SCBills

Hollins and Coleman are monster run blockers, which Brady loves and keeps us incredibly difficult to defend with the ability to kill teams through the run or pass. That said.. when the Offense bogs down like we saw in the 3rd Q yesterday, you want to see plays dialed up and plays made by our outside WR's. Hollins did what we expect Hollins to do. Keon had a 5 yard catch that was so close to breaking for a TD and drew a huge DPI down the field. Cooper did..nothing. We know he can, we saw it against these very same Chiefs. I hope we see it again. Somebody not named Shakir or a Running Back will hopefully emerge in these next two games.. Be it Cooper, Coleman and/or Kincaid.

Is Derek Carr our QB, because im pretty sure thats who our coaching staff think is our QB so far this half

Rapidly approaching a place where if we don’t win, it’s in the Offense 21-10 at half and then absolute trash from the Offense in its first two drives

It’s so important to try and get up a score on them and the refs just destroyed our chance of doing it that drive.

Baltimore up 1-0 in game altering bad calls so far.

These are the games his defense needs To show up in. No offense to Bo Nix, Mac Jones, Skylar Thompson etc., but he gets only so much credit for those games.

Wide open receivers everywhere after Milano completely whiffed on a 3rd and long stop as a spy.

Fwiw, I don’t think the Chiefs will get calls like that if we play them next weekend. But I don’t think for one second that the NFL wanted the Texans in the AFC CG, when they’re staring down the barrel of Allen or Jackson trying to dethrone Mahomes.

Just able to scroll through social media reaction to the Chiefs game and wow.. the analysts and fans alike seem to have finally had just about enough of the NFL/Refs/Chiefs collab. And good on Mixon, Anderson & Ryans for blatantly calling it out. I’ve never seen so much disgust towards the NFL than I do now from large following accounts over the refs influence on helping the Chiefs year in/year out.

Cautiously optimistic that you’re correct about our Defense, now fully healthy.

Ravens Defense also gets the “allure” factor of people just always viewing them as a strong unit .. and since the halfway mark of the season, they have been. Bills have been Josh Allen going nuclear to try and save us from McDermott’s oft-injured postseason defenses against good QB’s of recent (last defense win against a good QB in the playoffs being against these Ravens). I don’t take much issue with the sentiment that there’s more pre-game concern for the Bills on how to stop the Lamar/Henry Ravens Offense. There is… because we’ve seen Josh Allen be elite in big games and it still hasn’t mattered. McDermott’s Defense may not be the best Defense he’s had here, but it’s the healthiest, and that has to matter now.

I agree with this. As people above have pointed out, when we’ve gone up against a good running team and focused on stopping the run, we typically do. The game we get get gouged are usually a random “Week Whatever” game where Henry or Taylor run all over us in the regular season as we enter/are in the midst of our 2-3 game swoon. With the extreme cold and Lamar having never played in cold like this, I think you load the box to limit the run and tell Lamar he has to beat us throwing to Andrews, Likely, Koehler, Bateman and Agholar. If he does, more power to him. But at least this creates the opportunity for Lamar to struggle. Because right now you can tell he’s feeling himself by putting defenses on skates with the read option run and wide open receivers down field.

Vibe Check on both teams.. -Ravens seem very confident -Bills seem strangely relaxed and very focused, including McDermott You can project false confidence... especially when your brand is bully ball. The vibe the Bills are giving off between McDermott cracking jokes, Allen all smiles envisioning Mr Brightside playing in the 4th and the Von story about Bernard's philosophical take regarding "the man in the river" is something else you can't really fake. We'll find out which approach was warranted/validated Sunday Night.

Chris Jones was pick 37. Yea, you have to get lucky, but there are DT's that can make a difference available late RD1 and into RD2.

Draft a DT with Pick 32 and another with Pick 54. Infuse that talent with Oliver and Jones and then watch Rousseau become the guy we are likely paying him to be. It will also help AJ, Solomon and Von/Smoot (if brought back) off the edge. If we can get Myles Garrett or Maxx Crosby, sure, go for it.. but outside of those moves, this (imo) is the way.

Do we know he does? I don't recall off the top of my head many frigid cold weather games with Lamar in them. There's definitely a difference between cold and what the conditions will be Sunday Night. We know the Bills can play in them and we know Allen can still throw anywhere on the field in them. If, big if, Lamar is off at all down the field due to the extreme cold, that would be massive in our ability rush 5 and/or spy, especially if no/hobbled Zay Flowers. It's essentially what happened last time we played them in the Playoffs. The Ravens came into that game a juggernaut, but once we realized they couldn't throw down the field due to the wind, our Defense put the clamps on them. I say all this, again, with zero idea whether or not the extreme cold affects Lamar.

Not for nothing, but it’s a bit strange that football starts in warm weather and ends with high stakes matchups sometimes decided by who can execute better in extreme cold.

Bills are a Barstool/Alt Sports Media favorite. On ESPN, the only real allies they seem to have are McAfee & his crew, Rex Ryan, Dan Orlovsky and Mina Kimes. Most other personalities on that network else really…really.. want Lamar and Mahomes as the face of the league.

We say this, but what are we wanting to be better moving forward? McDermott clearly has a style and that style involves an undersized defense that plays base Nickel. We could certainly upgrade at DT and Safety, but the plan for Safety next year will likely be two guys on this roster in Rapp/Bishop. The Linebackers will be Milano, Bernard and Williams. Taron will be the Nickel. We probably draft a CB high to compete with Elam opposite Benford, and that guy is replacing a solid/good CB in Rasul. The DE's could be upgraded but I could see them bringing back Smoot, they'll likely pay Rousseau, AJ will be back and will whoever we have next year (outside a blockbuster trade), definitely be better than Von right now? I can't accept DT being a valid excuse if we don't advance, when we paid Oliver, paid Daquan, and drafted a DT in RD3, after taking a S who barely plays as a rookie in RD2. We are healthy. Figure it out and go win.

McDermott is a great person and a really good Head Coach. His Defense needs to perform this postseason. They are healthy and there aren't any excuses. Yes, these are the good ol' days, but if we can't win a Super Bowl, let alone get to one... especially if Mahomes (obviously), Burrow and heaven forbid, Lamar get there... we have a major problem. This year is as good of a shot as we've ever had. Sure we'll have a small amount of money this offseason and decent draft capital, but there's no guarantees we're this healthy next year and every wasted chance is another year closer to us missing out on the Allen window. JA is still young, and hopefully we win it all this year, but the angst for some is very warranted. And not all, but most of us, really REALLY hope McDermott makes us eat crow.

The other option would be go back to 6, but they're never doing that. 7 just ends up giving the 1 seed the biggest one team postseason advantage of any professional sport by a mile.

7 is the dumbest of all options. Just go to 8. Go to 18 games. 2 preseason games & 2 bye weeks. No playoff bye week. 1 plays 8, 2 plays 7 and so on... re-seed after Wild Card Round. This is the most likeliest of options for where they'll get to and makes the most competitive sense.

The 1 seed is WAY, wayyy too big of an advantage. Look at some of the Chiefs paths to the Super Bowl recently... Bye, Browns, Bills ---> Super Bowl Bye, Jags, Bengals ---> Super Bowl Bye, Texans (Bills/Ravens) ---> ??? Two of these years, they get a bye week, followed by a joke of a contender, followed by a game against the winner of the only other two teams that could beat them.

Perhaps the best Playoff QB we've ever seen, yet this is what he's subjected to because of past team's around him and coaching struggles. Defense is healthy and I'm expecting more of what we saw against Denver. I'm not saying we'll hold Baltimore to 7, but I am saying that it's time for McDermott to flex his muscle as a Defensive HC, in conjunction with Babich at DC, to perform well enough at home (second time seeing this Ravens Offense) that as long as the Offense has a good game... we win.

Uh oh… Vikings getting the version of the Rams we saw