HappyDays

According to Banged Up Bills on Twitter the median timeframe for a first concussion is 9 days... We just have to hope he clears it faster than the average like Ray Davis did.

The Chiefs win like 75% of their games because their opponent makes a big mistake in a big moment. That's championship football. The media is right about the narrative but they are wrong about the meaning behind it.

Meh those spot challenges have minimal chance of being won and I thought saving the TO for a potential game winning FG drive was a lot more important. Now I have plenty of criticism for Brady in this game, including that 3rd down play call. McDermott ultimately owns his OC's mistakes so I'm not letting him off the hook for that. But as far as the normal head coach game management stuff I thought he was excellent.

Ugh I'm sick of important Bills players getting randomly injured on the final play of the game. Hopefully Benford makes it through protocol.

If you want to say our coaches won the 1st half and theirs won the 2nd half, that's more than fair.

I had exactly zero confidence that FG was taking us to OT. Zero. In my mind that game ended on the Hamlin fake punt and everything that came after was a gag gift. I don't want to re-litigate previous playoff losses thought. For this year I think McDermott has done a great job in the playoffs. No unforced coaching errors like we've seen in the past. The players are as focused and ready as ever. Tell Brady to knock it off with whatever he was doing yesterday and let's go win this thing.

The weird thing is Lamar has played some of the cleanest QB play in the entire league the past two years. But then he gets past the wildcard and makes mistakes. If it was like the Dorsey/Allen days where mistakes were the identity of our offense then I would agree coaching needs an upgrade, but since these issues only pop up for them at a very specific time of year I don't know how you blame coaching. Lamar just has to make it a point to not be the reason they lose in January. It's a stigma that's only going to get worse.

Him and Andrews both. Two of the most important players on the team made multiple backbreaking mistakes that had nothing to do with coaching. Fittingly those two combined to make a game sealing mistake on what was effectively the final play of the game. If people want to compare that to some of the awful playoff losses we've had under McDermott over the years, have at it. I don't need to stretch the truth - McDermott and Harbaugh were both excellent in their roles yesterday. Ultimately one side's players made mistakes and the others didn't, and that decided the result.

Two awful plays by Lamar had nothing to do with the gameplan. They didn't punt once! Lamar has to stop choking in these games.

Harbaugh needs his QB to stop choking in these games. That's been their biggest problem over the years in getting over the hump. Look at the AFCCG last year, Baltimore shuts down KC's offense in the 2nd half but Lamar throws an inexplicable pass into triple coverage that is easily intercepted. If Allen was doing that kind of crap in playoff games the heat would be off McDermott somewhat, but since he instead consistently raises his play in the playoffs it actually raises the pressure on the coaching staff. Also Harbaugh has the Super Bowl victory to lean on. I've said on here and I'll stand by it - if we get 1 Super Bowl win with McDermott, I will not even raise the idea of firing him ever again. For yesterday I give McDermott a lot of credit in managing the game well and I don't have any criticism for him today. And I won't argue for him to be fired this offseason no matter what happens next week. He's earned that by taking the team further than anybody expected.

What coaching errors are we pointing to from yesterday? Or in any of these playoff losses? The Ravens honestly should have controlled the game against because of a good gameplan and great 2nd half adjustments. But Harbaugh can't control for his QB and best pass catcher making multiple unforced errors.

I don't mean like 20+ yard plays downfield, I just mean literally passes that go more than 5 yards forward to a WR or TE. And yes by memory that's what Baltimore's passing offense was running through for the entire game. Whereas it felt like we ran a lot of screens and quick one-read passes or checkdowns. I see the argument that our personnel limited us somewhat but the overall gameplan seemed very deliberate, not just caused by circumstance.

Chiefs have a much better defense than we do, as did the Pats in their dynasty years. Small ball, ball control offense works when your defense can shut the opponent down. Baltimore on the contrary was moving the ball at will in the 2nd half yesterday. I felt pretty confident they were going to score another TD until Bernard made a great play... I was surprised and disappointed in how little urgency we showed to try and close the game out on offense. My thoughts are we should use the run to establish the game, but use Allen to close it out. And I don't mean just increasing our pass attempt numbers, I mean actually giving him free reign to go make some plays.

Ravens were passing downfield just fine. So I don't really buy weather as the reason.

Yes the first play of the 2nd half set the tone. Baltimore was obviously going to adjust to shut down the run. We had an opportunity there to take them by surprise on that first play and ultimately establish an insurmountable lead. Instead we fed into their adjustments and turned an easy win into a nailbiter. I really don't mind the run heavy approach. When it works it really works. But when the defense is about to adjust we have to be one chess move ahead of them and start attacking through the air right when they've sold out to stop the run.

For me it's not about the number of attempts, it's about the quality of attempts. Brady called our passing offense like our backup was in. It was kind of bizarre. I don't need Allen to be Superman on every snap but we should put the ball in his hands and take the leash off to let him close out games.

My concern is that we're going to turn it into that kind of game because we're being way too conservative with a small lead. I know this offense is capable of explosive production like we saw just a few weeks ago against the Lions and Rams. I don't understand what's changed and it started with the home Patriots game. Everyone chalked up that lethargic passing performance to a let down game, but that's been the passing offense ever since then.

This is crazy

Yeah I've been critical of Bishop but no bad plays jumped out to me yesterday. One play I remember he made a good tackle after a catch was made in his area. We got pushed around up front in the 2nd half, that's the reason their offense started finding so much success.

So, much more frequently that I expected. They made it a point to shut down the run and trusted that Lamar would make a couple mistakes if the game was put on his shoulders. That's the gameplan most of us wanted and it worked.

Here's an interesting question - if yesterday had been the Super Bowl, who on the Bills would have been Super Bowl MVP? No one single player stands out in my mind. I wonder if Allen would get it just by default.

Epenesa with a sneaky good game:

My confession is that on his last kick I opened the ESPN gamecast, which is always like 30 seconds ahead of the broadcast, so I could see the result before watching it.

How did this end up working out