Patriots 37, Bills 16

The Bills played the Patriots almost evenly for almost three quarters of football yesterday in Foxborough, MA. The memory which most Bills fans will take away from this game is the fact that they should have gone to the locker room at halftime leading 17-13, rather than tied at 13 as they were. This was thanks to another virtually incomprehensible replay reversal - this time of a brilliant Kelvin Benjamin touchdown catch in the endzone in the closing seconds of the first half. But, as SI's Peter King pointed out, the NFL has micro-managed the replay function to the point of absurdity. Bill Cowher also discussed the play in great detail in the CBS studio yesterday. Cowher explained that a close and strict reading of the rule in terms of what constitutes a catch and what doesn't comes down to the meaning of "control" when a receiver is catching the ball, getting both feet down in bounds and perhaps switching which hand the ball is in when going to the ground. Cowher believes that the Benjamin catch should have stood as a touchdown because of his own interpretation of what constitutes control of the ball, compared to how the replay officials are interpreting it. He thought that Benjamin had control and retained control of the ball from the time it hit his hands - including the moment when he acrobatically got both feet down in bounds and tumbled to the ground. Yes the ball was moving in Benjamin's hands but, in Cowher's view, he had full "control"of the ball throughout the process. I still don't think that the Bills would have won the game even if they did have a four point lead at halftime. Other than a defensive touchdown on a very rare pick 6 thrown by Tom Brady, the Bills offence struggled mightily in the red zone and managed only three field goals. Sean McDermott's decision to try to long field goal on a fourth and one while trailing by a touchdown was a poor one and spelled the end for the Bills who were then steamrolled for two more touchdowns.

But a playoff birth for the Bills remains possible and the scenarios are not as far-fetched as they sometimes are with teams needing several games to end in ties and a certain team needing to score nine touchdowns etc. For the Bills, it's really quite simple: they need to win in week 17 in Miami and they also need either a Baltimore loss or losses by both Tennessee and the Los Angeles Chargers. Easy, right? Well, the Ravens, who play at home against the Bengals, control their own destiny and are in with a win without any help from other teams. Not likely that the Cincinnati Bengals will deny the Ravens a playoff birth. The Titans play at home to Jacksonville and are also in a "win and in" scenario without help from others. This one is more interesting because the Jaguars do have a remote shot at the second seed if the Steelers lose at home to Cleveland. And Jacksonville is a better team that the Titans are so a Jaguar win in Nashville is entirely possible. The Chargers play at home to an Oakland team with nothing to play for other than the traditional spoiler role after a very disappointing season. The Chargers win the tie-breaker against the Bills, having won their head-to-head match-up but lose the tie-breaker to the Titans based on conference records. For New Year's Eve, Go Bills and Go Bengals and/or Go Jaguars and Go Raiders.

The overnight snow has stopped as I sit here in north Toronto very early Christmas morning. We will have a safe passage to St. Catharines this morning I think as the highways will be plowed by the time we leave. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it and happy two days off in any event to those who don't.