hondo in seattle

Carroll is a good coach. As for his age... people age differently. Some guys are senile old men with canes at that age. Others are mentally sharp and run ultramarathons. As someone who is a very active 66, I'm a bit sensitive about age discrimination. Suggesting an older person can't do a job because of their age is not all that different from assuming a person can't do a job because of their color or gender. As a culture, I look forward to the day when we stop using faulty stereotypes in our judgments and instead take each person as they uniquely are. Carrol was unsuccessful in his one year with the Jets, moderately successful with the Pats, very successful with USC, and then successful with Seattle (.606 and a Lombardi). He'll do well with the Raiders if the new GM can find some talent beyond Bowers.

We have a few purple and teal chips. But blue chips? Only one: Josh. We'll win anyway.

The Bills score about 31 a game while the Chiefs give up about 19 per game. Average that out and we should score about 25. The Chiefs score about 23 per game while we typically allow about 22. The Chiefs should therefore score about 23. So math tells me that we win 25-23 if I don't adjust for homefield advantage. But I don't think we won by luck in Week 11. I think this is a matchup that tends to favor us. Bills 30 KC 24

Me too. But I know why. I feared the Ravens more both because I think the Raven were the best team in the AFC and because I thought the Ravens were the team we matched up worst against. I'm still nervous. KC still has the powerhouse trio of Reid/Spags/Mahomes. They were the winningest team in the AFC and they have homefield advantage. Losing is still a distinct possibility. But the Ravens scared me more.

@asyranok, it was very classy of you to come here. As happy as I was for the win, I felt bad for Ravens fans for losing like that. And I especially felt bad for Andrews. The guilt and disappointment are bad enough; death threats are way over-the-top. Watching the replay, I've decided the catch wasn't as easy as it first appeared. In any case, every NFL player makes mistakes. His just happened to come at a critical time. But if other players had played better during the first 58 minutes, the Ravens wouldn't have needed that conversion. Games are never decided by one person's mistake. Sounds like Andrews is a good guy, and I hope someday he makes an amazing acrobatic catch at the end of a playoff game to win one for you guys. I hope he finds his redemption - though preferably not against the Bills. In any case, my hat off to all the classy players and fans on both sides.

If he wants to end his career on a cheap contract in Buffalo because he's a Bills fan, then I'm all for it. He had 6 sacks last year. The only Bill with more was Groot. Could be good in rotation.

Andrews should have made that catch but Simms isn't wrong. Notice that Andrews is sort of awkwardly backpedaling/sidepedaling as he waits for the pass and the ball comes in low. Not ideal.

As someone who honestly doesn't know, did McDaniels ever succeed anywhere where he didn't have Bill supervising him?

@GunnerBill tells me it's not. And from what I've seen so far this year, I tend to agree. I also noted that when McD was asked something about not throwing to wideouts or something like that, he said that Josh is throwing to whoever is open. My interpretation is that McD was saying Josh didn't throw much to Coop because Coop wasn't open.

I'm in the bottom 10% because I avoided the last two minutes!

At the time I thought it was an incorrect call. But I've changed my mind. Tre is engaging Coleman with both his hands about when the ball is first thrown. Tre's not playing the ball, he's playing the man, trying to physically hold him up. Then Coleman tosses him. Coleman pushing Tre out of the way looks bad, but Tre engaged first. By the way, Coleman still should have caught this.

Agreed. They turned the ball over because they made bad plays while we made good plays. There were no weird bounces or bad ref calls involved. It wasn't luck. We didn't give the ball away when we were on offense because of our style of play. Maybe we didn't throw downfield much because our wideouts couldn't get open. Or maybe because we wanted to grind it to keep Lamar & Henry off the field. But maybe also we wanted to stay safe with the football on a day with damp balls, cold hands, and a slick field.

I've used that same expression to describe this defense: making lemons out of lemonade. Like other McD defenses, we see a lot of teamwork, communication, and effort this year. We don't often see blown assignments or guys otherwise out of position. These are all signs of a well-coached unit. Our problem is guys getting outmuscled or outrun. The talent level is pretty mediocre. We see that when we watch games and then again when we look at the year's yardage stats. But these guys are good at takeaways which is probably more a factor of coaching - putting people in the right place at the right time - than athleticism. Unfortunately, takeaways can be fickle. Even when you're doing all the right things, you might not get any. And we need the takeaways to win against elite teams. Let's hope we win the turnover battle two more times this season.

I'd forgotten that. No wonders he wasn't resigned. Bad ball? Most high school receivers would make that catch. I mean, damn, I'm 65 and could easily make that catch (if you ignore the fact that an NFL DB would have knocked me unconscious at the line of scrimmage).

This is a good point. But I'll ask this... How much does Harbaugh's coaching have to do with 9 of his players being name All Pros? Good coaches get the best out of their players. Bad coaches get the worst.

Versus my "Just One Before I Die" sweatshirt.

This is true. But I don't think this is the whole explanation. I think, as GunnerBill often says, our outside receivers aren't separators. But I also think scheming a downfield passing game isn't necessarily Brady's forte. I'm not saying he's bad at it but he's not among the best.

I told my wife at the time that as happy as I was, I also felt sorry for Ravens fans. I also remembered the Harmon Drop and the disbelief and disappointment I experienced.

I didn't buy into all the negativity during the preseason. I thought as long as we had McD and Josh, we'd be alright. But with $36 million in dead cap and a bunch of jettisoned captains, I did have concerns about the strength of the roster. So I projected another AFCE crown but a short run in the playoffs. I didn't expect to be in the AFCCG so I'm thrilled we're exceeding expectations. But now that we're here, I'm hungry for more. These opportunities are rare and that part of my heart where Bills hopes live is blazing like a furnace. Maybe the Bills aren't actually the best team in the NFL this year. But just two more wins gets us the trophy. Just two. The Gridiron Gods can give us that.

I seriously doubt if McD met with Babich and said, "This week for the Ravens, we're going with bend-don't-break." I'll go out on a limb and guess that McD wanted 3 and outs and even game planned for it. But their offense is better than our defense and we had trouble forcing punts. In any case, this wasn't an example of a bend-not-break defense. We bent and broke on some drives, got turnovers on the others. The thing that impresses me is that we went up against a team with a solid coaching staff and a better roster than we have, and we won. That says something positive about our coaches. What about Harbaugh's coaching in the 2nd Quarter? Two excellent coaching staffs went against in each other in a win-or-go-home game. The Ravens had the better players. The Bills won. Maybe our coaches did just fine.

Our players made fewer game changing mistakes than their players. That's why we won. Their offensive players made more good plays than ours, but they made more bad plays too. And the bad plays were really bad. People said Lamar had a better game than Josh. Lamar did throw for more yards, but he also crucially turned the ball over twice. I'll take Josh's stat line over Lamar's. In every universe, they deserved to lose and we deserved to win.

Harold, I'm not sure why you're sharing your credentials with us. There are a lot of people here who know the Bills. And there are a lot of people here who make pretty good predictions. But the best experts in the world are often wrong about football outcomes. No one - not even you - has perfect predictive power. That's one of the things that makes football so exciting: "On any given Sunday..." A little humility might help you enjoy more positive interactions with the good people on this board.

This is an amazing statistical comparison. Very much seems like the two teams are equally matched. Yet they have trophies and we don't. I really, really, really, really, really, really, really hope we change that this year. (p.s. The number 7 was considered lucky in the Eastern Zhou culture of ancient China).

The media has a short memory. Let's say we beat the Chiefs by 10 and then win the SB by 10. Outside of Baltimore, everyone will be talking about how great the Bills are, and the close Ravens game will mostly be forgotten. Let's say the Chiefs beat us. No one, outside of Baltimore, will care anymore that the Ravens lost a close game to the Bills thanks to mistakes.

I don't think this is the best roster we've had since McD and Beane arrived. But it may be the best team we've actually fielded during the playoffs - given injuries - since the 1990s. And considering our roster weaknesses, I think our best chance of winning it all is staying healthy. Really hoping Benford recovers, and all our starters remain injury-free till the conclusion of the Super Bowl.