Koufax

Must win game for Bills, Rex, and Tyrod. I feel bad for Tyrod since this isn't the easiest environment to judge QB performance, but he had his chances and brought it to this. Rex of course can easily be judged by this and how he adjusts. Win this game or be fired...enough said.

Thursday's game doesn't impact our path to the playoffs, but the Steelers game is obviously a big key. 10-6 likely gets us in (11-5 Broncos, or 10-6 Fish AND 10-6 Broncos could keep us out). A 9-7 path after a loss to the Steelers is actually not that impossible, but more likely to tease us and keep hopes alive towards week 17 then actually get us in. In either case we are actually rooting for the Patriots a lot over the next few weeks, starting on Sunday...so too bad about Gronk in the end. So let's just beat the Steelers for the heck of it and take it from there.

This game is our season, and could be a pivotal moment for Rex and Tyrod, so it will be interesting to see how each rebounds from the implosion in Oakland. If we win out, our playoff chances are actually really good, and we need very little help. The hardest of our final games is this Sunday, so if we win this one it is very conceivable to win each of the other three. When we were 6-5 and looking at 10-6 and the playoffs, the hardest game and the most likely loss was Oakland, so the result of this weekend isn't what hurts us as much as it is the implosion and potential blow to confidence and momentum. But the reality of it is, the Steelers are a better team, playing outstanding football with a three game winning streak and a tough division race to finish up, and I think we are going to see a much better performance out of them than we saw out of the Raiders (who were poised for a trap game riding high and looking ahead to Thursday with the Chiefs). I don't like what Ben and Brown might do to us the way our secondary has been playing. Find a way to 7 and 6 with a win, and things aren't so bad. But the storm clouds are still darkening as Rex hasn't kept up with the last decade of football and his teams continue to underperform their defensive talent and the excuses run thin. And Tyrod brings excitement and fun, but continues to seem to be missing consistency and vision and just hasn't progressed in those areas this season, and leaves open receivers on the table game in and game out, and still fails to ever throw a medium range pass in the middle of the field. He has had his time to develop, and over these last four games the burden is on him. If he can't show some serious progress in these four games he becomes a stop gap contender fighting with Romo and whoever might be available to be the 2017 starter while we look for our next option elsewhere. The receiver injuries change the options on the field at each play, but his failure is to see the receivers running routes on each play, and accurately throw to the best choice, and that breakdown is completely independent of who is running those routes. Hoping they show something to push the balance back, but I'm 60/40 against Rex and Tyrod right now and think that could tip severely after Sunday. Edit: And I'm not remotely suggesting it will happen, but if we lose to the Steelers and win out for 9-7, the only "upset" help we need is the Bengals to beat the Ravens at home in week 17, which means regardless of what happens Sunday, if we then crush the Browns as expected, we host Miami for meaningful football on Christmas Eve.

Yep...his "comfort" is somehow more valuable than math and angles and geometry. It wouldn't bother me if he were perfect, it does when he sux.

Stepped on the sideline?

Powell with a high ankle sprain. How is our receiver depth?

Our lack of medium range passes in the middle of the field is really frustrating. Taylor can't be a good QB without this part of the game, and he has shown little interest or focus on it. But it sure is nice to have Watkins back...

This is going to be an ugly win, but find a way to 6-5 and regroup on Monday....

I'm a big Tyrod fan. But this is poor QB performance all the way around. Need to trust your arm once in a while.

6-5 isn't a pipe dream. Beat the Jags. #WeAreOnToJacksonville Big picture has a lot of possibilities, but the trip to Oakland is going to be very tough. However I think Oakland is a team that has been flying higher than their ability, and while they are going to win the division and are can make a playoff run, they also have had a lot of things work out and won a lot of close games that they could have lost. Starting three home games in a row at 7-5 would be a great place to be, and if Sammy and Marcel can return to being factors in the next two weeks, those are two huge pro-bowl caliber pickups for us.

I think our path to the playoffs needs us to be 6-5 a week from today, so on to Jacksonville. What we really need is to start seeing some losses out west which would currently have both wild cards...everybody else is within take care of our business territory. Chiefs play the Broncos twice starting this Sunday, and we likely need one of those teams to sweep those games and pull away...because otherwise they each get their 8th win in the split and push us towards having to make up ground on multiple teams. Obviously seeing losses for Ind, Mia, Den, Bal, Pit, Ten are all good things as things shake out, but the biggest thing is winning our sixth game.

Second and goal from the six. Great effort at times, but a lot of garbage mixed in.

All that has gone wrong, we have two minutes and the ball in Seattle territory. Could be a signature drive and a signature win if they can get 49 yards here.

What is that call? Draw? Maybe in the second quarter.

Just a joke all the way around. I am more upset on the two touchdowns, but that was a load of officiating crap.

Can they spike it? Needed to be roughing.

Bad football plays on defense. Have to play better. But Shady is going to have a huge second half as these hawks get gassed.

Losing in Miami still burns me, losing to the Jets drives me crazy. In our 12-4 dream imaginary season the Pats with Brady and at Seattle were two of the losses, so I can live with it if we come up short in this game, and am excited to take it on as a challenge and opportunity. But Dareus missing game #9 of the season is just crazy, and not to come in after his suspension ready to play every snap and make a difference is crazy. It reflects very poorly on him as a player, teammate and person to not be crazy completely ready to go as soon as he was eligible, but it also reflects so poorly on the team in terms of their preparation, planning, and ability to plan for this stuff to make sure players are in football shape and can avoid what are very preventable injuries. I seem to remember another four game suspension in our division, and while the circumstances are different, can you imagine if that guy came back out of shape, suffered two little baby injuries, and barely played at all through game 9?

The "Not East to Get Football Ready" is a giant load of garbage that is covering up lazy players and bad training. Same thing happened in San Diego with Joey Bosa holding out then hurting a hamstring right when he got back and tried to jump in to practice intensity he wasn't prepared for. Here is the newsflash: If you haven't been practicing with the team and playing in games, you need to do something DIFFERENTLY than everybody seems to do. You have to make it your job to train and prepare and stretch in a more and/or different way to account for this. The Bills should have hired someone or encouraged Marcel to hire someone to organize very specific and intense training and preparation prior to his return to team practice, and it is a joke that he is off the suspension and still not contributing weeks later, and a double joke that his presence healthy easily would have made the difference in Sunday's loss which could very easily be the difference between a 9-7 playoff miss and a 10-6 playoff make when all is said and done. I blame Dareus personally, because it was definitely his job to be fully ready to return from suspension with a vengeance, but I also blame the Bills organization for not being at the forefront of this stuff and doing more to prevent this from happening.

A 4-2 team adds Lawson and Dareus, and potentially Watkins in a few weeks with one of the weaker schedules....one game at a time please, but things are looking up.

Interesting that we can pick up Lawson, Dareus, and Watkins as the season progresses. A little wild card that I don't think any other team comes close to recouping three first round special talents as the season progresses who hadn't contributed in the early part (although I can think of one divisional opponent that seems to have recouped a sixth round HOF talent).

Let's go with BPA seven times and sort out the details in training camp. Taking inferior players because of where you think they fit early in an off season dooms you to get less value out of them over five seasons and build up a talent deficit. Injuries and turnover and time it can take for rookies to excel mean that picking what you think you need most isn't likely to be what you really need anyway. The good news is that BPA is an inexact science, and often there will be multiple very similarly graded players at a pick, so you can go WR over OT, etc. But knowingly passing on a better player so you can get an inferior player at a different position is silly. And I also don't buy the standard grades and think things need to be positionally weighted, so I'm not suggesting that we end up taking seven straight guards because Kiper grades them that way.

Turning into a team that wins meaningful December games starts by winning meaningful December games whenever presented with the opportunity. We play a game that matters against a hated rival, I would like us to take a step closer to being a team that wins those, and no amount of humiliation motivation or draft order hopes will make me believe that the best thing for this franchise is anything other than beating the Jets.

Taylor has done nothing to show that he doesn't deserve another season, and has set a bar higher than a lot of scrap heap signings we often pick over. And I don't think there will be anybody decent to draft with the #32 pick after we win our next seven.

Nope, I was traumatized as much as everyone else by Norwood and the long slide since then, but like the Broncos in 1997 and Patriots in 2001 (each of whom had never won a super bowl and suffered through multiple losses too), I don't think that the past locks you in to a losing future. I think what happens on the field the next three weeks is separate from Rob Johnson and Scott Norwood and Thurman's helmet and Bruce's flu shot. It probably is not separate in the heart and minds of disappointed fans like yourself, but fortunately they don't impact the outcome. How the 46 guys in uniform perform compared to the other 46 guys in uniform is what matters. Growing up a Bills/Red Sox fan (due to an ill timed move), and watching the here-we-go again down 3-0 to the Yankees in 2004 turn into FINALLY!!!!, I know that the unexpected can happen, and until it actually does, many fans will view it as impossible rather than improbable. I don't expect that to happen with the Bills this year, but I do expect them to beat the Redskins and keep playing like it matters, because it still does.