jkeerie

Rams played outdoors, in the cold, traveling across country. Playing at home in their temperature controlled stadium makes a difference. But having said that, our defense could not stop them at all.

Ravens are tough at home, especially in Prime time. Lamar has to prove he can do it on the road in the playoffs.

It depends on Allar. If he's on point with his passing, yes. Franklin takes chances when he should be conservative and plays conservative when he should take chances.

I'm still holding out hope for the one seed. Pittsburgh does not clinch the division if they lose. They will then need the game vs KC next week. With Denver losing this week, if they lose at the Bengals, they will need the home game against KC to make the playoffs.

I like to use the ESPN playoff machine. It just slots teams and sees what happens from week to week based on teams winning and losing. It's more definitive.

I looked at it again at the playoff machine and you are correct. Pittsburgh could rest starters week 18 if they've clinched the division and give Bengals a pass.

You are actually correct. I just looked at it again on the playoff machine. I set everything to home teams winning. Bengals do need to win out, including at Pittsburgh in week 18 which is possible if Pittsburgh rests starters. Best to have Broncos win. They face Bengals in week 17.

Totally disagree. Even if Bengals win out they need an awful lot of help.

I'm watching the replay on NFL Network as we speak and paying attention to the crowd noise based on your write-up. Spot on, Shaw!

I agree. We'd been getting washed on the ground in how many games. Versus Detroit's stout running game, the Bills gave up 48 yards. The Bills were missing 3 of their 5 starters in the secondary and lost another during the game. Then Milano and Williams went out in the second half. I'll cut the defense a bit of slack, considering they faced the number one offense. However, some very poor tackling extended many of the Detroit drives. Backups or not, tackling is fundamental.

You do make valid points with respect to the time aspect. It's easy to second guess. I"ll guarantee you that if McD declined the penalty and LA gets the 1st down and scores, and the game ended up the same, posters on this board would have screamed McD should have taken the penalty. Our defense sucked the entire game. I had no confidence they could force even a single punt. And in truth, they held the Rams to 37 points to our 42. It was the not-so-special teams that cost the Bills greatly! Speaking of which, Bills Special teams have not been stellar this year. And yesterday...in the last moments...we had 9 players on the final punt, and Coddrington is not instructed to field the ball no matter what???? I know McD is the head coach, but a head coach has got to rely on his coordinators to know what they are doing at all times and to instruct the team. So...McD trusted his players and his coordinators. They failed him. The players are owning it. The defensive players know they were awful that game and played with no sense of urgency. McD is owning the defeat...even though many can second-guess his decisions. I'm wondering about his coordinators. McD always talks about learning from these tough defeats. It will be interesting to see particularly in this next game, if they make any changes in their defensive scheme or personnel. As much as we love Taron Johnson (and he is a great nickel corner), it makes us lighter against the run especially with our current defensive tackles when he's always out there. Watching many of the talking heads today, I didn't hear any criticism of taking the holding penalty. The criticism centered around the QB sneak at the goal line which cost the time out when it failed. Interestingly on Up and Adams, Gronkowski was on. He's never really talks about the Bills in glowing terms routinely. Aquib Talib was quite critical of the Bills defense. Yet Gronk talked about, if you watch the game, Bills defenders were not out of position. They forced 3rd downs routinely. He basically gave credit to Stafford and Nacua and Kupp, as playing really lights out the entire game and making spectacular plays. He was critical of the Bills D Line, though, and not being able to pressure Stafford. That's where McD focused in his presser. He said the Bills lost in the trenches on both sides of the ball. Josh just minimized the damage offensively.

Not everyone. 😊

That 6-6 team may well have been 10-2 or better had their offense been healthy all season. They finally got their starting WRs and their starting O line back.

Chargers offense struggles more without McKonkey.

Where's Derwin James? I thought he was supposed to be the difference maker this game.