Bills are still under the radar

[GoBills808]

2 minutes ago, Bangarang said:

Oh, are those the rules? 🙄

It's not a rule, it's just some information you might want to consider in light of your comment about people questioning the way the team is covered. Point being, it's more than simply Bills fans who think the team is undervalued at present. 

[NewEra]

5 minutes ago, BigBuff423 said:

 

Prior to the McDermott era, I would completely agree with this between then and 2001. But last year, the Bills nailed the Cowboys to their barn and melted the Steelers to a crucial victory that put them in the playoffs on national television. So, in all honesty, that didn't apply last year and as for this year so far, both the Titans and Chiefs games were related to COVID issues. The Bills had to prepare for the two teams in the AFC Championship game from last year while not knowing which team they were going to play going into the weekend before the game. Just three days from game day they had to prepare for both teams and if we're being really honest, looking back at how the NFL handled the Titans postponement of their Steelers game, I truly think McD and company believed the Titans game would be played on another date making their focus the Chiefs. JMO

You’re right, it didn’t apply in 2019. Meanwhile, the steelers and cowboys weren’t even playoff teams. Josh allen out dueled Duck Hodges 17-10 while going 12-25 139 1 TD 1 int .  
 

It did apply for the previous 20 years and both games this year.  

[muppy]

NFL fans come in different levels of intensity. You've got the fantasy type fans who follow what the stats are are their opinions are based on that... You've got the individual teams fans who follow one team and the division/conference their team plays in (that would be me) and then you've got the lesser involved fans whom follow who is bein g televised nationally any given week. You've got the bandwagoners who will follow the team with the best record or who has the star player they admire.......NFL fans come in lots of flavors. The media?? Their bias and judgments IMO are based on ratings aka MONEY. Some will tell it like it is but if clickbait takes sell that's what we will hear them spew. I take what I read with a grain of salt, try to consider their bias and sincerity vs acumen and skill at their job based  on what I see and know to be true first hand. Is it always good and factually unbiased what they have to say about your team? Heck no. Its the media. There;s a reason some are called whores..its all about the money honey.

[Bangarang]

21 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

It's not a rule, it's just some information you might want to consider in light of your comment about people questioning the way the team is covered. Point being, it's more than simply Bills fans who think the team is undervalued at present. 

Thanks for your input.

[Kwai San]

50 minutes ago, Dan said:

If anyone is under the radar... it’s the Steelers.  I see more talk about KC and TN ..and the Steelers are still undefeated.  But maybe I don’t know.. I’ve stopped watching all the pregame shows.  

 

Been saying this for the last 4 weeks.....the Squealers are scary good......if ole Rapelisberger gets whacked around a bit more and the Bills tee off on him the Bills might win.....but that Squealer D is purdy good.......

[JerseyBills]

I'm seeing alot of love as well though. 

I think it was  GMFB where Kay brought up the run heavy game vs NE and that this offense can hurt you almost any way they choose and put the O in the KC category,  that if they're clicking,  she doesn't know how teams are going to stop them. I agree

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Buffalo vs Everybody

 

McDermott said that the Bills wouldn't be able to sneak up on anybody this season and take them by surprise.

The Titans and Chiefs certainly got that memo

 

Pete Carroll said "Hold my Beer"

[HT02]

I get your point but I honestly don't care what the "national media" thinks of this team and if the Bills sneak up on some teams like they did the Cowboys last year I am fine with that.

[RiotAct]

2 hours ago, Dan said:

If anyone is under the radar... it’s the Steelers.  I see more talk about KC and TN ..and the Steelers are still undefeated.  But maybe I don’t know.. I’ve stopped watching all the pregame shows.  

Same here.  They’re especially cringeworthy this year (for several reasons).

[Shaw66]

2 hours ago, Dr. K said:

It's interesting that despite this win, the Bills still seem to be traveling under the radar of most NFL observers. Most reports of the Seahawks game focus more on Seattle's weak defense than on the Bills offense, on what the Hawks did wrong more than what the Bills did right. The losses to the Titans and Chiefs still outweigh anything the team has accomplished. The Dolphins and Tua seem to be getting all the buzz in the AFC East.

I think to some degree this is part of the continuing narrative that Josh Allen really is not that good, that the great games he has had are some sort of mirage, that the perceptions of him that were established when he was drafted and in his first season still are the fallback position whenever "experts" come to evaluate him and the team.

 

I think it's good to have the Bills under-appreciated at this point. It will sort itself out if the Bills beat Arizona, the Steelers, and other highly regarded teams. But I'm beginning to think that until he wins a championship Josh is only going to be one bad performance away from the rote reaction that he really is not a franchise QB. 

It will always be like this. 

 

The media are driven by one thing - ratings.   That's all that matters.  The Bills are the smallest market in the league, or close to it.  More people will stay tuned in if they're talking about Miami than about the Bills, so the media are going to talk about Miami. 

 

Moreover, the general NFL fans do not believe the Bills are or ever will be good.  It's a mindset they have.  The Bills have to dominate the league like KC currently is before you can expect any kind of serious, continuous positive coverage about the Bills.  

 

Beating Arizona would help, but even that won't do it.  Beat Arizona and Pittsburgh, then maybe you'll see some serious attention. 

[teef]

this stuff bothers me zero, but i did notice it today.  I was listening to sirius nfl this morning, and they started to go over the bills game.  the first few minutes were about how bad the hawks defense is, and how wilson had a wildly off game.   nothing about the bills d or allen.  now, i had to get out and drop my kid off, but when i got back in the car, one of the commentators was going on about how hard it is to travel from the west to the east...how it's hard to get up earlier and play because your clock is off, how you can get dehydrated on the flight,  stiff on the flight, etc.  

 

maybe they spent time going over the bills, but i certainly didn't hear a second of it.

[Captain Hindsight]

2 hours ago, Bangarang said:

Say hello to Billsmafia. If they aren’t drunkenly being thrown through tables, they are hyperventilating into a paper bag over what the media thinks.

I'm Bills Mafia, and I'm all out of tables

[Dr. K]

16 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

It will always be like this. 

 

The media are driven by one thing - ratings.   That's all that matters.  The Bills are the smallest market in the league, or close to it.  More people will stay tuned in if they're talking about Miami than about the Bills, so the media are going to talk about Miami. 

 

Moreover, the general NFL fans do not believe the Bills are or ever will be good.  It's a mindset they have.  The Bills have to dominate the league like KC currently is before you can expect any kind of serious, continuous positive coverage about the Bills.  

 

Beating Arizona would help, but even that won't do it.  Beat Arizona and Pittsburgh, then maybe you'll see some serious attention. 

I think it's more a matter of established narratives than any small market prejudice. Maybe that's not incompatible with what you are saying.

 

This applies to lots of things outside of football. In politics, in families, in the arts, once a narrative has been established about somebody, it takes a huge amount of contrary evidence to overcome that narrative. One instance of reinforcement of the narrative will overcome ten instances that contradict it. Stories are powerful. They take over our minds and alter our judgment. It has something to do with human perception. 

Edited November 9, 2020 by Dr. K

[Shaw66]

13 minutes ago, Dr. K said:

I think it's more a matter of established narratives than any small market prejudice. Maybe that's not incompatible with what you are saying.

 

This applies to lots of things outside of football. In politics, in families, in the arts, once a narrative has been established about somebody, it takes a huge amount of contrary evidence to overcome that narrative. One instance of reinforcement of the narrative will overcome ten instances that contradict it. Stories are powerful. They take over our minds and alter our judgment. It has something to do with human perception. 

Well, what you say is true, for sure.  But that's not what's going on here, or at least that's not all of it.   It's about the money. 

 

Colin Cowherd is the sports personality I've heard talk most honestly about it.   In the middle of Tebow mania, I heard him talk about.  He said don't write to ESPN and tell them not to talk about Tebow - they watch the ratings daily, and they know when people change stations.  They were going to talk about Tebow until people started changing stations.   He said the same thing once about why ESPN kept showing the Red Sox and Yankees on Sunday night games - those were the games that, by far, the most people tuned into.  

 

What the networks know is that people don't want to hear about the Bills.   Yes, you can say it's because people have bought an established narrative about the Bills, but I doubt it.   The Cowboys get altogether too much coverage, year after year.   Everyone knows the Cowboys suck and have sucked for a long time, but Dallas is a big market and the Cowboys have a lot of fans around the country.  The ratings are better talking about the Cowboys.  The networks are not going to turn their backs on their listeners.  

 

It didn't take long to establish a Mahomes narrative.  It didn't take the networks long to jump on Tua - exactly one game.  There's no reason that by now they wouldn't have jumped on the Josh bandwagon.  They probably have twice as many listeners who want to hear about Tua than about Josh.  

 

The media could make Josh a star overnight if they wanted to.  Why don't they?  Because the base of listeners they can build hyping Josh is much smaller than the base of listeners they can with Tua - in part because of the relative sizes of the two cities, and in part because Tua brought some fans with him.   

 

The fans will be interested in the Bills only when they are demonstrably on the top.  As soon, as they are, they'll be covered.  As soon as they aren't, they'll be dropped.  

[HOUSE]

I want the ESPN sports writers to pick the Cardinals across the board because they are a smart bunch there....

 

https://www.espn.com/nfl/picks

[Don Otreply]

2 hours ago, GoBills808 said:

You should if you want to keep mocking folks over what 'the media thinks'

Ooh, a threat 😱, I don’t care either, so your saying I better care too? 😂😆🤣 

 

Go Bills!!!

[smuvtalker]

2 hours ago, NewEra said:

I don’t think it helps that we usually play and coach some ugly football when we play on nationally televised games, especially in prime time.

 

Most fans and several media members don’t watch a Bills game all year unless it’s prime time. Then when they watch us in prime time, we **** the bed and everyone laughs and says same ol bills.  “I thought Josh allen was good, he was nothing special, if not an average looking qb”.  The. They won’t watch them til the playoffs.  
 

I’ve only seen 2 highlight shows so far and most of the talk has been about Russ. We got a little love, but it’s almost as if we were given an automatic 400 yards and 4 tds because we were playing the all time terrible Seattle D.  
 

I wonder how things would’ve played out if the game was sunday night.  

This x1000.  My sentiments to the tee. I was commenting in the other thread similar to this one the exact same thing.  Our narrative was almost always the same.  Buffalo would string a few decent victories together, heads would start turning, and the media would start to come around and say, "hey how bout Buffalo?"  We'd have a primetime game coming up, and all of a sudden people were on the bandwagon.  We'd go into the game not only favored, but picked to win by most analysts.  And then we would proceed to absolutely ***** the bed, and in impressive fashion.  And then next morning's articles would read, "Same old Bills."  Every time.  

 

I finally have confidence in this team that this year, we will finally show up in primetime, starting with the 49ers.  I expect not only a victory, but a statement.  

 

But as far as us not getting that attention,  that love, I'm good with that because we always seem to play better when we are the underdog.