Utah John

Watching the look on Jefferson's face says it all. He was in shock and looked small sitting on the bench. I think most of us admire Detroit's style and abilities, and except for the game against the Bills we wanted to see them succeed. I'm happy watching them rout the Vikings.

Minnesota needs to be out in the cold. They're melting down as we watch.

Well, turned out this Mayo has a one year expiration date. Winning this game, by only a touchdown, against the Bills' backups, shockingly didn't save his job.

Dorsey's biggest problem with the Bills was Diggs, and the perceived need to keep Diggs happy. Once that got fixed by Brady, the entire Bills office and Josh Allen in particular exploded in capability and production. The other thing working in Brady's advantage is Kromer, making the O line into a bulging beastly thing. Plus Spencer Brown finally figured it all out and became a dominant force. Should Dorsey have ignored Diggs earlier? That would have taken a lot more cojones than Dorsey ever showed. At the point Dorsey was fired, the Bills season was wallowing in mediocrity, and I think McD figured they had nothing to lose by moving away from leaning on Diggs.

I hope you're right that Cooper sticks around with a team-friendly deal. It could happen. Keep in mind that he and his family arrived in Buffalo at the absolute worst time, weather-wise. Cold and wet, cold and snowy, gray skies. Natives shrug that off but newcomers see only that, and at some point if not already it's going to get to him and his family. The gorgeous Buffalo summers are just a rumor to them. I hope those concerns don't influence his decisions.

The biggest advantage to having a crew of quite good but not elite receivers is that when one or two of them are out with injuries, there isn't a noticeable decrease in production. They don't all play the same way or have the same strengths but Brady always has a way to succeed with whoever is available. Also, except for Cooper who probably will go chase a bigger contract elsewhere, all the receivers make modest salaries so the Bills can afford to keep them all.

I also would like to see SVPG get a good look. At the start of this year when many were worried that McGovern couldn't do a good job at center, I thought we'd see SVPG moving into the starting lineup mid-season. Well, McGovern shut that down, and David Edwards turned out to be starter-quality too. So I am not hoping to see SVPG in the starting lineup and move McGovern back to LG. The Bills O line is the best we've had in decades and I don't want to mess around with it. It will be good to know whether SVPG is the guy we want as McGovern's backup. Just wondering what the plan is at QB. Josh starts then sits, and Trubisky takes over. Are the Bills calling up a QB from the practice squad to be Trubisky's backup? If Trubisky is hurt, does Josh have to go back in the game? If he does I hope the Bills just hand it off to RBs on all three downs, then punt, every possession. This is a game that Pats fans want to lose, and Bills fans don't care about, but that players on both sides want to win because that's what they do.

The "difference makers" get paid a ton more than the guys "the system" puts out across the board. Nick Bosa is on a five year, $175,000,000 contract with most of that guaranteed. Yeah, when he's healthy, he's better than anyone the Bills have. But the dollars it would take to have someone like Bosa would mean less capability at other positions. We now have really good depth at all offensive positions, and only really need to rebuild starters and depth in the defensive backfield. Teams with a couple of difference makers have serious holes at other positions, and when the difference maker is injured, the entire team feels the impact.

An O line is a unit of five men, and its success depends on all five working together. The Bills O line doesn't have any players who are best in the league at their position, but they have an extremely strong combined unit. And, all the backups have the opportunity to learn from the starters, and be ready to step in and be another link in the chain. Kromer gets and deserves a lot of credit, but so do Beane and McDermott, for finding and keeping the five guys who work together the best. It's taken years to get here. Think of all the players who've cycled through the Bills, and then been discarded before going on to good contracts elsewhere. There must be a dozen former Bills starting on O lines around the league. The only bad miss was trading away Wyatt Teller before the Bills realized his real potential. You can tell McBeane are happy with the current roster by the lack of changes over the past two years. They've got a very strong O line and have the luxury of grooming replacements. Would you take Penei Sewell (and his contract) over Spencer Brown, and his contract? Sewell might be a little better but I have no complaints at all about Brown, and the extra dollars that would be needed to have Sewell would detract from somewhere else. The Bills have it figured out. PFF says the Bills have the third best O line in the NFL. I can live with that.

You're a brave person to make down to the minute flight reservations the way airlines are doing lately. Any kind of weather anywhere in the country throws their entire schedule off. If you're in Ashland VA you probably can get a direct flight to Buffalo, but anyone making connections ought to leave a day earlier than you'd think necessary.

This season has worked for the first time the way Beane wants the roster to be built. Except for QB, I don't expect any Bills to get post-season honors, although Taron Johnson and maybe one of the OTs could make a case. But like all the other top players on the team, he's not a superstar. The Bills are built to have A to A minus starters (no A plus or better, except at QB) and a depth roster with younger players on their rookie contracts, who are learning and will be able to step in. A plus players cost too much, and the delta between what an A player brings and what an A plus player brings, is not worth the delta in what they both cost. Also all those A to A minus players bond together since no one has a prima dona mentality. Beane broke his system when he brought in Von Miller, and it might have worked out except for the injury. Also trading for Amari Cooper was an unBeane move, but it was worth it because Cooper was cheap in terms of dollars, not bad for a rental. We'll miss that 3rd rounder though. Cooper isn't getting targeted because he's drawing defenders to him, and the other receivers and backs are the beneficiaries. It was clear from the start of the McBeane tenure that these two are building a dynasty, a team that can win season after season even if players are injured or lost as FAs, or just let go when their rookie contracts expire. (The players know what's going on and they're OK because they see how well former Bills get paid by other teams.)

The NFL should give the 2 seed the advantage of playing on Saturday, so the winners of those two games get an extra day to prepare for the next round. That would be a well-deserved benefit prize for getting the 2 seed. Unfortunately while the AFC's 2 seed has the second best record, in the NFC the 5 seed (Lions or Vikings) will have the second best record. So the NFL might not want to give the 2 seed (Philly) the advantage. Like most teams, the Bengals have a lot of variability in how well they play. At times their defense has looked incredibly inept, but at other times it resembles a professional football team's unit. I have a lot of confidence that Brady will find ways for Allen to pick it apart no matter how well prepared the Bengals think they are. They still have an excellent QB and two great WRs. If we play them it will again come down to whether our own defense -- in particular the D line -- shows up. Their poor play in the playoff game against the Bengals two years ago was the biggest reason we lost.

Last year the Bills got the 2 seed by beating Miami in the last game of the season. If they had lost that game, they would have missed the playoffs entirely. (They would have been 10-7 instead of 11-6, with Miami winning the division and three other teams beating out the Bills for the WC slots.) That was with last year's defense that was very strong, losing to KC in the playoffs only after massive injuries on the defense. This year the Bills, ho-hum, got the 2 seed again. How boring, how lack of progress, we're doomed, fire McD, etc. Well, no. They won the division with five games to go and kept on rolling. They challenged the Chiefs for the 1 seed all season long, at least after mid-October, and it was only through a series of miracles (for KC) that the Chiefs lost only the one game. Even with the patched-up defense that has trouble stopping the run, they are a much better team this year.

Yep. This was the turning point in the season. Allen played like crap, completing 9 or 30 passes (THIRTY PERCENT) when short passes were wide open all game. I have no idea what he thought he was doing. After that, dangerous Josh turned into smart and dangerous Josh, the player I hope we'll see for a decade to come.

I think saying McD is "a defensive-minded coach whose defense is a major weak point" is putting the most negative spin possible on what the Bills have done so far this year. It's accurate to say he's a defensive-minded coach, but what he did was take a shell of a formerly good defense that had been shredded by age, FA, and injuries, and rebuild it with new players into a credible if flawed unit. What does he bring to the table? Well, obviously, 13 wins so far and a defense that finds ways to win most of the time, while the offense almost always wins. It's an impressive achievement and a tribute to his skill.

McD cost us two games and had nothing whatsoever to do with the thirteen wins. OK, sure. Or, maybe McD and Babich patched up a defense gutted by departures and turned it into a credible, if flawed, unit. Maybe McD's organizational skills and leadership provided the support the team needed while it spent September figuring out what it was good at. Even supposing the Bills did get the 1 seed, they would still need to beat two good teams to get to the SB. As it is, they'll play whoever falls to the 7 seed, and then have to face -- guess what, two good teams to get to the SB.

Absolutely the Bills should be giving Bishop reps against New England. Despite their poor record, as we saw last week their rookie QB is a real talent, and it will be good for Bishop to work against good players. He has improved quite a bit over the course of the season, and I think he'll be much better after next year's OTAs and a full training camp.

I don't get why so many here are so friggin insulting and negative all the time.

I'm not sure the Bills intend to even have a WOF in the new stadium. (One way to not have OJ Simpson's name up there, I suppose.) But if they do, I would like to see both Poyer and Hyde up there, next to each other.

Actually Beck Water is correct. I didn't know it before but apparently it's true that players released after the trade deadline must go through waivers. Maybe it's to keep teams from trying some kind of underhanded deal. Also this means the released player's contract remains in effect which protects the players.

The talk is that he'd be released, not waived. If he's waived then the team records come into play. If he's released outright, he would be free to make the best deal he could. He might choose to go back to the Ravens or he might not. Since his existing contract would no longer be in effect, it could come down to dollars in a bidding war. Yes, Poyer played great for the Bills for years. He deserves the WOF. I didn't say Bernard killed his career. I have noticed that since his wedding, he hasn't been playing as well. Correlation is not causation of course. It could be he's playing through an injury.

Conventional weather models, including ensemble models, are essentially skill-less two weeks out. Analog models might be useful if they're able to predict a blocking pattern or other stable situation. There's no harm in looking at whatever tool is available, but don't make big plans based on what's available. Check back in a week.

Even if the Pats don't need a QB, the top pick in the draft is worth a lot more in trade value. I realize the Bills will be sitting a lot of starters next week, but the Pats might not be interested in winning. Could be a very ugly game.

There are three former Bills players starting on the Dolphins defense. One is Jordan Poyer, whom the Bills let go because they could see he was aging and slowing. Too bad because he was a great player for the Bills and was foundational to the resurrection of the team. He isn't playing well for the Dolphins and I hope he can get through the season without injury and then retire. If the Bills have a Wall of Fame in the new stadium, I think Poyer deserves a place on it. The second is Siran Neal, a safety and mostly a special teamer for the Bills. Would he be better than Hamlin or Bishop? I think the Bills saw him as a old player (30) and they wanted to get younger. Still, this has been a much better year for the Bills than I think they expected, and I wonder if they would have held on to Neal if they'd known how it would go with their safeties. The third is Tyrel Dodson, who's lighting it up for the Dolphins after being released by the Seahawks for no apparent reason -- he was the Seahawks leading tackler when they let him go. The Bills could have kept Dodson but he was looking for a bigger contract than they wanted to (or could afford to) pay. I would love to have him back since Milano is taking so long to get back to speed, and Bernard doesn't seem to be as good since he got married. Maybe the Dolphis can return the favor. There's talk that if Miami is eliminated from the playoffs, they'll release Calais Campbell so he can sign with a contender. He's old but still huge and still effective. He would patch the biggest weakness of the Bills.

Josh should be in long enough to hand off to Frank Gore Jr. He played with his dad, and that would be a nice touch.