Utah John

Someone explain to him what "foot"ball doesn't involve.

No real GM, no real OC, and a DC who happens to be his son, who'd have guessed that guy would be their best choice. Also no QB, no good WRs. They have a pretty good defense and a strong RB, that's it. The Bills are returning to the point where they're a complete team. With the injuries to White, Hyde, and Poyer, they were NOT complete. Too many rookies and subs playing the defensive backfield. And when Milano or Edmunds was out, the D was just average at best. Now that White seems to be back and Poyer is back and Milano and Edmunds are back, the nearly-complete Bills team is on display. If that team carries on, they're once again the best team in the league. But the same is true for other top teams. Most of them are playing subs at critical spots. So much depends on injuries and, this year, on regular old illnesses that are too severe to let a guy practice or play. I don't remember that happening since the year Bruce Smith had to miss the playoff game against the Steelers due to the flu.

How much lower would the cap be, if we didn't have Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime? It would be worth it.

Beane's plan all along was to retain as many of the very good to excellent, but not outstanding players as possible -- except for Allen and Diggs, who are both clearly outstanding. The outstanding players at any position cost considerably more than the excellent players do, and far more than the very good players do. Through heavy investment in the D on drafting, the Bills have a long list of very good to excellent players on defense. Hyde, Poyer, White, Edmunds, Milano, Oliver, probably Groot. All have the ability when things break right for them to dominate in a particular game, but none of them can demand top dollar for players at their position. The strength of this D is not individual star players but is the complete unit that Beane built and Frazier coaches. This has been a tremendous success and it was Beane's plan to be able to pay them all. It has looked clear that Beane is not trying to win just this year. He wants to build a dynasty and keep it going year after year, disrupted only in the years when Allen or Diggs is injured. Then along comes the chance to sign Von Miller, and all that planning apparently went out the window. It won't be Edmunds's contract that keeps the Bills from paying Poyer or improving the O line, it will be Miller's. For this year, probably next year, and possibly more years to come, Miller is showing he's worth what he's getting now. But he's the outstanding player, the one who does get nearly top dollar for his position, and that disrupts all of Beane's planning. If we get OBJ, that's going to make it even harder to keep the D intact. And the only reason I'd like to see Beane go ahead with signing OBJ, is that I don't think he's going to pay Poyer. Which is a huge loss, since we've all seen the difference between Poyer and no Poyer. But, age. Beane can't pay Poyer enough to make him 26 years old again. I really hope I'm wrong about this, and that it works out for Beane to pay Poyer and keep the gang together. But go back to that list of defensive players above, and tell me which one you'd let go if you had to let one go. I think it's the oldest guy. As for Edmunds, I think the rest of the league thinks far more highly of him than most Bills fans do. And lots of teams will be willing to pay him. I think he gets $18M per year from us, or $20M per year from somewhere else.

Even if Miami loses this Sunday, if they beat the Bills later on, they still win the division. Even if Miami wins this Sunday, if the Bills beat them, the Bills win the division. Assuming both teams win out otherwise. So this week's Miami game isn't as critical as the KC-Cincinnati game, which is probably the Bill's last best hope for getting home field through the playoffs.

Meanwhile, the Bills, with Josh Allen at the center of their efforts, are doing their best to hold off the hard-charging Miami Dolphins, a team that’s won its past five games. I find it more relaxing to see it fixed.

Belichick always tries to take the best opponent player out of the game. It looked last night like that guy was Oliver. But the Bills' D is so well-built that there are half a dozen other guys just as good, and no offense can counter all of them.

We always hear about how line play requires people to get low, to get leverage against their opponent. Usually that's true. So how can Groot be as good as he obviously is against the run, when he's so tall? The Bills have assembled a defense of unicorns, guys with special skills or attributes. Either huge space-eating bodies like Edmunds and Groot, or quickness and strength like Oliver, or speed and anticipation like Milano, or all of the above for Dr Poyer and Mr Hyde. Oh yeah, Tre White is back. Von Miller gets back in a few weeks. Please God we've had all the injuries a team should have to endure. It's time for good things to happen. I have NEVER seen Josh Allen berating a teammate in public, and I don't expect to ever do so. Leadership comes from doing your own job well, and inspiring those around you to do the same.

A call to consolidate and focus our mojo karma, or something, onto the KC game. Da webster is not wrong about priorities, but there's no cost to hoping for all three key games to go our way.

He'll maybe never play with the sustained physicality and relentlessness that one might want out of such a supremely talented athlete Or maybe he WILL play like that. His career has been a continuous year to year improvement. There is no sign that that's coming to an end, no sign that he's hit a ceiling. He's going to get paid, and I hope the Bills are the team to do it. Neither of our LBs get a lot of sacks or interceptions, and unfortunately those are the metrics that lazy Pro Bowl voters look at. But they are both doing exactly what Frazier wants them to do. When healthy, our D is a complete unit working together, like none I've ever seen. The absence of Edmunds OR Milano in particular games this year has shown how valuable they both are.

What are everyone's thoughts on the Poyer interception being overturned? I think he had full control of the ball as he got both feet down, and then proceeded out of bounds. Then he moved the ball but never lost control of it. If he had tossed the ball to someone after getting out of bounds, having gotten both feet down and made a football move by taking two or three steps, wouldn't that have been enough for the interception to stand? I've seen receptions by WRs where they catch the ball in bounds, then immediately put it down or toss it to the ref.

Yeah but it could also be 8-4, or 8-3-1 if Josh doesn't hit Diggs at the end of the Detroit game. That one was too close. All three losses were in winnable games but you have to take the result, win or lose. Both Singletary and Davis dropped two passes, each. It's no wonder Josh just looks for Diggs. Wasn't Knox in the pattern, somewhere? Is he just not getting open? Nicely done graphics.

Absolutely. He does make some difficult catches but any NFL WR should make them too. And he doesn't seem to be getting open. On his TD catch, that would never have happened if the Pats DB hadn't decided to walk away from Davis before the play was over, and go have some Ovaltine to get warm.

I'm reading the comments from Pats fans in response to a Boston Globe article that basically says the Pats suck, they didn't fix anything that the playoff shellacking last year revealed, and that the lousy Pats teams from previous years are now once again on display. My favorite comment from one of the Pat fans: "Yes, that last drive was terrible. Once they got to the red zone, it felt like they had at least a ten shots at scoring. The Bills and refs were essentially saying, "Here, let's try that again." Woeful." With about 5 minutes to go, the Pats needed three scores to win, and they had a 3rd and long. I told my brother they should kick the FG now and then get on with the onsides kick. Instead the Pats floundered around for three more minutes of game time, and then ... kicked a FG. At that point even a miracle onsides kick recovery was too late to save them. Which they didn't get anyway of course.

The Bills offense is stuck in second gear because their Offensive Coordinator has used up all his innovations, and the rest of the league has caught on It was Josh plus Daboll that made the Bills offense so deadly the past couple of years. Now it's just Josh being asked to be a hero every game.

Yes, he missed an EP. That was after kicking more than 100 straight successful tries. And the Bills won the game. Got to cut the guy at least a little slack. The missed FG against the Jets, now, that's another story. That hurt.

Don't forget Fred Jackson.

Crowder was playing very well prior to his injury. When healthy he's probably the team's best slot receiver.

I think the fact that the Bills signed John Brown, when they already have a full set of healthy WRs, is a pretty good clue they know they're not going to sign OBJ. On one hand I think OBJ would bring more talent and possibly a win in a game we'd otherwise lose. Maybe, maybe not. But he'd be super expensive against the salary cap and would probably cost the Bills one of the key defensive players now coming up for contracts, which would hurt more for years to come. If the Bills were really hot and were looking deficient at WR, then OK try to get OBJ. But the Bills are not hitting on all cylinders and it's unlikely OBJ will make enough of a difference to overcome the struggles since the bye week. OTOH Smoke could be here today and for the next few weeks, and then be gone, without any lingering financial hit.

About the seeding in the playoffs last year, and the supposed tanking in the final regular season game: By finishing the regular season with a loss to Cleveland, the Bengals finished 10-7 (4th seed), while the Bills finished 11-6 (3rd seed). This put the Bills against the 6th seed, New England, and the Bengals against the 5th seed, the Raiders (boy you can go bad quickly in this league). When both the Bills and Bengals won, we had to go to KC for the next round while the Bengals went to Tennessee. Was that the best thing for the Bengals, and the worst thing for us? We had beaten KC in KC last year during the regular season, but we had lost to Tennessee in Tennessee. Why was this necessarily a bad thing for us? This was not, on paper, a shrewd move on their part. Maybe they thought they lined up better against the Titans, who knows, and then they figured they'd have to beat KC which seemed doable since they'd beaten KC in the next to last regular season game. But if we had beaten KC, the AFCCG would have been in Buffalo. I would have thought the Bengals would have preferred to play New England and then KC, and then hopefully hosted the AFCCG against us, assuming we'd beat the Raiders in Buffalo and then pull out the upset of the Titans in Tennessee.

Jackson is a good backup. He is not a good starter. But he has had to start due to injuries, and he's clearly the weak link and is getting targeted a lot. Give him credit for keeping his head up and trying hard to keep the Bills afloat until the starters return.

KC is better now that they don't have Hill? Hmmm.

Last year was THE year, and three of the main coaches blew it against KC. The special teams coach didn't order a squib kickoff, and Frazier didn't handle the 13 seconds at all reasonably. Can't put the 13 seconds, or the game, on the offense. But overall it was McDermott who didn't step in at any point to get the Bills ready. With their best chance gone, I've been just watching this season with the expectation that they'd be a good strong team. The defensive injuries have been enormous, and the rookie OC has been figured out. There are too many plays this year where the opponent defense is just waiting for the play they know is coming. They still have a very strong roster, and their DC is outstanding. So they'll be competitive in every game and win twice as many as they lose. For decades on end, either of those accomplishments would have seemed like a miracle. Enjoy what we have and approach this year as if the Bills are one of the top teams, but just accept that this was their year to get all the injuries at once that they didn't get the previous couple. All the pre-season hype was about the team they started the year with. That team isn't available anymore, and the injured players aren't coming back fast enough to get things right. As for getting rid of McD, you have GOT to be kidding. How on earth do you think that makes the team better? This is his first HC job and he's steadily improving year on year.

Twister. Left hand on the white line.

He would deserve it but there's no way it happens. He doesn't have enough interceptions or sacks. The lazy sports media just looks at those two stats.