Ray Stonada

I agree with you under normal circumstances, with the normal adversity of an NFL season--injuries, tough opponents, etc. But this season for Buffalo: deaths, a traumatic cardiac arrests, two massive blizzards, season-ending injuries to two crucial leaders, 10 road games... it was way beyond. If you can't see why many of them might be drained, I can't help you. I'm proud of this team for what they were able to do. They never had their mojo back since Damar, ran into a very good team, and lost badly.

I disagree with you completely on both of these points. We beat Kansas City THIS YEAR, in a game both teams wanted badly. And there is no chance the Bengals beat us 10 out of 10. ZERO chance.

Sure, fire them all without question, General. Good luck with that team-building strategy, Mr. Maturity.

I just don't understand the anger on this board. No one wanted to lose this game. And the Bills did not play well. But just three weeks ago, there was a consensus that no matter how the season ended, we'd be proud of the Bills and fine if they end up losing after the INSANE amount of adversity, capped by Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest. They finally ran out of gas and now the mob wants to burn down One Bills Drive? Josh didn't play well in that game either but no one is saying we should get rid of him. And rightly so. 14-4 under these circumstances does not warrant firing a head coach. Count me out of the chicken little panic because of one loss.

Yup. If you rewatch the “perfect” playoff game against the Pats you see Josh hitting Singletary on checkdowns over and over for 6-10 yards before we open up and go deep. It was unstoppable.

Our team already throws it downfield more than anyone in the NFL. They’re hardly “old school.” We could use a return to fundamentals more than a new offensive scheme. Better blocking, rushing and screen game. We’re already great at making low percentage plays on offense. Make it easier and try the hard stuff less often.

It’s funny how everyone agrees Frazier should be fired and Dorsey gets another year, when Buffalo’s defense held the Bengals to their average while the offense scored 10 points. Makes zero sense. The players lost the game, I don’t think it was in the scheme to leave Chase uncovered or Josh to miss a wide open Diggs for a TD on the first drive, or Gabe to drop the long ball. Sometimes it’s not your day.

If anyone thinks the Bills would fire the head coach or general manager after a 14-4 season Where they tied for the best regular season in team history Despite tons of adversity and injuries You are delusional, sorry

Agree. To me it's the offensive line that's most needed. If we build that up Philly-style, a WR corps of Diggs, Davis, Shakir, Beasley and Brown plus Knox, Morris, Cook, Motor, Hines, and Gilliam looks pretty good to me. We don't really need McKenzie and Taiwan Jones made too many blunders to keep, IMO.

We WANT guys who care as much as Diggs, who have that fire. I don't give a **** if they can be a little abrasive at times.

Scary accurate comparison. Feel like we will get a Super Bowl in the next 2-3 years with Allen and Diggs still playing great. We are not as far off as people think. Need better luck with injuries, some young talent, to get rid of some players who aren't truly dialed in. Best of all, the next five years Allen will be 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31. Prime!

To me, if the Bills play smarter football and stay relatively injury free, they can win a Super Bowl, even with a roster not as good on paper as this year. Also, the next five seasons Josh Allen will be 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31 years old. Prime time.

When you go through trauma like seeing what happened to Damar--he dropped dead on the field and was rescuscitated for 9 minutes in front of them!--you need to lean on your older leaders on the field. It didn't help that Micah and Von, the two wisest elders of the bunch, were out for the year by that point.

Yup. Our O-line was really bad a lot this year, and Allen camouflaged it by making crazy plays out of nothing. But Allen got happy feet in the process and stopped trusting the ordinary bread-and-butter plays that you need to win.

I agree with your assessment, OP. The lack of easy passes and screens and checkdowns is screamingly obvious. If you rewatch the Pats playoff "perfect" game from last year (sorry, OP, that might be painful!), you see that the Bills' drives were peppered with dump-offs to Singletary and Singletary runs that went for 6-8 yards a pop. We never went bombs away, even though the line kept Allen much cleaner. The weird thing is that this year our line played much worse and yet Allen and Dorsey didn't slow down the rush with... screens, dump-offs and runs. What the heck! Also agree with Big Turk that this team was flat and exhausted. And your final point really nailed it, OP. Joshua Allen is 26 years old. We will be back for many more seasons. Buffalo needs to make life easier for him, and he needs to let them, and then we will start to dominate on offense again like last year's playoffs.

Enough drama, queens WE’RE IN THIS GAME

Been strangely calm for three days. Now getting edgy. Adrenaline.

In a way, this is the Bills' first game since 13 seconds. We had built towards that game for 3 years, only to somehow lose after winning it. The regular season was just a way of getting back into a better position to try again. Any loss could be avenged later. The Dolphins game was a playoff game, sure, but I think the Bills were not worried or threatened going into it. We are now in that better position, if we win today (neutral site instead of Arrowhead, AFC Championship instead of Divisional round). But this is the first game since 13 seconds where there is a very real chance of a loss of another year's chance at our goal. The ride could end today. (I give the Bengals a 30% chance.) If it does, I want to say thanks to all the posters on this board, you have given this a Buffalonian in Europe a lifeline to share my love of the Bills, and I appreciate the heck out of that. That all said, I feel calm and confident. I think Buffalo has it in them to go on a three-game run of excellence now and change our lives as fans forever. Nothing left to say now except LET'S GO BUFFALO

This means no John Brown, right?

Gotta give it up to Kyle for this. I started out laughing at his Pacino impression, ended with a tear in my eye, ready to follow him into battle. He got me.

I will do my best to attend at this game! Would love to do a tailgate with some of the UK based members and others who travel to London.

Von Miller went into the Bills locker room with a replica Super Bowl trophy. Put it down on the table in front of the entire team and said "There...You said you would do anything for it. Now do it."

Thanks for this clip. I never watched a game from before my time, like this. So interesting to see how much is the same and yet how different it felt in '81. What a crazy call, the curse struck again! WE GOTTA DEFEAT IT THIS YEAR. Yes, I think their best drives are usually their first two drives of the game--the scripted ones--and then they seem to flounder for two quarters. Another reason you can't assume they would have won the regular season game. I think the Bills would have won that one over a full 60 minutes, and I think they take this game too.

I was really bummed, at age 14. We had started 11-1 but ran out of gas and finished 12-4, we had an amazing defense and an okay offense (Kelly threw 15 TDs and 17 picks on the season) with a promising rookie named Thurman Thomas. Recently I read a great oral history of this game from the Athletic. I learned that Bruce was absolutely unblockable until he got injured and that took a lot out of our team.

Interesting theory… sample size is too small to know if this is correct or if the game plan was different. If Josh starts to take checkdowns instantly when available for 5+ yards we are not stoppable as an offense.