Royale with Cheese

Turning 56 in a month.

Okay. The weather last year was a lot cooler. It was in the low 80's by the end of the 1st and in the high 70's at half time. Look at the line graph. It gives you the temp per hour. The elements were not the same. https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/fl/miami/KMIA/date/2022-9-25 https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/fl/miami/KMIA/date/2021-9-19

I did have a little upset stomach. I ate very late Saturday night.

Oh...1972 is getting snippy now. We were in a major slump for that 7 game skid. No one has been debating that. Now if we go on a streak, the % will change. There is context to everything. We are up by one score late in the game and get a game sealing TD to put us up two scores or that late FG puts us up by 2 scores. That counts as a tight game at the end, we just pulled ahead. Those are not backdoor covers if you pull ahead late in the game. https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2022/9/29/23377661/buffalo-bills-one-score-game-loss-streak In Week 3, the Buffalo Bills fell to the Miami Dolphins in the sweltering heat of South Florida. The loss dropped the Bills to 0-7 in their last seven games decided by one score. The narratives have started to swirl on this topic now that it’s reared its ugly head in 2022—this after it was caught lurking in the background during the 2021 season. Does Buffalo lack the ability to finish? Do they lack poise or composure late in games? Is head coach Sean McDermott not a “big game” coach? No matter how you want to frame the narrative, it’s shown up in one form or another in the immediate aftermath of the loss to their Dolphin-themed division rivals. But I think the narrative’s lacking context. The easiest and most common rebuttal is that the Bills were spectacular in one-score games in 2020, going 5-1 with their only loss coming against the Arizona Cardinals on the spectacularly named “Hail Murray” throw to wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. The head coach in 2020 was the same. The defensive coordinator was the same. The quarterback was the same. The offensive coordinator is now different, but if you were trying to isolate that as the variable, it would only apply to the most recent loss to Miami and not to any of the losses in 2021 (when Buffalo was 0-6 in one-score games). Did all of these people involved magically lose their “clutch gene” in the two years that have passed since the COVID-19-affected 2020 season? It feels unlikely, but let’s go further. In the last three years (since quarterback Josh Allen transcended to MVP-level play and the Bills became a meaningful Super Bowl contender), the team is 9-14 in one-score games overall. It may seem even with a larger sample size that Buffalo is failing to capitalize in the clutch. When prognosticators look for regression candidates among good NFL teams from one year to the next, one key point of emphasis is that a high winning percentage in one-score games isn’t a sustainable metric. In this article from Pickswise, they estimate that one-score games are essentially a coin flip—that teams could expect regression to the mean whether they are exceptionally good or exceptionally bad in winning percentage in those situations in any given season. There is an element of randomness to close games that we as fans frequently aren’t comfortable discussing because it would mean there wasn’t always a solution to a problem. Random ball bounces, penalties called or uncalled in strategically valuable situations, the directional doink of a field goal, and other random factors affect one-score games in a meaningful way every single week in the NFL. So how does a team go about trying to remove this randomness from the game? They blow teams out. Don’t let the randomness affect the win-loss column. The Bills have been doing an exceptional job of that for some time now. On average, between 50-60% of NFL games are decided by one score or less in any given season. In 2020, Buffalo ranked fifth in the NFL with an average scoring differential of +6.8—just within the “one-score” boundary. In 2021, that number grew to +11.5. In 2022 thus far, that number has ballooned even further to +17.7. In 2020, 37.5% of Buffalo Bills games were decided by one score. In 2021, it was 29.4%. Acknowledging the randomness associated with one-score games and not falling into the “any given Sunday” trap is a better solution that playing with fire week over week and hoping your “clutch gene” carries you through time and time again. “But Bruce, the Bills will play better teams in the playoffs and they’ll need to win close games.” The average margin of victory in NFL playoff games over a ten-year period studied by Stats on Tapp indicated that postseason games, as a whole, didn’t have a markedly different margin of average victory than a typical NFL regular season. So we know that, over a large enough sample size, the 9-14 record the Bills boast with a good QB and a good coach in one-score games isn’t egregious enough to make a narrative out of compared to the rest of the NFL. We know that victory in one-score games carries much more randomness than we would care to admit. And we know that avoiding one-score games as much as Buffalo has been doing for the last three years is the BEST path to victory. I’m not willing to go searching for a solution to a problem that I’m not sure actually yet exists.

I think we will be fine just rushing 4.

I stopped sitting.

At the beginning of the 4th quarter against the Raiders we were up by 7. That means the game was close and we pulled away. With 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter against the Dolphins, we were behind by 3. We came back and pulled ahead with 2 straight TD drives. Now you're discounting that. Those are close games that we pulled away. Now you're manipulating it to where we have to win in the last second for it to matter. Keep moving the goalposts. You quit evading the question. Does a career record or single season say more about a coach?

Divorced with kids and travels a lot for work….Brady is going to have a tough time finding another woman.

Give Josh the option of running or throwing like the TD to Knox in the WC playoff game in 2020. We can't run up the middle...no sense in going to the jumbo package.

Maybe it was a tough question?

I asked a pretty simple question....

So you agree that you don't look at someone's career, only one season?

And one year doesn't fit a narrative? Seriously? How many people have to argue with you to understand how flaw your reasonings are? It's been years of this. This thread is about close games. Close games are within one score. We were 5-1 in 2020. Why does only 2021 apply and not 2020? Josh Allen isn't that good against the Patriots because in 2018, he wasn't. Doesn't matter what he's done in his career against them, I'm just going to use 2018.

That's what age does to you. I sneezed the other day and it put so much stress on my body, I had to sit down to collect myself.

I already forgot that Xavier Rhodes is on this team lol.

I think he leads that parade.

I like him and think he's playing very well this year. However, he's going to command top money. I don't want to tie that much money into him and would rather use it elsewhere. I think Bernard takes over at MLB next year and why he was drafted.

I think we know the answer to that.

I know but that post made it sound he was just exploding. Even with splitting with Carter, he has more carries than Singletary. That still doesn't prove he's tearing up the league.

He's been a coach for 5 seasons and you focus on one year. He was 5-1 in one score games in 2020 but we are going to completely ignore that. That one loss was a Hail Murray. Since week 4 in 2022, we are 1-0 in one score games. If you're going to start with just 2021, I will start last week. See how that works?

Coverage stats are not always what they seem. 3rd and 9 and Elam gives up a 6 yard pass. He keeps the WR in front of him and doesn't allow a first down....but on the stat sheet he gives up a 6 yard pass. If he does this 3-4 times a game, he's doing a good job. But the stat sheet will say he's giving up too many catches. It is what happened to Stephon Gilmore here.

What if he played behind the Colts OL? 😂

Hall is averaging 44 yards per game rushing and 28 yards passing per game. He's not lighting it up lol. 44 yards per game rushing. 28 yards per game in pass receiving. Not impressive.

I think this is a game where you get him involved. The Steelers just aren't good. He needs to get his confidence back.

If Davis needs a new liver, he’s not going to get one in Buffalo that’s not saturated with Labatt’s.