something. The culture this team now has is ALL about him. Are the Bills the best team in the league? The honest answer is, no NOT YET. They're in the fortunate position of having Kyle Williams and Lorax around to train up the younger guys so they'll be ready to be leaders -- and to have them retire after the year in which their skills started going down just a little, which is always the best time. If Beane keeps hitting on draft picks and good FAs, the Bills will be talented, deep, tight, and skilled. They'll have a good 3 year window to challenge for the Super Bowl, before all those contracts come due and they have to fight to retain all the good players who want to cash in.

There are a few personnel situations that have Bills fans scratching their heads. The team is doing great so no one's really complaining, but there would be more direct attacks if they were losing. Why so little Duke Williams? He sure looks better than Foster. Isn't Johnson actually better than Wallace? Does Patrick DeMarco actually ever play and accomplish anything? But I remind myself that there's a lot that goes into every play and every decision. A lot has to do with how a player integrates into the system -- do they recognize coverages and make the proper adjustments? The coaches have better eyeballs than you and I do, and they know more about football than all of us put together. And it's possible that some personnel decisions are based on how things are likely to go over the next couple of years as well as this year. If the coaches think Levi Wallace is the better choice than Johnson, that's good enough for me.

The most important injury is Nsekhe. The Bills backup O line players are quite a bit inferior to the six guys who usually play. If Nsekhe and one other guy can't go, that's trouble. The Bills CBs other than White are all pretty good but not great. They got into a bind against the Jets because they had so many DBs not ready to play. I think they'll be fine against the Texans, with the main difference our safeties and our D coordinator, not the CBs.

Since the first Pats game, where he sucked, Josh Allen has been very consistent. Not brilliant or dominant, but effective, in all the games except the final Jets game which doesn't count. Watson has been wildly inconsistent. I have a theory why, but there's no question that when he's on his game, he's better than this year's Josh Allen. When he's not playing well, he isn't effective. My theory is that the Texans' coaches aren't as good at figuring the opposing defense's strengths and weaknesses, so they don't find the best way to put Watson into the best position to win. Anyway, the Bills did better than anyone else in containing Lamar Jackson, so they should be OK dealing with a really good player who's not quite as good as Jackson. So for this game, against this Bills defense, I think Watson will not be the dominant guy he has been on occasion. For this game, I would taken Allen.

I try not to worry about the things in my life that I can't control. For the Bills, what they can control is reviewing the tendencies of each of these officials to see if they're more or less likely to call certain types of judgement call penalties, and keeping that in mind while they play. Should DBs be more or less physical, challenging WRs down the field? How egregious does holding by the O line have to be to get called (there are many instances of holding calls being missed or ignored, against all teams). How protective of QBs are they, wrt roughing the passer?

So Daboll hasn't been a great O coordinator but he's the guy Josh Allen knows, and seems to respond to. A lot of young QBs struggle after a change in HC or OC. I would hate to see Allen's development interrupted by a change to someone else, even if that someone else is a better play caller. The guy I'd really hate to see leave is Frazier. As DC he's exactly on the same page as McD, and the results are brilliant.

IMHO, he was the real GOAT. People compared him in his last year or two to the Brady of those years, and of course Brady was better. But when Manning was cruising he was incredible. The best passer I've ever seen, very smart, very tough.

No single person can fix problems alone. With the wrong coach in Buffalo, Beane's moves wouldn't look so good. If a couple of the FAs Beane brought in had simply been injured, which can happen to anyone, he wouldn't look so good. We're fortunate for the success the team has had and the foundation for the future that's been laid. That's all you can ask for, and Beane has delivered. I get the argument from SF, which was a truly bad team only a couple of seasons ago. They were fortunate and smart enough to get Jimmy G from the Patriots, which is probably something Belichick would never have done with Buffalo. They got Brady-level lucky with their drafting of Kittle, who is amazing. The thing is, let's see how Buffalo and SF fare going into the future. The Bills will lose some veteran leadership in the offseason and will rely on other players to step forward. I think the people to do that are in place so I'm very optimistic.

If the Bills had drafted Mahomes, he would have struggled. It wasn't the curse, it was the lack of skill players and a crappy O line and a culture of losing. He has excelled in KC partly because of his enormous talent but also because he had the right coach, a great collection of offensive talent, and a rookie year where he could just watch and learn. A perfect situation for him to blossom. He wouldn't have had that in Buffalo.

The Bills have been stressing continuity since McD took over. The last thing he wants is to take a machine that's working pretty well and start swapping parts in and out. What he wants to do is get his starters tuned up so they play better and better, week upon week. This isn't like the final preseason game where all teams keep their starters out. That's done in the preseason partly to avoid injury and partly to give marginal players a chance to show their team or other teams they have something the teams want. In this case the team just needs to keep following its routine and carry that approach forward to the playoffs.

The amazing thing is that the Bills stayed as good as they did for so long. They had a very good team in 1988, going 12-4, winning the AFC East and losing in the AFC championship game. They won the AFC East again in 1989. They went to the SB in 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993. Six years in a row making the playoffs and really dominating the AFC, and also the NFC East during the regular season. Really the only team that's been able to surpass that level of sustained dominance is the Patriots. They probably could have kept it going longer. They didn't draft all that well in the early 90s, they had the Polian spat with Wilson's daughter, there was Plan B free agency, then Ralph fired John Butler, and the salary cap and inability to keep all the stars. Kelly finally retired, and we had the Flutie/Johnson drama. Somehow they kept it together pretty well through the end of the decade, but they were definitely trending downward.

Part of me wants to believe the Bills didn't go all out from a formation or play calling perspective. Winning the AFCE was going to take Miami beating the Pats next week, which was never likely. So if the Bils did have some offensive or defensive wrinkles ready, they kept them under wraps until playoffs start. But no scheme or formation calls for defenders to miss tackles, or for Allen to overthrow Knox over and over. That's all on the players.

It sure looked to me that Watt missed the ball, either completely or nearly so, but Allen went down exactly like you'd expect a man to do when punched in the balls.

If you step through the video with as much resolution as you can get, you'll see there is no point at which Phillips is in the neutral zone before the ball is snapped. You know the other teams when they see this film won't care about the officiating BS. They're football people who will see what Phillips did on this play, and they'll be impressed.

So the Steelers have 5 and there's all this talk about Tomlin earning coach of the year. Hmmm. Look at what McDermott has done, with hardly anyone the league considers a star. The Bills are tight, cohesive, disciplined (except for all those penalties...). They reflect their coach. The only competition for McDermott I can see are the coaches of SF and GB.

A few years ago we had a CB who couldn't tackle. Good cover guy, but never wrapped up. We let him walk in FA. Stephon Gilmore is doing OK now. Geez Louise, imagine having Gilmore still here and adding White on the other side. Whoo.