Logic

Breaking: already great team gets elite players back just in time for the Bills game. The more things change...

College football has always been a game where the universities exploited free labor to make obscene amounts of money. Now, at least the labor gets to get in on the money-making. Considering that only 1.6% of college players make it to the NFL, I hope they all get AS MUCH as they can WHILE they can, whether it be via transfer portal, NIL deals, whatever. Enough with asking young men to place their bodies, brains, and long term health on the line for free. So rather than viewing the game as entering a new era dictated by greed, I view it as top universities -- if they want to continue to attract talent the way the used to be able to -- being required to distribute some of their football-earned wealth to the young men who actually brought it to them to begin with. I do not fault the players one bit for seeking every last penny they can get their hands on.

This is an outstanding post. Posts like this are what make this forum such a great place to be, and one which -- at times -- can provide tremendous insight and new ways of looking at things. I read, watched, and listened to analysis of the game both before and after it took place, and nowhere else do I remember hearing the tidbits about Lafleur and Shula. Thank you. Great stuff!

Indeed. On the other hand, the 49ers defense that gave up five touchdowns and 35 points to the Bills only gave up 4 FGs and 12 points to the Rams. It goes both ways. Football is a matchups-based game, and for multiple reasons, the Rams' style of offense proved to be a bad matchup for the Bills' style of defense. I'd say I wished we had played more tight man coverage like the 49ers did, but even when we tried that later in the game, the Rams smoked us. C'est la vie.

Welp... When it comes to my fantasy football playoff matchup, Cooper Kupp ***** me in the ass without buying me dinner first. Rude.

My only real reaction to hearing from Terry is that my heart breaks for him. The stuff about missing seeing Kim bake cookies for everyone prior to gamedays...just thinking about the entire situation, and how in the blink of an eye, his life changed forever. It's just really sad. My heart goes out to him. Tell your loved ones that you love them. Take a deep breath and be grateful for your health and that of your loved ones.

GO HEART TRANSPLANTS!

It's hard to pull off without a lot of hurt feelings. Just shake hands with Mr President to an old Ursula Andress picture and call it a night. Way less hassle.

Not a fan. I think I can tell you the main reasons why: First, they are always held on a Sunday afternoon. I'm sorry, but I spend five out of seven days a week with these people and now you want me to come in one of my two free days to spend MORE time with them? Second, no alcohol is served. Wait a second...so you want me to give up some of my rare free time to hang out with my co-workers AND you want me to be sober as a judge when doing it? Lastly, I work at a hotel that has lots of banquet space and holds lots of banquets. As such, our Christmas party is held AT our hotel, serving food MADE by our hotel kitchen. So just to recap: I'm coming in to my actual workplace on my day off, eating the same sort of food I get fed in the employee cafeteria all week, and not getting to drink a drop of alcohol? Nah. No sir. Not me. The possibility of winning an air fryer or a new set of pots and pans in the Christmas raffle isn't enough to cancel all of that out. Hold it on a weeknight in which we're all already at work, get it catered with food we don't already eat all the time, and let us drink. THEN maybe I'll be excited to come. As currently constructed? Hard pass.

An interesting thing I saw on Twitter, but have since lost, and do not know how/where to verify: All three teams that beat us this year are in the top 10 of the NFL in usage of condensed sets on offense. Condensed sets specifically seem to give our defense a lot of trouble. The bad news, if this is true? The Lions are 4th in the NFL in usage of condensed sets on offense.

Agreed. This is absolutely, 100% the final chance Elam is going to have with this team. The thinking has been that they've kept him because he had a really good Summer, and the only reason he hasn't been playing is that he didn't beat out Benford or Douglas. Okay, well....Douglas now appears set to miss a game. Soooo.... I have understood Elam's being gameday inactive up until now because Ingram plays special teams and Elam really doesn't. But special teams aren't what we need this Sunday if Douglas is out -- good cornerback play is. If they really, truly feel that undrafted Ja'Marcus Ingram is the superior option at boundary corner, then why is Elam even still on the roster? If he can't get on the field for special teams OR defense, then why use a roster spot on him? Is he really SO bad that they won't even use him on defense in a game against a non-conference opponent when they already have a playoff spot sewn up? I, too, will always give the benefit of the doubt to the coaching staff when it comes to DBs, but this Elam stuff is madness.

If Ingram starts in place of Douglas instead of Elam, then Elam's goose is well and truly cooked.

I don't think losing the game this week pushes Josh out of the top spot as betting favorite for MVP. So long as the Bills finish as at least the AFC 2-Seed and Josh continues to play well, I think he wins it. In my opinion, the Bills could lose this week, but if they win the next three, finish 13-4 as the 2-seed, and Josh continues to play well, he wins it. That being said, while I don't think losing the game will LOSE Josh the MVP, I DO think that having a great game and leading the Bills to a win would all but definitively seal it up.

If we could just have our offensive coordinator for two or three seasons, that would be great. It's crazy to watch Ben Johnson stick around in Detroit and Bobby Slowik stick around in Houston, but the Bills' OCs get poached. Yes, I realize this is the reality of having a defensive minded head coach and a franchise QB. Our OCs will repeatedly get hired elsewhere after Allen has great seasons. But if it could not happen after just ONE SEASON, that would be freakin lovely.

Not by my count. Assuming they lose in Detroit... They'd then have three regular season games left, three playoff games, and the Super Bowl. Seven total.

I'm just curious: does he get credit for the Bills' 10 wins this season, or does he only get blame for the losses?

I would first take umbrage with the notion that McDermott's blunder -- while egregious -- COST the bills the game. They gave up 44 points. They allowed a blocked punt to be returned for a touchdown. Based on the frequency with which the Rams converted 3rd downs on Sunday, it's certainly no guarantee that the Bills would have been able to stop the Rams three times and get the ball back even if McDermott HAD managed the clock correctly. Hurt the team's chances to win? Certainly. Reduced the likelihood of victory? Absolutely. But "directly cost his team the game" seems a bridge slightly too far, because it ignores the defensive futility and assumes that the Bills would have been victorious if McDermott not mismanaged the clock. Clock management has been an ongoing issue across the league for years. To start with, Andy Reid has famously had clock management issues. A few articles: https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2019/1/18/18185839/andy-reid-kansas-city-chiefs-clock-mismanagement-timeouts https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/14585604/andy-reid-offers-little-explanation-kansas-city-chiefs-clock-management-loss-get-done https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/nfl/philadelphia-eagles/reids-awful-clock-decision-kills-chiefs-triggers-eagles-fans/177775/ Beyond Reid, here are some other articles talking about the problem in general: https://www.si.com/nfl/2016/09/05/nfl-clock-management-andy-reid-homer-smith Other coaches compared clock management to surgery or giving birth or even a person’s final days. In his book Homer Smith listed eight ways that managing the clock is like a pilot’s handling a mid-flight Mayday. The last one: “In neither can you make a major mistake and survive.” “A lot of coaches don’t want to mess with [clock management],” says DeCamillis. “It’s not a real sexy topic. It’s not how coaches get jobs, being great clock managers. But this is where games are being won and lost. https://athlonsports.com/nfl/nfls-clock-management-mess The number of variables that swirl around a late-game situation — or even in the closing minutes of a half — is astounding. Coaches must deal with down-and-distance, timeouts remaining, field position and time left on the clock, and that doesn't even begin to cover intangibles like which players are performing well in the moment or how various sectors of a game plan have worked to that point. Trying to find calm and reason amidst sideline chaos is extremely difficult. "To think that in the heat of battle with the play clock going that you can just refer to the manual for an answer is not realistic," Pitcher says. "You can prepare and have scenarios in your mind, but you still have to react to situations. "The goal is to develop some guidelines that give us the best opportunity to succeed." This season, Pitcher will do more than work with QBs. New Bengals coach Zac Taylor has added another duty to his job description: clock management assistant. It's not an official title, and no one will find it on his business card or in his official Bengals bio. But at a time when information is exploding throughout the NFL, and teams are paying more attention than ever to how they manage every part of the game — especially in the crucial late stages of the halves — it makes sense that Taylor would look for someone to help. https://www.phillyvoice.com/times-not-actually-yours-psychology-poor-clock-management-football/ It's nearly impossible to think of a coach that excels in clock management. If you can think of one with a spotless reputation in that regard, odds are they haven't been coaching very long. Even Bill Belichick, respected as one of the smartest coaches in the league, was criticized heavily following his team's loss to the Broncos in the AFC title game. That's because we rarely credit them when a late-game decision works, and all too often focus blame on their decision-making when things go wrong. That is a result of our troubling inability as a whole to evaluate the process. Instead, much more attention is paid to the result. When talking about how the game impacted playoff seeding, that may be all that really matters. But when attempting to analyze why and how the result came to be, the process should carry far more weight.

Sure. I'll save you the trip to Google: "A straw man fallacy is a rhetorical device where someone argues against an imaginary or weak opposition instead of the actual argument being discussed. The goal is to distract from the original topic and make the argument seem infallible". So me replying to your statement "if you need a clock management specialist, you need a new HC" by pointing out that many coaches in the league struggle with clock management and, thus, according to your logic, many teams in the league need new head coaches, would not constitute a straw man. On the other hand, you suggesting that I implied that McDermott's clock blunder "wasn't the single worst example in recent memory" -- when I said no such thing anywhere -- so that you could (as the definition suggests) argue against an imaginary or weak opposition instead of the actual argument being discussed? THAT'S a straw man. Hope this helps.

I don't think you know what "straw man" means.

Straw man.

It would seem that he has realized that his chances of getting the type of job he wants in the NFL next season is low, and he still has a passion for coaching. Imagine how much it would add to his already legendary legacy if he turned UNC into a college powerhouse? Or if he added a National Championship to his resume? I could see him somewhat revolutionizing the way modern college teams run their programs. Talk of a sitting college GM, pay structures, prioritizing preparing players for the NFL, etc. Lastly, I'd guess the "setting his son up to be his guaranteed successor" is a big part of it, too. The ability to set his son up for success would be a logical final move for his coaching career.

The majority of teams in the NFL need new head coaches, then. Clock management is an issue across the league.

Bills lost two games and then won 7 in a row. Maybe, just maybe, the Bills will -- for the second time this season -- lose two games and then win 7 in a row. For those who are good at math, well...ya know. 🏆

I agree that's a good one too. Bills-Lions is AFC 2 seed vs NFC 1 seed Steelers-Eagles is AFC 3 seed vs NFC 2 seed Both kick off at 1:25 (or 4:25 if you live on the inferior football-watching coast). CBS will treat Bills-Lions like the game of the week, while Fox will do the same for Eagles-Steelers. I believe Fox is the only one allowed to use the "America's Game of the Week" title. TBH, it's a crime that both games are on at the same time. I wish one had gotten flexed to SNF, but I'm guessing both networks protected their respective games, and understandably so.

This matchup is everything you dream about all offseason long. The best team in the AFC going up against the best team in the NFC in a possible Super Bowl preview. Two proud but historically tortured franchises and fan bases, now witnessing success at a level rarely seen for their team. Two teams who have been NFL laughingstocks for decades but who now, by virtue of the exciting brand of football they both play, are being looked at as the undisputed NFL Game of the Week. The CBS pre-game crew will be in Detroit, once again treating a late window Bills matchup as a major event. All eyes will be on this game. Will the Bills, coming off a humbling loss in LA, be fired up to rebound, solidify their hold on the AFC two-seed, and show the entire nation who they really are? Or will they get punched in the mouth by a more physical opponent? Which MVP caliber QB will step up when it matters most? Which Super Bowl hopeful will come out on top? Yes, in the sometimes torturously long NFL offseason, THESE are the games I dream of. I can hardly wait.