Utah John

It's called the salary cap. And there's less cheating of the salary cap than there was of some nuclear weapons treaties -- but there certainly is widespread ingenuity in how a team complies with the rules. He still looks as good as ever.

Look at it this way: Put Josh on the Chiefs and Mahomes with the Bills. Who wins more? I think the Chiefs would do better and the Bills would slip a bit. Give Josh Hill and Kelce and CEH and Hardman, and that O line, and it's a terribly scary thing to contemplate. OTOH I don't think Mahomes could get as much, let alone more, out of the Bills compared to what Josh does.

A lot depends on what McKenzie does. If Daboll leaves and brings McKenzie with him, keeping Beasley becomes more important. Why would McKenzie leave? He loves Daboll and he'll always be pissed about being benched for a tiny thing like fumbling a kickoff without being touched. Beasley has been our Kelce, the guy the QB goes to to move the chains. He's been very valuable for that and did his job very well. But it could be the Bills are thinking that our Kelce should be a tight end, not a slot receiver. It could be they look at Knox and think he's ready for that role. Of course Knox did drop a short pass early in the Chiefs game...

Of course they should retain Oliver, either by tagging or with a new contract. It's Harrison Phillips I'm worried about. He's an UFA and the rest of the league will have noticed his excellent play over the last half of the season. I think he loves Buffalo but money talks. He could leave. But, if he does leave, that creates a problem/opportunity at DT. Star has lost it and should be gone. If they lose Phillips and cut Star, they have a need and the cash for a monster DT to plug the middle.

Ooooh, good thinking. Yes, the Cowboys would be a very attractive landing, and Payton would look very attractive to Jerry Jones.

Taking personalities out of it, that would be a great move for the Bills, on paper. But if Daboll leaves, and if Ken Dorsey doesn't get the OC job, Dorsey will probably leave too, and suddenly Josh's support system is yanked out. Not that Payton couldn't make Josh and the entire offense even more successful, maybe, but it would be a very risky move. Also who knows whether Payton would take a demotion like that, or if McDermott would be happy about it.

This is pretty logical, but you have to look at the AFCN teams too. I think Pittsburgh will have to make a very bold and expensive move to bring in a QB. and it's not clear the Colts are set with Wentz. The Browns keep adding shiny expensive toys sprinkled around their lineup but the downside is lots of guys not good enough to be competitive -- and Mayfield might be out, and the Browns really miss another top receivers. So the Bengals to me are the AFCN favorites going in, and with their schedule, 13-4 doesn't seem out of reach.

We're probably going to lose Daboll AND Frazier. And I'm worried that Daboll will take some of the Bills offensive players with him.

The whole number one thing is based on yards and points. Elite defenses get takeaways and sacks, and the Bills did that at times but they didn't threaten other teams aggressively. Their approach was mostly to limit the damage of enough offensive plays to stop other teams drives. If there was a sack, well great, but they were able to stop a lot of bad offenses enough without sacks that the need for sacks and takeaways was masked. Until we played the Chiefs.

McDermott talking so much about execution on the kickoff with 13 seconds left -- it doesn't seem fair to execute Bass, who's pretty young, but Heath Farwell the special teams coach might want to have his wife start the car each morning.

Just curious what would happen if they're still tied after the extra period. And if they hadn't converted it, the Chiefs would have won it on the last-second field goal. Two-point conversions are HARD. In my opinion, the Bills failed to win the game because they wasted drives in the first half not getting points. There was one three and out where Singletary got a good gain on first down and the Bills couldn't convert. I don't think Allen threw a pass on that "drive" -- I think if the Bills had played the first half like they played the second half, they'd have had a 10 pt lead going into halftime, instead of being lucky it was still tied.

How many Super Bowls would Peyton Manning have won if he hadn't had the bad luck to have Brady emerge when he did? Manning won ONE with the Colts while Brady and the Pats beat Manning and the Colts four or five times in the playoffs. So at least he won one with the Colts (and he was on the field while the Broncos defense won another). It could be Allen turns into another Manning, usually losing to Mahomes and the team around him. The Bills have ONE player they drafted in the first round on offense. That's Allen of course. If they had picked up ONE of the WRs with the speed of Chase or Hill, they could matched the skills and exceeded the skills all across the board last night. We just didn't have anyone who could keep up. And for the first time, losing Tre White made a real difference in a game. We really need him back.

We've heard for years that in a particular game, the winner was going to be the team that had the ball last. Fellas, we just saw one. It was really amazing. We can criticize the Bills D and be right, but KC's defense fell apart worse. At least none of the Bills defenders actually fell down because of a receiver's moves. The Bills act like they're not allowed to draft any offensive players in the first round. Except for Allen, we ALWAYS take defensive players in the first round. The last offensive player other than Allen taken in the first round was Sammy Watkins in 2014. Since then the first round picks have been Shaq Lawson, Tre White, Tremaine Edmunds, Ed Oliver, and Gregory Rousseau.

I can remember one, on a short pass (I think it was to Kelce and Milano broke it up but I'm not sure). But your point is certainly right. Chiefs receivers were open over and over again.

OK, thanks. I am going to give Morse the benefit of the doubt and claim that what he meant was "to beat us you have to put more points on the board."

I can't find that quote. A KC paper's site has the article but I don't have a subscription. What did he say?

The defense seemed completely gassed on the KC drive in OT. It would have been helpful to use a timeout or two to let them gather themselves.

We might be the prettiest bridesmaid ever, but we're still not the ones at the altar.

Wait a few minutes. It will kick in.

Neither of the winning teams on Saturday are in Buffalo's class. Not even close. If the Bills can get past KC, they should open as 7 point favorites against the Bengals.

In last summer's training camp, the Bills had so many NFL-caliber receivers that they had to simply cut guys who were good enough to start on other teams. Depending on what happens with Emanuel Sanders, the Bills MIGHT be in the market for a WR3. I think Gabriel Davis is ready to be WR2.

The first problem for the Cowboys is that they think they have the best QB, the best running back, and the best receivers. They don't. They have very good players but they pay them as if they were the best players at their positions. The second problem for the Cowboys is hiring a great coach. But no great coach is willing to put up with Jerry Jones being Jerry Jones. I will always root against any team that has the nerve to call itself "America's Team."

I love Melbourne. I've been there twice. On one occasion I actually made a proper right hand turn in Melbourne traffic, but it was more blind luck than skill. Could you perhaps explain the procedure for turning right in Melbourne? (For other readers, this is a real thing. There's a strange traffic rule there, or at least there was the last time I was there which was about 15 years ago.) Tennis players are real athletes. The women's game seems to reward power, leading to leading women players with thick, strong bodies like Serena Williams. The men's game is really different, where the men have to get power without a lot of bulk so they can be so quick.

Sure there are games where the coaches are out-guessed by the other team's coaches. It happens. But there are also games where Josh is just ... off. Not accurate or smart. He isn't always a combination of Superman and Captain America. Sometimes he's just a QB who misses an easy completion on a short out, killing a drive. It happens. Coaches and QBs and all the other players are human beings who sometimes make mistakes.

That's a great line but it's not the whole story. The biggest change on offense for the Bills has been the O line getting it done and the running game shockingly getting better right after the O line got sorted -- who'd have expected THAT? Now the play-action plays Josh uses so much are really deadly. IMO the bigger change of the two offenses has been the Bills getting the O line and running game going. The Chiefs O line got miraculously turned around this year with good draft picks and Thuney as a FA, but they were already playing well when the teams met in October. So the only thing new for the Chiefs has been the route trees. I feel confident Frazier and company are well aware of what the Chiefs are doing, and the Bills have the great overall D and great pass D to make the necessary adjustments. There are changes on D also, but they're about a wash. The Chiefs now have Ingram rushing the passer and Chris Jones in the interior, where he's better. The thing is neither of them has been putting up exciting stats. Right now their D line just looks like a good one, not an outstanding one. The Bills' D change is they've figured out how to defend against teams that go heavy and try to pound the run game. However that doesn't seem to be in the cards for this week's game, unless KC is ready to completely revamp their offense.