PBF81

Our rushing defense may very well be the key to winning on Sunday.

Watching ESPN at all is the first mistake. Watching anything football related is the second mistake.

Our problem with the current team/franchise has not been the regular season, where we've generally done fine. Our problem has been in the playoffs. We're 0-4 in road playoff games. Of the four playoff games we've won, three are Wild-Card games, all four home games. Of those three games, two were against marginal playoff teams to begin with, all three at home. 10-7 New England with Mac Jones, Damien Harris, and Jakobi Meyers as their three top skill-position players, and 9-8 Miami with Skylar Thompson playing QB and JAG Jeff Wilson as a RB. The other was against Indy, which outplayed us here at home with Rivers at QB and the rookie WR Pittman as their only decent WR. Miami was the 7th Seed, New England the 6th Seed, and Indy also the 7th Seed. The only solid playoff game we've played has been against Baltimore a week after that Indy game where we won 17-3, but where Baltimore, apart from Jackson and Andrews (TE) featured a bunch of mediocre all but JAG skill position players. The Ravens were the 5th Seed. To date we've never beaten a 1st thru 4th Seeded team. We have our work cut out for us this playoffs. We're all hoping for a Super Bowl run, but our playoff history is somewhat sordid. Beating Pitt at home and the winner of the the KC/Miami game also at home are musts for this playoffs to be a success for us, at minimum. Then if Baltimore gets upset, so would be a home game AFC CG win.

So as you see it, if we were to lose to the Steelers for instance, then given our playoff history over the past three seasons, you wouldn't view that as any sort of issue?

This will also be a defining playoffs for us whether we like it or not. How many years back did you go with that data?

"The clemson Special" --- "Him and Watson must have had some fun in that locker room" LOL

He essentially won it in '21. I have no idea why anyone watches any of them. What a grand waste of time.

3 weeks off. The week prior to week 18, this week, and next week before their game. That and this Miami/KC game will likely be the only two other non-Bills playoff games that I bother watching.

We've been here before. Perhaps it's Bills fans more than other fans, but we tend to overreact win or lose, particularly bigger games. We have a very dicey playoff history with McD. It's great that we made the playoffs, again, but media perceptions aside, we have an advantage over every team in the AFC except maybe the Ravens. If we lose to Pittsburgh or to the Miami/KC winner, then it's an entirely new discussion. None of those teams are better than we are and we've beaten the best two the times already, twice in their houses. Against almost all of even our expectations here, we made the playoffs and won the division, but some of that also has to do with Miami folding and losing two off their last four other than us. Our offense has scored significantly fewer points than it has the three years prior, even under Brady's games on a per-game basis The goal, particularly for the players and coaching staff, hasn't been achieved, it's to first win the AFC, then the Lombardi. This is old hat, just as winning the AFC was on the '90s and we haven't done that once, arguably with a better team. So as a few other posters have implied, we now need to do something besides lose to inferior teams or because of our own stupidity and/or poor decision making. Do that, i.e. make the AFC CG and don't underachieve there, and all the BS goes away. Don't, and it's deserved. It is that simple.

I have difficulty believing that there will be more than a token number, especially given the cold. Besides, they go on Ticketmaster or wherever, the sites don't discriminate. Bills fans have the same chances of securing them that Stooler fans do.

As if a majority of those here thought much differently. LOL

The thought of her in our stadium ... UGH! On the flip side, the look on her face after a thorough pounding ... ... I just realized the double entendre there, ... take the football game version.

Apparently I'm the Black Knight.

I was referring to defensively. The Philly game wasn't great defensively, they hung 150 rushing on us in regulation. We're not a good rushing D. We were awful in the 4th Q in that game. In Miami we were also terrible in the first half allowing over 200 first half yards.

True, but that's also included playing against teams led by Shtick, Zappe, and Wilson, and a Pacheco-less KC. We didn't play so well against Philly or even Miami for a half. Let's hope that holds up tho!!

I'd love to see us switch divisions with Baltimore. It would make more sense to be with Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Cincy. All several hours apart.

23 of that 37 were against the Browning-led slumping Bengals in a home game though. Other than that they played a mediocre Seattle team and the Ravens JV team with Huntley. The Seahawks and Bengals rank 25th and 21st in scoring D. We rank 4th. Either way, make of it what you will. The point is that historically on this season they're not a great team. They barely edged the 9-8 Bengals, Jags, and Colts to log that 7th seed. The matchup seems to favor them however, the cold snowy weather in high winds. They do seem to have a good secondary so there may not be much wiggle room for error on Allen's part, and if it comes down to which team runs the ball better, Cook who's averaged 3.6 YPC under Brady except against Dallas or Harris/Warren who are bigger backs, given that our rushing D is our weakness, it may be problematic.

Harris and Warren are RBs that are seemingly better suited to this type of game. Neither of us has a good rushing D, ours is slightly worse. There's no weather advantage, but the home crowd will be NUTS!! Could be a concern, but with Allen doing his thing we should be more than fine. Fournette might be better suited to get a lot more carries than he has been getting.

Steelers are the only team in the playoffs for both conferences that has a negative point-differential.

Scoring their 14th. I'm curious why that is. If I cared more I'd look into it. LOL

How so, Cleveland #1D that is?

I just looked, his only receptions wide for significant gains were in the Cincy game (1) and first Miami game. (2) I don't know off those were the same types of plays. I wouldn't count on much from him in the playoffs the though. On a side note, Diggs has the highest drop rate of any WR on the team. Despite narratives, Davis has the lowest.

Just saying. Poor offense has not improved from a scoring perspective nor had Allen's passing games improved. Neither has or running game other than we're logging more carries. Our YPC is down significantly. I'm trying to figure out out, but the best that I can come to with is that Allen's become more of a game manager than a big-time-arm QB.

Not sure that's a great reason to play him more overall. He only had 7 catches in our first dozen games. In which of those games did he do that?