dave mcbride

I just remember McDermott being right up in it in the sideline discussions after the TOs were called. It's his responsibility if he's that involved. Honestly, the first play was OK; you can't let yourself get beat deep. But the second one (the Kelce play) was ridiculous.

My guess is the KC game plan. They weren't going to let Knox and Diggs beat them. They rolled the dice by saying we'll let Beasley be free and simply not pay much attention to Gabe Davis. Allen took advantage and didn't force things to guys who were bracketed.

He is the right coach for Daniel Jones. Not saying it'll work out, but Jones has the tools and the offense has the weapons. Plus the division isn't very good. You do realize that McDermott called those final defenses in regulation, right?

Just looked it up. Apparently, Williams had a clean tear (no additional damage to other ligaments) and is expected to fully recover to a sub 4.3 speed. Honestly, though, I think the Pats will take him.

Yes, I've been thinking this. ACL injuries generally don't scare me anymore at all. Yes, recovery times are different for everyone, but unless it's a catastrophic injury a lot of players seem to be good to go in around 9 months.

Disagree with the original premise. The Bills got to Mahomes a lot yesterday, but he was unreal at escaping. The Chiefs have good pass rushers too but only took Allen down twice on over 40 dropbacks (including scrambles).

My theory is that the coin toss doesn't matter so much in a Jax-vs.-Carolina or WFT-vs.-Giants OT regular season game. The offenses just aren't good and struggle to move the ball via the air. In the NFL playoffs, practically all the teams are good, and most have excellent QBs who can surgically dissect tired defenses. There's just a huge quality gap between run of the mill teams and a much narrower field heavily populated by the likes of Mahomes, Brady, Allen, Rodgers, Russell Wilson, etc.

I don't know what your point is. I'm not talking about the Bills specifically, I'm talking about all teams. A Coin flip is a game that shouldn't determine the game at hand -- actual football. Yet it does.

It's not a 50/50 chance at all, at least according to the empirical playoff results in the high-scoring era. Playing for 10 minutes is fine with me. They often play for 10 minutes anyway. Houston beat Buffalo on the last second of OT in January 2020.

yep, a friend and I were just texting about this.

I agree with this. When Watson had a Houdini escape from Milano in January 2020 - what looked like a sure sack - I had to say "hats off."

67 percent won on the opening drive. Of the other three games, the team that got the ball first (Houston vs. Buffalo and the Giants vs. SF) won in OT. Basically, they had one extra possession than the other team. So 8 out of 9 -- 89 percent -- benefitted from winning the coin toss. How people posting on this thread who support the current rules can look past this is beyond me. It's not about just this game, although if we were the beneficiaries we'd thank our lucky stars for a lucky coin toss. It's the fact that 2/3 of of playoff games over the past decade plus have ended with only one team getting the ball and with the coin flip winner winning 89 percent of the time.

I just think that extends the problem in that whoever has it first on a second possession still doesn't have to face an answer. I just looked it up: going back to 2011, there have been 9 OT playoff games. 6 of those games have ended with the coin flip winner scoring a TD on the opening drive (Denver/Pitt in 2011, Seattle/GB in 2014, Arizona/GB in 2015, NE/Atlanta in 2016, NE/KC in 2019, Minnesota/New Orleans in 2019, and KC/Buffalo in 2021). The non-opening TD games were NYG/SF in 2011, LA/NO in 2018, and Houston/Bills in 2019. When the coin flip winner gets it 67 percent of the time, those ain't good odds for the loser. All of this is exacerbated by the fact that the postseason features elite QBs who can dissect tired defenses in a way that Tua or Tyler Heinecke (for instance) can't.

I will say this: the Bills got to Mahomes a LOT last night, and against a normal QB would have had a half dozen sacks. Of course, the same goes for KC and Allen. Just otherwordly QBs.

That's a ridiculous point from Cowherd. It's the penalty you pay for not actually winning in regulation. What's most important is the integrity of the game at hand, not what might or might not happen as it pertains to seven days later. Jeez.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/24/giants-interviewing-brian-daboll-a-second-time-after-bills-loss/

They're both great players and the two best QBs in the league. They each have their own styles, and those styles work for them. It's really hard to say one is better than the other at this point. Josh was incredible last night. So was Mahomes.

They are terrible in the postseason because the best offenses make the postseason and the rules vastly favor the offense now. For a midseason Jags-Giants game, they are fine because the offenses are mediocre at best. In the postseason, we've seen time after time episodes of elite QBs slicing and dicing an exhausted defense and winning easily in an opening drive. Seattle vs. GB in 2014. Arizona vs. Green Bay in 2015. NE vs. Atlanta in 2016. NE vs. KC in 2018. And now KC vs. Buffalo in 2021. The rule sucks. Great post. Agree fully.

In his MMQB column last week (paywalled) Albert Breer talked about the cornerback problem at the college level. He said that after talking to scouts that it's really bad right now -- almost all of the great athletes are choosing to playing WR. He said it was notable that of some of the good young ones, many are the sons of former NFL CBs, who presumably have the business sense to point out to their sons that there is more money and more opportunity for elite athletes who choose to play CB instead of WR. But again, he stressed that NFL scouts are telling him that the CB problem at the college level is a huge problem right now. There aren't enough good athletes.

Prior to the last 13 seconds, the Bills had run 63 plays for 422 yards, and the Chiefs had run 63 for 433 yards. Pretty amazing.

Fangio runs a very different scheme.

They blanketed Diggs and basically told Allen to try and beat them with Gabe Davis. Guess what? He did. Also, don't discount that HUGE 2-point conversion he caught. It was a sensational, high-difficulty catch.

He at least occasionally covered people.

This. They were getting to him, but Mahomes is just so friggin' good it makes it look like we weren't getting there. We were.

I just don't know regarding Edmunds. I think he does things that put him in a position to make him look unimpressive (not a lot of downhill plays), but the Bills all season have had a very, very disciplined pass defense, and he's the lynchpin of it -- basically a short range centerfielder who is always lurking. Anyway, it's impossible for me to say because I don't know enough about what he actually brings to this scheme specifically. He did rally to the tackle a LOT last night, and that's key to this defense. But whatever he does or doesn't do, they are simply incapable of covering fast players in KC's scheme. I agree about the Mahomes pick, but White had no control over that and he turned out to be a great player. This is a defense that needs good, instinctive, and physical corners, and he's elite in that area. Without them, the defense just doesn't really work. Next year is must-win for the Bills, and I worry about rolling out there with Dane Jackson and Levi Wallace for the first half of the season while White completes his recovery. Jackson looked better than he really is because he was blessed with starting in a slew of brutal-weather games late in the season. Both he and Wallace were exposed last night. Johnson is the best of the three.