SoTier

McDermott and Babich have taken a bunch of lemons and made some tasty lemonade. I don't think that there's anyone who believes that the Bills have a particularly talented defense, but they are probably one of the best coached defenses in the NFL this year. I don't care that the Ravens didn't punt on Sunday because 3 of their drives resulted in turn overs which yielded 10 of the Bills 27 points. Moreover, the Bills defense has regularly forced take aways all season and have done it against the best teams they've played including the Chiefs (2) and Lions (1) as well as the Ravens (3).

You only "take a big swing and draft a more dynamic quarterback" if there's actually such a potential QB in the draft who might be available. From all accounts, this upcoming QB crop doesn't have many great prospects, plus a lot of QB-hungry teams at the very top of the draft order unlikely to pass on a QB.

They have either struggled to throw downfield or haven't attempted to pass downfield for much of the last half of the season despite having AJ Brown and Devonta Smith. Even before Hurts was injured in the third quarter, all their passing was within a few yards of the LOS. I think that Brown had 1 catch yesterday.

What your chart shows is that Tua plays in a very different offense than Josh Allen does. Tua primarily hits his designated receiver or his first read or he throws a check down. He doesn't scramble often. Those are the types of plays where's the biggest differences between Allen and Tua. I would characterize Tua's style as dependent upon timing and precision while Allen plays a much more ad-lib style in which he's most dangerous on broken plays. I doubt that Tua could play in an Allen-style offense because he's not robust enough, but I'm not sure that Allen would play nearly as well in a very scripted offense because it wouldn't take advantage of all his talents. The chart doesn't "prove" anything about which QBs are "better" or more successful. The acknowledged best QBs in the NFL are scattered all over this list: Burrow is #1, Allen is #8, Lamar is #14, and Mahomes is #19.

I was shocked when I saw Earl Morrall's name on the list. I remembered him only as Johnny Unitas' backup who started Super Bowl III for the Baltimore Colts and lost to the Jests under Joe Namath (he started all 14 games that season and Baltimore went 13-1). In 1970, he only started 1 game but led the Colts to a win in SB V. In 1972, he started most of the games for Miami in their perfect season and won Super Bowl VII. The next year he won Super Bowl VIII with Miami again despite having started only 1 game. Morrall started in the NFL in 1956, so he was in his 13th season when he lost in Super Bowl III. He finally retired in 1976 after 21 seasons and winning 3 SBs while coming off the bench to replace his team's starting QB. The greatest "Super Sub" of all time.

I agree totally. I thought maybe I was grossed out by all these commercials simply because I'm old and somewhat out of touch with modern personal hygiene. Absolutely. Until a few years ago when that first all body deodorant showed up, none of us realized we all stunk to high heaven. I think the next "big thing" we will be told we need is one-use paper towels to dry our faces because cloth towels may contain "bacteria" that these special paper towels will protect us from. I find your "theory" to be nonsense. It's based on nostalgia for the past and a lot of the bull manure that infests social media. A handful of weirdos who oppose sensible personal hygiene habits or don't wash their clothes regularly do not necessarily represent all young men -- or young women. Modern washers and modern detergents work just fine when used correctly, including sanitizing without using bleach. That's why washers come with manuals and detergents with "instructions for use". I don't know how old you are, but you sound like an old blowhard of about my age who views the "good old days" through rose-colored glasses. When I was a kid, dads didn't do a lot of teaching of personal hygiene to their sons except maybe shaving, probably because they didn't know all that much. In fact, dads frequently back then had little to do with their kids, boys or girls, until they were adolescents. It was all up to the moms. Another reality check is that Home Economics was seldom a required subject for high school graduation. Furthermore, back in the day, only girls took home economics classes while boys were relegated to shop or auto mechanics classes. Moreover, Home Economics generally morphed from learning how to wash clothes and make beds into "practical living" courses in the 1970s, so we've been stinking because of badly washed clothes for half a century and didn't know it until some advertising agency told us "the truth". I find people in general who don't wash themselves or their hair for days to be gross.

The problem is that Jerry's enjoyment comes from running his team.

Gonzalez doinked the ball off the inside of the goal post and in to give the Commanders the win!!!!!

I think many if not most blow-out games in the NFL are similar to this game: the underdog/lesser team hangs around for the first half or into the third quarter, but eventually the better team exerts its superiority. Just going by the score ignores the fact that the Bills used three long drives to get those 13 points while largely holding the Broncos in check after their first drive TD. Poor Terry is still in mourning for the Stillers. The Ravens may be a bad match up for the Bills but the Bills are a bad matchup for the Ravens as well. The Ravens finished the season with 4 straight blow out wins against the Giants, the Stealers, the Texans, and the Browns. The Giants and Browns are both drafting in the top five. and the Steelers and Texans limped into the playoffs, playing poorly on both sides of the ball but especially on offense. The last time that the Ravens played a quality team that was playing well was when they lost to the Eagles, 24-19 on December 1. The Eagles, like the Bills, have both a strong running and a strong passing game as well as an outstanding OL. The Eagles have a better defense than the Bills but Jalen Hurts isn't nearly as dangerous as Josh Allen. The Steelers team the Ravens beat yesterday has had issues scoring in the red zone all season, and they were terrible on defense as well. They were a shadow of what they were earlier in the season. The Bills were on their game today on both sides of the ball. If the Bills bring their A game next week, the Ravens are in for a tough game.

I wrote specifically about teams that have had losing records for decades with few, if any playoff appearances much less playoff wins. The Bills went 17 seasons without a playoff appearance. The Lions went 30 years or some ridiculous number of seasons without a playoff win. The Jests haven't made the playoffs in 14 seasons, and only have 3 playoff seasons in the last 20 years. All these teams replaced GMs and coaching staffs multiple times, including bringing in proven people who won elsewhere. They also frequently had rosters with decent talent, including some superstars. Even the claim, "well, they don't have a franchise QB" doesn't work; Matthew Stafford wasted most of his career putting up big numbers for the Lions but never winning a playoff game. Stafford took the Rams to a Lombardi in his very first season in LA. The constant with all these was/is the ownership. Within a couple of years of Hamp taking over the Lions, they became a NFC power house. The Commanders made the playoffs the first season after Snyder was forced out. The Bills situation was a little more complicated because Pegula retained Russ Brandon, Ralph Wilson's surrogate, and put him into a similar role after the Rex Ryan debacle. The season after Brandon was fired for non-football reasons and Beane was put in charge, the Bills made the playoffs and never looked back. Unless they change the ownership, perpetual losers have no real chance of turning things around.

Actually, the reason that the Lions have become a powerhouse in the last three or four years is because they changed ownership. Sheila Ford Hamp took control of the team from her mother. Prior to Hamp taking up the reins, the Lions wallowed in perpetual bottom feeding for decades just like the Jests under Woody Johnson, the Raiders under Mark Davis, the Commanders under Dan Snyder, and the Bills during the last decade plus of Ralph Wilson's ownership. Sometimes the owners or their surrogates meddle in football decisions. Sometimes ownership has higher priorities than winning football games. Sometimes an owner isn't a good judge of the personnel he or she hires to run their teams. As long as Woody Johnson is the owner of the Jests, the chances of the team rising above mediocrity isn't likely to happen, no matter who they hire as GM because the owner's proclivities tend to undermine success on the field.

The defensive decline happened after Saleh was fired. He was an excellent defensive coach, and his defensive players loved him.

IMO, Rodgers was the main reason the Jests failed to make the playoffs this year. Not only had his physical skills significantly diminished from his top years in GB, but he's an egotistical ass who wanted everything his way and who never took responsibility for his own failures. It was always somebody else's fault when things didn't work out.

First off, are you Rex's mom? Wife? Sister? Dude or dudette, your statement is absolute hyperbole. Bill Belichick took the Patriots to the Super Bowl 9 times between 2001 and 2018, winning 6. Belichick's Patriots teams won the AFCE 17 times during that period, including 11 times in a row between 2009 and 2019. Andy Reid has taken the Chiefs to 11 playoff seasons in his 12 seasons as HC in KC, including 4 with Alex Smith as his QB. With Mahomes at QB, Reid has coached the Chiefs to 4 Super Bowl appearances with 3 wins plus 2 more conference championship appearances. As for short-term coaching achievements, Sean McDermott's 2017 wild card playoff team which broke the Bills' 17 year playoff drought with Tyrod Taylor at QB certainly qualifies as a more significant coaching achievement. Certainly Sean Peyton taking the Broncos to the wild card in 2024 with rookie Bo Nix as QB is another more outstanding coaching achievement than Ryan's. I have no doubt that I could name a dozen outstanding one or two single season coaching achievements that easily surpass Ryan's since 2001 if I bothered to research them. Rex isn't even a blimp on the radar of "greatest coaching achievement of this century".

I'm picking with my heart not my head, but what the hell ... it's an extra divisional game which is even more iffy than a regular division contest plus Lamar and the Ravens have frequently come up short compared to their regular season play in the post-season.