dave mcbride

All losses for passionate fans are awful regardless of team. And they did beat the Chiefs, who I think have a real shot at going to the SB again.

It's as if people don't think I have aspirations for a championship! Of course I friggin' do. I'm just saying that while it may not come this year, they're set up to be in the thick of it going forward for a while to come. There's a decent chance given the QB and the organization that the stars will align once or twice, just like they have for the Ravens and the Giants. But they probably don't have a chance to win more than two at most.

No, it's a plea to stop acting like Yankees fans and to actually look at the broader recent history of the league and how successful franchises fare within it. Informed realism, basically. No one is rationalizing anything.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be held accountable. But anyone who thinks they're going to make the championship game every year has Patriots syndrome and/or doesn't pay attention to the track records of other good franchises.

Lewis never won a playoff game and never had a true franchise QB. The Bills have and do.

It totally did. I think it was Griese or Riddick who at the beginning of the game said that the plan called for a lot of Brieda that night, and that was presumably based on conversations with coaches beforehand. Btw, Riddick is a really good announcer.

Oh, definitely. I'm thinking more about it coming down to the wire. When Pitt went up by two scores with 10 minutes to go, they traded FGs before the Bills got their final one with 49 seconds left. It's virtually impossible to succeed on an onside kick anymore, so it was over when the Bills let the Steelers march down the field with 5 and a half minutes to go and kick a FG with about 2 and half minutes left.

I am merely saying that it wasn't a one-score game when it mattered in crunch time. It was a two-score game. The Bills' final score to make it a one-score game was basically meaningless. I do realize they led earlier in the game.

Tampa's pass D at least in DVOA terms is better than I thought - 7th. I thought they've been dealing with a zillion DB injuries all season? Or is it that they play in a division with terrible passing games (I'm including ATL here)?

Still a bunch of games to go against bad passing defenses outside of NE. Let's see how it all shakes out.

I'll say this about Daboll: before coming to Buffalo, he has worked with what collectively has to be the worst set of QBs of the 21st century: Brady Quinn (twice! - in both Cleveland and KC), Derek Anderson, Seneca Wallace, a rookie Colt McCoy, Matt Moore, and the late-period corpse of Matt Cassel. Matt Moore was the best of the bunch, which is saying something. No, the Bills were down by 2 scores with less than two minutes to go. That's a fact. It was 23-13 when the Bills got a garbage time FG to make it 23-16. They were dominated in the second half.

I personally didn't think the player had crossed. Regardless, it was hardly an easy one to call and you've gotta play like the call never happened. Which would be smart anyway because he's failed on all of his hard counts this season and should assume they're not going to work. That throw he made was a lazy high throw basically 10 yards behind the receiver who was covered. Didn't even try to read the field on that play.

I honestly felt we lost that game to the Pats because of a failure to execute on offense. At key moments the plays were there, but the mistakes in execution were just too plentiful. I know the game looked ugly for the D, but at the end of the day they held their opponent to 14 points and 240 total yards and had nine tackles behind the LOS. This was a team that was averaging 30 points per game over the previous six games.

All of the teams I listed above all have losses like the Jax loss every once in a while. It sucks and it should never have happened, but that's what parity does. Go look at Saints and Ravens losses in their pretty good years - lots of close, gut-wrenching losses to good teams. The Bills are a good but flawed team -- just like every other good team in a semi-down year in the midst of a long run of success. You'll appreciate that d-line when the Bills find themselves in a close game involving a lot of passing by the opponent. Could happen as soon as this week.

The Bills were down by 2 scores vs Pitt with less than 2 minutes to go. That game was out of reach.

Because guys moved but didn't actually jump. In both the Miami and NE games, guys shifted but never crossed.

He's certainly complaining too much for the refs about not getting Offside calls when he shouldn't actually be getting them. He lets the play get away from him on those plays and they always end up badly.

... or simply get better interior o-linemen (historically, the easiest positions to find as long as you prioritize them) and a Joe Mixon-type runner.

(A statement up front: the Patriots should not be the benchmark by which to measure the Bills relative to other successful NFL teams. They are an outlier like John Wooden's teams were outliers.) Let's assume for a second that the Bills go 11-6 this season (a big assumption, but plausible). Under McDermott, they will have gone 9-7 6-10 10-6 (would have been 11-5 if the finale actually mattered; they would have utterly destroyed the Jets) 13-3 11-6 / 10-7 Then compare the Bills to other good teams with longtime coaches in recent years: the Ravens under Harbaugh, the Steelers under Tomlin, the Chiefs under Reid, the Saints under Payton, the Packers under McCarthy, the Seahawks under Carroll, and the Giants under Coughlin. Note the trend: most seasons are good ones, but there are a lot of 10-6 and 9-7 seasons. They're never truly terrible teams either; the worst you'll generally see is the occasional 7-9/8-8 seasons. See the links below. My point is that there is a ton of parity in the NFL which makes it very hard to pump out 13-3 seasons year after year. Accounting for the fact that no normal team will ever be the Patriots under Belichick, the Bills are performing like your typical long-term good team. They'll have some great seasons mixed with some decent ones, and every once in a while they'll have injury issues that make them a .500 team. The other constant to go with long-term winning coaches is good quarterbacking, and the Bills are set at that position, thankfully. I don't see them winning the SB this season, but I also think the fixes they need to make to go 13-4 as opposed to 11-6/10-7 are relatively easy to make. They have a good core of talent with holes, just like every other team. But the fixes they need -- better interior offensive linemen, a better RB, one more #2 corner, and a new run-stuffer - are about the easiest positions to find in both FA and the draft assuming you're always drafting in the 20s. I'm just as unhappy as anyone that this isn't shaping up to be a great year, but they're still a good team and are built to be good for a while. The stars really do need to align for a SB run, and this just isn't the year. That's OK. Maybe next year will be. As long as Allen is slinging it and there's continuity with the coach/GM (both of whom are good, perceptive, and self-aware), they'll be competitive. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/pit/ https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/gnb/ https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/rav/ https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/kan/ https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nor/ https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/sea/ https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nyg/

The other I'd add is Allen thinking he got them offside (he didn't; the NE player didn't cross the line) and then throwing a no-chance pass and complaining to the refs. That's the third time he's done something like that this year on a play in which he thought he got the guy to jump but didn't and then played like he could throw it away.

Totally.

The heck with TN; just look at the Pats. Stevenson, Harris, and White were all picked later than Moss and Singletary.

I thought the playoffs was mostly a sure thing until I looked at remaining schedules. Basically, three out of these five teams will be wild cards: LAC, Buffalo, the Colts, the Steelers, and the Bengals. Two won't make it. If the Bills lose the games they're expected to lose (NE and TB), it'll come down to tiebreakers. The Bengals and Steelers have brutal schedules, and the Colts have to play both NE and then AZ on the road.

Thank you! As it happens, I found a clip, and ... it's TOTALLY a penalty. He was running free downfield (3 yards) before the pass left Allen's hands. Check it out. Glad it wasn't called! https://www.espn.co.uk/video/clip?id=32807881

Whether the lineman is engaged or not doesn't matter; it's all about how far downfield he is.