Next year, it’s our Lombardi.

[stinky finger]

16 hours ago, NewEra said:

 

Josh Allen.  
 

Having the understanding that it’s possible to improve

 

knowing that it’s possible KC loses a piece or two of their puzzle. 

 

The belief that our offense will be better next season

 

What prompted you to have zero hope?

i wouldn’t say zero hope. I am still skeptical of our HC and the organization dedication to providing Josh with tools required to succeed.

 

Expecting KC to drop off doesn’t seem like a good plan. 

Edited February 13 by stinky finger

[cale]

If we don’t face KC in the playoffs and get to stay mostly at home next season, we win it all…That’s how good that other team is.

 

also our schedule next season is brutal. I’m not sure our injury reports are gonna look that much better.

[Buffalo03]

9 hours ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

"That's just the way it is"

- Cubs fans 1908-2016

That's the truth. Only there will never be an ending year for the Bills

[Shaw66]

10 hours ago, BobBelcher said:

 

 

My only problem with this is it is exactly where we have been since "13 seconds" and it is where we still are now, so I'm at the point where I will believe it when I see it.

 

I made a post a couple weeks ago how I eventually took this loss just as hard as 13 seconds.  It was an unpopular take, understandably so.  Thing is, I didn't say this in the post, but I now realize the main reason for how I felt about the game is because after "13 seconds" happened, we were ITCHING to get another shot at the Chiefs.  There was no way in hell we were going to come up short again, right?  And yet we did, again, in the form of shooting ourselves in the foot, again, after being in the best possible position to leave our own stadium with a walk-off TD  (because if we had continued milking the clock en route to a TD, we probably make KC spend their last 2 time outs in the process, with very little time remaining and this time they would need a TD, not a FG).  

 

And after all that, after being in that position only for this to happen AGAIN, was a hell of a gut punch and I can't help but wonder why I should be optimistic next time around if we couldn't take advantage of an incredible opportunity this time... 

 

And trust me, on the surface, I feel like you, because I have to believe in the Bills, but deep down, this is the reality based on what I have been witnessing.

Thanks for this.

 

First, maybe I should go back and look at your other thread.  I never opened it simply because of the title - I didn't see the point in talking about your or my emotional reaction to two Chiefs games.  I like this explanation about your point there.  

 

I think the only difference between you and me is perspective.  I think the proper perspective is that the league often has periods where there is a dominant team.  The Niners were like that when they had Montana, Young, and Rice.  They didn't win every year, but there was a feeling, a little bit, of the inevitably of losing to them when you played them.  Then the Cowboys for a few years with Aikman and Smith.  And while the Niners and Cowboys were doing that, the Bills were right behind them - the whole AFC felt that same inevitability.  But the Bills were still just outside, knocking on the door.  Then we had 20 years of the Patriots, a remarkable run, and now the Chiefs are doing it.  Unfortunately, when the Bills finally got good and blew past the Pats, there were the Chiefs.  What's truly unfortunate is that the team to emerge as the top dog is in the AFC, so there's an unusually big challenge standing the way for the Bills.  The Bengals beat the Chiefs because the Bills had beaten up the Chiefs in the 13-second game.

 

I choose to look at what's happened from the NFL perspective, not the Bills' perspective.  From the NFL perspective, the Chiefs are the best team in the league.  Period.  No one beats them.  It's why Mahomes and Kelce kept talking about being the underdogs.   From their point of view, they were thinking, "Who are you kidding.  We're the best team in the league."  And they are.  

 

So, from my perspective, yes, of course, we can ask, "What's wrong with the Bills and how can they fix it?," but 30 other teams in the league are (mostly to a greater extent) asking the same thing.  The only difference between the Bills and most of those 30 others is that the Bills are a lot closer to being able to answer that question.   

 

The Bills are in the same position the Manning Colts were in trying to get past the Patriots.   The same position the 1950s Dodgers were in facing the Yankees in the World Series every year.  

 

Yes, the Bills have to get better, and yes, we want them to have a period of domination like the Chiefs are having now.  That would be great.  But it may just be the case that the Chiefs, like the Pats and the Yankees, always will be one step ahead, and the best the best challenger can do is break through one year, win one championship, and be satisfied with that.  

 

Now, people will say I'm a loser and I'm giving the Bills a pass, and I'm satisfied just with making the playoffs.   That's not what I'm saying.  What I'm saying is that Bills are very good - the Bills are date the Chiefs circle on the calendar every year, but that simply is very difficult to improve enough to get over a very high bar:  Beating a generationally good team.  The Colts kept losing to the Pats in different ways, and the Bills are losing to the Chiefs in different ways.  

 

(In fact, and this is not my point, but it is interesting, that Brady was the GOAT and Peyton, top-five all time, kept losing to him, and now Allen, who himself may end up top-five all time, keeps losing to Mahomes, whom people are starting to compare to Brady.)   

 

So, yeah, I really hate losing in various ugly fashions to the Chiefs, but the reality is the Bills were 13 seconds away from beating them once in the playoffs, and a Josh Allen step away from beating them last month in the playoffs, and there is no other team in the league that has played the Chiefs that tough consistently.  And, yeah, there are things that the Bills could have done better to beat the Chiefs, and yeah, the Bills need to get better to achieve their goals.  All of that.  But that doesn't mean the Bills should change coaches or change GMs.  The only reason the Niners haven't lost more to the Chiefs is that they play in the other conference, and the two chances Shanahan had, in the Super Bowl, he lost.   Shanahan and McDermott are the only two coaches who have gotten their teams close to beating the Chiefs, and the fact that they haven't won is more a commentary on the Chiefs than on them.  

 

The Bills aren't losers.   The Chiefs are winners.  McDermott has his team knocking the door.  The Bills know it, and the Chiefs know it.   The way I look at it, of all the situations I can find my team in, the Bills are in the second best.  They aren't hopeless losers, they aren't .500, hoping stick their noses under the playoff tent.  They are a team that pretty much everyone who knows football understands to be on the very best teams in the league, with a quarterback who is well on his way to the Hall of Fame.   I love being in this situation, and I want - oh, I want it so badly! - for the Bills to be the best in the league.  They aren't quite there, but they're knocking on the door.  Next year may be the year they blow down the door burst into the hall of champions.  

 

In short, without putting words in your mouth, your perspective is that something is wrong with the Bills and they can't do it better.  My perspective is that the Bills are very good and just haven't been able to beat the dominant team of the era.  It's just another step for the Bills to become the new dominant team, and 2024 is their next chance to do it. 

[colin]

23 hours ago, SCBills said:

Bills need a radical makeover this off-season.  Just rip the band-aid off, get younger and hope we crush the draft. 

 

We're not getting over the hump running it back with most of these guys. 

 

It's bad enough McDermott is leading us into '24, can't have the same guys around Allen that haven't stepped up when it matters for years now.  

 

If there was any way to trade Diggs I would.. that's the level of change I want to see.  

 

Watching players up and down the line step up in the Playoffs every year for Kansas City while our guys, for the most part, do the opposite.  We need radical change, not a tinkering. 

 

getting out of the diggs contract and maybe getting any kind of value for him (dallas trade?  just my imagination) would be a coup

 

we need to hit on at least 1 wr in the draft, and restock the DL and safeties with el cheapo fas and rookies.  

 

ideally we have diggs return to 2020 form and draft a rookie, but im wondering if he's long for this team.

[Drew21PA]

Too depressed to even be optimistic 

 

 

[SoCal Deek]

11 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

Thanks for this.

 

First, maybe I should go back and look at your other thread.  I never opened it simply because of the title - I didn't see the point in talking about your or my emotional reaction to two Chiefs games.  I like this explanation about your point there.  

 

I think the only difference between you and me is perspective.  I think the proper perspective is that the league often has periods where there is a dominant team.  The Niners were like that when they had Montana, Young, and Rice.  They didn't win every year, but there was a feeling, a little bit, of the inevitably of losing to them when you played them.  Then the Cowboys for a few years with Aikman and Smith.  And while the Niners and Cowboys were doing that, the Bills were right behind them - the whole AFC felt that same inevitability.  But the Bills were still just outside, knocking on the door.  Then we had 20 years of the Patriots, a remarkable run, and now the Chiefs are doing it.  Unfortunately, when the Bills finally got good and blew past the Pats, there were the Chiefs.  What's truly unfortunate is that the team to emerge as the top dog is in the AFC, so there's an unusually big challenge standing the way for the Bills.  The Bengals beat the Chiefs because the Bills had beaten up the Chiefs in the 13-second game.

 

I choose to look at what's happened from the NFL perspective, not the Bills' perspective.  From the NFL perspective, the Chiefs are the best team in the league.  Period.  No one beats them.  It's why Mahomes and Kelce kept talking about being the underdogs.   From their point of view, they were thinking, "Who are you kidding.  We're the best team in the league."  And they are.  

 

So, from my perspective, yes, of course, we can ask, "What's wrong with the Bills and how can they fix it?," but 30 other teams in the league are (mostly to a greater extent) asking the same thing.  The only difference between the Bills and most of those 30 others is that the Bills are a lot closer to being able to answer that question.   

 

The Bills are in the same position the Manning Colts were in trying to get past the Patriots.   The same position the 1950s Dodgers were in facing the Yankees in the World Series every year.  

 

Yes, the Bills have to get better, and yes, we want them to have a period of domination like the Chiefs are having now.  That would be great.  But it may just be the case that the Chiefs, like the Pats and the Yankees, always will be one step ahead, and the best the best challenger can do is break through one year, win one championship, and be satisfied with that.  

 

Now, people will say I'm a loser and I'm giving the Bills a pass, and I'm satisfied just with making the playoffs.   That's not what I'm saying.  What I'm saying is that Bills are very good - the Bills are date the Chiefs circle on the calendar every year, but that simply is very difficult to improve enough to get over a very high bar:  Beating a generationally good team.  The Colts kept losing to the Pats in different ways, and the Bills are losing to the Chiefs in different ways.  

 

(In fact, and this is not my point, but it is interesting, that Brady was the GOAT and Peyton, top-five all time, kept losing to him, and now Allen, who himself may end up top-five all time, keeps losing to Mahomes, whom people are starting to compare to Brady.)   

 

So, yeah, I really hate losing in various ugly fashions to the Chiefs, but the reality is the Bills were 13 seconds away from beating them once in the playoffs, and a Josh Allen step away from beating them last month in the playoffs, and there is no other team in the league that has played the Chiefs that tough consistently.  And, yeah, there are things that the Bills could have done better to beat the Chiefs, and yeah, the Bills need to get better to achieve their goals.  All of that.  But that doesn't mean the Bills should change coaches or change GMs.  The only reason the Niners haven't lost more to the Chiefs is that they play in the other conference, and the two chances Shanahan had, in the Super Bowl, he lost.   Shanahan and McDermott are the only two coaches who have gotten their teams close to beating the Chiefs, and the fact that they haven't won is more a commentary on the Chiefs than on them.  

 

The Bills aren't losers.   The Chiefs are winners.  McDermott has his team knocking the door.  The Bills know it, and the Chiefs know it.   The way I look at it, of all the situations I can find my team in, the Bills are in the second best.  They aren't hopeless losers, they aren't .500, hoping stick their noses under the playoff tent.  They are a team that pretty much everyone who knows football understands to be on the very best teams in the league, with a quarterback who is well on his way to the Hall of Fame.   I love being in this situation, and I want - oh, I want it so badly! - for the Bills to be the best in the league.  They aren't quite there, but they're knocking on the door.  Next year may be the year they blow down the door burst into the hall of champions.  

 

In short, without putting words in your mouth, your perspective is that something is wrong with the Bills and they can't do it better.  My perspective is that the Bills are very good and just haven't been able to beat the dominant team of the era.  It's just another step for the Bills to become the new dominant team, and 2024 is their next chance to do it. 

Shaw….the problem isn’t one of personnel or the team being ‘good’, ‘bad’, or ‘not good enough’. You get ONE chance at the very end of the year, in the final quarter of the final game, and this version of the Bills has choked every year. Until this team (including the coaching staff) can learn to slow their heads and their heart rates down when everything’s on the line, we’ll see the exact same results. Unfortunately we and they have to wait eleven months to see if they’ve learned how. 

 

While I like the Colts analogy I cannot recall whether they were similarly afflicted during the Manning years. 

[Warcodered]

7 hours ago, machine gun kelly said:

I haven’t thought about the Goonies in 30 years.  Funny movie.  Chunk.  Baby Rooooth.

Great cast the hobbit that actually saved Middle Earth and Thanos.

[Shaw66]

6 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Shaw….the problem isn’t one of personnel or the team being ‘good’, ‘bad’, or ‘not good enough’. You get ONE chance at the very end of the year, in the final quarter of the final game, and this version of the Bills has choked every year. Until this team (including the coaching staff) can learn to slow their heads and their heart rates down when everything’s on the line, we’ll see the exact same results. Unfortunately we and they have to wait eleven months to see if they’ve learned how. 

 

While I like the Colts analogy I cannot recall whether they were similarly afflicted during the Manning years. 

It's not "this" version of the Bills.  It was "those" versions of the Bills.  It's a different team every year.

 

But my point was that EVERY team "chokes" against the Chiefs.   The Bills, in fact, "choke" a little less than all the other teams, because (1) they get closer than everyone else who "chokes," and (2) they actually beat the Chiefs in the regular season.  

 

One or two things have to happen for the Bills to win the Super Bowl.  The Bills have to get a little better and/or the Chiefs have to get a little worse.  The Bills are working very hard on their piece of the puzzle, and they don't need to do a lot to get better and win it all.  

[Royale with Cheese]

2 hours ago, Buffalo03 said:

That's the truth. Only there will never be an ending year for the Bills

 

Is this one of those oxymoron types of things?

[Sweats]

Here's my way of thinking....

 

The Bengals are basically the only team in the league that can beat KC consistently. They're proven it time and again.

In a copy cat league where teams are trying to emulate, grow and expand their playbooks with different calls, routes, whatever, by watching and learning from other teams, why, oh why are we not trying to copy the system devised by the Bengals against the Chiefs, that we know works?

 

We're not trying to re-invent the wheel here....use the system that has been created by the Bengals and run with it.

[zow2]

On FS1,  Keyshawn and Richard Sherman are baffled that the Bills have the #4 Super Bowl odds for next season.  They can't believe it and are both laughing.  Skip thinks if the D is healthy the Bills are still a threat.  

 

[stinky finger]

15 hours ago, Dr. Who said:

I agree, but according to a lot of bitter souls on this board, it's Einstein vs. a hopeless Neanderthal.

We're good enough to beat them. Injury luck is beyond calculation. What we can do is get Josh a better WR room.

They have to draft well, and get younger on DL and at S. None of that is impossible, or even improbable.

Full stop after first sentence. If the remedy is as easy as you make it out to be, then we have the wrong people at the helm. 

16 hours ago, NewEra said:

What are you even arguing against here?  Dude asked me why I had hope.  I answered him.  Wth are you even talking about? You hate McD.  Cool.  You don’t have to try and pick a fight with everyone that is accepting of things they cannot change.  
 

I’m a fan of the Buffalo bills. It’s my favorite pastime.  I like to carry hope into the offseason rather than crying on message boards about things that I have accepted. McD is our coach.  I’ve accepted that. I think that we played the champs down to the finals seconds after defeating them just a few weeks prior.  if our players had made a few more plays, we could have won.  Maybe if McD did some different things we could have won too.  I don’t think we’re that far away. 

 

As a fan, you can have hope or no hope.  Having no hope sucks.  Enjoy it

Your “anything is possible” plan doesn’t seem bullet proof. 
 

But….we can hope. 

[SoMAn]

On 2/11/2024 at 11:13 PM, Beast said:

Laugh all you ***** want.

 

The Bills and Bills Mafia will be celebrating our ever living asses off next February.

 

Just wait and see.

Ok Linus.

[ALLinALLEN]

2 hours ago, Sweats said:

Here's my way of thinking....

 

The Bengals are basically the only team in the league that can beat KC consistently. They're proven it time and again.

In a copy cat league where teams are trying to emulate, grow and expand their playbooks with different calls, routes, whatever, by watching and learning from other teams, why, oh why are we not trying to copy the system devised by the Bengals against the Chiefs, that we know works?

 

We're not trying to re-invent the wheel here....use the system that has been created by the Bengals and run with it.

 

The Bengals and Bills are both 3-2 in their last 5 games against the Chiefs. I wouldn't say they are the "Blueprint to beat KC".

[Mr. WEO]

My name is Sean McDermott, and I approve of this thread.

 

[Process]

2 hours ago, zow2 said:

On FS1,  Keyshawn and Richard Sherman are baffled that the Bills have the #4 Super Bowl odds for next season.  They can't believe it and are both laughing.  Skip thinks if the D is healthy the Bills are still a threat.  

 

Let me guess no comments from them on playoff Lamar being #3?

[AlCowlingsTaxiService]

On 2/11/2024 at 11:13 PM, Beast said:

Laugh all you ***** want.

 

The Bills and Bills Mafia will be celebrating our ever living asses off next February.

 

Just wait and see.

Totally understand the positivity and die hard fandom, but these are the types of posts that add nothing to the conversation and make the Bills Mafia group on Facebook virtually unreadable 

[zow2]

9 minutes ago, Process said:

Let me guess no comments from them on playoff Lamar being #3?

 

No they think the two time MVP is going to slay the Chiefs and win it all.  Because Lamar is amazing ya know.

[Shaw66]

34 minutes ago, ALLinALLEN said:

 

The Bengals and Bills are both 3-2 in their last 5 games against the Chiefs. I wouldn't say they are the "Blueprint to beat KC".

Yes.  And the "blueprint" is to have two standout #1 wide receivers, which is not sustainable.  They were able to do it on Burrow's rookie contract, but those days are over.