Sammy Watkins' Rib

Not with Dallas on their home schedule. It would unquestionably be Dallas again this year if they hadn't just played the game last year. It will either be the Bills or any of the divisional opponents. Someone actually made a great point that Kroenke could demand the team be one that will not travel as well as the Bills or 49ers. I could see it be the Cardinals with that factored in. Or they could really throw them a bone and give them them the Panthers or Falcons. All of those match ups would be going against the data we have though.

History tells us they’re not gonna just pick some scrub team like the Panthers or Falcons though. Cowboys are really the only intra-conference game opponent that is decent. But just seems too unlikely they would be picked two years in a row.History tells us they’re not gonna just pick some scrub team like the Panthers or Falcons though. Cowboys are really the only intra-conference game opponent that is decent. But just seems too unlikely they would be picked two years in a row. We are due for either another divisional match up or out of conference game. Rogers to Denver is the only wild card in play.

I’d put my money on the bills playing opening night against the Rams. Next most likely opponents and really probably the only possible opponents would be Cowboys and 49ers. There’s some interesting data in these opening night games some favor the bills as the opponent some don’t. The Super Bowl winner has hosted the opening Thursday night game every season since the 2004 season with the exception of the 2019 season. For the 2019 season to celebrate the NFL is 100 year anniversary they did it interdivision matchup between Green Bay and Chicago. In the other 17 games to open the season since 2004 there have only been to enter division matchups. Both games featured NFC East teams. So as great a game as rams versus 49ers would be the data would say that is unlikely to be the match up. However, working against the bills is that over the same 17 game sample only twice has the opening night game featured and out of conference matchup. These two statistics would favor the Cowboys as being the likely match up with the Rams. But since the Cowboys opened the season last year on the road against the Super Bowl champs I just don’t really see that being likely. I think we will either get our third out of conference match up or our third division matchup. We are planning on going to the Rams game in LA regardless of when it is played so I’m definitely curious if it’ll end up being the opening game.

I agree. I think the problem is a lot of people including myself really didn’t give two craps about who would win. I only went for the Rams out of spite. Just don’t want to see Joe burrow when one before Josh Allen. But really I like the Bengals more than the Rams. So it was just a weird game just not really caring much And rooting against the team I liked and for the team I didn’t like. Pretty rare for that to occur.

I think looking at 19 total games played by the offense and Allen in 2020 vs 2021 both were nearly identical. That is certainly one way to look at it whether one agrees or not.

The thing is they settled for a FG because they had like 4th and goal from the 6 or 7 yard line. If he would have ran he may not have scored but they would have at least gotten 4th and goal from the 1 or 2 yard line. History may have been different then if they go for it and win the game instead of settling for the FG. The playoff totals that Rodgers has put up in 21 games is well below is regular season averages. He does have one Super Bowl ring but it still feels like he is basically this generations version of Dan Marino. Are Marino and Rodgers really that much different? Both really only had there playoff success in their first two years of starting. I'd be fine with anyone wanting to put Marino in the top 5 still over Rodgers given the different eras they played in. 30 years is composed of two if not three different football eras. 1991-1998 football was still RB dominant. Defenders tee'd off on both QB's and WR's. Things started to change around 2000-2010 to favor more passing and better QB play. Then since around 2010 and beyond they continued to change with more focus on QB play and protections.

I got to agree. It would be shocking. I'll hang my hat on the fact that McDermott has seemed to learn from mistakes in the past. He became very aggressive this year in his decisions to go for it on 4th down on offense. Hopefully he will also learn from the prevent defense meltdown. If we are going to blow a lead in 13 seconds make the offense earn it by making an amazing play. Don't just give them easy yards.

A lot of that was the defensive personnel dropping like flies. And many of us projected midseason or so that they would have a lengthy losing streak to finish the season because of how backloaded their schedule was with good teams. Packers, Bengals, Rams and Steelers. Ravens are in a tricky situation. Like you say you don't just give up on a top 10 QB because he isn't a top 3 QB. But I still see it as very likely that the Ravens treat Lamar a lot like Dak and Cousins teams did in contract negotiations. Ultimately using the franchise. That's not a bad deal at all for the player. For the team, it may cause them to end up overpaying but I get the strategy of using it when you just aren't 100% sure on a guy yet. Lamar missed a lot of games this year. If he were to miss 3+ games again next season the Ravens may look like geniuses for holding off on the long term contract.

"Moving forward with Tannehill" Yep. Gonna be a lot of Titans tickets available on the secondary market. More than normal. Somehow I don't believe that Tennessee Titans team source.

I agree. So many hindsights. Knowing how things unfolded should have went for 2. If we failed our chances of losing increase but I agree the defensive formations pre snap would not have been as absurd as they were.

My guess is that the Ravens are not signing him long term. Not yet. He'll play on the 5th year option and get tagged next season if they are still not convinced he's worth a multi year $40+ million dollar contract. I see him getting the Dak Prescott and Kirk Cousins treatment. Nothing needs to be changed. If QB's truly are worth the going rate then teams will pay that rate without hesitation. And QB' would deserve the ridiculous money. When it becomes obvious to GM's and owners that teams are overpaying QB's at the detriment to team success then they will stop paying them so much. My guess is only a small handful of QB's like 3-5 are truly worth $40+ million annually. Allen is one of those QB's and it is to the benefit of the Bills if 10 other teams think they actually have a QB worth that kind of cap hit.

It just brings another tear to my eye every time someone mentions we had a timeout or was it even multiple? How freaking good was Allen to lead us the length of the field for a TD in 1:02 and we didn't even burn all of our timeouts in doing so. If only Allen would have had the foresight to throw an incompletion on 1st and 10 from the 19 yard line instead of a TD. You make a valid point that McD as much and possibly more than Frazier is to blame for the defensive formation in the final 13 seconds. At the end of the day though I think a change has to be made. The loss and incompetence was just too devastating to just wipe your hands clean and say "Hey no problem here. Let's run it back."

I finally for the first time watched the 13 seconds in it's entirety. Watching live I couldn't take the suspense and walked out of the room for the Kelsey play hoping to hear cheers rather than "f***!". My take is that McDermott was completely out coached. Same as everyone else has concluded. They were playing to not give up a 30+ yard completion while failing to realize how terrible the defensive alignment was from the snap. We literally conceded 20 yards on each play at the snap. There was nothing our players could have done post snap to prevent a 20 yard gain by either Kelsey or Hill. As to the OP's question, this is a big deal because of the Bills incompetence here on back to back plays. The 5% chance of the Chiefs winning was supposed to come by penalty on a 35 yard pass play, a hail mary catch or Tyreek Hill just being Tyreek Hill and taking a 5 yard pass for a 70 yard TD. If either of those three scenarios happened it would still be as heart breaking but not as humiliating as the fact that the coaches put the players in a position to lose two straight plays. Somehow they didn't learn their lesson after the Hill play and gave a free 15 yards to Kelce on the next one before he even catches the ball. The 2021 Bills defense feasted on below average QB's and below average offenses all year. They ate it them up so well they finished as both the #1 yardage and scoring defense. But that came back to bite them in the butt. No doubt the terrible defensive formations they were in during the 13 seconds likely would have prevented the Jets, Panthers or Texans from crossing midfield. But the Chiefs and Andy Ried? Come on.

I wouldn't rule out the Bills firing Frazier after the coaching carousel is complete. But then the question would be who do they hire to replace him? Maybe take a look at Flores?

I agree Thurman if the price tag is too high. It just depends on what Patterson is looking for at this point in his career. That last big contract or a chance at a ring?I agree Thurman if the price tag is too high. It just depends on what Patterson is looking for at this point in his career. That last big contract or a chance at a ring? Perhaps he’ll end up going back to New England. I imagine they have a better cab situation than the bills. It wouldn’t be his best opportunity for a ring but he’d probably be going to at least a competitive team.

I think it’s a real possibility. At this point in his career he’s probably looking for a ring. The bills are one of the better teams to give them that chance if you were to sign with us. He’s made an OK amount of money through his career so I’m not sure he’s looking for that last big payday and besides I’m not sure a team would really give it to him anyways. With that said, I would probably prefer to try to find a way to resign McKenzie if it came down to McKenzie or Patterson. Hard to predict what the salaries would be but it feels like McKenzie would be more expensive. McKenzie is looking for that first big payday. And I can’t blame him for that.

Makes a million times more sense then him going to the Broncos. As good as he is he might not even make the playoffs in that division. He goes to Tennessee and he's probably going out of divisional round every year again after wrapping up the first round bye.

Consider that the cost of everything is going up these days, I would doubt that even half of the increase is truly due to just the rights to the Thursday night games. They may be using that as the excuse to why they are raising their annual membership but I got to believe an increase was in order even before this deal was made with the NFL.

I see Carson Strong as the closest thing to Josh Allen in this draft. And Carson Strong is about as mobile as Peyton Manning. I guess I would say from above the knees on up Carson Strong is similar to Josh Allen.

probably narrows them down to Joe Judge or Matt Patricia.

Mahomes wad well on his way to an elite postseason as well through 2 1/2 games. Until he crapped the bed. Still so pissed. Allen would’ve broke a lot of postseason record this year. Total yards. Total touchdowns.

Great news. But God help him if Allen starts slow again next season like he did in the first two games this year.

Bumpier than the season he just had? That seems hard to imagine.

Ravens at Bengals

That's true. It felt like the last hurdle for him was the consistency hurdle. But with the back to back record setting playoffs games it seems like he cleared that one now. Not sure what they will come up with now.