Dan

Lots of thoughts on this game! The bolded is on of them! For all the McD haters… the defensive game plan was incredible and the Bills defense did what ..no one.. said they could do! They contained #22 AND #8. You have to give McD credit as well for the decision to go for the FG on the 4th down. It was risky, but it worked. It proved to be the right call. I think in the 3rd quarter the Bills wanted to do what they’ve done in most blowouts this season… that is start with a long, punishing drive, running right down the field and taking their spirit! It didn’t work. The Ravens are a better team and you can’t do that. Hopefully, Brady learned that you can’t do that in the Divisional round.. or the Championship game! I had zero concern at the end. I just knew Josh would drive them for a FG to win the game. If the Ravens actually would have got the 2pts. No doubt Josh would have won this game! For all the Hamlin haters …suck it. Not only did he have a great all around game, but he made one of THE pivotal plays in the game sacking Lamar and forcing the fumble. He deserves a game ball. This season and this game, as exhibit 1, I think we’re finally seeing the maturation of Sean McDermott and this team. They look a lot like the Chiefs lately. Doing just enough to win, waiting for the opposition to make a mistake and capitalize on it and minimizing their own mistakes. They’re fundamentally sound and able to win in a multitude of ways. A lot of the wins everyone talks about how they barely won and all the things that they need to do… but here we are in the Championship game… one win away from the Super Bowl. 10-0 at home! Nuff said. GO BILLS!

Not only were they all wrong about this game…. But they were all wrong to vote Lamar over Josh. The entire nfl media machine has been hyping Lamar’s for weeks now to justify THEIR narratives. Josh and the Bills just flipped them all off and are moving on to KC. I fully expect another week of hearing how bad Buffalo is and how we just can’t beat KC. Suck it media world… you were all wrong about Josh. You’re all wrong about their team.

***** the Ravens! BILLS WIN!!!

Thats what I keep thinking. The Ravens are a mismatch for our defense, but they’re a mismatch for pretty much every team! When they go heavy… Orlovsky (eye roll) had a segment… they have 6 linemen each over 300lbs, 2 TEs and a RB, each over 250lbs. Thats a lot of beef smashing into small DBs! So it’s just hard to stop..for anyone. And they run with this set throughout the game, not just in those 1yd to go type situations. Hence for me, a key will be our offense sustaining long drives that result in touchdowns. The more we force them to play catch up, the less likely they are to just line up heavy and pound the defense. Especially early in the game… if we don’t score early and they pound away… that’s when you see people tired and arm tackles in the 4th quarter. Ideally, we see a start more like the Lions game and less like the Rams game.

I have zero desire to watch the Chiefs in another Super Bowl. If they make it, I absolutely will not watch it.

I just don’t understand it either… how do you not have someone on Kelce 100% of the time, every play!? It doesn’t matter where he lines up, what blocking he pretends to do, you have someone on him the entire game. Why is that so hard to understand ?

Why would you suggest Cooper isn’t “mentally right”? Or even unhealthy. I think his involvement, like most everyone on the offensive side, is dependent upon the game plan each week for the opponent. The Bills don’t have a true #1, but they’ve proven most all season that they don’t need one. I fully expect Goodell (aka cigarette smoking man’s nephew) to cancel the Super Bowl if the Bills manage to beat KC.

I agree… to an extent. If we win, yes, all these narratives are put to rest. But, by monday night all the pundits will immediately switch to Buffalo being blown out by the Chiefs. Allen can't beat Mahommes. Reid owns us. Blah blah. There will be another full week of hearing how Buffalo will lose. We had that last week playing Denver for pete's sake! The media immediately pivoted to how awesome the Ravens are with barely a single person detailing the beatdown we bestowed upon them.

Thats not TN.

Exactly! As though Henry is just this unmovable giant. Yeah Milano will be there ..meet him in the hole.. and Henry will just run right over him because he’s just so big and strong no one on our team can even tackle him. maybe that was Pittsburgh’s plan last week. Don’t even try guys… you’ll just embarrass yourself. ? I mean that seems like it would be best, everyone just lay down. Don’t get hurt and let them score. It’s the only thing you can do.

I think how the Bills’ Offense fairs against the Ravens’ Defense (vice versa, if you prefer) is the wild card in this game. It’s kind interesting how nearly ALL of the game discussion this week has been centered on how, or even if, the Bills’ D can stop Lamar and Henry. Pundits are using those analyses as the backbone to their argument for the Ravens winning. So do they just assume that they’re going to shut down the Bills’ Offense? That seems ridiculous. Not even the Chiefs shut our offense down. If this, or any game, becomes a shoot out, back and forth score fest… the Bills have proven they can hang with anyone! It’s genuinely surprising to me how little people have talked about the matchup in terms of how the Ravens are going to stop Josh Allen. Conversely, there’s been ample discussion about how we won’t stop Henry and Lamar. While I’m not one of those predicting a blowout or we keep Henry hemmed in and under 70yds. I do have confidence in the Bills. Why? Well, that Eric Whatever his name is guy on Cover1 (/s) laid out the way they run their option play and the best way to defend it; along with the trap plays they run. Then you have the BB clip talking the same stuff. What gives me confidence is the Ed Oliver interview where he states they pulled out some of the trap runs in week 4 and took him out. He’s ready for that now. So it seems to me… the Bills have done their homework. They know what the Ravens want to do and they how to defend it (and they have the proper players starting to actually execute). The only 2 questions that really remain are: (1) will the Bills players actually be disciplined and strong enough at the point of attack to keep those runs in check? And (2) how will the Ravens adapt, if the Bills succeed at keeping the run game in check? I don’t think we can just disregard Lamar as a passer. He has the stats this year that indicate he’s pretty good throwing the ball. In fact it won’t surprise me if they come out passing heavy early. So the secondary needs to be ready for when they adapt and try to get some cheap passes. But, again, I’m confident the Bills will be ready. I think there’s every reason to believe we can hold their offense to 20-28 point range. So, then the wild card becomes… can the Ravens stop Josh from scoring 30+ points? We’ll see, I guess.

This is pretty much how I felt last week at this time. It’s up to the boys in Blue to keep shutting them up.

If they sing the praises of anyone other than the Chiefs, for the last several years, they blow it. So I don’t buy that. she can be a fan of who we she wants as long as she stays on the internets.

Screw that! I don't care if we win the Super Bowl because every other team gets Ebola and have to field kindergarten kids. This notion that it only counts if we play every hard team at their absolute peak is nonsense to me. No one ever talks about all the cheating Brady and company did to get their titles. No none talks about the cake walk schedules the Chiefs have had. All they talk about is the super bowl wins. So, your solution is to water it down even more? I think what you’re suggesting is what the NFL wants and will do, soon. But, no one really likes it other than the owners and TV execs. I posted what I thought was a fairly simple solution that made things a bit more equal for the 2 seed. Just have the 1 seed play the highest remaining seed after their bye.. not the lowest. And give the 2 seed a breather and let them play the lowest seed in the WC and Divisional round. They still don't have a bye, but they get a small plus for being #2. But that's just it… good playoff teams don't roll out the same game plans from the regular season. This is something I truly hope McD has learned and we continue to roll out new looks this week. And I really hope they're smart enough to look at what the Ravens did last week, not what they did in week 4. In particular, the things last week that they did just a few times, as though prepping a little. Can you please let the Bills get beat before you continually bang the board with fire everyone posts? Right now the Bills are still very much alive after one of the best seasons they've had in 30 years. They demolished a playoff team last week. Let us, please, enjoy that. Why not focus our energy on this game and what can/should be done. And then we can worry about what they need to do in the offseason..when we get to the offseason. Patience .. you'll get to prove how smart you are in March.

Fess up… you googled that?

Personally I’d like it to be more windy than cold. I think Josh has figured the winds in the stadium out and he’s far better than anyone else that comes into a swirling Rich stadium.

Agreed. I get the idea of scoring first. But the potential to double dip is a huge reason to defer. The only other thing to really consider with the coin flip is the weather. You either want the wind at your back in the 4th and/or if bad weather is coming maybe you take the ball first to get scores in before it arrives.

I don’t I’ll agree with that now. Yes! But next week… I think KC will move to the top of teams I wanna beat the most!

Serious question for folks smarter than me… Aren’t some defensive formations a single high safety look? Why not pull one of the safeties, keep TJ on the field and play single high safety looks in obvious run downs? Why do we always have to pull TJ to get another LB on the field? I keep seeing everyone talking stats, stats, stats to support why Lamar should be MVP. But if it’s only about stats… why isn’t Burrow the MVP? He had better stats than anyone. Just go to nfl.com pull up your passing leaders.. boom. Select your MVP. I know the answer. But no one supporting Lamar wants to talk about team play and context, they just bring up his stats. It makes no sense. just kick their ass and be done with it all!

I’m of the opinion that all the sports pundits know they voted for Lamar to be All pro and MVP. And now they’re determined to set the narrative that Allen and the Bills aren’t that good to justify the vote. I don’t know why they insist on this narrative, but there’s no rational explanation as to why the Bills were the big upset alert all week. And now the Ravens of course are practically unbeatable. ..Other than Aliens, of course.

Agreed! And sure they are. I mean I get the standard… stay in your lanes etc. and there’s a lot to that. The bit of the Steelers game I watched…before turning it off and taking down Christmas lights… TJ was crashing down the line to stop Henry and Lamar just kept the ball and ran right past him. So playing contain and not being over aggressive to Henry I’m sure is part of it. But if they give the ball to him, how do you bring him down? Have a LB spy Henry? And tell the Ends to play contain on Lamar?

So I get that the Ravens have the best rushing attack in the league and are nearly impossible to stop. But they lost 5 games this season. How did they get beat? Seriously, I’m curious cause I haven’t had time to do a deep dive into YouTube breakdowns on them yet. But it seems they are fallible, just wondering how it happens.

To be fair to Nix… there were 3 (maybe more?) passes that hit the WRs hands and dropped. As we’ve all seen… it’s hard to stay in rhythm when your receivers are dropping easy passes. The Broncos should be fine going forward. The Bills are just a much better team. Which is why it was so stupid for all the pundits to call this the most likely upset. I can only imagine how the all the talking heads are going to frame this week’s game. They’re all just hoping! Praying! Lamar and the Ravens beat the Bills. They have to justify their continual mvp love for that team.

No. The league changed it when they made the 2 seed play an extra game. I’m just saying you should get more than 2 home games for being the 2nd best team in the conference. And that’s. Maybe a decent compromise? I guess not cause we need it to be as hard as possible to prove we deserve it?

Was thinking during the game to make it a little more equal now that the 2 seed doesn’t get a bye… they should give the 2 seed the lowest ranking team makin it to the divisional round, and the 1 seed plays the higher seed. As it stands now… the 1 seed gets ALL the advantage, 1st round bye, 2 home games and the lowest seed almost gives them the championship game. The 2 seed really gets nothing but 2 home games. It’s true they get the low seed in in the WC round and are usually winning now… but not having a bye leads to injuries and then after that they play the highest ranking team. It would be an easy rule change that doesn’t take any revenue from the league.