BillsFanSD

Houston is definitely the matchup I want. Honestly though, KC would be okay too. Both of those teams have average (KC) to bad (HOU) defenses. The one team I don't want to play is TEN. Not because they're great, but because I don't want a rematch and I don't feel like seeing replays of Homerun Throwback over and over again for a week.

It's worth having Marrone in the NFL just to watch him fail. Couldn't happen to a better guy.

I've been a fan since the late 80s, when I was in high school. Admittedly, I had a few "Why am I doing this to myself?" moments during the drought, but bailing out completely was never really an option for me. I did make a decision to boycott Bills merch after they brought back Dick Jauron after the 2008 season, but that was the closest I ever came to turning my back on the team. Strangely, it was almost worth going through the drought to fully savor what we have now. I literally cried in 2017 when the clock hit zero in the Cincinnati-Baltimore game and we ended the drought. I absolutely love the team that Beane and McDermott have built. Part of me wonders whether fans of regularly-successful teams like Pittsburgh (for example) really appreciate any of this sort of thing.

Yeah, but you can cover it with some well-placed wagers at the craps table, right?

I agree with you on Houston. I really like the Bills' chances in that game.

That particular series was an abomination. Not going to fret about it too much because I'm enjoying the win and don't want to dwell on the negatives, but had we lost this game we would all be melting down about those three play calls.

If Houston gets to 10 wins, they win the AFCS even if Tennessee wins out. (Conference record, I think).

Let's say there's a 30% chance that we beat New England, a 20% chance that New England loses to Miami, and a 75% chance that we beat the Jets. 0.3 X 0.2 X 0.75 = 4.5%

We owe it to America to deny New England a first round bye. Let's get it done.

Great post. The part about "the narrative" is unfortunately spot-on, but at least now we can laugh about it while we stack up wins.

Dear PFF: Get bent.

This is a weird scenario, but according to 538 we clinch a playoff berth with a loss by Tennessee to Houston in week 17 no matter what happens in any other game. I don't pretend to understand the math behind that one -- it seems like the Colts should still have some kind of chance to catch us, but I guess not.

In our "worst case" scenario, we had three games on our wish list for today -- Houston over Tennessee, Arizona over Cleveland, and Jacksonville over Oakland. We got all three. Go Bills!

Jax takes the lead with :31 to go.

Same sorry-ass Rams.

TD Arizona.

Blatant PI by a Cleveland defender in the endzone goes uncalled but challenged by Arizona. We'll see . . .

1:00 pm. Plenty of time in the morning to go out for a run and go to church, so I stay busy and don't fret too much. Then win or lose I have a great excuse to start drinking at 3:00 CT.

Some gamblers just took a massive bad beat on the Philadelphia game.

Obviously this is all academic because we're going to punch our own ticket tonight anyway.

If Houston holds on to win this game, the Bills clinch a playoff spot if Tennessee, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oakland each lose one more game, starting now.

Yes. In the unlikely and unhappy event that we lose out, we want Tennessee to have also lost two of their last three games so they can't leap-frog us. They get New Orleans next week.

The Bills are just a better team that the Steelers. I know we all have bad memories about prime time games in the past, but those were the bad old days. New staff, new players, new team. I expect to win tonight. Even if we lose, the consolation prize is that our playoff chances will still be excellent.

Yes. Allen came into the NFL incredibly raw and basically un-coached. He improved by leaps and bounds over the course of his first season, took another big step forward during the off-season, and has continued to improve as this year has gone along. He's currently playing at the level of "average NFL starter" which is nothing to write home about, but there's no reason to think that he's reached his ceiling and lots of reason to think that we can expect more in the future.

This is all a lot easier to understand if you keep in mind that it is mathematically impossible for Houston to finish 10-6 and get a WC spot. A 10-6 Houston team wins its division and guarantees that we finish ahead of Tennessee either outright or based on our head-to-head tiebreaker, assuming that we win any one of our remaining games.