Road to the Playoffs

[The Red King]

 

5 hours ago, Boatdrinks said:

Nothing ironic about it. The Bills put themselves in this spot by losing games to teams they shouldn’t - Pats, Denver , Jets. The Dolphins, up until their meltdown vs TEN had handled the lesser teams consistently. The Bills have a shot at the division now, but very little margin for error. The Fish have a tough schedule , but can afford a couple losses. Should be interesting down the stretch. 

 

Well, I meant ironic as in the full three game swing.  We could be a game back, tied, or a game ahead, and it would all still come down to that game.  The result of us winning the first one, and them having the better division record.

Edited December 15, 2023 by The Red King

[Scott7975]

5 hours ago, Jrb1979 said:

I've been saying that for awhile. 10-7 will not get the Bills in the playoffs unless it's the division. 

 

Yep. Me too.  I been saying it since the Denver game.  People still want to fight it as if by some magic these teams are all going to remove each other.

[zow2]

Don’t forget the old NFL motto.  It’s not who you play but when you play them.  And the Raiders are looking rejuvenated at the perfect time to pick off a couple teams we need them to. And the Bills get to play this version of the Chargers.

[Joe Ferguson]

On 11/14/2023 at 10:23 AM, RiotAct said:

Miami is NOT losing to the Titans.   Full stop.

😄. And Miami will lose to the Jets.

[mikemac2001]

5 minutes ago, zow2 said:

Don’t forget the old NFL motto.  It’s not who you play but when you play them.  And the Raiders are looking rejuvenated at the perfect time to pick off a couple teams we need them to. And the Bills get to play this version of the Chargers.

Ya but then this team just got embarrassed and will want to show fight next week with extra time 

[zow2]

2 minutes ago, mikemac2001 said:

Ya but then this team just got embarrassed and will want to show fight next week with extra time 

 

I said pretty much the same thing in the other thread, and other posters said no chance.  But i agree. hate playing a team coming off this type of thumping.   But id still rather play this version than the one that had Herbert and was in shootouts with Detroit and Miami.

[RiotAct]

9 hours ago, Joe Ferguson said:

😄. And Miami will lose to the Jets.

Not a chance.  Not gonna happen.

 

 

 

Full stop.

[Buffalo Streaker]

5 hours ago, RiotAct said:

Not a chance.  Not gonna happen.

 

 

 

Full stop.

I see what you did there.  Thank you for this.

[BB2004]

On 12/14/2023 at 7:10 AM, Scott7975 said:

 

It's not that for me really.  I actually do trust this team to win.  Dallas is going to be a tough game, but in Josh Allen I trust.  It's just that so many teams are so close that not winning the division is going to be really tough.  I was going to revisit my old thread to put a scenario and see if people think its actually unrealistic.  Because I believe its really realistic.  Thing is even if you change a few games, it just changes those teams and still leaves the Bills out.  I'm just going to put it here though since my thread is pages and pages back. 

 

Keep in mind that I think we can absolutely win the division as I think Miami is going to lose more games.  This is just for the sake of argument that Miami surprises and actually wins out while we lose to Dallas.  Im only going to put up the games that matter and just assume Miami wins the division.  Lets see if any of this looks unrealistic to anyone and if so what games they would change...

 

Week 15

Cinci over Vikings

Colts over Pitts

Detroit over Denver

Browns over Bears

Ravens over Jags

Texans over Titans

Week 16

Cinci over Pitts

Jags over Tampa

Browns over Texans

Denver over Pats

Colts over Atlanta

49ers over Ravens

Week 17

Browns over Jets

Seattle over Pitts

Colts over Raiders

KC over Cinci

Jags over Panthers

Denver over Chargers

Titans over Texans

Week 18

Denver over Raiders

Ravens over Pitts

Cinci over Browns

Colts over Texans

Jags over Titans

 

Again, I think we have a good shot at winning the division.  This exercise is just to show how difficult it is to get in without winning the division.  Is there anything in there that anyone would change.  There are a couple scenarios where the Bills make it, but there are also a lot that they don't.  This is just my list of gut feeling on how games could play out.  In this scenario the Bills would not make it.  Obviously, I could see some games going another way but I had to pick someone.

 

 

 

 

 

It honestly all depends on how the rest of the season plays out.  Both teams can make the playoffs.  There is a huge tie in the AFC right now which is why getting a WC is so difficult this year.

 

Sorry if I didn't see this and you seem to be on it, for anyone that know for this weekend only, who are we rooting for to win between 

 

Pittsburgh vs Indianpolis and Baltimore and Jacksonville

 

The others are obvious Minnesota, Detroit, Tennessee, Jets, Tennessee, New England and Bears.  Majority are underdogs/long shots.

 

 

 

 

[Scott7975]

8 minutes ago, BB2004 said:

 

Sorry if I didn't see this and you seem to be on it, for anyone that know for this weekend only, who are we rooting for to win between 

 

Pittsburgh vs Indianpolis and Baltimore and Jacksonville

 

The others are obvious Minnesota, Detroit, Tennessee, Jets, Tennessee, New England and Bears.  Majority are underdogs/long shots.

 

 

 

 

kinda changes every week because all these teams are staying even and no one is running away. I dunno about pitts and indi but I think we want the jags winning their division. We don’t want to compete with them for a wc if we don’t win ours. Ravens are pretty much a lock anyhow. I’ll look at it when I get home. 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Scott7975

[DapperCam]

6 hours ago, Scott7975 said:

kinda changes every week because all these teams are staying even and no one is running away. I dunno about pitts and indi but I think we want the jags winning their division. We don’t want to compete with them for a wc if we don’t win ours. Ravens are pretty much a lock anyhow. I’ll look at it when I get home. 

Who cares about the Jags winning the division vs Houston? Jags are going to lose this weekend, and then if they go 1-2 the remaining games they will miss the playoffs altogether.

[AlfaBill]

On 11/14/2023 at 11:23 AM, RiotAct said:

Miami is NOT losing to the Titans.   Full stop.

This aged well

 

[Jrb1979]

9 minutes ago, DapperCam said:

Who cares about the Jags winning the division vs Houston? Jags are going to lose this weekend, and then if they go 1-2 the remaining games they will miss the playoffs altogether.

Unlikely that happens with their schedule. It's funny how many say the Bills will win out yet all these other teams are only going to win 1 game left. 

[buffblue]

1 hour ago, Jrb1979 said:

Unlikely that happens with their schedule. It's funny how many say the Bills will win out yet all these other teams are only going to win 1 game left. 

Agreed, and I have no idea why anyone would care about the Jags at this point anyway. They will make the playoffs one way or the other. 

 

If anything, their continued slide into the wild card race would seem to be a bad development for Buffalo as we would now have another team that owns the tiebreaker over us. At least we haven't played and lost to Houston or Indy. 

 

What am I missing here? 

Edited December 16, 2023 by buffblue

[Scott7975]

1 hour ago, buffblue said:

Agreed, and I have no idea why anyone would care about the Jags at this point anyway. They will make the playoffs one way or the other. 

 

If anything, their continued slide into the wild card race would seem to be a bad development for Buffalo as we would now have another team that owns the tiebreaker over us. At least we haven't played and lost to Houston or Indy. 

 

What am I missing here? 

 

You answered your own question.  This is why we care about the Jags.  If they win the division the head to head against them doesn't matter as far as wc goes.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Scott7975

[Scott7975]

On 12/14/2023 at 4:41 PM, Jrb1979 said:

I've been saying that for awhile. 10-7 will not get the Bills in the playoffs unless it's the division. 

 

Its amazing how there are still people that think 10-7 is a sure in but can't post a reasonable scenario or even argue against the scenario I posted.  It's like they don't even look at a simulator at all and just trust some 53% vegas like odds or past history of 10 win teams making it.  This is not those years. Those years didn't have a 6 way tie for spots plus a team 1 game ahead and a team 1 game behind this late in the season.

[Jrb1979]

2 minutes ago, Scott7975 said:

 

Its amazing how there are still people that think 10-7 is a sure in but can't post a reasonable scenario or even argue against the scenario I posted.  It's like they don't even look at a simulator at all and just trust some 53% vegas like odds or past history of 10 win teams making it.  This is not those years. Those years didn't have a 6 way tie for spots plus a team 1 game ahead and a team 1 game behind this late in the season.

IMO many seem to look at the NY Times one and just look at percentages. I use the ESPN one and it'such better. It also gives you an idea of each teams schedule. That's the big thing. All the teams ahead of the Bills have easy schedules. 

[Scott7975]

4 minutes ago, Jrb1979 said:

IMO many seem to look at the NY Times one and just look at percentages. I use the ESPN one and it'such better. It also gives you an idea of each teams schedule. That's the big thing. All the teams ahead of the Bills have easy schedules. 

 

Same.  Just go through the games and select the team winner that makes sense and youll see how hard it actually is to get in at 10-7.  Its like a coin flip and that to me is not good odds.  Especially when that coin flip is weighted towards teams losing games they shouldn't.

[BigDingus]

I've just been focusing on less perfect scenarios, looking at ways beyond going on a 5 win streak to close the season. Some other scenarios include:

 

Scenario 1 - Bills lose to the Cowboys and Dolphins. There's still a lot of ways the Bills could make the playoffs, mainly because a lot of the 7-6 teams play each other. 

 

Scenario 2 - Bills beat the Cowboys, but inexplicably lose a game to the Chargers OR Patriots, as well as the Dolphins. Pretty similar to Scenario 1, though a Browns collapse gave me way more results with the Bills making it in. 

 

Scenario 3 (BEST) - Bills lose to the Cowboys, but go on to win their next 3 games. Aside from winning out, this is the option that offers the most flexibility (shocker, 3 wins is better than 2 wins). After messing with the playoff simulator for what feels like millions of hours, you get a ton of ways the Bills make it in. 

 

You could have all 4 NFC North teams finish above .500, Dolphins still take the AFC East, plus both the Jags & Texans getting in, and the Bills at 10-7 would still make it in under most scenarios. As long as the Broncos *OR* Texans lose 2 x games, 10 wins is VERY LIKELY to get the Bills in.

 

If not, teams like the Colts, Texans, Broncos and the Browns *OR* Bengals *OR* Steelers all finish 10-7, the Bills get in. We just couldn't have 3 x teams in the AFC North at 10-7 or better (in this scenario). Thankfully, a lot of these 7-6 teams play each other to close the year. 

 

Week 15: Steelers at Colts 

Week 16: Bengals at Steelers / Browns at Texans

Week 17: Bengals at Chiefs (even if the Bills finish 9-8, a Chiefs win here with the rest of the matchups could still get us in with the first 2 scenarios)

Week 18: Browns at Bengals / Texans at Colts

 

Note: One game to really watch is week 18 Steelers at Ravens. If the Ravens & Chiefs both keep winning, Baltimore may be resting starters here, which could really hurt us.

 

 

 

[Scott7975]

32 minutes ago, BigDingus said:

I've just been focusing on less perfect scenarios, looking at ways beyond going on a 5 win streak to close the season. Some other scenarios include:

 

Scenario 1 - Bills lose to the Cowboys and Dolphins. There's still a lot of ways the Bills could make the playoffs, mainly because a lot of the 7-6 teams play each other. 

 

Scenario 2 - Bills beat the Cowboys, but inexplicably lose a game to the Chargers OR Patriots, as well as the Dolphins. Pretty similar to Scenario 1, though a Browns collapse gave me way more results with the Bills making it in. 

 

Scenario 3 (BEST) - Bills lose to the Cowboys, but go on to win their next 3 games. Aside from winning out, this is the option that offers the most flexibility (shocker, 3 wins is better than 2 wins). After messing with the playoff simulator for what feels like millions of hours, you get a ton of ways the Bills make it in. 

 

You could have all 4 NFC North teams finish above .500, Dolphins still take the AFC East, plus both the Jags & Texans getting in, and the Bills at 10-7 would still make it in under most scenarios. As long as the Broncos *OR* Texans lose 2 x games, 10 wins is VERY LIKELY to get the Bills in.

 

If not, teams like the Colts, Texans, Broncos and the Browns *OR* Bengals *OR* Steelers all finish 10-7, the Bills get in. We just couldn't have 3 x teams in the AFC North at 10-7 or better (in this scenario). Thankfully, a lot of these 7-6 teams play each other to close the year. 

 

Week 15: Steelers at Colts 

Week 16: Bengals at Steelers / Browns at Texans

Week 17: Bengals at Chiefs (even if the Bills finish 9-8, a Chiefs win here with the rest of the matchups could still get us in with the first 2 scenarios)

Week 18: Browns at Bengals / Texans at Colts

 

Note: One game to really watch is week 18 Steelers at Ravens. If the Ravens & Chiefs both keep winning, Baltimore may be resting starters here, which could really hurt us.

 

 

 

 

There are also a lot of scenarios that they don't.  I play with the machine a lot too.  Like I said earlier... it's a coinflip.  That to me is not a good chance.  Thats a pray Dalton makes an unlikely game winning TD on 4th down type chance IMO.  Basically hoping for teams like the Bears beating the Browns and Minesota beating Cinci.  Can happen but it would be an upset IMO, even with backup QBs. Getting in at 9 wins is definitely not going to happen.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Scott7975