The Bills did not "luck" into the playoffs

[The Red King]

Alright, this has been eating at me for awhile, and it's time I get it off my chest.  I want to scream every time I see someone claiming that the only reason the Bills made the playoffs last season was luck.  Like last season's Bills were some 6-10, 7-9 team that was visited by the playoff fairy and granted a playoff birth.  It's a discredit to the team and what they accomplished.  The Bills earned that playoff birth.

 

First, look at the playoff game itself.  The Bills, a team with absolutely no playoff experience in the 21st century, went to Jacksonville and lost by just seven points (on the road).  This to a team that beat Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh and almost upended New England in New England.  A team that barely missed a shot at the Super Bowl...and we lost to them in their stadium by just seven points.  Now, of course, some will point to the Ravens/Bengals week 17 game.  Yes, it was an upset.  Cincy beat a team that would finish 9-7.  Well...that wasn't the only one.  Earlier in the season those same Bengals beat the Bills...another team that finished 9-7.  If Baltimore had won that game and squeaked into the playoffs, would people claim the Ravens were lucky to make it in because of the earlier Cinci upset of Buffalo?  Of course not.  Yes, it took a 4th down play, but 4th and 12 is not impossible odds.  I seem to recall the Giants completing a 4th and long with a helmet catch to knock off NE in a Super Bowl, but nobody's claiming the Giants were lucky to win that game.

 

People are mistaking luck with overachieving.  On paper, was last season's squad a playoff team?  Not really.  They played with heart though, and that you can attribute to the coaching staff and the change in culture.  No mystical force gave them all those early turnovers, no wind of fortune blew Shady into the end zone in the Indy game when it looked like we'd have to settle for a tie.  The team got key plays at key times, remove any of them and maybe the Bills don't make it in.  But they did make the plays.  Despite all the so-called sports experts predicting them to be in a dogfight for the top draft pick, they went out there and did what precious few thought they could.  They won games.  They won enough to make the playoffs, and continued to play hard enough to keep the JAX game close right up to the end.  That was hard work, effort...not luck.  They hit a horrific three-game losing streak where it looked like they couldn't beat a high school team and it looked like yet another historic collapse, but this time they changed the script.  They beat KC and turned it around.  Despite a crippling setback they continued to fight and scrap never giving up on that elusive playoff spot.  Bills teams in the past would have thrown in the towel after the Chargers game, rolled to a 7-9 end.  Not this squad.  It was gut-check time, and they passed.

 

They didn't get lucky with tiebreakers, either.  Four teams tied for two spots.  The tie-breakers are not random, not arbitrary.  Nobody rolled a die or flipped a coin.  They didn't play musical chairs or pull miniature helmets out of a hat.  Each tie-breaker was tied to actual accomplishments.  This was regarding the AFC playoffs, so conference record was the first tie-breaker.  The Titans had the best one, so they got the #5 seed.  The Chargers had the worst, and so were eliminated.  No luck there, the Bills did better in the AFC then the Chargers and so positioned higher.  That left the Bills and Ravens tied for the #6 seed.  The tie-breaker was strength of victory, the number of combined wins of all the teams they beat.  For all the people that want to claim the Bills had a light schedule, this shows otherwise.  If they had a weak schedule, they would have been eliminated.  The bottom line is, the teams the Bills beat had more wins then the teams Baltimore beat.  They beat better teams and as a result earned that playoff spot.

 

I understand.  The Bills have been so bad for so long it's only natural to be leery.  We Bills' fans are always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and after being so sub-par for so long, it's easier to just attribute last season to luck and expect the worst this upcoming season.  And who know?  The Bills might well be terrible this season.  I don't think they will be, but I certainly can't say they won't.  But to write off what they did last season, what they managed to accomplish with what they had to work with, is quite frankly insulting to both the team and the coaching staff.  Last season was an accomplishment.  It may have been a fluke, an anomaly, time will tell in that regard.  But the Bills earned that playoff spot all the same, on their own merits, and for me that's at least encouraging.

[MJS]

Well, there is always a little luck involved.

 

People who say it was all luck are wrong. People who say there was no luck are wrong.

 

Sometimes the ball bounces your way, sometimes not.

 

I'm happy they made it and I am proud of that team who overachieved and at times looked good. Ultimately I know the team is not that great, but is trending upwards. I have some confidence in the coaches and GM, and I think the team has some important pieces in place. Just needs more experience, needs to fill a few more holes, and needs Josh Allen to pan out.

[SoCal Deek]

The Bills did not 'luck' into the playoffs.  I'm not sure who's been using that term.  They did however 'slide', or often more often used "back" into the playoffs, when the Bengals won on New Year's Eve.  This is a fact. When the Bills left the field in Miami, they were not in the playoffs.  Their celebration occurred in the locker room, only after the Andy Dalton's touchdown toss over 1,000 miles north of Miami.

 

That doesn't make the Bills playoff birth more or less important ...or 'luckier'...than any other team that's ever gotten in via a Tie Breaker.

[BuffaloRush]

Just now, SoCal Deek said:

The Bills did not 'luck' into the playoffs.  I'm not sure who's been using that term.  They did however 'slide', or often more often used "back" into the playoffs, when the Bengals won on New Year's Eve.  This is a fact. When the Bills left the field in Miami, they were not in the playoffs.  Their celebration occurred in the locker room, only after the Andy Dalton's touchdown toss over 1,000 miles north of Miami.

 

That doesn't make the Bills playoff birth more or less important ...or 'luckier'...than any other team that's ever gotten in via a Tie Breaker.

 

Ive been saying this for months now.  If you want to play the “luck” games there’s many examples you could find through NFL history.  There are teams that, by some people’s definition, lucked into a Super Bowl.  

 

Its all part of the game. 

[row_33]

the response to getting in was to kick out the QB immediately, with no Plan B in reality

 

bizarre and ponderous

[wagon127]

Believe me, I was as excited as any fan was on New Years Eve, and scared my 2 year old nephew with how loud I screamed when Andy Dalton threw that Touchdown pass. The part that bugs me, is if the tie breaker rules for "strength of schedule" are fair. I still find it weird, that the we got in, and the chargers didn't. The chargers killed us last year.  We only going in because Baltimore was also 9-7, and it helped that the ravens played the browns twice. I'm excited that we don't need to annoy Josh Allen with how he feels about being on a team that hasn't been to the playoffs in 18 years. I really wonder if less people would say it was luck, if the bengal's game ended before the bills-dolphins game did. But I am glad it went down the way it did. It was the perfect story book ending to the drought.

[Nick the Greek]

To me, luck is when opportunity and timing come together. However, you must take advantage of the opportunities presented to you. The Bills did that. 

 

They won some hard games and in 2017, 9 wins was enough. Some luck, but lots of heart. 

Edited May 24, 2018 by Idandria

[DaBillsFanSince1973]

no, but the bengals sure got lucky beating the ravens, no?

 

 

had that not happened, this thread would never exist.

[WhoTom]

Agreed.

 

I said this in another thread: if the BAL-CIN game had occurred in week 10 and gone down exactly as it did in week 17, and all the Bills needed in week 17 was to win and they're in, then nobody would have called it "luck" or "backing into" the playoffs.

[Chandler#81]

Yes, OP, we lucked into the Playoffs. Divinely intervened.

[row_33]

10 minutes ago, Chandler#81 said:

Yes, OP, we lucked into the Playoffs. Divinely intervened.

 

it's the most rinky-dink NFL thing to accomplish, getting wiped out bad on the road in the AFC WC weekend.

 

[JPP]

We were lucky that Dalton threw that pass in the dying minutes of the baltimore game...thats all it came down to...luck....now that we are rebuilding and improvements are happening hopefully we continue to get in without being dependent on the outcome of another team(s)......

[Logic]

9 hours ago, DaBillsFanSince1973 said:

no, but the bengals sure got lucky beating the ravens, no?

 

 

had that not happened, this thread would never exist.

Disagree. I've watched Andy Dalton's game winning touchdown throw about a billion times now. That play was NOT luck. It was perfect execution by both Dalton and Boyd. 

Anyone who thinks that our making the playoffs was JUST luck is silly. What put the Bills in position to be the beneficiaries of that luck? Winning crucial games at crucial times. Had they not beat the Chiefs, the Colts, the Dolphins twice, the Broncos...had ANY ONE OF THOSE GAMES gone down in the loss column, the Bills would not have made the playoffs.

The Bills put themselves into position to have luck matter. That's not luck.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Logic

[MJS]

6 minutes ago, row_33 said:

 

it's the most rinky-dink NFL thing to accomplish, getting wiped out bad on the road in the AFC WC weekend.

 

 

Losing by one score?

[RoyBatty is alive]

1 hour ago, row_33 said:

the response to getting in was to kick out the QB immediately, with no Plan B in reality

 

bizarre and ponderous

only 4 posts in and already trying to turn this into Tyrod Taylor thread #4,569.  I wil take the bait.

 

Great, he made the playoffs.  I want more than just making the playoffs.  The great QB you speak of managed a massive 3 points in his first and only playoff game.  It was time to move on. Lets see if he can bring the mighty browns to the playoffs. 

[Chuck Wagon]

3 times in the last ~10 NFL seasons a wildcard team has made the AFC playoffs at 9-7.  We didn't win tiebreakers because we beat Baltimore H2H, we won them because Baltimore had a 0-16 Cleveland team in their division, which has happened 1 other time.  You may not consider it luck, but circumstances out of the ordinary certainly aligned to put us in the playoffs.  

[KD in CA]

The premise is absurd as there's no such thing.   Everyone plays 16 games and the top 12 get in, simple as that.

 

There are probably  a hundred plays for every team during the season that dictate a win or loss.  To isolate one play from one team as the 'luck' for the results of a full season is idiotic.

[GunnerBill]

Sorry did the OP say nobody says the Giants were lucky to beat the Patriots on the helmet catch???

 

Really? I think most people acknowledge that as the flukiest play in NFL history. The Giants did a great job to stay close enough in that Superbowl so that such a play was possible, but that they actually won it courtesy in large part to that play??? Beyond lucky. 

 

It might have been the luckiest moment I have ever seen in sports let alone the NFL. 

 

As for the Bills... it has been proven time and again that strange things happen in week 17 in the NFL. There was that year maybe 2013(?) where the Chargers made it because the already in Chiefs, who had outplayed them with their backups, missed a chip shot FG in the final moment. That is why you earn your shot by giving yourself a chance in week 17.... because if you do then things just have to fall right for you. 

[17islongenough]

Unless you go 16-0 there is some sort of luck in making the playoffs. 

[Gugny]

The Bills lucked into 9 wins before REALLY lucking into the playoffs.