Mikie2times

Off the 49ers Monday night in a game in which they already said they felt disrespected as a dog. Will be a good situational spot for Miami.

Tremaine and him were seen riding bikes before the game

Baker Mayfield not being a bust after 18 teams is pretty fun

Imagine if every poster bumped an accurate prediction? This place would be a disorganized mess. It's hilariously petty to go bumping your own thread and calling out other posters. As if the OP suffered some truma he deserves retribution for as a result of not being wrong. I wonder how many times other posters have called the OP out when he was wrong? Answers probably never because people don't go to that length of being scorned over a internet forum.

One thing I will say about Brady is he did a better job protecting us from ourselves yesterday. It was a very similar game as the Jets opener but we kept running vs going into pure pass mode as we have in the past.

Pretty sure most would take one Super Bowl in a lifetime The defensive trend prior to those additions (post Jags / Pre Eagles) was pushing us ranked closer to last in the league. So yes, they have helped a lot. Prior to the injuries we were top 5. I don't know that we are better on defense than years past. I like our DL better for sure and even if the rest of the defense isn't better, I would almost take a better DL alone.

Agree 100% with all of this. But I just don't look at our team is the type of team that can come out of a group of average teams. People say, well why not us? Well, why not us because we have historical issues winning close games. We have issues winning in OT. We have issues folding late in games. We are wildly inconsistent. We might be capable of the highest top end performance but nothing in this teams DNA suggests to me that we are capable of sustaining a performance that can get us thru 4 playoff games.

I agree, but the Eagles are wildly overrated on defense. Dallas has been consistent in late season melt downs against good teams. If people want to say the Chargers had a good situational spot, the Cowboys had an equally bad one. In the end I tend to not go ham cakes on the SOS variable. We don't need to play against a really good team to go into a shell on offense. We have a pretty good idea of what this defense will do. At the end of the day, it was Bills fans with the help of the national media that created all these narratives about us being a Super Bowl contender. I will just watch the team and expect nothing. As we have no logical reason to expect anything. Brady has show issues adjusting at times. Our passing game is not clicking right now. Our defense is not better than previous years. So I'm not really arguing that we should have done more or less vs the Chargers. I'm arguing more about what have we actually done to justify this hype?

Bills are 4th in EPA offense and 14th in EPA defense in weeks 1-12 Bills are 10th in EPA offense and 11th in EPA defense since the the Eagles games (week 13) Our fan base really wants to assign order to the last few weeks thinking we have turned some "corner". Reality is 3 of the last 4 could have went either way just as the majority of the games played out in weeks 1-12. In this iteration 2 of 3 went our way. Earlier in the year, they didn't. The foundation of our play which is captured by EPA suggests very little has changed.

I think it’s more “I’m smarter” to realize nothing material has changed in the makeup or performance of this team from the start of the year so to think they will somehow outperform previous years in which they were better is really short sighted. That is actually a contrarian opinion at this time. The larger opinion is it was all Dorsey, McD either learned or never needed to learn, and we are vastly improved from earlier this year.

We don’t string together 3-4 wins against above .500 teams. We don’t win close games at an above .500 rate. We don’t win OT games. So I get why it’s popular to say how dangerous we could be, but being dangerous in the context you’re using requires a team to win close games and have the gods of luck on your side. Which you can usually help along by making great decisions, playing clean, etc. which is why we tend not to be able to be that sort of team.

Imagine if we had Kyle Allen throwing to Shakir and Trent Sherfield at WR1 and WR2? So yes, even if the turnovers REALLY helped, they moved the ball a little too cleanly for my comfort level in an absolute must win for us. Offense did it's no show thing AGAIN. Until Gabe and Josh connected, they were a complete no show. How many better teams can we spot 10 points and be ok? Which is basically the Bills offensive MO in a big time game. Did it against KC for the entire 2nd half. Is the defense better than previous years because that almost seems silly to consider. The DL is probably better. But EPA we don't even rank top 10. We don't even rank top 10 in the last 3 weeks. I'm happy with the win. I just don't understand this narrative that somehow this is the year or that we are some playoff juggernaut. We have historically been worse in the postseason. We have not shown signs that we are somehow more dominant now. The narratives on McD figuring it out and Brady being our savior our horribly overdone. Watch, hope, and enjoy like always but I just don't see the reasons to think what we are is not the same as what we have been all year.

It was a dangerous combo for the reasons he pointed out, but one a team in a must win position with Super Bowl aspirations should overcome as you pointed out. Some will say we did in fact overcome it, but to me, I just don't see the big black and white differences that would make me think much has changed as so many other do. We are running the football more, sure. We are also going on long offensive droughts where we can't generate a first down. Defense is touch and go. We let a 2nd stringer with very few weapons move the ball pretty easily. I really don't see what so many are seeing as far as this team making some glorious playoff run. I don't know what evidence we have to lean on such a consideration. I don't put Dallas on the level the national media did especially on the road. They have had so many late season choke jobs against decent teams. Then we beat KC on a coin flipper. Same as SD. Good to see coin flippers go our way, but what is really making this iteration of the Bills better than previous ones?

What stakes do the Bills need to be more focused than they should have been today? I don't disagree the Chargers were going to bring it. Still, at what point does a Super Bowl threat just flat take care of business against a non playoff team with a back up QB? Did we really do that today?

And we needed it to potentially make the playoffs. This team is identical to one from the first half of the season. To the one who lost to the Bengals last year in the playoffs. People want to assign a new hope based on what I don't know. The team coming together after the McD article? A KC Chief player being Offside? Destroying a perennial choke job in the Cowboys? This team is not capable of imposing its will for multiple games. They never have been.

Chargers will make an NFL record field goal

About 40 seconds for a FG for the Chargers. Not like that has ever went against us before.

We don’t get a first down here we give them plenty of time for a FG to win. Would have rather had the TD.

So we are playing for a FG?

He's already very motivated in prime time games.

Keeping things low key

dumb dumb I am, for some reason I was thinking only two Wild Card spots for non division winners. Good deal. In that case, for sure, in our hands and 100% agree. Really nice to have that part resolved and fully in our hands. Now perhaps we root for one loss and still in? But we really need to run the table. IMO it doesn't show very well if we can't accomplish that with what we want to accomplish in the playoffs.

I believe we can still finish 11-6 and if the Browns lose just 1 game and Colts or Texans win out, they would hold the tie breaker. Mind you, all 3 can't have this occur because they play each other, but 2 of the 3 scenarios can happen which would lock up the two Wild Cards. By all means correct me if I'm wrong. But Cleveland with one more AFC loss has a better conference record and the same is true of either Houston or Indy if they win out.

It survived all of the first game of week 16.

That sounds right. You could really feel the difference. I recall in my high school days asking if we could use our practice balls for kickoffs in games because I could kill those things. You could feel it off your foot right away vs the brand new more heavily inflated balls.