Generic_Bills_Fan

The X factor for cincy has always been defense to me, and I don’t think their defense has reached close to the heights of last season yet…doesn’t mean they won’t Sunday though. They held SF to 17 but so did Minnesota the week before and Cleveland the week before that, SF also piled up 400ish non garbage time yards missing their best offensive player against cincy they just turned it over a few too many times. last year the bengals were all over the top 10 of the list in all advanced defensive metrics, this year they’re a little under the midpoint. we moved the ball pretty well on a tough TB defense too which was getting a ton of credit around here before the game with people predicting we’d lose because of it but I don’t see it mentioned much anymore lol I think we’re in for a shootout

Cincy may be good but people are hypin them up a bit too much from that one win…if SF was looking dominant leading up to that bengals game it would be a different story. really they just beat a mediocre at best team by two scores who amassed a ton of yards and had a couple boneheaded turnovers. Sf almost outgained their previous two games combined in this one. I’m expecting a shootout on Sunday that could go either way based on red zone success.

lac is a huge game if we’re talking wildcard…in all my scenarios I’m just assuming cincy or baltimore is the top wildcard spot. The chargers are as inconsistent or more than the bengals and bills though and they’re starting in a bit of a hole with an extra loss. They’ve also got ravens,bills,chiefs,lions on the schedule still so we are far from the only team with tough games left. Also the jets as well which is the part nobody really accounts for in threads like this. In those scenarios one of two wildcard hopefuls is guaranteed to drop a game

Oh yea you didn’t say 3 are likely to make it from the north explicitly but you listed a bunch of wildcard competitors to highlight the position were in. There really are not that many for the reason that 3 are in the same division is what I was saying. They have to beat eachother up which hurts conference record and overall record. And if one catches fire and clears the other ones out that’s not exactly bad for us either as it’s 2 less teams we’d be competing for a wildcard with. the teams we have lost to so far aren’t really serious wildcard threats which helps a ton. Jacksonville will win the south, pats won’t make it, jets likely won’t make it. If they’re in the mix, they have lost to NE also for divisional record purposes and I don’t see them beating Miami. If they do beat Miami, it helps our division standings the other teams like cincy and lac we play head to head so conference records are not really that meaningful for us at all we’re really not in a bad spot at all and the playoffs look very likely. There aren’t a whole lot of good afc teams this year

Three of those teams you mentioned are in the same division and one of them has to lose every time they play eachother. 4 playoff teams coming out of the north is very very very very unlikely. It’s more than likely going to get whittled down to one wildcard team at best (or 0) then you’ve got teams like the chargers who have as many or more issues than us. I’ll give cincy the benefit of the doubt making cincy/baltimore a wildcard team but who are the other two teams making it over us? Bills are probably 75%ish to make the playoffs right now and have a very good shot even if they don’t win the division.

It seems like when someone is just analyzing the play of their own team, they are comparing to a hypothetically perfect team that can do no wrong and makes no mistakes which leads to a lot of pessimism because we are not even close to that level. When you benchmark teams against eachother, things start to normalize a bit because no team is perfect. Cincy has had a ton of issues this season and their fans have likely been raising the same kinds of complaints over on their board as we are here. They have been one of the worst teams at running the football, the defense hasn’t been as good as last season, the offense is wildly inconsistent and rarely shows up for 60 minutes

I don’t think the general sentiments about the bills struggles is wrong…what’s makin this game closer than most on here expect for me is the successes of Cincinnati are being blown massively out of proportion and I’m less high on them than others. Pretty much any criticism you can raise of the bills would directly apply to cincy as well…these are two eerily similar teams that are very inconsistent. I would not be surprised by anything in this one

I wouldn’t do it…that’s too much money for two of the most inconsistent good teams in the league playing against eachother If it were me I’d wait to let people overreacting to the niners game push the spread up and then take the bills with the points.. the most likely outcome I have is bills come up just short in a shootout if you’re gonna bet bengals I’d do it right now though lol

Here’s where I get a little lost…I keep hearing about this cincy defense that’s gonna destroy us and so on,TB may be mediocre overall but that defense is legit and we moved the ball well against them. if we were more concerned with their offense we likely go for those 4th and shorts, pick up a couple and score 30+. They are better than cincys defense so far this season in just about every way and leading the league in red zone defense. im not saying the ‘we’re gonna lose’ crew is wrong in their prediction at all necessarily, but they are doling out credit for this weeks results in a pretty unrealistic way which is inflating the bengals a bit too much imo. The deeboless 49ers aren’t really a whole lot better than the buccaneers. They’re 0-3 and were 0-2 against very mediocre opponents leading up to the cincy game. Their offense has been pretty awful and they put up 460 yards against cincy which isn’t far off from being more than their previous two games combined I don’t think Buffalo and cincy are far apart and they have both struggled for a stretch of this season…anything could happen. Bengals as a small favorite makes perfect sense to me so I’m not sure they’re a tier above us at all.

I’m not sure that it is undervalued going into the game but you may end up making your money anyway so who cares haha. I think the logic is the bengals have looked good one game against a team that has been in a free fall the last few weeks. Everyone is getting hung up on it being the 49ers but the 49ers have been a mess for nearly a month now. we’re in here talking about the bengals physical defense but the bucs defense is better by every advanced metric and we moved the ball pretty well on them. It’s gonna come down to who gets more red zone stops so I’ve got it as a 50/50 game at a neutral site/slight cincy favorite at home buffalo and cincy are both near tops in the league in preventing tds in the red zone and TB is number 1. Red zone offense we are second in the league in TD percentage with Miami at 1.

The 49ers are lost without Deebo…we may lose for sure but this notion that the bengals beat a juggernaut is objectively false.

Not saying your point is wrong but a lot of teams do it that way lol I think the thought is you still won’t be adjusted either way so might as well stick to your preparation/recovery schedule

Allen is +7 in total tds also to be fair

Vegas doesn’t trust the bengals yet either…Deebo-less 49ers are a mediocre at best team that is now 0-3 in a 3 game stretch. Don’t think the non buffalo fan bettors are taking as much out of the niners bengals game as we are. it’s possible they’re just starting out on an epic run but it’s possible they aren’t too

I mean not as much as you think…I could absolutely see the bills scoring 30+ and you can’t I think that’s the only real difference. nobody is saying we’re gonna completely shut them down on offense that I’ve seen but I do think we can get a few stops both teams are completely different than last year

Idk where that genius Lou a has been all season…that joe burrow injury must’ve really effected the defense lol. They’ve been bad more than they’ve been good. have you only watched them play today? They are 29th in the league in rushing yards per game. I feel like your bet comes down to ‘im betting they’re going to go on a run’ but it’s just as likely that this game was a one off against a team in a slump to me seeing as they’ve had one good game. I’m not saying you’re definitely going to be wrong, it’s just a bit riskier than you think is all I’m trying to say lol if SF wasn’t marching up and down the field and shooting themselves in the foot with rookie mistake type turnovers I might feel a bit different and call it 60/40 but that’s a SF offense with an inexperienced qb missing a huge offensive piece and they racked up a ton of yards still. I didn’t gain any additional faith in the cincy defense that game. It’s quite possible the bills score 30+ on them.

Haha sounds like you’ve got a personal investment on the line and are trying to convince yourself you made the right call. They may win,they may lose, but I think it’s far from the slam dunk that you think it is. Bengals will certainly score points though I don’t think anyone is arguing that. it’s not so much overrating what the bengals are capable of as it is underrating what the bills are imo and you are putting far too much stock in a game from last season. Cincy was one of the best defenses in the league last year and this year they haven’t been nearly as good. By pretty much any advanced metric, the TB defense is better than cincy’s and we moved the ball quite well against them. SF is a mess with purdy and no Deebo, they are a sub .500 team without a doubt. This isn’t like the bengals went out and stymied the 2007 pats like you’re making it sound 😂. Despite that SF just had a few boneheaded turnovers…they racked up 460 yards.

I mean it’s pretty likely the guy with the best qb stats is gonna be on the best team but it doesn’t always have to be true. Looking at the previous winners it’s not like they passed guys up because they didn’t have the regular season win total im not disagreeing with your final paragraph at all I think that has a pretty decent chance of happening though. The defense being not great actually kind of helps him…he’s gonna be in a lot of shootouts. the chiefs have had a fundamental shift where they’ve been winning mostly with defense so far which has shaken things up

Cincy isn’t the same team as last year either…they lost Jessie bates who was a huge piece on defense SF isn’t much of an offense without Deebo… I don’t think there’s much we can extrapolate out of the bengals win over SF on the defensive side. Our oline is improved from last year also, it’s really delayed blitzes/mixing up responsibilities that has been killing us which I think will get sorted over time. Last year saffold and brown just got dominated pretty much all season long. we’re better at running the football than last season as well. We’ve got extra time to prepare also. I think it’s gonna be a coin flip type game

I watch our coaching and there’s plenty of decisions you can second guess for sure, but you could say that about plenty of other top coaches also. We’re acting like a lot of these inconsistency issues are unique to us and it is very much not the case there is probably a forum post or two or ten on every single teams message board criticizing their coaches right now 😂

I really don’t think win/loss matters a whole lot assuming the team looks like a contender. It’s pretty much a stats only award which has Allen in the thick of it. It’s a flavor of the week thing who the ‘favorite’ is this early in the season and josh/the bills deservedly won’t be the flavor of the week for awhile after blowing that pats game I thought mahomes had a huge edge with teams like the broncos left on the schedule but he stumbled today.

Lol I really think this is mostly imaginary in the more pessimist fans heads. I don’t see a lot of josh Allen defenders saying he’s perfect and can do no wrong, but I see a lot of people saying ‘why does everyone think josh can do no wrong’ haha the dude absolutely has flaws but all the mvp candidates have fallen on their face numerous times this season is the point. If we’re going to nitpick josh not showing up for 60 minutes every game, that level of criticism has to be applied to all others also up for the award. none of these guys are perfect, they are all missing reads and not setting protections right occasionally and so on

Football is rarely perfectly linear on offense quarter to quarter…I don’t really know why anyone would completely discount late game touchdowns like that. it’s pretty often that it takes time for an offense to adapt and they start scoring late and win the game . 25 points is 25 points, that would have beat the patriots by at least 4 in any other game they played this year

I’m convinced no one watches any non bills games all season lol SF has been struggling for weeks now, cincy beating them doesn’t mean they’re some unbeatable juggernaut. philly has never really ran away with a game all year

Supposedly he needs wrist surgery and will be out about two months