Utah John

So Wrecks Ryan broke the Jets and then the Bills. The difference appears to be that the Bills had sense enough to hire professionals. The Jets didn't and now we can look forward to two guaranteed wins each season for years to come.

Joe "Michael Corleone" Flacco will now perform his famous "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in" speech.

That, and the WFT's defense.

Mahomes is as good as ever, and so are Hill and Kelce, but the rest of the team is falling apart. This is my complaint with evaluating QBs by the number of SBs they won. Troy Aikman won two, and he was just a B+ QB. Eli Manning won two and was a B. Peyton Manning won one and he was a far better QB than his brother. I don't think Mahomes will ever win another SB. He's locked into KC due to his salary and KC is locked out of restocking its roster for the same reason.

I grew up in West Seneca and have never had any trouble at all pronouncing interesting names with an eastern European origin. I can't wait until this guy shows up on a national broadcast, and we have to listen to some former QB struggling with saying his name. It would be worth the Bills getting called for holding just to see this happen once.

The thing about technology like the eye in the sky is that it only helps if it's used properly and consistently. You can buy a fancy new vacuum cleaner but your floors will stay dirty unless you use it.

The QB probably didn't want to have an incompletion messing up his passing statistics.

Henry doesn't get more than a few yards on that long run if the Bills defenders weren't held. McKenzie makes the exact same play if Smith doesn't hold his guy on the kickoff return.

Welcome to Buffalo, OJ. Betcha didn't see anything like THIS is SoCal.

I have no idea how good Warring is, but if they bring him up just for a couple of games and he shows real promise, the Bills will have to decide whether to put him back on the PS and risk someone else signing him away; or the Bills could keep Warring on the active roster and cut/PS/IR/trade someone else.

Thanks for digging that up. I remember Kelce as never looking back at his time in Detroit. He was 100% a Bill, and committed to the success of the team. Really a great player and a great man.

Go rewatch this game sometime. Both offenses struggled because both teams had great defenses. I told a buddy at work that whoever won this game was going to the SB, and I was right. Johnson did enough for the Bills to win, and when he left the field the Bills were winning. It wasn't just a gunner on the right side. Our entire KO team swung to the middle and left of the field, leaving the right completely exposed. If the Bills had done their jobs, they would have won that game, and I stand by my prediction that the winner of that game would go to the SB. Of course the Titans didn't win the SB and there's no guarantee the Bills would have, either, but the Bills team that year was loaded with talent. Of course they let the three big players (Bruce, Thurman, and Andre) all walk after the season.

Beasley's our Kelce. Gets open consistently to move the chains, and can hurt a defense if it doesn't take him seriously. Waller is a freak of nature, and if he ever gets everything figured out, he'll be unstoppable all by himself. Knox isn't used like the Chiefs use Kelce. Instead he's simply a big play threat, hard to cover, like a WR who's not as fast but is powerful and hard to block out. Kelce catches three balls for every one Knox catches, and that's fine.

Hell, as I get older, I do that to keep both hands on the railing.

Does anyone recall how we acquired Spielman? He was NOT washed up when he was on the Bills, but then he got hurt and I think that was about it.

Well, Williams might not be as good as a guard as he as a tackle, but Ford needed to sit and the best way to handle that was to move Williams inside. Brown is doing great at RT. So the bottom line is Ford + Williams <<< Williams + Brown.

The next opponent is Miami, a train wreck of a team but one that has two great CBs. Using four WRs to be sure someone's open seems like a good approach. I still think the best thing is to IR Knox. The next three opponents are all lousy, and the Bills should not need him to win easily.

Granted that the Browns O line made it possible for their 3rd string RB Johnson to get started, but he had a lot to do with his own success as well. Good sharp decisive cuts, finding gaps past the LOS, and really working for clutch 1st downs on their final drive. And he had the play almost at the end where he broke free and instead of scoring he went down on his own, to let his team run out the clock. Maybe this game was it for him, the big chance to play on a national stage against a truly sucky opponent. Whatever you want to say, he grabbed the opportunity. FWIW, I don't think Moss or Motor would have had as good a game as Johnson, with the same O line, the same play calls, the same alignments, etc. They just don't find the breaks in the D like Johnson did tonight.

The next three games are Dolphins, Jags, Jets. I don't think we need to rush Knox back for those games. IR him, let him recover fully, and let's see what Warring or Sweeney can do in the meantime.

Davis played great last year, no question, but teams were mostly concerned about Diggs so Davis was open for those great sideline catches. This year Sanders is the 1B to Diggs' 1A, and opposing teams are really stuck. Neither of them will lead the league in catches, but with Beasley and Knox as well as Davis all in the mix, the Bills as a team could lead the league in passing offense.

The aspect of having the D line wear down, giving the opposing offense the advantage, is I think why McBeane went for such a deep and good D line, rather than a D line with one or two really good players and the rest not up to par. Not that this has always worked out. No sacks of Tennessee, after the Jets got seven? And after Lewan got hurt? At that point I would have traded half the D line for one great pass rusher.

Your comments here are pretty accurate but not relevant to the signing of Sanders. I think the O line will be next year's Beane project. He has built a strong and deep roster across the board, so he doesn't need to play whackamole to fill egregious gaps. Instead he sees where we need to improve the most and addresses the need in a logical and cost-effective way. I too am disappointed in Feliciano's play this year. He lost a lot of weight in the offseason which seems like a stupid thing to do, since he's no longer able to bulldoze DTs.

The Bills offense is better this year. The passing game improved a little beyond what was already deadly, and the running game has improved from C minus to C. Sanders has a lot to do with the overall improvement. (So has Knox of course.) And, he's an experienced leader where I don't think Smoke was the same.

Beane has given the D line a great deal of attention and investment. We still need another big 1-tech DT. As for the O line, many of us have felt that in his plans, next year's draft is when he'll beef up that line. Skinny Feliciano isn't cutting it, Darryl Williams is a tackle not a guard and so isn't going to be optimal, and Morse hasn't played up to the level of his salary. Dawkins is good, but we need better than good at LT.

The Bills ranking didn't fall much because they showed against the Titans pretty much what everyone thought. All year they've passed easily up and down the field, didn't run particularly well except for Allen's yards, struggled in the red zone, done well on pass defense and struggled to contain a strong rushing attack. We saw the same strengths and weaknesses on Monday night that the rest of the league already knew about, and that's all been baked into the overall evaluation of the team. Even if they'd beaten the Titans the same strengths and weaknesses were right out there for all to see. The Bills are a strong and deep team. We have a great rest of the season and postseason to look forward to. EVERY team has flaws and some positions where they're not as good as somewhere else. On Monday our O line and D line didn't do as well as they sometimes have. They're still a strong and deep team. Arizona is playing better than we are right now and deserves the top spot.