BillsFanSD

Good for him. ***** those guys.

Extremely well. Obviously this is an offense-first roster, but our defense was good enough to get the AFCCG last year and right back to the same opponent this year. (Yes, it was a divisional game, but that was just an unlucky draw -- if we played the Bengals last week and lost the exact same game the exact same way to the Chiefs this week, nobody would be talking about this being a step backwards or whatever). Do I wish our defense had played better against Mahomes? Sure. Probably most Monday mornings, there is a DC somewhere in the league waking up wishing that his defense had played better against Mahomes. I'm sure KC wishes that their defense had played better against Allen. I'm sure NE feels that way too. So what? Superstar QBs with talent-rich offenses will sometimes make good defenses look ridiculous. It happens. Freaking out over one such instance is a textbook example of a wild overreaction to one result.

Folks should really about these things in terms of probabilities, not certainties. The Chiefs are very clearly IMO the best team remaining. (If the Bills had won, they would be the best team remaining -- these teams are 1A and 1B in the NFL right now.) But they probably lose to the Bengals around 30% of the time or so. A bad bounce of the ball, a pass that bounces off the receiver's hands instead of getting caught, or even just the vagaries of a coin flip can swing the outcome of a game. Probably they'll beat the Bengals because they're a better team, but it's not guaranteed. The Chiefs will also be favored over whoever the NFC puts up. The Rams are a better team than the Bengals (not so sure about SF), but the Chiefs will probably still be something like 3.5-4.5 point favorites in that matchup. They'll lose that game maybe 40% of the time. So yeah, if somebody offered you 3:1 odds on KC winning the SB, you should jump all over that bet, but realize that it's going to pay off a little less than half the time. The reason why I say that is because people seem to think that the Bills a) were somehow "supposed" to win last week, when it was always a 50-50 proposition and b) would somehow cruise to the Lombardi trophy even though we would still be underdogs against the field.

Yep. We lost a coin-flip game in a weird way. It sucks, but man some of the people on this forum seem to think that the 2021 Bills are the first team to lose a playoff game.

For some reason, people on this forum think that our team is somehow at fault when other teams get good. I don't get it.

I'm assuming that nobody is actually stupid enough to think that we need a new HC. If that's your fix, I'm glad you're not in a position to make any decisions for this franchise.

Not exactly an irrational decision. Would you want to go from driving a Ferrari every day to trying to jump-start a 98 Civic?

There is nothing to "fix." If we could somehow bring back the exact same roster next year and alter the rules of time so that nobody gets any older and nobody is any more injured than they were on Sunday, I'd happily take my chances against KC again. They were quite clearly a somewhat better team than us last year. They are not a better team than us now. The Bills and Chiefs are the two best teams in the league. We're not going to bat 1.000 against other elite teams and not realistic to expect us to. Beane has succeeded in building a championship roster. Of course, we won't be able to bring back the exact same roster. We're probably going to be in the market for at least one and maybe two WRs. We'll probably see some turnover on the D-line. I still think we should add more talent/depth at CB and I would like to take a long hard look at RBs who might be available in FA or the draft. But we're just talking about tweaking things around the margins, replacing a small number of not-especially-irreplaceable FAs, and maybe upgrading a few spots where we're getting a little old. The core of this team is set.

For me, it's Wide Right and Music City Miracle, with 13 Seconds coming in a very distant third place. Sunday's game wasn't the same as either of those. Wide Right was a last-second SB loss in a game we absolutely should have won. We lost that game to an inferior opponent. Of course that stings. It should. Music City Miracle was "only" a WC game, but the Bills were a legitimate SB contender. The Titans, after all, did advance to the SB and came one yard away from sending it into OT. (In fairness, the Rams were a better team than either the Bills or Titans, but they under-performed in SBs). That game also felt like the end of an era. Flutie was shot, Rob Johnson was at best an unknown commodity, and Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith, and Andre Reed would never play another game for the Bills ever again. There was no reason to expect that that would be the start of a historic 17 year playoff drought, but I think most of us realized that we weren't going to be getting another shot for a while. 13 Seconds is totally different. Yes, we blew a game that we absolutely had won in regulation. Yes, that sucks. But we head into the off-season with a legit superstar at the most important position in North American sports and no serious salary cap problems to worry about. This team should absolutely be right back next year and the year after that and the year after that. This is just a painful speed bump.

The team that we had beat in the wild card round came within one yard of winning the super bowl.

No, but they did beat the 49ers a couple of years ago. That was after years and years and years of Andy Reid not being able to win big games.

Which opportunity would I rather have? Become the guy who leads Josh Allen's offense, a role that just got my predecessor one of 32 HC gigs? Or become the guy who leads Daniel Jones? Tough call.

I don't see this as a hot take. Allen has very obviously been playing at a HOF level for the past two seasons. Two seasons isn't enough to get you into the HOF, but there's zero reason to think that he's going to suddenly start being average. Barring a severe injury or some freak occurrence, I think there's something like an 85-90% chance that Allen lands in the HOF within 5 years of becoming eligible for enshrinement. This is one of those things where you just have to watch the other games and get a good perspective on what's normal around the league. Allen's level of play is not normal. Kansas City is literally the only team in the league that would not be a better roster if they swapped QBs with us. Cincinnati would be better with Allen. San Diego would be better with Allen. Green Bay would be better with Allen. Tampa would still be playing if they had Allen. It's just KC, and they wouldn't be any worse with Allen. There is literally nobody in the league playing the position any better than him right now. It won't stay that way, but it's where things are at the moment.

I'll take Belichick as our gameday logistical coordinator and strategy consultant i.e. the guy who figures out how to cheat.

Kicking it out of the back of the end zone was fine. All we needed to do was defend two plays -- don't let the go 40+ yards in two plays. That was all. Any NFL defense should be comfortable with that assignment against any NFL offense. I mean, on the last play of the game, we just decided not to cover Travis freaking Kelce. That's a bigger mistake than taking a touchback and not letting them rip off a return.

I like McKenzie and I'd like to have him back. But also he's a gadget player. If we want another guy like that, we can find one. The long-run biggest danger our team faces is getting all sentimental about players and wanting to keep the band together at all costs. You have to be willing to be Belichickian and players walk when their price gets up to the point that they're no longer a bargain. We have a $250 million QB who is going to start to eating up a big part of our cap in another year or two -- we can't make that work without looking for value at other positions.

The same thing I do after every Bills loss -- drown my sorrows in alcohol and THC. Oh, you meant with the Bills roster. Mostly more of the same IMO. We're going to need a WR or two to replace Sanders and probably Beasley. We need a RB to replace Moss and push Singletary -- I'm not sure that he should be our long-run answer at that position. On defense, it's great that we're getting Tre back but I think we still need another CB for depth if nothing else. Otherwise I would just keep putting draft picks into the lines. And a new P.

I would rather have had a touchback than risk a squib kick. With 13 seconds left to go, you have to trust your defense with your opponent at their 25 yard line. No reason to try a squib and potentially hand them the ball at midfield. Obviously a fair catch at the 10 would have been optimal, but a touchback was fine. Just play defense and win the game.

Agreed, but imagine what this offseason would look like if we had just scraped by against NE and then watched Allen put up a stat line like 28/50 for 1 TD and 3 INTs. At least we've established beyond any question that we have an elite franchise QB. This team will be right back in the playoffs next year and probably be just as much of a threat to win the conference. Compare and contrast with the Music City Miracle, where we headed into the offseason with a QB controversy and a broken salary cap situation. This is nowhere near as bleak.

It's a lot more fun rooting for a good team than it was during the drought years. Of course the downside is that you either win the super bowl or watch your team lose a gut-wrenching game on a national stage. No more relaxing week 17s (well, 18 now) where maybe we get to celebrate spoiling some other team's season but have nothing to worry about otherwise.

I guess that means Haack isn't coming back. The end of an era. Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

Okay, serious answer. After the first "game winning" TD, I wouldn't come down too hard on the defense. It's asking an awful lot to stop Mahomes when he has two minutes, three timeouts, and all four downs to work with. Frankly I expected KC to score in that situation. If the tables were reversed, I would expect Allen to score. And he did of course, when the tables were actually reversed. After the second "game winning" TD, I think everybody should come down extremely hard on the defense. If Jesus Christ Himself were under center you should be able to stop Him from getting into FG range with just 13 seconds left on the clock. No excuses for that one.

Finally somebody noticed that our defense might have played somewhat better toward the end of the game.

A true pro bowler would have known to call heads.

Not really. I mean, by many metrics our defense was "first" in the NFL, but that was obviously an artifact of getting to play the likes of Davis Mills and Trevor Siemian. Seriously, this team played a whole parade of backup QBs and mostly annihilated them. When we played good QBs we got lit up. And we all know how our run defense fared against teams like Indianapolis and Tennessee. I'm not opposed to our defensive philosophy. We have an offense that score in bunches, so a bend-but-don't-break approach out of a base nickel makes a lot of sense -- we figure to be playing with the lead a lot, so it's logical to emphasize stopping the pass and not giving up big plays. But I'm sure guys like Mike Zimmer and Wink Martindale would have done just fine with this unit even if their defense looked a little different.