I understand what you are saying about the circular arguments, but it's more about how the Bills are playing now than what happened before. If the Bills and Chiefs could have played a rematch in October, I probably would have thought the Bills would win. When the Bills lost to the Dolphins back in Sept, I was fairly confident that we would win the rematch because it was a close game and we had to deal with the heat, which won't be a problem in Buffalo in December. And the team had played extremely well outside of that game. But, then the last 6 weeks happened. We're playing teams not nearly as good as the Chiefs, but still looking worse than we did when we played them.
Do you honestly think we'd beat KC if we play them the same way we played GB, NJB, Detroit, Cleveland or Minny? I know, that's the past and you don't want to hear about the past, but we can't see into the future and the past is the only indicator of performance that we have, and with the exception of NE, the recent performance is not encouraging.
Do the top teams in the conference also have some games where they didn't perform well? Sure, but we can't count on them putting up a dud against us because it's the exception, not the rule. For us, poor performances are becoming the rule. Remember, we're talking about 5 straight weeks, and 5 of 6 since the bye, not 1 or 2 bad games over the course of 3 months. The consistent poor performances are why I don't this team is a true contender.
Healthy except for these players being out due to injuries...WR Khalil Shakir
C Mitch Morse
DT Jordan Phillips
S Jordan Poyer
TE Tommy Sweeney
CB Dane Jackson
DT ED Oliver.
Not to mention Davis still with an ankle injury and Knox with a foot injury.
Let's get one thing straight. They had more points at the end of the game but the Bills beat themselves in all 3 losses.
Last edited by TacklingDummy; 12-02-2022 at 06:49 AM.
To answer your question - do I think we beat the Dolphins or Chiefs with the way we played against GB or the Jets? No, I think we clearly lose.
I am not counting on anyone (esp. a team as seasoned as KC) to ever put up a dud. But I am also not counting on the Bills to put up a dud this January. Beane recognized that the DLine was the main reason we lost to KC last year, and he did his part to fix that. We will have to play a near-perfect game to beat KC, but guess what? KC will have to play a near-perfect game to beat us. With the 2022 rosters, if the Bills play KC 10 times, I imagine the record will be 5-5. The beauty of the NFL playoffs is that it is one and done. Each team has their advantages, and neither team is clearly better than the other.
If we were desperate to win by any means, Von Miller would be playing next weekend. Tre White would have started after the Bye. But Beane understands the "long game" - we need to peak at the right time (playoffs). There's still 33% of the season left.
You know who didn't understand the long game? The Dolphins, when they put Tua in earlier this year and risked his life/career.
The issue here with you is recency bias. Just as Sept/Oct amazing performances didn't predict our November duds, I also don't think our November performance will clearly predict our Dec/Jan performances. Beane has built a solid roster overall, and as long as we have Josh Allen and get healthy - we are Super Bowl contenders.
Sorry to hear that Opi was not feeling well over Thanksgiving. I too had a rough holiday. Had a visit to urgent care on the day before Thanksgiving. Just starting to feel close to normal.
The constant ****posting coming from Opi is intolerable and insufferable. Based on faulty assumptions and wrongheaded cynical observations. I know it’s a waste of time to address each of Opi’s wrongheaded, Debbie Downer “observations”.....and I’m not going to do that. But, I have these observations.....
NO, Opi, the Bills have NOT “sucked” or “played poorly” in five of the last six games. Total absurd Mega-Nega-fan baloney, and shows that Opi knows much less about football than he thinks he does.
Twice in this thread, he has opined that just because we don’t agree with his Negative Nancy non-reality, trolling that they “know nothing about football”.
Jesus. In reality, it’s EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE!!!
People with knowledge about football KNOW that the NFL is NOT like college football. The wins are not judged based on the competition which is a HUGE part of the rankings. I suspect you are butt hurt over your beloved Notre Dame “Fighting” (more like lay down underachievers) Irish, have not been ranked #1 since 1988. The last year they had an undefeated season, which is the ONLY way a college team gets a high rank.
No, the NFL does NOT have undefeated teams. Not been done in FIFTY ****ING YEARS. Right now, there seems to be (I don’t follow college football) THREE undefeated college team. Big whup!!
There are NO “rankings” in NFL that affects the playoffs. it’s W-L record. PERIOD. END. OF. STORY.
The Buffalo Bills, right now, are one of only TWO TEAMS in the AFC (and two in the NFC) with 9 or more wins. The ONE team in the AFC with nine wins, the BILLS BEAT THEM, on the road. These are undeniable FACTS.
Right now....
The Bills are #1 in the AFC East.
The Bills are the #2 seed in the AFC.
These are undeniable FACTS.
The three loses the Bills suffered were NOT because the team played “poorly” or “badly”, it was because Josh Allen had a handful of bad plays. The Dolphins, Jets and Vikings BARELY beat Bills. That’s the way the balls bounces sometimes in the NFL.
During the drought, there were lots of “homers”. Fans who overinflated the chances of the Bills and ignored the negatives. In reality, there were not that many, so trying to present yourself as some and of expert when you wrote "Yeah everyone neglects the 15 years before that where I was largely right.”. Uhhhhhh.....LOTS of us fans said the same thing. That the Bills would NOT be contenders until they got an elite QB.
Well, the Bill have an elite QB. Which you want to ignore.
So....those fans that unrealistically inflate the chances of an average or below average team are “homers”, Opi, who unrealistically and constantly ****posts about them, and severely downplays the FACT that they ARE LEGITIMATE Super Bowl contenders, should be called “NOmers”
Yep, Opi is the KING of NOmers on this site.
But, worst of all are these two incredibly negative, unrealistic, uneducated and 100% FALSE assertions....
I mean, really?!?!?!?!?! No, Opi, it is NOT a “fact” that the Bills are “not SB contenders” And "Anyone who knows anything about football and has watched this team since the bye” and before the bye KNOWS that that silly statement is total, 100% unmitigated BALONEY!!!!
THIS post illustrated how much out-of-touch Opi is, total delusion and 100% lack of reality....
Your posts show the EPITOME of “QUITTING”. They could be used as the textbook definition of that word. THESE are undeniable examples of “QUITTING”.....
NO, the Bills have NOT “played poorly”, and YOU know a lot less about football than you think you do.
All this on top of your pre-season prediction of the Bills starting 2022 with a 2-5 record. (As a reminder, I predicted the Bills would start the season 5-2....they started 6-1).
YOU QUIT ON THE BILLS IN EARLY 2022. YOU QUIT ON THE BILLS IN 2021. YOU QUIT ON THE BILLS IN in 2020. YOU ARE QUITTING ON THE BILLS NOW!!!!!
THAT is the UNDENIABLE REALITY!!!!
I know you will keep up your Negative Nancy NOmer bellyaching. That’s who you are. Doesn’t mean that it has ANY credibility.
Can mod please close this friggen thread already
I've never once quit on this team. In fact I structure my time to ensure I can watch every game live and I've been doing that all of my adult life.
And you lost all credibility when you said this team has played well since the bye. Even the people who are arguing with me agree that they have played poorly since the bye.
Sorry, yes you have quit on the team. Over and over and over and over and over again.
You want to ignore reality, that’s your problem.
BTW....you are misrepresenting (read: lying) what I said.....I did NOT say "this team has played well since the bye”. I said that they have NOT played “poorly” or “badly”. Two totally different things. One has to redefine with it means to play “poorly” or "badly” to accept your baloney.
I’ve said what I want to say.....I don’t give a flying **** if you agree or not.
Novacane (12-02-2022)
OPIV says there is no chance the phins lose to the chargers in Los Angeles yet he guaranteed the bills would lose every time the bills had to make a trip to the west coast the last 3 years lol too funny
notacon (12-03-2022)
If you say so Jean Dixon. . . . Seriously, and its worth repeating, the Donadope and Manboobs/Mularkey, Levy and Jauron, Nix and Gailey, Whaley and Maroon/Ryan era all oversaw by the ****show that was Russ Brandon was awful. McD and Beane are not that dark age. Does McD do things that annoy me? Yes. In big games he gets super conservative and does not have the killer instinct some times. He also inherited Reid's poor clock management and situational awareness. However, how many times during the drought did we lose a hard fought game against a good team or two only to freefall out of contention? In the drought, which gave just about all of us PTSD, We'd start out well several times only to lose some demoralizingly close games and fall out of contention. Throw in Snow and losing a home game? That would have killed the playoff aspirations of all the drought teams. This year, and last, and the year before and the year before that and even in 2017 when they literally had nobody they pulled together, dusted themselves off and kept at it. After the Dolphins game early in the drought they imploded. This team, to its credit does not.
Now, if we are to be consistent, lets remember that the Chiefs have also struggled mightily against other teams. Hell, they lost a heart breaker to us. They lost to an Indy team that is all but eliminated from the playoffs. They almost lost (and without considerable refball help would have lost) to a Titans team with no qb. They almost lost twice to the Bolts and they nearly lost to the Raiders. Yet, all anyone does is say how great Mahomes is for putting them in a position to win. They win ugly and people toss their salads over the greatness of Mahomes. Allen wins like Mahomes and he sucks somehow.
Insert whimsical line here
Does OPIV know the fish beat the Steelers by 6.. beat the lions by 4... beat the bears by 3... he thinks the bills have played poorly because they beat below average teams by less than a touchdown but thinks the fish are unbeatable when they have beat below average teams by less than a touchdown
They beat us, they were ahead of us in the standings for weeks until last night (and will be ahead of us again if they win), they had to play I believe 2 1/2 games without their starting QB, and they keep winning. If we play as poorly as we did against the Packers, Jets, Vikings, Lions and Browns (5 STRAIGHT games), they will beat us easily.