Cash

My Dad told me he had Mickey Mantle in the front wheel and Roger Maris in the back, whoops. Then again, if no one had been doing that, those cards would never have gotten scarce and would never have been worth anything.

I've watched a medium amount of Maye this year. My highly amateur scouting report: He’s got big-time tools. Big frame, big arm, good wheels. Can make plays out of structure. He is currently a bad QB but is a gamer to some extent. Unlike Jac Mones, I could see Maye developing into a legit NFL QB someday. But right now, he’s part of the reason they’re losing. I’m expecting either our defense to confuse the heck out of him, or my boy AVP to come out with a crazy simplified game plan that takes all decision making out of his hands. Either way, Bills by a billion!

Correct. Again, maybe he’s gone up a level since leaving the Saints. I haven’t been watching him on the Bengals. But the guy I saw a ton of on the Saints was not on a different level than this year’s Greg Rousseau. I’m sorry if that upsets you. I don’t disagree with this take. I’m from Rochester originally, and I’ve long felt like it’s roughly on the border between Northeast and Midwest. I think Buffalo is still kind of in that border, but closer to Midwest.

Agreed on those 2, so we're up to 6 active players plus 1 on IR. Per BearNorth's post above, we can add Josh Hines-Allen to get us to 7 active/8 total. I guess we could include Trey Hendrickson as well, but I'm reluctant to do that. I haven't watched any Bengals games this year, so maybe Hendrickson has massively stepped up his game this year. But I watched him a lot when he was on the Saints, and IMO he's not on a different tier than Groot as a pass rusher. And here's your original point: You're welcome to change them out once you get the GM job, but it seems like you think it's simple to find multiple DEs that scare other teams and wreck the opponent's game plan. I submit that those guys might be the 2nd-hardest to find in the NFL after franchise QBs. You're welcome to prove me wrong, but where are all these other acceptably-good DEs? Beane has been throwing a lot of resources at the D-line; some of it has paid off, a good chunk of it hasn't. But I don't think it's as simple as "get rid of these guys and bring in better guys."

Are there really “many”? What does that mean - do most teams have one? I’m skeptical on this front. I would bet that if you sat down and went through rosters, you’d be hard pressed to find more than 10 pass rushers who fit the standard you’re asking for. 1. Parsons 2. Watt 3. Bosa 1 4. Bosa 2 5. Garrett That's all I can come up with off the top of my head. Who am I missing?

I like this phrasing. There is no such thing as a risk-free decision in the NFL. The risk they took signing Miller didn’t exactly pan out. But it was a calculated decision on their part, weighing the upside against the risk. And given how good Miller looked pre-injury - particularly his clutch performances in big games - I can’t kill the decision making. Best case scenario would be Miller salvaging some major value with a clutch sack or two in playoff victories. Im not expecting it but I don’t think it’s crazy. I’ve been watching him a lot of defense all year. I was pretty encouraged by his play early in the year, but IMO he hasn’t looked the same the last few weeks. I don’t think he’s looked awful, just a lot less impressed than I was early on. My hope is that he’s taking it easy by his standards, either because he’s only got so much left in the tank, and he’s trying to save it for the playoffs. It's also possible that Miller’s faced some tough matchups the last few weeks and has been getting beat.

I don’t disagree with you for the most part, and I’m genuinely curious: How many pass rushers do wreck an opponent’s game plan? If you’ve got time to make a list I’d be interested in it. I watch a lot fewer non-Bills games these days, so I’m fairly out of touch with defensive guys around the league.

It’ll depend on how much backlash there truly is. If people just want to whine/whinge about it, but the stadium winds up full with no drop in ticket prices, the owners won’t care.

Injury report looks pretty good so far. I think we're still in a mode where guys who would play in a playoff game will be held out this week. Douglas is a good example - Elam played well last week (I think?), and at Douglas' age, his body will benefit from a week off in any case. Any NFL team can beat any other NFL team. But to lose at home to this band of misfits, while fighting for the 1 seed? That would be very upsetting. I'm expecting a pretty good game from the defense. McDermott has an excellent track record against inexperienced QBs and I expect a couple of INTs accordingly. Maye has some big-time physical tools and can make plays off-schedule, but our defense practices against a much better version of that. On the other side of the ball, the Patirots' defense is good enough to cause problems if the Bills let them. But if our guys stay as dialed-in as they've been, I don't think the Patriots have much of a chance on either side of the ball.

Agreed. In the sense that 4 cents is a better offer than 3 cents, but that doesn’t mean accepting the better offer is a given.

I actually don't. I think the voters as a group want the winning QB* to have great numbers on a great team. We can debate whether that should be the criteria or not, but even if it shouldn't be, it still is. In the current streak of all-QB winners, every winner has been on a 1 or 2 seed. Only one of them had 5 losses (Matt Ryan), and most had 3 or fewer. Now granted, we were the 2 seed last year, but the Ravens indisputably had a better regular season than we did, and that factored into the voting. And I don't have time to look it up, but I imagine Allen's INT numbers last year would've been extremely high for a modern MVP. I imagine you'd have to go back to the 60s or 70s to find an MVP who threw more than 15 picks. Maybe just the 80s, but that was still a different game back then. *The rare times a non-QB wins it, it's usually a running back who did something really special, and voters seem to have different criteria for different positions. But when comparing QB to QB, they've shown that team success factors in.

Especially in a dome, where there's nothing to interfere with the precision of the offense. Even in good weather, outdoor football always has some level of breeze to deal with. To say nothing of the conditions in the 49ers game. Personally, I like football better when it's harder, and even an elite offense can't score every time. (Just another reason why the "perfect game" against Belichick in the playoffs was truly one of the most impressive feats in NFL history.)

31 minutes? That's not happening. Any chance you could summarize? I live in the Boston area but don't listen to sports talk radio or similar. My guy who does is out of town so I'm out of the loop.

Yes to all of these, and I'll point out that 5 more passing TDs would put Allen over 40 total TDs on the year. Whether he gets 30 passing or not, I want him to extend his 40+ total TD streak.

No, but they're still very high on the list of teams I feel schadenfreude for.