hondo in seattle

I was about to post the same thing when I looked at the chart. Glad to see Sauce of the Jets in the bad quadrant. Sad to see Tre there.

I was thinking about this when I watched the Chiefs game yesterday. It made me feel better about Brady's passing attack.

The Chiefs and the Pats have had the best dynasties since Free Agency began. The Pats dynasty was all about Belichick and Brady. There were other talented folks in the organization but the lethal combination of those two put the Pats at another level. What sets the Chiefs apart is that they are strong at three critical places: HC/OC, DC, and QB. But obviously there's more talent in KC than just that. Chris Jones, for example. And when Butker won the game today with a 51 yard FG, I also started wondering how our fates may have been different if we had Butker for a kicker and they had Bass. The Bills have had the bad luck of becoming good right after KC became great.

I think this is true. I also think Reid (and injuries) is the reason we don't have a Lombardi yet. McD would have gotten by a lesser HC. If I could ditch McD for Reid, I would. But we can't. And, btw, I don't think Beane has given the very best roster to work with. And, realistically, if Beane hasn't built the best roster in the AFC, why do we expect McD to earn a trip to the SB?

I wondered about that. My thought at the time was that he wasn't confident in the D's ability to contain Miami's offense. Expecting a shootout, he thought he needed 7. But I also considered that he was confident that the mesh play to Cook would work in that situation.

It was a frigid morning in early January, 2017, when a traveler from the future appeared before me, his presence both unsettling and intriguing. In a clear, certain voice, he revealed to me that the Pegulas were on the verge of hiring Sean McDermott as our new Head Coach. “Mark my words,” he said, “McDermott will transform this team into a perennial contender, a force in the league. But also know this: they will not reach the Super Bowl by 2024 and perhaps never will.” The strange traveler took a sip of Labatt's Blue and offered me a choice. “If you want, I can prevent the Pegulas from hiring him,” he said, his eyes narrowing. "What will happen in that scenario?" I wondered. "I have no idea. That's not how it played out in my timeline. We'll have to see." He looked down at Labatt's bottle for a moment before returning his gaze to me. "The decisions lies with you." So that was my choice. The certainty of lots of wins but no Lombardi or the possibility of the the soul crushing drought continuing interminably. You know what I picked and I have no regrets.

I'll be a grinch again today. Cook's beautiful TD run was for 49 yards. Outside of that he had 10 carried for 29 yards. The Big Uglies opened ONE gaping hold for Cook. But they did keep Josh mostly upright. Good list.

I'll be impressed when he pulls ahead of Tommy Hughitt's .694 winning percentage (#4 on the all time list). Hughitt coached Buffalo's NFL team from 1920-1924.

I worry about that. Brady is getting a lot of points on the board with a balanced attack. But I'm still not sold on his abilities as a pass game coordinator. If we get into a shootout, or if a defense starts focusing on the run, can Brady consistently get guys open downfield? To me, that remains an open question.

JT notices things I didn't notice watching live. Good stuff.

Agree. I wouldn't trade him away. But I've said previously that I'd let Cook walk after his rookie contract. Since Allen's arrival, this has been an Allen-centric offense. My view was that you can't pay everyone so let's economize at the RB position while building a good OL and receiving corps. But watching Brady's offense, and Cook's key role in it, I'm starting to entertain second thoughts.

It's funny. At the time, that 70-20 thrashing was considered by some - especially by the non-Bills fans of South Florida - as Miami's coming out party. McDaniel, the offensive genius, finally got the players and built the team he wanted. Tua finally became the QB his believers always knew he could become. Achane, a rookie then, burst forth as one of the league's most dangerous backs with 200 yards rushing. This offense, now firing on all cylinders, was going to start steamrolling people as the Fins marched to the SB. Only it never happened.

Thanks for the recommendation! I haven't played pinball since college so my skills will be sadly primitive. But it would still be cool to see the old machines in Vegas and reminisce. In San Francisco, there's a place called Musée Mécanique that has hundreds of antique coin-operated machines, some dating back to the 1800s. On the newer end, they have some of the old pinball machines I used to play. Great place on the waterfront to take the family.

Weirdly, Brady reminds me of a pinball player I knew 40+ years ago. I can't sing, dance, carry or tune, or much of anything else actually. I'm a man of remarkably few talents. But in college I took to pinball like a duck takes to water. Pinball was a big thing back then and I set the campus records on several of the most popular machines. Bring on that deaf, dumb, and blind kid - I was the real wizard! But then one day, I saw a small crowd around a new player and instantly disliked him. This was the late 1970's and the kid dressed like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. I dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He played with a cigarette dangling from his lips. I was an avowed anti-smoker. He probably went disco dancing at night with girls crowded around him (besides being stylish - in a way I detested - he was good looking). I spent my nights alone in my room listening to flannel-shirt wearing Rory Gallagher play bluesy rock. We were opposites. But one by one, the freaking Disco King started breaking my records. When I watched him play, I couldn't figure out how. His slap-save was pretty good but he didn't even try to execute the fancy passes or combination back-handed shots I did. When we started playing together, he beat me 7 or 8 times out of 10 despite having no discernible skills besides keeping the ball in play. Finally, irked, I asked what his secret was. He expained that I had no rhythm. My play style was stop-and-go as I set up shots. While he didn't have my fancy shots, there was a rhythm to what he did that wasn't discernible to me at first. I couldn't compete with him until I learned that. When I finally did, it was like I was finally seeing & understanding something that had been entirely invisible to me before. And that's what I think about Brady's offense. We may not see a lot of explosive plays. We may not see lots of long passes. We may not see a lot of fancy Daboll stuff. But there's a rhythm to Brady's that includes few turnovers, good time-of-possession, some boring cloud of dust stuff, and - for all its dullness - points on the board.

I think this is probably correct. I'll add this though because of what Diggs has said about Brady without actually using Brady's name. He noted that his production went down when we switched OCs. He didn't like that. Not only did he lose faith in McD and Allen, he really didn't like the way Brady deprioritized him.

McDaniel is a bit different. I think he's good at Xs and Os even if he didn't demonstrate it last night. He's smart. And, according to reports, he's the kind of coach who demonstrates confidence in his players and builds his players up. I like that - and studies say it's the right approach. But I agree about the leader of men thing. There's just a lot of little things that make me wonder about the guy. The goofy things he says. The bad judgment and weakness of character he displayed when he tried to slyly hide his vaping on the sideline. The way last night he let his defeatism show on his face. And so on. I want a leader to have a little more gravitas and demonstrate more stregth. (PS, I had no problem with Prime during the game but had some freezing during the postgame show).

I hope we're not all in love with Ingram because of his two picks - one of which he returned for a TD. The first pick came off of a weird ricochet. Ingram wasn't particularly near the play. The second pick came off of a bad decision that led to a bad throw. It's not like Ingram was draped all over his man and took the ball away. Tua wasn't even throwing to a man. He was trying to throw out of bounds and, under duress, threw to Ingram instead. I'm happy for the young man and don't mean to be a grinch. But in both cases Ingram was accidentally in the right place at the right time.

I think McDaniels likes to have his thoughts heard. I noticed at the halftime interviews last night, McD gave predictable boilerplate answers that said absolutely nothing like he usually does. McDaniel gave his honest opinions. To answer the OPs question, I put on my 17 jersey instead of my others and personally cooked my pregame wings to give them a little extra pro-Buffalo juju.

I admit, I didn't think Cook had enough speed to take this one to house. Screaming in my living room when he happily proved me wrong.

How old are you? I'm old enough to remember when Mini Max Anderson reportedly swallowed his tongue.

Brady spent the entire offseason retooling the offense. We now have two games of data. Not even a full two games because after Tua's injury the offense was more interested in running down the clock than scoring. To me, that's just not enough information. The sample size is too small. But it's hard to be critical when the Bills have scored 65 points in two games (including a defensive score) and probably could have scored more against the Fins. If I was forced to make some general guesses how Brady will perform going forward, I think he's going to prove himself as a good run game coordinator and an average pass game coordinator. But I want to see more and look forward to the rest of the seaon with tremendous curiosity.

Fitz, Josh... all the Bills and ex-Bills who know Tua says he's a really good dude. Hope he's okay. Also hope the mafia comes through for his charity.

I think it's too early to say. This isn't figure skating. Creativity doesn't matter if we're getting points on the board and we are. Tonight, the O stopped trying in the 3rd quarter. After Tua got hurt, the primary objective was to run out the clock. I want to see more of Brady's offense before making up my mind.

Besides the drought and 13 seconds, many of us have lived through 1 win seasons, midseason collapses, the Home Run Throwback, not to mention Wide Right and 4 straight soul-crushing disappointments. I'm probably more than a little damaged.

I've done wings on Bills game days for years. Today it will be Chinese 5 spice wings with glaze. But I think I'm doing it wrong. Wings every weekend - even when changing up the recipes - gets a little old. I need to follow the example of you guys who eat the opponents' food. Seems far more interesting.