Broncos 33, Bills 30

Someone called into WGR a few years ago lamenting Buffalo’s four consecutive Superbowl losses. “I wish they hadn’t made it to any of them because they lost all of them”, he stated, believing that it’s better to not play at all than it is to lose. I remember thinking that as each NFL team enters a new season, the best possible result at the end is a Superbowl victory. From its owner to its coaches, managers, players and fanbase, that objective is unarguable. But what is the second-best possible accomplishment? The answer is clear in my view: it is to lose the Superbowl. Doesn’t matter how many times – consecutively or not. The opportunity to savour the lead-up, the hype, the endless analysis over the two weeks between the Conference Championship Games and the big game is one which should not be passed up. Believing otherwise is like believing that it’s better to have never loved at all than to have loved and lost.

For the Bills often-tortured fanbase, their team seems to have the unique ability to find ever-more excruciating ways to lose with each passing playoff run. The list is long: Wide Right, the Music City Miracle, 13 Seconds etc and Saturday’s overtime loss in Denver will probably take on its own moniker (maybe it already has) as sports talk-radio fodder and to formally add it to the Wall of Shame. Would we have preferred finishing out of the playoffs instead of making it, winning in Jacksonville last week then getting very close to the conference title game but falling just short? Not me. When the Broncos took a 23-10 lead in the third quarter, it felt like the game could end up 30-13 but the Bills came back, took the lead, gave it up, tied it late then came agonizingly close to winning it in overtime but didn’t. Would I have preferred 30-13? Of course not.

Sean McDermott has now completed nine seasons as Bills head coach. His teams have made the playoffs in all but one of them, winning eight playoff games along the way and making the conference title game twice. With the exception of the 27-10 home loss to the Bengals after the 2022 season, their playoff exits have been heart-breaking for sure but anyone who says that they would have preferred not to compete than to lose in gut-wrenching fashion, I suggest doesn’t know how to be a sports fan. After the game ended, I poured myself a scotch, settled in to the Seattle game and thought about how thankful we as Bills fans should be with the team’s long run of success. And I thought about Josh Allen’s turnovers. And the officiating. I considered firing up my sauna and dunking through the ice hole in the photo but I left that to the next day.  

Speaking of officiating, let’s review some of the key controversial calls from the game. Gene Steratore, the former NFL referee and rules/officiating expert on CBS (who is often accused of always siding with his referee brethren), posted his reflections on Twitter after the game. On the Brandin Cooks reception/interception in overtime, Steratore said this: “My perspective on it is that Cooks lost the ball as soon as his body hit the ground. In my opinion, if there was no defender near him and he lost the ball when he hit the ground, the ruling would’ve been incomplete.” I agree with his analysis with only this caveat: Had no defender been with him, it is possible that Cooks could have kept the ball from touching the ground while rolling on his back, then regained control as he completed the roll. I do think that Steratore is right on this and he implied that if Cooks had maintained control of the ball through contact with the ground, the defender would not have been able to wrestle it from his hands. I don’t think I have seen a similar play in all my years of watching football. It was obviously a critical play in the game and McDermott’s main complaint afterward was that there was no stoppage for a booth review. Steratore agreed that there should have been but also suggested that a review would have not have resulted in the call being overturned.

There were three instances of defensive pass interference, two of which Steratore commented on in his post: the first took place in the endzone with Broncos cornerback Riley Moss interfering (in my opinion although Steratore did not comment on this one) with Brandin Cooks in the endzone by holding Cooks arm. No flag was thrown. The second instance where Taron Johnson was called for DPI was very similar to the first one and Steratore thought that it should not have been called. But it was called. The third was the back-breaker call on Tre’Davious White at the five yard-line which essentially ended the game. It was called DPI as Steratore said it should have been. I agree that it was clearly pass interference. In my view, the Moss and Johnson instances should both have been called the same way and both probably would have been called DPI in the first quarter of a week five game. The DPI on Cooks took place in the endzone and would have given the Bills a first-and-goal at the one yard-line.

Josh Allen turned the ball over four times with two fumbles and two picks. I blame him completely for the careless fumble at the end of the first half which led to a Broncos field goal. His blindside sack/fumble wasn’t entirely his fault, the first interception was on a deep ball and the “interception” on the Cooks play was basically a completion. The play which Allen surely wants back is the missed pass to a wide-open Dawson Knox with ten seconds left in regulation. A lower thrown ball would have resulted in an easy touchdown and a 34-30 Bills win.

For Bills Mafia, there is much to look forward to in 2026. In addition to still having Josh Allen under centre, the team will hopefully retool its receiver room and have better luck on the injury front. But there is a new stadium to look forward to as well. I don’t know how quickly the old stadium can be demolished – since the entire lower bowl is below ground level, maybe they can just topple the upper decks down into the lower bowl, smooth it out and make it a much-needed parking lot. Whatever they do, I’m looking forward to hearing all about it this off-season, almost as much as I’m looking forward to paying off my seat licences in the fall. My tickets will cost about 50% more then they did in 2025 but I’ll be right at the 50 yard-line, 25 rows up from the visitor bench.

Bills 27, Jaguars 24

As the founder of the recently formed Bahamas Bills Backers, I am pleased to present this blog post from our perch on Paradise Island, Bahamas where there is nothing but warm turquoise water between where I now sit and Jacksonville, FL to the northwest. We were able to find a secluded spot to  watch yesterday’s football game online within the confines of the Shivananda Yoga Ashram retreat, where alcohol, meat, coffee and most forms of fun are all strictly prohibited. Bills playoff games don’t usually count as fun – for Bills fans anyway – so we felt that by watching yesterday’s game on the Ashram property, we were only bending the rules. Plus, at the risk of expulsion from the property, we have been making and drinking contraband coffee. We aren’t the only ones drinking coffee but I think we were the only ones who even knew about the NFL’s Wildcard Weekend and yesterday’s Bills game. It just doesn’t seem to fit within the scope of the deeply spiritual world which is Shivananda yoga. But watch it we did.

The point of coming to a yoga retreat – apart from gathering comedy material by watching and interacting with the full-time devotees – is to relax, unwind and disconnect, leaving the stress of our every day lives behind. Watching yesterday’s game played at Everbank Stadium was the antithesis of what one might do to achieve these objectives, for fans of either team. The Jaguars had a great season and are a strong team which probably deserved a better fate than a one-and-done playoff exit, especially in front of their fans who have suffered through some bad football over the last 30 years. But the Bills were certainly due for a road playoff win and they came through with one in the clutch yesterday – something they have been unable to do since the end of the 1992 season. The stress relief I felt when Cole Bishop clasped his hands around Trevor Lawrence’s deflected pass in the game’s closing minute easily surpassed what any number of sun salutations could ever do. After more than three hours of pure stress, it felt pretty awesome. So, I skipped the 4pm yoga class and went for a swim in the warm, salty Atlantic waters, savouring the victory.

The game was very evenly matched and the statistics bear that out: each team has 20 first downs, the Jags outgained the Bills 359 yards to 340 but the Bills won the time of possession battle by about eight minutes and won the key turnover statistic two to one with the late-game interception. The game was as hard-hitting as it gets and also featured four lead changes in the fourth quarter, the final one being a “tush-push” touchdown by Josh Allen with just over a minute to play. But as I look back at the game this morning with the northeast tradewinds ruffling the curtains of our room here at the Ashram, the key moment might well have been the missed field goal on the final play of the first half by arguably the NFL’s best kicker, the Jags Cam Little.

The Patriots win last night against the Chargers guaranteed that last week’s relatively meaningless game between the Bills and Jets was indeed the last game to be played at the old Highmark Stadium. The Bills are now the lowest remaining seed in the AFC draw and will play on the road as far as that road goes. The next stop on Buffalo’s road trip will be the Divisional Round which takes them to Denver, CO where the Broncos and Bills are set to play on Saturday probably in the late window. I had to check this twice but the Bills have been listed as early 1.5-point road favourites against the number one seeded Broncos who are coming off a bye week and have the advantage of playing at an altitude of more than 1,600 metres above sea level. This reflects the appeal of Josh Allen within the betting public, or at least the bookmaker’s perception of his appeal. I expect the line to move in the Broncos favour later in the week as the so-called “smart money” comes in on Denver. The Broncos are a well-coached and now well-rested team which is accustomed to playing at altitude. If I had to make a meaningful wager on the game, I wouldn’t do it because I never bet against the Bills.

With one game remaining in Wildcard Weekend, the quality of the first five games overall was excellent. Fourth quarter comebacks and lead changes made for compelling viewing with all of the games competitive throughout. The league, its partner television networks and advertisers couldn’t have asked for more and the Divisional Round games look like they will deliver more of the same.

Last night was our last at the Ashram so I decided to take in one of the twice-daily Satsang services/ceremonies. The Ashram is primarily a spiritual retreat for those who dedicate their lives to the ancient teachings of pranayama and asanas whose written form is entirely in Sanskrit. The facility exists for the purpose of advancing the study and education of Vedanta and practice of the Shivanada yoga tradition with its 12 core principles for spiritual growth. These include breath and relaxation practices, diet, and positive thinking with the actual yoga exercise being only a small part. The facility’s operations are primarily funded (as far as I can see) by “vacation yoga” attendees like us who come to the warm climate of the Bahamas to practice yoga with instruction from the Ashram's many masterful teachers. The Satsangs are 90-minute sessions which begin with 30 minutes of silent meditation (I evaluated NFL playoff scenarios), then about 20 minutes of singing from the ancient Sandskrit scripts in a call-and-response format, either a speaker or a musical performance and ending with final prayers and blessings. I can honestly say that, although I generally could not relate to much of it, attending the Satsang was a profoundly moving experience for me and I am grateful for the opportunity to have witnessed and participated in it. Go Bills!   

Bills 35, Jets 8

The Buffalo Bills playoff run after the 1992 season began with the Comeback Game, also known as The Miracle at Rich, a game which I attended in early January of 1993. The Bills came back from a 35-3 deficit early in the third quarter for a thrilling 41-38 overtime win. This, the largest comeback in NFL history (a record since broken by the Vikings by one point in 2022), came with quarterback Jim Kelly injured in favour of back-up Frank Reich. The following week in the Divisional Round, the Bills won in Pittsburgh - this time quite convincingly - with Reich still under centre, 24-3. Kelly returned the following week for the AFC Championship Game in Miami which the Bills won easily, 29-10, earning their third consecutive Superbowl berth. That game, played on January 16^th, 1993, is the last road playoff game won by the Bills. If they are to make a run to the Superbowl in the early weeks of 2026, it will require three road wins – unless the Los Angeles Chargers can win two road games over the next two weeks – in New England and in Denver. If the Bills and Chargers can between them post four road wins over the next two weeks, the AFC Championship Game – Los Angeles Chargers at Buffalo - will become the last game to be played at Rich Stadium.

But in reality, of course, the last game at the concrete slab 20 miles south of Buffalo was played yesterday. It was a good showing by the Bills back-ups and a handful of starters who had their way with the pathetic New York Jets who might consider folding the franchise, finding a new owner and a new name and starting over as an expansion team. I can’t see how they could do much worse than they did in 2026. Josh Allen maintained his consecutive start streak which now stands at 71 and dates back to week 12 of the 2018 season. After taking the opening snap and handing it off to James Cook (more on him in a minute), Allen gave way to Mitch Trubisky who went 22 for 29 for 259 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. It did come against the Jets but still, he looked comfortable and confident in what quickly became a laugher.

James Cook became the first Bills running back to win the NFL rushing title since OJ Simpson in 1976. His 1,621 yards, only 15 of which came yesterday, was 24 yards more than Derrick Henry finished with and 36 more than Jonathan Taylor of the Colts. Cook’s 15 yards yesterday before he gave way to Ray Davis who went off for 151 yards on 21 carries (again, it came against the Jets), could easily have not been quite enough as Derrick Henry piled up 126 yards in last night’s loss (more on that in a minute). Had Henry broken just one more run for 25 yards, the title would have been his. But this morning, the title belongs to Cook and to the Bills offensive line which takes great pride in this accomplishment as clearly one of the best units n the league this season. I hope that Cook got his five collaborators more than Isotoner gloves for Christmas.

Week 18 in the NFL always produces plenty of drama. In a curious scenario, the winner of the NFC South division - which would be either the Panthers or the Bucs – was determined by the outcome of a game between the Saints and Falcons. The Falcons won (but coach Raheen Morris was still fired), giving the division title to the 8-9 Panthers who had lost the previous day in Tampa. Although the upsets we often see in week 18 didn’t really materialize, the final regular season game of the 2025 season was a thriller with four touchdowns, each producing a lead change, coming in the fourth quarter. Two missed kicks in the game’s final minute added to the drama with Steelers kicker Chris Boswell missing what seemed like a crucial extra point then Ravens kicker Tyler Loop missing what would have been the game-winning field goal on the final play. The Ravens bowed out in excruciating fashion once again, after last year’s dropped two-point convert attempt in Buffalo. One wonders if the 2026 season will see both coach John Harbaugh and quarterback Lamar Jackson return. Each will be in demand should they party ways with the Ravens.

For the second straight year, the Bills find themselves in the familiar Sunday at 1pm window for the Wildcard playoff round. This time, the game will be played at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, FL. The Bills and Jaguars have previously met twice in the playoffs with the Jags winning both times. The first was in late December of 1996 in what would be Jim Kelly’s final game – a 30-27 Jags win. The second time was in early 2018 in Sean McDermott’s first season as Bills head coach (with Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen still only a twinkle in Brandon Beane’s eye) after a miraculous win by the Cincinnati Bengals in Baltimore earned the Bills their first playoff appearance in 17 years. The game, with Tyrod Taylor under centre for Buffalo, was an exceedingly frustrating punt-fest, won by the Jags 10-7.

Josh Allen and Sean McDermott are 0-5 in road playoff games, with three of those losses coming at the hands of the Chiefs in Kansas City. Another road playoff loss in Houston came two years after the Jacksonville loss. It’s been 33 years since the last Bills road playoff win – three years before Josh Allen was born in Firebaugh, CA. Time to flip the script and also time to root for the Chargers who play the Patriots in the Saturday night game.         

Eagles 13, Bills 12

In baseball, the old adage was that you played for the win on the road and played for the tie at home toward the end of the game. Having the bottom of the inning to either match or best your opponent was enough of an advantage to justify the strategy and football offers nothing similar (except in the college football overtime format where who goes first is determined by coin toss). I would have found Sean McDermott’s decision to go for the win last night more understandable had the Bills defence been gassed, had the offence sputtered near the end, if the momentum had been with the Eagles or if Josh Allen hadn’t missed a wide-open Khalil Shakir in the endzone. But the Bills defence had stiffened in the second half and the offence, while not setting the house on fire, was finally moving the ball with success late in the fourth quarter after producing very little through the first 55 minutes of the game. Usually, two touchdowns will beat a touchdown and two field goals but when you can’t convert either touchdown, it doesn’t. I don’t blame the kicker for the blocked extra point on the first one, although maybe it came off his foot a bit low, but – and I realize this is a classic example of Monday morning quarterbacking – I think that playing for the tie and sending the game to overtime would have been the right call. And it would have been the conservative call which, had the kicker missed or if the kick had been blocked again, would have all of us Monday morning quarterbacks saying that they should have gone for the win. The play that Joe Brady dialed up was a good one and their confidence in it was probably a big reason why they went for it. But it didn’t work out.

Yesterday felt like a lot of waiting. Waiting for the possibly catastrophic ice storm here in Central Ontario, waiting for the power to be knocked out, waiting for the Bills game to finally start, waiting for the Bills offence to show up…...at one point I felt like I was waiting for Godot. Like in the Beckett play, Godot never did show up but the freezing rain certainly did and the Bills offence eventually and finally did but it came up one throw short of eking out another unlikely win. The ice accretion was somewhat less than the apocalyptic forecasts were suggesting it seems and, as of this writing early Monday morning, the power remains on in our corner of Muskoka. Strong winds and heavy snow squalls coming later today will probably change that. We’ll see.

While the Bills clinched a playoff spot with last week’s win in Cleveland, yesterday’s loss dropped them to the seventh and last seed in the AFC. They are tied with the Chargers and the Texans at 11-5 but do not hold the tie-breaker with either. The fifth seed is the best that they can hope for but that will require both a Chargers loss to the Broncos in Denver and a Texans home loss to the Colts. The latter seems unlikely as the Colts have completely unravelled since Daniel Jones went down and Philip Rivers admirably stepped in. The former is much more likely as the Broncos will want to seal the first overall seed in the AFC with a win – and they will play in the same 4.25pm window as the Patriots.

Assuming wins next week by the Bills, Broncos and Texans, the Bills will occupy the sixth seed which will very likely mean a road game at Jacksonville. The Bills finish up their season and their 53-year tenure at Rich Stadium next Sunday against the Jets who were trounced by the Patriots yesterday. A Bills win is likely. With the Chargers likely to lose at Denver and the Texans likely to win at home against the Colts, the sixth seed seems like where the Bills will end up. If they somehow manage to fall to the seventh seed, that will almost for sure mean a trip to New England to face the Patriots. I’d rather take my chances in Jacksonville where the Bills could easily be favoured on the road. For the Bills, the road to the Superbowl looks like it will go through Jacksonville. FL, Foxborough, MA and Denver, CO. For eternal optimists, there still remains a very slim chance of a Bills home playoff game in early 2026. It will require the following: A Bills win combined with Chargers and Texans losses on Sunday then in the Wildcard round, wins by all three road teams. This would result in Divisional round games being played in Denver and Buffalo. So, I’m saying there is a chance.

The NFL Week 18 schedule was finalized while most of us slept last night. For some reason, the Bills v. Jets game was slotted into the 4.25pm window on Sunday. The two games on Saturday are equally compelling: the Panthers play in Tampa at 4.30pm to determine the winner of the NFC South with the loser very likely out of the playoffs and the late game features the Seahawks playing in Santa Clara, CA against the 49ers who won last night against the Bears. This game will determine not only the winner of the NFC West but the number one seed in the NFC bracket. The loser will be a wildcard team. Then after a Sunday afternoon lineup of somewhat less interesting games, the Sunday night game between the Steelers and the Ravens in Pittsburgh will determine the winner of the AFC North with the loser going home.  

With the temperature rising overnight to about plus 4 at 7am, where I now sit, wind is picking up and ice is falling from the trees like shrapnel onto the roof and glancing off the windows of the cottage. If the trees can shed most of the ice and snow before the temperature drops and the winds arrive, it may in fact save us from much more severe damage – and long power outages - than were forecast. It’s a “weather bomb” they say and I’m looking forward to a return to normal winter conditions like we’ve been enjoying for about three weeks now.   

Bills 23, Browns 20

The winter solstice occurred at 10.03am EST yesterday. It marks the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and the southernmost point of the sun’s path across the sky from daybreak to sunset. A lesser-known fact about the variability of the hours of daylight and darkness is that the rate of change – the number of minutes and seconds gained or lost each day – is at its lowest point at the solstices and at its maximum at each equinox in March and September. The length of each day’s daylight hours in our part of the world remains close to constant over the two months on either side of the solstice - from November 21^st to January 21^st – but begins to increase much more rapidly toward the end of February and peaks in late March where daylight hours grow noticeably longer almost every day. At the end of the year, every place on this planet will have received the identical number of daylight hours. These are the darkest days of the year for us and we won’t notice much change for another two months. The photo I took yesterday shows the sun setting over the southwest corner of Clear Lake around 4.30pm. We would have to wait another seven hours before the sun set on the Buffalo Bills chances at a home playoff game in the dark days of January, 2026.

The 2025 winter solstice brought another long day of football – from the Bills frustrating win in Cleveland to the close and exciting games in the 4.25pm window to the late game statement made by the New England Patriots in Baltimore. I stayed up for all of it in the hopes of a second consecutive Patriots loss which would have brought the Bills even with them at 11-4. Down 11 points in the fourth quarter against the Ravens second-string quarterback, the Patriots stormed back with two touchdowns to seal the win and, although not mathematically just yet, clinch their first AFC division title since before COVID struck. Were they to lose to the Jets and the Dolphins over the next two weeks and if the Bills win out against the Eagles and Jets, the Patriots would then find themselves in a wildcard position. But that wildcard position, this season, will belong to the Bills who will aim to be the fifth seed, facing a trip to probably either Pittsburgh or Jacksonville in the wildcard round. The only shot they have at a final playoff game at Rich Stadium next month will be in the Divisional Round if all three wildcard teams, seeds five through seven, can win their wildcard games. The January 4^th game against the lowly New York Jets will almost for sure be the last game played at Rich Stadium after 53 seasons.

I found the Myles Garrett sack record chasing business to be an unnecessary distraction yesterday but I was relieved that Dion Dawkins was able to keep him in check. He did earn one half of one sack on a play where Josh Allen should have thrown the ball away but didn’t and ended up circling himself into falling down at the goal-line, hurting his right foot in the process. How the league ended up crediting Garrett and Alex Wright with a half-sack each I’m not really sure but he has now come within a half-sack of tying the season record set by Michael Strahan in 2001 and equaled by TJ Watt in 2021. Garrett has two games remaining to set a new single-season sack record but he had better do it next week against the Steelers to avoid the dreaded asterisk on account of the now 17-game season. Strahan posted his 22.5 sacks in a 16-game season while Watt had the luxury of an extra game which was added to the NFL schedule in 2021. The NFL officially began recording quarterback sacks in 1982. Before that, they were simply another kind of “tackle for loss”. Deacon Jones, who played from 1961 to 1974, might well hold the record had sacks been a statistical category when he played. I remember when the Bills signed high profile free agent edge rusher Mario Williams in 2012. His salary for that season was $16 million and, in the interests of symmetry, he recorded 16 sacks. But like the Cleveland Browns this year, the 2012 Bills were not a good team at all.

Up next for the Bills is a home date in the 4.25pm window next Sunday against the defending Superbowl champion Philadelphia Eagles who are coming off a decisive win in Washington on Saturday. The Eagles will win the NFC East division again but the road to the Superbowl on the NFC side of the draw looks like it will go through Seattle who managed a thrilling win on Thursday night over their division rival Los Angeles Rams. This the so-called “17^th game” for the Bills whose AFC East division was matched against the NFC South division this year. The Bills 2025 season consists of the standard six games against division opponents, four against the NFC South, four against the AFC North, two against last year’s AFC division winners from the AFC West and the AFC South (the Chiefs and the Texans) and this the 17^th game against the Eagles. The Bills are early 2.5-point favourites.

For those celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever else might be marked or observed at this time of year such as the pagan ritual of observing the winter solstice like I do, I wish everyone all the best.   

Bills 35, Patriots 31

As a keen follower of Buffalo Bills history and an observer of NFL football’s occasional symmetry, I must begin with a look-back to the events of September 25, 2011. In a game I attended, the Bills entered week three of that season, what would be their 12^th of 17 consecutive years finishing out of a playoff position, with a 2-0 record and the mighty New England Patriots visiting Orchard Park. After an opening touchdown by Wes Welker, native son Rob Gronkowski (he’s from Amherst) scored two touchdowns of his own to stake the Patriots to what seemed like an insurmountable 21-0 lead early in the second quarter. Game over. Probably. But quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, cornerback Drayton Florence and place-kicker Rian Lindell scripted an alternative narrative as the Bills stormed all the way back to a late lead on Florence’s interception of Tom Brady’s tipped pass which he returned for a touchdown. Brady then led his team to another touchdown to tie the game at 31. Fitzpatrick crafted his own game-winning drive which was capped by Lindell’s field goal as time expired for a 34-31 Bills win which sent Bills fans home in celebration with a 3-0 record and the prospect of a return to the playoffs. Shortly afterward, Fitzpatrick was rewarded with a lucrative contract extension as the Bills seemed set to revive their winning ways of 20 years earlier. They finished the season at 5-11 and Fitzpatrick was run out of town a year later.

To say that the Bills got off to a slow start yesterday in Foxborough would be like saying that the 2011 season didn’t play out as planned. With no first downs in the first quarter, they found themselves down by that familiar 21-0 score. “We’ve got them just where we want them” I said, recalling the game from 14 years earlier as the Bills did manage a score on a pass to James Cook before the Patriots got a late second quarter field goal to take a 24-7 lead into halftime. The Bills then stormed all the way back with three touchdowns to take a 28-24 lead before the teams traded touchdowns again which put the Bills up 35-31 in one of the best games in yesterday’s early window. Joey Bosa got a hand on Drake Maye’s final fourth down pass to seal the massive win for Buffalo. Dawson Knox had two touchdowns on the day to bring his career total to 26, passing Pete Metzelaars on the Bills all-time list for tight-ends. Cook had another big game with three touchdowns and over 100 yards rushing. Matt Milano whose impact seemed to have diminished this season, had a big game with two sacks.

Had the Bills lost yesterday, the issue of the role of replay assist would be top-of-mind this morning. On the Patriots first drive, Maye’s deep pass to Kayshon Boutte down the right sideline was allowed to stand while replay assist quickly nullified Josh Allen’s pass to the Brandon Cooks who could not tap his second foot down before going out of bounds. I don’t share the outrage as the replays of the Boutte pass did not clearly show that he may not have maintained control of the ball as he hit the ground. Replays of the Cooks pass did clearly show that it was incomplete and replay assist quickly corrected the call on the field. Easy for Monday morning quarterbacks to say but Sean McDermott should have used one of his challenges on the Boutte pass but he did not. CBS rules analyst and former NFL referee Gene Steratore said on the broadcast that the Boutte pass would probably have been ruled incomplete on review. On this Victory Monday morning, the point is moot.

I am a fan of one Greg Cossell, seasoned NFL analyst, senior producer at NFL Films and nephew of Howard Cossell. He appeared last week on the Colin Cowherd show previewing the Bills v Pats game. He told Cowherd that, in his learned opinion, the Bills do not have a particularly strong roster. The receiving corps is weak and there really is really no impact player on defence. Drafting near the bottom of the first round for the last five years may be catching up with the Bills, he said, and he was not confident that they could win against a motivated Patriots team seeking their first division title since 2019. Cowherd commented that beyond Josh Allen, “I don’t know what Buffalo is”. Well, Buffalo has proved over the last two weeks to be resilient, if nothing else. Is their roster skilled enough to carry them deep into the playoffs this season?  We will see.

Up next for the Patriots is a trip to Baltimore to face the Ravens who are battling the Steelers for a division title. Baltimore is an early 2.5 favourite and will present a significant challenge to the Patriots who may be feeling a small measure of self-doubt creeping in after posting ten straight wins before yesterday’s loss. A loss and a Bills win in Cleveland would pull the two teams even atop the AFC East at 11-4. The Patriots still hold the tie-breaker (after head-to-head where they’re also now tied) which for a division title is each team’s record within the division. The Patriots now stand at 3-1 against AFC East teams with games remaining against the Jets and Dolphins in weeks 17 and 18. The Bills stand at 3-2 and face the Jets at home in week 18.

The Bills travel west along the south shore of Lake Erie to face Shedeur Sanders and the Cleveland Browns. They are 10-point road favourites. Teams out of contention playing out the schedule can be dangerous and unpredictable and with nothing to lose, they can and often do pull out fake punts and other trick plays and generally take risks they wouldn’t take early in the season. The Bills would be well-advised to get off to a better start against the Browns than they have over the last two games – if only to save their fans another nerve-racking Sunday afternoon.        

Bills 39, Bengals 34

After yesterday’s wild game in Orchard Park, probably the third-last game to be played at Rich Stadium, Bills cornerback Christian Benford explained that the proper technique – which he obviously did not follow – is not to leave your feet when closing in on a quarterback who is about to throw the ball. But he jumped high enough to easily catch Joe Burrow’s attempted lob pass and scampered to the endzone with his second career touchdown in as many weeks. Along with last week’s scoop-and-score in Pittsburgh, each of Benford’s two touchdowns turned the game in the Bills favour. I’m really looking forward to his next four touchdowns against the Patriots, Browns, Eagles and Jets to close out the season with an even half-dozen touchdowns. They don’t call him Christian for nothing as he attributed his going off-script and leaving his feet to an act of God. Whoever was responsible for it - God, Burrow or Benford – it was a magical (Divine?) moment in this topsy-turvy Bills 2025 season.

As we watched the first half yesterday, I kept saying that the Bengals were just practicing on their first and second down plays from scrimmage. A running play here, an incomplete pass there or maybe a short completion for a few yards to set up a third-and-five – these were done only to set the Bengals up for where they would truly excel yesterday – on third down where they converted each of their first eight. They could have and should have made it nine if Burrow hadn’t overthrown a wide-open Tee Higgins on a scramble on third and 18. It felt like there was no way that the Bills would ever stop them on third down as the Bengals put together three long drives for touchdowns on their first three possessions and looked like they would cruise to an easy win as the Bills could only muster 11 points in the first half. Not until their 10^th third down attempt, on their final possession of the first half when it felt like they were about to go up 28-11, did the Bills pass rush finally cause Burrow to hurry a throw and miss out of bounds to force a punt and hold the lead at ten going into the break.

Once again trailing by ten in the fourth quarter, the magic (Divinity?) began for the Bills who reeled off 21 points in four-and-a-half minutes to take a 39-28 lead. Josh Allen started off the rally with a long touchdown run which was followed shortly afterward by Benford’s pick-six then on the Bengals next play from scrimmage, Jordan Phillips batted a pass which drifted easily into the arms of AJ Epenesa for another interception and the Bills then converted a fourth down attempt on the ensuing drive for another touchdown – this one to tight-end Jackson Hawes whose name makes him sound like a character from a Civil War era novel.

The game felt a lot like the season’s opening game, also at Rich Stadium, when the Bills made an unlikely comeback to stun the Ravens with the aid of a late fumble recovery. This season’s home schedule has now produced two such epic comebacks for the home team with two regular season chances remaining. Had the Bengals been able to hang on to the lead they enjoyed for most of the game, they would still be realistically alive in the AFC wildcard playoff race and the Bills would have finally been shutout of any chance at their sixth division title and the home playoff game(s) which go with it. While the Bengals remain mathematically alive with the best possible scenario having them finish 8-9 if they win out, they are likely done. The Bills still hold a mathematical chance at the division title but the programs which calculate such things put their chances of this at less than 10% as the Patriots will likely have a better division record, the first tie-breaker if they finish with the same win-loss record. But 10% means that there still is a chance, right?

Last week, I speculated that next week’s game in New England against the Patriots might be flexed out of the 1pm time slot to 4.25pm or maybe even to Sunday Night Football. The deadline for so doing came and went last Wednesday with no schedule changes so we are set for another early afternoon game next Sunday. I was quite surprised to see that the Bills have been installed as early 1.5-point favourites against the Patriots who have won ten straight games and will be coming off their bye week. If I were Mike Vrabel, I would be tempted to use this as a motivational tool. If the oddsmakers can’t see their way to favouring the Patriots, who beat the Bills in Buffalo earlier this season and sit at 11-2 with a chance to seal their first division title in six years for their home fans, what then is it going to take? The answer of course is a win over Buffalo at home on Sunday. I guess the Josh Allen factor is a major component in the setting of betting lines which, remember, are done not necessarily as a prediction of the game's outcome but to attract equal money on each team. Vegas likes big names and Josh Allen is one of the biggest in the NFL right now so on that level, the line does make some sense. The so-called “smart money” - bet in large amounts by professional gamblers – could and probably will come in on the Patriots which would move the line down towards a pick'em. Who knows? I just hope that the moment and the pressure will be too much for the Patriots and their young quarterback Drake Maye whose name sound like it comes from The Young and the Restless. I like the Bills in this game, 24-20.