Bills 35, Bears 13

Marv Levy always said that to win in the NFL, a team need only do two things and two things only: run the ball and stop the run. This philosophy might be a nod to the NFL of yesteryear - the "three yards and a cloud of dust" approach - with the running game accounting for well over 50% of offensive snaps. Today's pass-happy brand of football has taken over for the most part but when weather conditions restrict the passing game, the ability to run the football - or the lack thereof - carries the day even today. 

Going into the Christmas Eve game in Chicago, the Bears had managed to ride their strong running game, led by second-year quarterback Justin Fields, to a dismal 3-11 record despite a promising opening week win against the San Francisco 49ers. In week 9 against the Dolphins, Fields set the league record for rushing yards by a quarterback in a single regular season game at 178, breaking Michael Vick's 20 year-old record. The Bills would have to contain Fields on a day where running was going to critically important. The defensive game plan was pretty much perfect as Fields rushed for a net of 11 yards and was dropped for losses a couple of times too. Bills Linebackers were patient in resisting the temptation to over-pursue, one of the cardinal sins in playing against an explosive running quarterback. The Bears rushed for only 80 yards en route to posting an anemic 209 total yards in the game. 

On offence, the Bills gashed the Bears for 254 yards on the ground, averaging 8.2 yards per carry, with both Devin Singletary and James Cook having strong games with each breaking out for long touchdown runs. Singletary finished with 106 yards on 12 carries and Cook fell a yard short of the century mark with 99 of his own. Run the ball and stop the run. Check and check. In one of the coldest and windiest games in Bears history, the Bills adjusted their usually pass-oriented attack accordingly and shut down the Bears main offensive weapon. For his part, Josh Allen passed Dan Marino for the most touchdowns by a quarterback in the first five years in the league (passing, running and receiving). 

The importance of the Bills next game, Monday January 2nd in Cincinnati, OH can not be over-stated in the context of seeding for the NFL playoffs. The Bengals have won seven in a row and sit one game behind Buffalo (winners of six straight themselves) in the AFC standings at 11-4. If the Bengals can win a week from today, they will leapfrog over the Bills in the AFC playoff seeding by virtue of the head-to-head win and the only chance that the Bills would have of regaining the number one seed would be if the Baltimore Ravens can win in Cincinnati in week 18. Early lines have the Bills as 1.5 point favourites. My guess is that the line will tighten as the week goes on. If  the Bills Pro Bowl centre Mitch Morse, who suffered the sixth concussion of his career last week against the Dolphins, can return, I will like the Bills chances much more. Another night game - the Bills 5th of the season - awaits, as does another disruption of my usual early-to-bed and early-to-rise routine. With these late-night Bills games, the last few hours before sleep are usually tense and stressful, making the following day feel as if I'm recovering from a trip to west coast. 

Around the NFL, week 16 featured much jockeying for playoff positions and seeding with some teams clearly on the rise and peaking at the right time while others are flaming out. Leading in the flaming out category is the Miami Dolphins who have now lost four straight and have fallen to 8-7. Tua Tagovailoa threw three brutal interceptions in the second half yesterday and, after a strong first half of the season, questions about him as the franchise quarterback in Miami have returned. The Dolphins opponent yesterday, the Green Bay Packers are on the rise, having won three straight to improve to 7-8 with a shot at a wildcard playoff spot. The Jaguars have the inside track on the fourth seed in the AFC and the LA Chargers are finishing strong too.  

   

Bills 32, Dolphins 29

After every game, WGR's game-day sideline reporter and commentator Sal Capaccio writes his "Arrows Up/ Arrows Down" column on the station's website. Topping the most recent Arrows Down list was the Bills tackling which was absolutely brutal on Saturday night against the Miami Dolphins. He ended the Arrows Down list with "whoever threw the snowball" which hit him square in the back of the head as he stood on the sideline during the first half. 

If the lake effect snow bands had pointed at Orchard Park throughout the entire game on Saturday night, and if the alcohol-fueled fans in the stadium had been throwing snowballs through heavy snow squalls, it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway. But the snow didn't come until the fourth quarter - at least the snow falling from the sky. As the Dolphins players and bench were being pelted with snowballs from the stands, coach Mike McDaniels spoke with game officials about the Bills being assessed a fifteen yard penalty if public address warnings to stop throwing snowballs were not followed. The game was paused and the announcement was made that if the snowballs continued, such a penalty would be assessed. It seemed to work for the most part. The key assumption of course was that it was Bills fans who were the guilty snowball-throwing parties but it occurred to me that if I were a Dolphins fan in the stadium, after hearing the warning, I would have thrown as many snowballs as I could and I would have encouraged my Dolphins fan brethren to do the same. As someone rooting for the visiting team, how great would it feel to know that my actions caused a significant penalty to be called against the home team? The obvious risk would have been the administration of vigilante justice against me which would probably have been swift and severe. I've seen it in action and it can be quite violent. Lucky that no player was injured and that the snowballs subsided. Had I been in my seats 23 rows up from the Dolphins bench, I probably would have been turned away from the field to see the incoming munitions rather than risk being hit in the back of the head by one of them. Snowballs seemed harmless enough in the schoolyard when we were in grade three but they can be dangerous if packed well and thrown from a height. Frankly, I was appalled. And relieved when it mostly stopped. I know that there wasn't time to clear the snow from the stands and I guess it's hardly surprising that many of the 70,000 drunk footballs fans chose to do what they did (this was not the first time) but it definitely wasn't Bills Mafia's finest hour.

Josh Allen, on the other hand, despite fumbling the ball three times (and losing one of them), had a stellar game, making enough spectacular plays to guide his team to a nail-biting if not thrilling and important win. The bottom line with Allen is that he is extremely talented, physically powerful and entirely fearless - a very difficult combination to defend against. After the game, he explained that on the James Cook touchdown with time expired in the second quarter, he knew that he had taken too much time scrambling to his right and that throwing across his body was probably an ill-advised move. I'd say that he has earned the right to try just about whatever he wants. As it turned out, his leaping two-point conversion - a play on which he fumbled the ball one microsecond after manoeuvring one or two of the dimples of one end of the football over the plane of the goal line to tie the game - wasn't needed after all. Tyler Bass's short field goal as time expired would have given the Bills a one-point win. Either way, the Dolphins covered the spread.

And the Dolphins certainly played well enough to win the game and appeared unfazed by the travel and short week they had or by the weather. The Bills simply could not stop Raheem Mostert who racked up 136 yards on the ground; Tua Tagavailoa endured the cold and the snowballs and threw the ball quite well; Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle looked dangerous all night; on defence, the Dolphin pass rush and run defence were both solid. They played like their season was on the line (which it more or less was) but they came up just a bit short. Younger Bills fans think of the Patriots as their team's nemesis but it was the Dolphins who won 20 straight times against Buffalo throughout the 1970s. Squishing the Fish remains highly satisfying for Bills fans - especially in winter conditions. The teams have played twice every year since 1966 and the Dolphins still lead the all-time series 62-55.

I had really hoped that the World Cup Final would not be decided by penalty kicks. Despite a highly compelling and high scoring 90 minutes of regular time and another 30 minutes of extra time, the rules say that there will be no further team play after that. For hockey fans in particular who have stayed awake into the wee hours watching three, four and even five periods of sudden-death overtime playoff hockey, this seems like a mysterious way to decide a World Championship. A friend who follows soccer like I follow North American football explained to me that a sudden-death scenario in soccer would result in the two teams each locking up into defensive shells which would put the ghost of Roger Nielson to sleep and that, quite literally, no one would ever score. So, forget that. But maybe extend the extra time beyond the first 30 minutes into another 30 minutes and maybe another after that. Or make the World Cup Final a best of three. Just figure out some way to avoid penalty kicks as the final arbiter. I was happy for Messi I guess. Too bad his extra time goal didn't stand as the winner.

The 11-3 Bills travel to Chicago for a 1pm Christmas Eve game which is critical for them but for the 3-11 Bears, only important for players looking to pad their stats and enhance their contract prospects for next season and beyond. With the Chiefs pulling out an OT win in Houston yesterday, Buffalo can not afford a lapse against a team they should beat easily.

 

  

Bills 20, Jets 12

Halfway through the second quarter of yesterday's game in Orchard Park, Buffalo journalist Jerry Sullivan (often quoted in this blog over the years) sarcastically tweeted "And they say soccer is boring". This was in reference to the game's first ten possessions which ended in punts - most of the way to the total of 14 punts in the game. The wet, snowy and breezy wintry weather was responsible for some of the offensive ineptitude but I chalk it up far more to two dominant defences. The Bills were able to find the end zone twice as part of four consecutive scoring drives which spanned the second, third and fourth quarters. An NFL classic it was not and both teams can lay claim to having played well enough to win the game. But the Bills defence made things difficult and extremely painful for the Jets and quarterback Mike White. 

Not that anyone was questioning Mike White's toughness before the game, but as Tony Romo pointed out in the broadcast, no one will be now. White took several shots to the right side of his ribs, had to leave the game twice and was taken to a local hospital after the game as a precaution before rejoining his teammates for the flight home. Despite the violence of the hits on White, they were all clean and legal hits which generated no penalties. Matt Milano's hit in particular was so jarring to watch in slow motion as White's body contorted and "rag-dolled" before he went down and out of the game. It was hard to watch. I wondered if most quarterbacks would have turned turtle rather than standing in there, delivering the pass and taking the Milano hit (and others). I admire his bravery. He may be wondering this morning if it was worth it. 

Statistically, the Bills offensive performance was anemic at best with 232 yards in total offence and 14 first downs. The league's best team on third down coming in, they went 2 for 13 yesterday. Stat lines like that are rarely seen for the winning team but the Jets didn't fare much better with 309 total yards and 19 first downs, many of which came on third and long conversions. The Jets dominated the time of possession too but fumbled the ball away twice in the second half while the Bills didn't give it away once. The defence stepped up on the Jets final possession, forcing four consecutive incompletions in the final minute of play. It was a nail-biter for Bills fans but, as the saying goes, good teams find many different ways to win. 

The history of conflict between England and France is obviously a long one with no less than 20 wars between the two from the time of the Norman Conquest in the 11th Century to the death of Napoleon in 1821. The present day 200 years of peace didn't come close to ending on Saturday in Qatar but English fans probably felt like they had lost another war to France. The two countries had only met in World Cup play twice before with England winning both times - in 1966 (when England won it's only championship) and in 1982. Poor Harry Kane. After the English striker tied the game early in the second half on a penalty kick, he had another chance late in the game to tie it again (or "bring it level" as the soccer term goes) but he fired the ball over the net. The French keeper guessed correctly by moving to his right and may well have saved it had it been below the crossbar but we will never know.

The soccer penalty shot is indeed a fascinating event although a tough way to decide a game. I have seen goals scored when the shooter goes for the middle of the net, firing the ball directly at the spot from which the goalie has just moved, having guessed either right or left. It seems like a good strategy unless the goalie shares the same strategy and decides not to move away from the centre of the net. It feels like success or failure on a penalty shot is as much luck as it is skill. Harry Kane's luck had run out and France moves to the semi-final against Morocco. A France v. Argentina Final would be good and I gather is considered quite likely.

The Miami Dolphins are probably just arriving home as write this at 6am Monday morning. After losing two games on the west coast, they have a short week of practice before flying to Buffalo on Friday (NFL teams always travel the day before game day) for an 8.15pm Saturday night kick-off . The contrast between the weather in southern California (and south Florida) and the dark, cold and hostile environment of Bills Stadium in western New York will present a massive challenge for the Dolphins. The Bills lost in Miami in sweltering September heat in week three so it seems just to play the rematch in opposite conditions. As long as the Bills keep winning, they will hold on to the first seed in the AFC. 

Bills 24, Patriots 10

The football gods were smiling on Buffalo yesterday and making sure that things went right for the Bills in Minneapolis, Cincinnati and Santa Clara. This Monday morning, the Bills occupy the first seed in the AFC playoff race and, if they can hold that seeding, they will have earned a first round bye and home field for two playoff games (provided they win the first one). With the cakewalk that is the Chiefs remaining schedule, the Bills will probably have to run the table over their last five games to remain tied with them with three losses. That will not be easy but they are certainly capable of it with three divisional home games remaining and trips to Chicago and to Cincinnati. 

Looking back to Thursday night's game in Foxboro, my question is this: Is Al Michaels just mailing it in now? I hesitate to criticize the iconic sports announcer  - he of the "do you believe in miracles?" call from the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics - but  his play-by-play call of Thursday's game in Foxboro, MA was, at best, sleepy and low key and, at worst, almost comatose. The game itself certainly didn't lend itself to uncontrollable excitement on anyone's part (even a hard-core Bills fan like me found the broadcast almost relaxing) as the Bills ground out a methodical dismantling of the Patriots in a game whose score was closer than the margin in play was between the two teams. But isn't that the reason why Jeff Bezos hired him? To make a mundane game feel like its worth watching? To present the uncompelling as must-see? And his colour commentator partner Kirk Herbstreit wasn't much better either. Herbstreit has built a long and successful career broadcasting college games and he is solid and knowledgeable but, for me anyway, as plain vanilla as they come. Compared to Tony Romo whose insights remain fascinating, he's dull and predictable. The pre-game panel is another story altogether. With Ryan Fitzpatrick and Richard Sherman in particular, they're worth watching. At 78, Michaels broadcasting resume is second to none in American sports. Maybe he should hang 'em up sometime soon. I don't know who Bezos would hire in his place. Anyone he wants to I guess. Maybe Al just had a bad night but this was the first of Amazon's Thursday games I've watched closely start to finish and I was decidedly underwhelmed by the two men in the booth. 

As for the game and how the Bills played, Greg Cosell (Howard's nephew) of NFL Films said it best on WGR on Friday: it looked to him that the Bills knew that they were the better team going in and they decided to just line it up and dominate the Patriots with a simple game-plan, more running than they usually do and score just enough points to make the Patriots realize that they were just not going to be able to come back with Mac Jones and a B-list of NFL receivers. That's how it felt too. The Patriots offence felt like it was whatever the opposite of threatening is - and un-explosive and pedestrian too. 

WGR played a small sample of some of the calls which came in to New England Sport Radio WEEI after the game and while Patriots fans are predictably looking to run Mac Jones out of town, there seems to be a growing sentiment that maybe Bill Belichick isn't the football genius he's been made out to be for the last 25 years. The team literally does not have an offensive coordinator and Belichick has appointed defensive specialist Matt Patricia to call the offensive plays. After all, he was the Lions head coach for three seasons. How did that go? Who knows how Robert Kraft will handle this situation but his fan base has enjoyed unprecedented success during Belichick's reign, they have come to expect it and they are restless now that their team has joined the other 31 NFL teams muddling through varying degrees of mediocrity from season to season. Apparently, there is talk of Brady returning to the team. Maybe he can play until he's 60. 

I've been trying to watch the World Cup and I've had some success but not that much. That Alfonso Davies goal to open the scoring for Canada against Croatia was absolutely brilliant and the obvious - and maybe only - highlight of Canada's first trip the World Cup since 1986. By the way, 1986 was not just the last time Canada made the 32-team tournament (until this year) but it was the ONLY other time they've made it since the quadrennial event began in 1930. As a watcher of North American sports, my uninformed observation of watching soccer is that it sure seems like it's just too hard to score. And, compared to the the professional sports I watch, soccer lacks a consistent sense of urgency in its play. Someone said that while North American sports "explode", soccer "unfolds". I just find it hard to watch teams commencing offensive thrusts only to turn back and regroup if they don't unfold exactly as planned. I said to myself at one point as I watched Canada lose 4-1 to Croatia that if they pass the ball back to their own goalie one more time, I'd stop watching. They did so about a minute later and I turned it off.  

The college football final four is set and Michigan seems to have drawn the long straw as they will face the TCU Horned Frogs in the first semi-final on New Year's Eve. They are early 9.5 point favourites. The other match-up is between Georgia and Ohio State. Big Ten fans are hoping for a rematch between the Wolverines and the Buckeyes in the National Championship Game and I think they just might get that. 

For the Bills, the stretch run begins Sunday in Orchard Park against the Jets who fell just short yesterday against the Vikings. We will learn in the next day or two exactly when the Dolphins will play the Bills in week 15. I expect that it will be dark and I hope that it's cold and snowy too. 

Bills 28, Lions 25

I wanted to wait until (1) the NFL's Week 12 was almost complete and (2) the critical college games on Saturday were played before posting this morning. The Bills, despite winning for the second time in five days at Ford Field to improve to 8-3, now stand 5th in the AFC playoff standings with two division games coming up, starting with another Thursday game - their third this season - four days from now in New England. The Chiefs hold the first overall seed at 9-2 with the 8-3 Dolphins holding the second seed. The week 15 game in Orchard Park on the weekend of December 17th/18th will be a big one for sure with the AFC East division title probably hanging in the balance. The league can wait until after this week's games (week 13) to announce the TBD portion of the schedule for week 15 with three games set to be played Saturday the 17th - early afternoon, late afternoon and a night game. Look for the Bills v. Dolphins game to be either the Saturday night game or the Sunday night game. If it ends up being slotted into either of those night games, my hopes of attending my first live game in three years will be dashed. Don't think I have what it will take for a winter night game and driving until 3am.

As for this weekend's games, let's start with the Vanier Cup. Here's a good football trivia question: Which game has a longer history - the Superbowl or the Vanier Cup? The answer is the Vanier Cup but only about three months longer. Superbowl LVII will be played in Glendale, AZ in February but the 57th Vanier Cup was played Saturday in London, ON. Neither holds a candle to the Grey Cup which, as of last weekend, now has a 109-year history. The Laval Rouge et Or won their 11th Cup (in 13 trips) over the Saskatchewan Huskies at Western Alumni Stadium (formerly called J.W. Little Stadium which makes me wonder if something in Mr. Little's history was unearthed and deemed to be unsavoury) before an announced sell-out crowd of 8,420. London is quite a hike from either Laval or Regina which meant that only a handful of actual fans of the two teams made it to the game. After we graduated from university, a group of us attended the Vanier Cup every year at Varsity Stadium in downtown Toronto. We stopped going after the first year that the game was moved to the canvernous Skydome where the combination of a small crowd and a closed roof made for the most antiseptic possible atmosphere (and a longer walk to the Morrisey Tavern). We would have driven to London if the Western Mustangs had made it but probably not otherwise. The Mustangs fell a game short of  Saturday's game which would have made it a "home" championship game for them. The weather certainly cooperated and in the images I saw of the stadium, it looked more full than Mosaic Stadium in Regina did the previous weekend for the Grey Cup. So ends another season of three-down football. I feel like the core group of Canadian football fans (of which I am one) has no younger generations coming behind it to take up the cause. Twenty years from now, will be talking about the 129th Grey Cup and the 77th Vanier Cup? I hope so but I'm honestly not sure.     

By several orders of magnitude, the biggest game on Saturday was played in Columbus, OH where the Michigan Wolverines won "The Game" (the 118th in the storied rivalry) for the second straight year and guaranteed themselves one of the four spots in the College Football Playoff, also for the second straight year. Attendance at the Horseshoe was 106,787. The Wolverines gained ten yards on the ground in the first half but finished the game with 252 as they physically dominated the Buckeyes at the line of scrimmage in the second half. The No. 1 ranked Georgia Bulldogs will also be in the playoff but the other two spots are still up for grabs and dependent on the Conference Championship Games this weekend. In the running are: USC and TCU with Alabama and, yes, Ohio State still with outside shots. The participants are chosen by vote rather than by competition on the field so there is no certainty about which teams will make it - except that even if Michigan loses to Purdue in the Big Ten Championship or if Georgia loses to LSU in the SEC Championship, they are both considered to have earned their spots in the four team playoff.

After every NFL, each team's head coach delivers a brief post-game speech in the locker room with cameras rolling. We rarely see them from the losing locker rooms (maybe after the Conference Championships or the Superbowl) but they offer coaches the opportunity to deliver an inspirational or congratulatory message which reflects their personality, coaching style and communication style. On Thursday afternoon in Detroit, Sean McDermott's speech was worth seeing. He started calmly, recounting the previous week's blizzard, two flights to Detroit and the life lessons that such adversity can offer. He then erupted in joy declaring that it was "One Hell of an Effort!" to the cheers of the half-dressed players surrounding him. It was great to see some emotion from the usually stoic and tight-lipped coach. He then offered "Game Balls" to No 17 for the clutch throw near the end of the game, to No 14 for the catch and to "our little kicker" Tyler Bass who sheepishly appeared from behind a couple of behemoth linemen to claim his game ball for the winning kick. I really do think that McDermott and Beane have built a positive and sustainable winning culture.  

  

Bills 31, Browns 23

When Rex Ryan was hired as Bills head coach in January, 2015, one of his first efforts to endear himself to the local fan base was to have his pick-up truck emblazoned with “Bills” along the sides of the doors at a local auto body shop. The car reflects the man, they say. I don’t know what vehicle Sean McDermott drives (a Prius or Chevy Volt?) but one of the first comments he made in his post-game press conference in Detroit was to tell the story of how on Saturday afternoon he drove his own vehicle to pick up Von Miller and Sam Martin (who live either next door to each other or very close by, being former long-time teammates with the Broncos) in their Orchard Park subdivision to get them to the team facility. A snow plow driver spotted McDermott’s vehicle struggling with the deep snow on his way out of the neighbourhood and proceeded to plow the way for them (after the requisite photo opp) back to the main road. McDermott said that almost every player, coach and staff member (most of whom seem to live in Orchard Park) had a similar story of their epic journey to get to the stadium (and the team bus to the airport) through two metres of snow on Saturday. Some almost didn’t make it.

The stories of personal journeys through the snow made me presume that the team received special dispensation from the New State Troopers and local police for an exemption to the driving ban which was instituted late Thursday evening as the snow began. The only vehicles allowed on the roads in Erie County from Thursday onward were snow plows, emergency responders and any vehicle transporting Bills players, coaches or staff. And the Buffalo Airport was also closed – except for the Bills charter to Detroit of course. The team arrived at their hotel in Detroit just before 7.30pm Saturday. The Bills ended up with about as much practice as they would for a Thursday game – just like they’ll have this week as they prepare for their second game at Ford Field in four days. As Sal Capaccio explained on the pregame radio broadcast, even if the Bills played in a domed stadium in Orchard Park, the game would have been moved (or postponed) anyway as the snow would have made it impossible for 70,000 fans to get to the area, let alone allowing access by first responders, police and emergency vehicles. Yes, the stadium will have to be shovelled out by hand but the roads around Orchard Park will not be clear of the two metres of snow for at least a few days.

56,000 discounted tickets to yesterday’s game were sold on short notice and in the true spirit of American enterprise, many were sold at considerable profit on the secondary market. Hey, I was trying to sell my own tickets too but ended up with just a credit on my season ticket account with the Bills. The crowd, according to Bills radio play-by-play man John Murphy was about 75% Bills supporters and 25% Browns fans.

As much as wanted to see the late afternoon Cowboys v. Vikings game and the Chiefs v. Chargers SNF game, I couldn’t turn away from the 109^th Grey Cup at Mosaic Stadium in Regina. For what seems like decades now, the CFL manages to cap off disappointing seasons (in terms of fan interest) with classic championship games which leave casual fans thinking that maybe the three-down game is actually worth watching – and maybe more than once a year. With a dramatic ending which included each team blocking field goals in the final minutes, the Toronto Argonauts, the least deserving team in the league on account of epic fan disinterest in Canada’s largest city, managed a thrilling one point win over the two-time defending champion Blue Bombers. Amazingly, in a nine team (and in some years eight team) league, the Argos and Bombers had not faced each other in the Grey Cup since 1950. The Argos have won the Cup each and every time they have faced the Bombers in the big game. The game was “sold out” but it was a heavily papered house with plenty of empty seats throughout the stadium (which is by far the best one in the league). As someone from Regina said yesterday morning, CFL fans in Saskatchewan might show up just to cheer against their arch-rivals one province to the east. Some did that I guess. I ended up watching most of the Grey Cup for the first time in a few years and I’m glad I did. Will I go to the parade? Will there even be a parade? Maybe Larry Tannenbaum could just drive down Bay Street one morning with the coach and quarterback in his car. I would go down to watch.

The Bills returned to Buffalo last night and will fly back to Detroit on Wednesday for Thursday’s 12.30pm kick-off against the Lions who have now won three straight, including yesterday’s win against the Giants. To sum up some of yesterday’s football: Buffalo beat Cleveland in Detroit, Detroit beat New York in New Jersey and Toronto beat Winnipeg in Regina.

After the Bills game Thursday, the biggest game of the year in college football kicks off at noon Saturday at the Horseshoe in Columbus. The annual Michigan v. Ohio State game has never had more riding on it as the winner gets a berth in the four team playoff. The loser will end up in some irrelevant bowl game or other over the holidays

Vikings 33, Bills 30, OT

I’ve been tuning in recently to the syndicated CBS Sports Radio programming which the FAN in Toronto carries very early on weekend mornings. When its 5am on a Saturday, the host’s job seems to be to float opinions which are controversial, provocative or otherwise inflammatory enough to cause North America's insomniacs and early risers to reach for their phones and call in to explain why the host is wrong. It usually works well enough to occupy the airwaves through these hours when the human spirit is usually at its lowest ebb. Last weekend, host Zach Gelb decided to tell his overnight listeners (Alan McPhee referred to it and them as “vacuumland” when he occupied CBC Radio’s overnight airwaves in the 60s and 70s) that the NFL itself is at a low ebb with fewer and fewer compelling games, explosive plays or memorable moments. He suggested that maybe the shrinking participation in tackle football in the US – from junior and Pop Warner programs to high school and even high level college programs – is starting to filter upward in the form of a watered down talent pool in the NFL. TV ratings are down a bit across the board this season for the NFL but even so, it’s televised games continue to dwarf any other programming on conventional television. Viewership for the Thursday night package is off sharply but I’d say that’s mostly because they are carried by Amazon Prime in the US and not on regular television at all. A slate of Thursday night clunker match-ups doesn't help either. I didn’t call in to disagree but others certainly did.

I wonder if Zach Gelb was watching the Bills and Vikings epic battle in Orchard Park yesterday – or any of the close games the Bills have played already in 2022 in Miami, Baltimore, Kansas City and New York. Anyway, Zach Gelb, I know you have to say things at 5am which you may not really mean but I have a feeling you’ll be casting yesterday’s game in a positive light one day when you’re fawning again over the juggernaut that is the modern NFL.

It’s great to have your team involved in games which become instant classics but I suspect that they’re even more satisfying when you end winning one of them. In retrospect, analysis of most close football games isolates a couple or maybe a few critical plays which, had they gone the other way, would have changed the outcome of the game. I can think of at least ten of those from yesterday: the interceptions in the endzone for sure, the Singletary fumble which if the call on the field had ruled him “down” would have stood as such, the Cam Lewis almost interception which ended up being a miraculous 32 yard catch by Justin Jefferson on a 4^th and 18, the botched snap, fumble and Vikings touchdown to name a few. The Vikings should have won the game in regulation if the replay officials had noticed Gabriel Davis’s non-catch with 17 seconds left which helped set up the tying field goal. In short, for viewers without a rooting interest, it was an exciting and at times even shocking game to watch - and easily the best regular season game of 2022. Just like the playoff game in Kansas City in January, it was a testament to how exciting NFL football can be. I’m sure that even Zach Gelb can see that.

After the game, I was in the car and well within range of the WGR radio signal. The fans were angry; some were apoplectic. This team finds new and different excruciating ways to lose games every year, they said. Add this one to the list of franchise heartbreakers. Sure. The bottom line, according to Chris Parker (aka Bulldog) is that with Josh Allen, we’re going to get plenty of spectacular plays but we’re going to have to accept a few “What the hell are you doing!” moments along with them. In some games more than others; maybe for a few games in a row (and we seem to be in one of those stretches right now) but overall, Allen needs to play with an approach somewhere between aggressive and reckless to be at his most effective. He played that way yesterday and he plays that way pretty much all the time. Most teams would take it in a heartbeat.

At 6-3 (the same record as they had after nine games last season) , the Bills, amazingly, have dropped to third place in the AFC East and currently hold the sixth seed in the AFC playoff picture. Four division games remain with three of those at home. Up next, their Lake Erie cousins and perennial NFL doormat, the Cleveland Browns, come to Orchard Park on Sunday. Four days later, they play the Lions in Detroit in the early Thanksgiving Day slot. They should end up 8-3 after those games but who knows.    

     

Jets 20, Bills 17

"Classic Trap Game" is the term that NFL touts will often use to describe a game against a lesser-light which comes right before one against a much better team. Is that what happened yesterday in the dystopic suburban wasteland of New Jersey? Did the Bills take the Jets for granted as they have had the luxury of doing over the past few years? I'm not sure that's the right take on it but I did have a feeling going in that this game was a huge one for the Jets and their coach Robert Saleh obviously had them ready for it. 

I will channel a bit of Pat Burns here in terms of the way he usually took a contrarian view in his postgame comments: If his team had won a close game, Burns might say "well, if we keep relying on our goalie like that, we won't win may more" and after losing a close game, it would be more like "the effort was there and we played well enough to win; if a couple of bounces had gone the other way....". This is a "glass half full" analysis but I think that yesterday's game is exactly what the Bills needed as they come to the halfway mark of the regular season. After four straight wins, a loss to the Jets should and I think will be a wake-up call as they prepare for the 7-1 Minnesota Vikings in Orchard Park on Sunday.

There are certainly areas for concern with at least a couple which have spanned the last two games. Josh Allen has had two poor performances throwing the ball and the run defence has been equally weak over those games as well. When quarterbacks throw to wide-open defensive backs who should be clearly within their line of sight, it certainly looks mysterious on TV. Did the receiver turn left when the play called for him to turn right? How is it that he didn't see that defender? A friend of mine is a big Steelers fan (and a bit of a conspiracy theorist) and after the January, 1996 Superbowl, he was convinced that Steelers quarterback Neil O'Donnell had been paid to throw interceptions at two key points in the Steelers loss to Dallas. "There isn't any other explanation for it", he said, claiming that it simply wasn't possible for him not to have seen those cornerbacks or safeties. The Cowboys won and whoever paid O'Donnell cashed in on it handsomely I'm sure. Good thing I lost touch with him because there's never been a better time to be a conspiracy theorist and I'm sure that he's deep into the vaccine question. But the run defence is another matter. No suggestion of the entire defence being paid to miss tackles. They were injury depleted - with more injuries suffered yesterday. Teams will be trying more than ever to run on the Bills so they better stiffen up. And I think they will.

When the Jets lined up to punt on a fourth and one at mid-field in the third quarter, I called the fake out loud. I know the dog heard me. It seemed obvious to me that this was the perfect situation for it and the Jets executed it perfectly. It wasn't a deciding factor but it added to the feeling of the inevitability of a Jets win, for me anyway. With a strong defensive performance and solid quarterback play, the Jets deserved to win the game and they are now a good enough team to follow through on it. Zach Wilson, despite looking weak recently, played well, made good decisions and threw no interceptions. Maybe he just wasn't offered proper compensation.   

Apparently, the CFL held their Division Semi-Finals yesterday and I also heard that TSN continues to carry these games on live television. If I were making the decisions, I would try to not to have CFL games - playoff or not - directly up against week 9 NFL games. And I mean directly as the Eastern game kicked off at 1pm and the Western game at 4.30pm. They might do better against US College football by playing on Saturday. Who knows. Same thing next weekend as the Argos host Montreal at 1pm and the Bombers play BC in the late afternoon slot. Plenty of good seats remain for the 109th Grey Cup in Regina the following week. The game is officially "sold out" they say but with many thousands of tickets available for cheap on the secondary market. 

US College football continues to offer plenty of clunkers on its Saturday schedules with the exception this past weekend being the game in Athens, Georgia between the top-ranked Tennessee Volunteers and the No. 3 Bulldogs. Georgia won and now occupies the top spot in the AP Poll. Michigan and Ohio State remain on a collision course toward their Nov 26th game at the Horseshoe in Columbus with the winner guaranteed one of the four playoff berths. 

The Minnesota Vikings have won six straight games. That streak ends on Sunday in Orchard Park, I like the Bills 30-17. And I like Kathy Hochul to win over Lee Zeldin on Tuesday. If Herschel Walker wins the Georgia Senate seat, comedians across the US will rejoice.     

Bills 27, Packers 17

I don't think the Twitterverse was any more active last night now that Lex Luthor has acquired the Daily Planet but there was some good in-game analysis going on including a cerebral football commentator who observed that the Packers seemed to have come up with a solid game-plan which included: (1) running the ball successfully, (2) controlling the clock and winning the time of possession and (3) keeping Josh Allen off the field - all of which allowed to the Packers to (4) lose the game by two scores. In what was easily Josh Allen's worst performance of the season in terms of his throwing accuracy, the ultimate outcome of the game never felt like it was in doubt. With the Bills entering the game as 10.5 point favourites, they did however fall short of covering the spread and cost me twenty bucks on Proline. 

The NBC Sunday Night Football crew decided to take their show on the road and did a good job of showcasing what I will now go along with and reluctantly call Bills Mafia - the Bills rabid fan base - with their heavy drinking and table smashing which has become part of the Orchard Park tailgating experience. Since Chris Farley's motivational speaker character Matt Foley set the gold standard for falling through tables 30 years ago, I have not been and never will be a table jumper/smasher but I do admire those willing to risk injury in the name of getting themselves on sports highlight packages. Maria Taylor and Tony Dungee stood on the sidelines for the Football Night in America pregame show and we could almost hear the sounds of beer bong chugging, tables crumbling and vertebrae cracking. Chiropractors of Western New York should really be sponsoring the Bills Mafia tailgate parties. With whoever makes those collapsing tables.

The broadcast showed a couple of renderings of the new Bills Stadium to be built across Abbot Road from the now almost 50 year-old former Rich Stadium. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has been under fire for her approval of a $600 million contribution from New York State (with another $250 million from Erie County) towards the new stadium which is scheduled to open in 2026. Hochul's Republican opponent Lee Zeldin has been critical of the deal although it has been signed already. I agree with Zeldin that it seems like a misuse of taxpayer funds considering the wealth of the NFL and Bills owner Terry Pegula. In the end, polls indicate that Hochul should win re-election easily. Zeldin's views on abortion would be enough to make me vote for Hochul anyway. Go Bills!   

A couple of streaks were in play last night for Aaron Rodgers. He had won an impressive 13 consecutive prime time games going in to last night and that streak was obviously broken. Buffalo remains the only place where Rodgers has not won a road game in his career and that streak obviously continued. I did lose respect for Rodgers over his views and comments on vaccination last season when he questioned the point of the vaccines if one could still be infected after vaccination. The best retort for that comment was by someone who asked Rodgers why he wears a football helmet if he could still be concussed with it on. As a long-time watcher of Jeopardy, however, his guest hosting of the iconic game show for a few weeks in early 2021 was quite impressive and that goes a long way with me. Were I a Packers fan though, I'm not sure that he is the right guy to be under centre right now. like it or not, the team is in a rebuilding year and maybe Rodgers, his baggage and ego should not have been extended to the tune of $50 million per year through the 2024 season. The deal also included some clever reworking and deferral of the salary cap hit Rodgers contract will mean for the team. The cap hit will come eventually and possibly at a time when Rodgers has retired or moved on. The next few years may be rough for Cheeseheads.

The Bills face the Jets in the Meadowlands next week before returning home for what will probably be the feature game in the 1pm time slot as the 6-1 (and likely 7-1 by then as they face the Washington Commanders next week) Minnesota Vikings come to Orchard Park for the first time since 2014 when the Rex Ryan coached Bills pulled out a last-second win as Kyle Orton hit rookie Sammy Watkins for the winning touchdown on the game's final play. Yes, that Sammy Watkins who Bills General Manager Doug Whaley traded a first round pick to draft. Watkins played last night in his first game in a visitor's uniform in Buffalo and was barely noticeable. Eight years is a very long time in football, isn't it?  

 

Bills 24, Chiefs 20

It could be argued that it made them hungrier; I'd argue not hungry enough or at least not confident enough. I'm talking about the games which preceded the Buffalo Bills bye weeks over the 2020 and the 2021 seasons - both of which they lost. In 2020, when they went 13-3 in the regular season before losing the AFC Championship Game at what is now called GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium (GEHA, which is an acronym for Government Employees Health Association, is, according to its website, "a self-insured, not-for-profit association providing medical and dental plans to federal employees and retirees...". The "not-for-profit" part makes me wonder why it needs to pay for NFL stadium naming rights but I digress......maybe they saw how well it worked for PSI.net in Baltimore), the Bills apparently had the game won but lost on what would become known as the "Hail Murray" play - a last-second toss to the endzone - which won the game for the Arizona Cardinals. In 2021, a fourth down touchdown attempt at the goal line (when a field goal would have tied the game and sent it to overtime) in Nashville failed as Josh Allen slipped on the keeper and fell just short. Each time, the team had two long weeks to process the losses before resuming the season. Not this year. They will have two weeks to enjoy the two game lead they have opened on the Chiefs (a one game lead in the standings and the tie-breaker by virtue of the win yesterday) and plan how to secure the first playoff seed in the AFC.

When the Bills signed Von Miller to a six-year $120 million contract (with $45 million guaranteed) in the off-season, I don't think anyone in the team's front office said that the signing was made to get the team over the hump against the Chiefs but this was a frequently mentioned talking point among both the local and national pundits. His two sacks and two tackles for losses yesterday looked like exactly what they needed at exactly the right time. Miller is probably past his peak in terms of physical performance (but not far past) but his tutelage of Gregory Rousseau and other young defensive lineman on the roster seems to have been of almost equal value to his on-the-field impact so far in 2022. I doubt that he will earn out the rest of his contract over five more seasons (more likely two or three before they kick him to the curb), but his signing has clearly been as beneficial to the team as everyone had hoped it would be. Good on him and good on the Bills for taking the leap with him 

Although they did win a year ago (on Canadian Thanksgiving) at whatever the stadium was called in Kansas City, the game yesterday, which would clearly put the winner on the inside track to the first AFC playoff seed, seemed like a mid-season playoff game. CBS was certainly hoping that it would draw viewers expecting another barnburner like the playoff game in January. We even saw a heavily promoted preview of a new Sly Stallone show coming soon to the network. Nantz and Romo were excellent as always and the game stayed close until the end to the delight of CBS and its parent company Paramount. The new version of Brady v. Manning is Allen v. Mahomes and CBS hopes to carry as many more of their match-ups as possible (and they will meet again next season). The main difference between the two quarterbacks now is that Mahomes has a ring in two trips to the big game while Allen awaits his chance.

October is the best month on the North American sports calendar with hockey and basketball starting, baseball playoffs ongoing and both American and Canadian football seasons in full swing. On Saturday, my Western Mustangs beat Guelph 34-11 and the Toronto Argonauts won in Edmonton against the Elks (before tens of thousands of fans mostly dressed as empty seats) but the game of the day took place in Rocky Top, Tennessee where the Volunteers outlasted the Alabama Crimson Tide 52-49 before 101,915 at Neyland Stadium. The win was the Vols first against the Tide since 2006 (they play every year) and propelled them into the top five in the new AP poll. The Michigan Wolverines, who also remain in the top five, easily handled Penn State with 110,812 taking it in at the Big House. After far too many dreadful lopsided match-ups which characterize the first few weeks of College Football, the best games are now finally upon us. 

When the schedule was released in April, the bye week looked like it was going to be a bit early for the Bills - coming 6 games into a 17 game season. But, although the team was as healthy yesterday as they have been for any game so far, the bye week comes at a good time, especially after the biggest regular season win in a long time. After the break, the Green Bay Packers come to Orchard Park for what will be Aaron Rodgers last trip to Western New York (unless he somehow ends up with the Jets at the end of his career). The NBC Sunday Night Football crew comes to Buffalo for this one. I'll be taking the bye week to rest up for the late night football game followed a few hours later by the early morning blog writing.    

Bills 38, Steelers 3

One team and one team only can win a championship every year. As fans of teams, it does often feel like our particular teams are destined to never do so - or hardly ever - or not in almost 30 years in the case of the Toronto Blue Jays. Blowing an 8-1 lead on Saturday felt like the Leafs having a 4-1 lead over Boston in game seven in 2013 and managing to lose that one. And all other playoff series since. Usually in seven games just to stretch out the eventual misery we feel as fans. And it felt like 13 seconds did this past January or the Music City Miracle or Wide Right. It just feels like it's not fair. Well, it isn't fair and it's never going to be. We had our chance, some will say, 30 years ago too, going to four straight Superbowls. I grew to hate the Superbowl by the winter of 1994 when the Bills lost to Dallas for the second time. For the first two, I made chlli and had people over; the second two I watched alone. I knew what was coming - or what wasn't coming. 

Around 1pm yesterday, I was pretty sure of what was coming in Orchard Park but with the Bills floating into the game as two touchdown favourites and a big playoff rematch coming next week in Kansas City, I had predicted that the Steelers would keep it close. You know, any given Sunday etc etc. My Proline ticket required the Bills to win by 16 but I wasn't really that confident about it. Then on a third and long from the two yard line, Josh Allen tossed a dime to Gabriel Davis. I could smell the turkey wafting from the kitchen by then (which we put in the oven just after 11.30am) and I could smell a rout brewing. With a rookie quarterback making his first NFL start, it just felt like it might be an easy afternoon for the Bills. And of course it was. Some of the stats from the game are eye-popping: They averaged 10.2 yards per offensive play which was the third highest in a game in all of NFL history - eclipsed only by the Chiefs in a game five years ago and by the Jets in a game 50 years ago; Allen finished (without playing much of the fourth quarter) with 424 passing yards, marking a new non-OT franchise single game record; Gabe Davis had three catches for 171 yards - an average of 57 yards each. We could go on. On the other side, Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett was 34 of 52 for 327 yards and looked pretty good at times.

The CFL stopped publishing game-by-game attendance figures after the lost season of 2020. They have recently released aggregate team-by-team numbers which they say are up over last season. Up by how much isn't clear. Winnipeg, winners of the last two Grey Cups following a long drought, leads with an average of 27,600. Canada's largest city is in last place with an average attendance of just 11,018. In a stadium with a listed capacity of 25,000, that's less than 47% of tickets sold. For a "gate-driven" league, the CFL's Toronto problem is only getting worse. Television ratings are also down with the games over the Labour Day weekend, usually the league's top-drawing regular season match-ups, down almost 20%. The Riders v Bombers game was the only one to draw more than 700,000 viewers so far this season. The Argos v. Ti-Cats "Labour Day Classic" drew 332,000 which was down more than 100,000 from a year ago. There was a time in 1970s when American college players would come to the CFL for the money as the average pay was more than the NFL was offering. I would think that the average CFLer now needs an off-season job to get through the year - just like they did in the 1940s and 50s.

I miss the days of Stephen Brunt and Bob McCown talking about how to fix the CFL - mostly because I liked them on the radio together. Brunt was an encyclopedia of CFL history, including the often-hilarious details of the crazy US expansion experiment of the early 1990s. Did I ever mention that I took in an Edmonton Eskimos v Las Vegas Posse game at Commonwealth Stadium in 1994? In oh-so typical CFL fashion, it was originally scheduled to be a home game for the Posse, but on account of not paying the rent wherever their "home" was in Vegas, the game was moved to Edmonton. The Eskimos won. As a sixty-year-old old stock Canadian (a term coined by Stephen Harper), and because my dad was a fan for his entire life, I miss the glory days of being among 50,000 fans at Exhibition Stadium to watch the Argos lose.Then fire Leo Cahill again. I wonder what 97 year-old Marv Levy, who coached the Alouettes to two Grey Cups (1974 and 1977) would think of the fortunes of the CFL today. I wonder if there is any saving it now. 

Up next for the Bills is yet another trip to Kansas City against the Chiefs who also play tonight. It is the CBS "national" game in the 4,25pm time slot and the second consecutive Bills game to be called by Jim Nantz, Tony Romo and Tracy Wolfson. Yesterday's blow-out in Orchard Park made them work hard to hold casual viewers - something they probably won't have to worry about for this game.     

Bills 23, Ravens 20

In the spring of 2001, I attended a mortgage banking conference at The University of Maryland in College Park which is essentially a suburb of Washington, DC. Someone in the group had secured a block of tickets to an Orioles game one night and on the way to Camden Yards, we passed by the relatively newly built football stadium in downtown Baltimore. I remember, as we passed it on the expressway, looking at a large sign on the outside of the stadium which read "PSI.net Stadium". Someone in the car mentioned that PSI.net has been a victim of the recent "dot-com bubble" and was now bankrupt. It had beforehand, however, acquired the new stadium's naming rights and pre-paid for the first few years. I remember thinking that having a football stadium continuing to bear the name of a now bankrupt corporation could really only happen in America. I could look up the other corporate names that the stadium has been through since then but, for now, it is called "M & T Bank Stadium". Reminds me of a Simpsons episode where the family visits someone who has been incarcerated and as they approach the institution's front gates, they pass a large sign which reads "Welcome to Campbell's Chunky Soup Maximum Security Prison". 

The CBS broadcast flashed a graphic late in yesterday's rain-soaked game at M &T Bank Stadium about the last time that the Buffalo Bills overcame a 17 point deficit to win. It happened 11 years ago on a warm September afternoon in Orchard Park against Tom Brady and the hated Patriots - a game that I attended and one which I remember as being among the best regular season games I've seen. That day, the Ryan Fitzpatrick led Bills overcame a 21-0 deficit with Rian Lindell kicking the winning field goal as the game clock clicked past zero. Bills coach Chan Gailey, whose tenure with the team was mostly quite unremarkable, demonstrated superior clock management in the game's final minutes, leaving Brady no time to engineer his own comeback. Maybe Sean McDermott watched the highlights of that game on the flight to BWI on Saturday because he accomplished the same result yesterday in the remnants of Hurricane Ian.

With the Bills down 20-0 in the second quarter, things looked grim - just the way Jerry Sullivan likes them - causing him to tweet "We're getting dangerously close to the point where the Bills are no longer Superbowl favourites". With the weather in Muskoka offering us an absolutely perfect fall day, I went outside for a break from the misery and started to put away deck furniture. After a few minutes, I checked back in on the game in time to see Josh Allen hit Isaiah McKenzie just before halftime to cut the deficit to 10 points. That made a full comeback definitely seem more plausible.

In the loss, the Ravens dominated the game in terms of time of possession by almost a two-to-one margin - just as the Bills did last week in Miami. The still-depleted Buffalo defence stiffened in the second half and in the end was the difference in the game. Jordan Poyer made his return from injury and was rewarded with two key interceptions; Linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and Matt Milano were both outstanding. Are there two better tacklers in the league right now? Devin Singletary looked dangerous at times, Stefon Diggs made a couple of difficult catches in the wet conditions and Khalil Shakir contributed two key receptions as well after Crowder and McKenzie went down with injuries.

The officials had a rough afternoon in my opinion and I can think of two instances - one non-call on an obvious pass interference by the Bills on a third down play and a questionable roughing-the-passer call on the Bills final drive. After that call, Sullivan tweeted "I can only imagine the whining if they called that on the Bills". Sullivan also noticed a couple of holding calls on Shaq Lawson that were not made so I guess the poor officiating went both ways. The always aggressive Ravens coach John Harbaugh faced questions after the game about his decision to go for the touchdown on fourth down late in the game which led to Poyer's second pick and gave the Bills a drive start at their own 20 yard line.  

Up next: the reeling Pittsburgh Steelers come to Orchard Park for a 1pm Sunday game on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. At 1-3, and after losing at home yesterday to the Jets, the Steelers will be playing to avoid seeing their season slip away. I guess the Mitch Trubisky era might be over in Steeltown as he was benched at halftime in favour of Kenny Pickett whose name I like but Steeler-Nation probably doesn't want to pin their hopes on.   

Dolphins 21, Bills 19

When the Montreal Canadiens won four consecutive Stanley Cups from 1976 through 1979, it was often said their top farm team, the Nova Scotia Voyageurs, were easily better than many of the weaker NHL teams during that period. The Canadiens organization was so strong and so deep that most players drafted by the club out of the Junior hockey ranks had little chance of making the big club - at least in the first few years of their pro careers.

Bills General Manager Brandon Beane has built possibly the best and deepest roster in the NFL over his six years at the helm. Yesterday in steamy Miami Gardens, FL that depth was tested as it had never been before over his tenure. I consider myself a fairly serious fan of the team but there were players taking the field yesterday, on both sides of the ball, whose names were entirely new to me. I'm not a serious enough fan to be familiar with the Bills entire Practice Squad roster but after the game yesterday, I think I probably now know most of them. And to think that with so many starters out going into the game and with so many more dropping in the south Florida heat as the afternoon wore on, they came within a play of winning the game. The team has faired quite well over the past few seasons in terms of avoiding multiple serious injuries (Tre White's knee ligament tear last Thanksgiving notwithstanding). This has been attributed to the team's top-notch training staff, physiotherapy program, kinesiologists, dieticians, sleep and hydration technicians etc etc. But more likely, in my opinion, is that they've just been lucky and the tables have clearly turned on them early this season. Let's hope that their version of the 1970s Nova Scotia Voyageurs can get the job done at least in the short term. 

As with pretty much every close football game, if any one of four or five plays had been made or gone the other way, the Bills would be sitting atop the AFC East at 3-0 as the Dolphins are this morning: Allen was sacked deep in his own end in the first quarter and fumbled, gifting the Dolphins an easy short field and they capitalized accordingly. Matt Milano had a touchdown in his hands and dropped it. Tyler Bass uncharacteristically missed an easy field goal. Josh Allen also (1) had Isaiah MacKenzie open in the near corner of the endzone late in the game and threw the ball at his feet, (2) fumbled the snap at the end of the first half, costing his team a chance at a field goal (3) was flagged for a personal foul late for ripping a defender's helmet off, costing his team 15 yards on the final failed game-winning drive. Bass almost got a chance to win the game at the end as time expired just before a spike attempt. 

The depleted Bills dominated the game statistically by outgaining the Dolphins by 285 yards (497 to 212), earned 31 first downs to the Dolphins 15 and held the ball for more than two thirds of the game. The Bills second string secondary held speedster Tyreek Hill to two receptions for 33 yards. Even though they lost the game, long-time Buffalo journalist and perpetual naysayer Jerry Sullivan tweeted "I'm even more convinced that they're the team to beat in the NFL." High praise indeed from the glass-half-empty Sullivan.

When Dolphins punter Thomas Morestead stood at the back of his own endzone late in the game, the television camera angle made it appear (to me anyway) like he had shanked his punt badly to the left and it looked for a second like the Bills would have excellent field position for a potential game-winning touchdown drive. But the play resulted in a safety as Morestead's punt landed a direct hit on the buttocks of his teammate Trent Sherfield before bouncing out of the back of the endzone. The "butt punt", as it is known this morning, will make all of the 2022 NFL blooper highlight reels when the season is done but Morestead redeemed himself on the following free kick by pinning the Bills deep - too deep as it turned out - for their drive for the winning field goal.  

Things do not get any easier in week four as the Bills travel to Baltimore to face the Ravens. At least the heat shouldn't be as bad in the Chesapeake area as it was in Miami but Lamar Jackson will present a huge challenge for the Bills depleted defence. At least they will have a full week to recover.      

Bills 72, Rams 10, Titans 7

When my team is the consistent Superbowl favourite throughout the off-season - at least it was after the signing of Von Miller - it makes me nervous just like it did in the early 1990s. And we all know how that played out. But then I realized that going into last season, the Vegas oddsmakers gave the best chance at the Lombardi trophy to the Los Angeles Rams and they obliged with a close win over the Cinderella Bengals. Also interesting to note that through the first 54 Superbowls, no team had won the big game playing in their home stadium. It has now happened twice with the Bucs in 2021 and the Rams seven months ago. The big game in February returns to the Arizona desert so I guess the pressure is really on Kyler Murray and the Cardinals to make it a three-peat. My hope is for a Bills v. Vikings Superbowl as these two teams are a combined 0-8 in the championship game. 

The Bills were rewarded for their top pre-season ranking with the marquis Week One match-up At SoFi Stadium against the Rams with Von Miller lining up against the team he shared the trophy with last time he suited up. Despite a few stumbles in the first half, the Bills ran away with it in the third quarter and demonstrated that they really are the favourites to win the game in Phoenix five months from now. 

Last night in Orchard Park, despite some injuries along the way, the Bills faced the Titans for the fifth consecutive season. With losses in Nashville in each of the last two games Buffalo was missing two key pieces of its interior defensive line - Ed Oliver and Tim Settle - whose presence was considered critical in stopping Derrick Henry.Would this be the game that the Bills came down to earth and settled back into the pack of good teams in the AFC instead of being the clear favourite? Ah, no. Apart from the Titans first drive which tied the game at seven, it wasn't a close game at all. By the time the fourth quarter began, both teams were resting starters, the stands were emptying and the Bills remained the consensus Superbowl pick. 

The Josh Allen / Stefon Diggs combination looked like it did in 2020: Allen was 26 of 38 for 317 yards with four touchdowns and no picks; Diggs caught 12 of the 14 balls thrown his way for 148 yards and three scores. The Titans were held to 187 yards of total offence with Henry averaging 1.9 yards per carry on his way to a paltry 25 yards on 13 carries. And we finally got to see Sam Martin punt. The placekicking team of long-snapper Reid Ferguson, holder Martin and kicker Tyler Bass was perfect as well. 

The best part of last night's pre-game activities was the appearance of 97 year-old Marv Levy who took the microphone from Jim Kelly (whose singing needs some work) and led the crowd with the now-famous question he used to ask his team before every game: "Where else would you rather be than right here, right now?" He looked and sounded just fine and it warmed my heart. 

When I discovered the almost incomprehensible changes that OLG has made to Proline before the game in Los Angeles, I almost gave up on it until I realized that single game bets were on the menu - instead of the minimum three game parlay from previous years. Two games down, and two winning tickets later for me as I won $15 in week one and $19 last night. The $34 in winnings I've booked is $34 more than I have won on Proline in the last ten years. OLG may target me as a risk to their business model but I'll keep betting on the Bills as long as they let me.

Almost out of nowhere, next week's match-up in steamy South Florida is a big game. With both teams at 2-0, the winner will have the inside track in the AFC East. Tua Tagavailoa has looked much better through two games than he did a year ago and the Tyreek Hill is still Tyreek Hill. Let's hope that the Bills aren't too depleted on defence as two more starters went down last night with neck injuries: Dane Jackson with a scary looking accidental hit from teammate Tremaine Edmunds and Micah Hyde on an innocent looking tackle. Matt Milano scored the first touchdown of his career before leaving with a stinger and Jordan Phillips pulled a hamstring as well. Dane Jackson's injury was the most serious but late reports were that he has full movement of all of his extremities after being taken by ambulance to ECMC directly from the field. 

Chiefs 42, Bills 36 OT

Football doesn't build character; football reveals character. So said Marv Levy some years ago and on this cold and snowy Monday morning in Central Ontario, I think that it surely applies to both the Chiefs and the Bills and, just as importantly, to their respective fan bases. The ups and downs of last night's Divisional Playoff game, especially in the final minutes and seconds of the fourth quarter and overtime, certainly revealed the character of each of the teams. As for the fans of the teams watching in the stadium or on television, just sticking with the game through its agonizing conclusion revealed character enough. Chiefs fans have another game to look forward to (and probably two more) and Bills fans will have to add this one to their list of crushing losses. Jay Skurski of the Buffalo News said that it rivals any of the Superbowl losses or Homerun Throwback for the most painful loss in Bills franchise history. "Wide Right", "Homerun Throwback" and now "13 Seconds". The longest and most painful 13 seconds in franchise history.

The naysayers and Monday Morning Quarterbacks will be busy today, this week and for the remainder of the off-season questioning the coaching decisions and defensive strategy over those fateful 13 seconds following the Bills taking a three point lead on Gabriel Davis's fourth touchdown catch of the game and Stefon Diggs acrobatic grab on the two-point conversion. They should have squib-kicked the kick-off, they'll say. Safeties Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde were playing to deep, they'll say. They played it as if the Chiefs needed a touchdown and not a field goal, they'll say. The Bills called a timeout before each of the two plays over those 13 seconds and still couldn't stop the Chiefs from quite easily - far too easily - moving into comfortable field goal range. The overtime seemed like a training camp scrimmage where the first string offence goes against the back-up defensive unit to see how fast they can march down the field to the endzone. The Bills chose not to use any of their timeouts in overtime when the defence probably could have used a break. But then the time-outs didn't work during the 13 seconds, did they?   

Although I am a long-time season ticket holder. it's been two years since I have made the pilgrimage to Orchard Park to drink a couple of morning beers, barbeque some hot Italian sausages and take in some NFL football. I really hope that eight months from now, I will be doing just that. My team has a once-in-a-generation quarterback to watch for the next decade at least along with a solid coaching and management and stable ownership. A new stadium is in the works too so I'll have to start saving for the inevitable Personal Seat Licences which I will have to buy to continue on as a subscriber. 

Bills fans need to remember that you have to make it to these big games in order to suffer the crushing losses that they can bring. It's more stressful as a fan to watch than, say being a New Yok Jets fan has been over the last few years. Earning the right to play in important games means winning many games along the way and the Bills have done that since Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane came to town. As fans, we should be grateful. The losses are tough but the best kind of character sports should reveal is the ability to savour the wins and let the losses roll off you. It's just professional sports, right? Noam Chomsky is right in the end (isn't he usually?) when he says that the intellectual energy, time and emotion consumed by the ritualistic following of sports is just a distraction from the things which actually do matter in our lives. Being a native of Philadelphia, its east for him to say. The Eagles won the Superbowl four years ago and, although he is loathe to admit it publicly, it surely put his mind to rest.    

Bills 47, Patriots 17

Ten years ago, I met and had a rather long and quite pleasant conversation with Tim Hudak, then leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, at our neighbourhood outdoor hockey rink. Among other things, we discussed the soon-to-drop report from economist Don Drummond but the conversation somehow came around to the subject of football and the Buffalo Bills (I was probably wearing a Bills winter hat). When Hudak, a native of Fort Erie, realized that we shared a rooting interest in the Bills, he asked me "Don't you just hate the Patriots?". I replied, truthfully, that I really didn't hate anyone or any particular team. He probably realized at this point that I might also be referring to my political leanings and that I was not likely to be a supporter of either him or his party. He was certainly right about that but our conversation continued for another few minutes and I ended it by saying to him that I admired those willing to stand for political office and face all of the vitriol which accompanies that vocation. I genuinely appreciated speaking with him and I have had a positive impression of him as a person ever since. And, in the years since then, whenever the Patriots have beaten the Bills, however often and however badly, I think of him and, as if to be true to what I said to Mr. Hudak that day, I remind myself that I don't hate the Patriots.

Someone on ESPN explained that on Saturday night in frigid Orchard Park, "the Bills were paying the Patriots back for all of their ancestors sins". The history of the division rivalry between the Bills and the Patriots over the last 20+ years has been decidedly one-sided in the Patriots favour. I'm sure that Dolphins and Jets fans have the same tale to tell about this as the Patriots have racked up Superbowl appearances and wins in numbers almost unimaginable over the Belichick/Brady years. Whether it was opening week, mid-season, late season or for much-anticipated prime time games, the Patriots have had the Bills number almost every time - until the last couple of seasons when the tables turned. When the Patriots pulled out a win in the wind-blown Monday night game on December 6th and looked to be on their way to the division title, it felt like the tables had turned back again. But when the Bills pulled together one of their best games of the season on Boxing Day and returned the favour in Foxborough, the dragon was slayed for good, right? When the Chargers couldn't get it done last weekend against the Raiders, sending the Patriots to Orchard Park for a Wildcard playoff game, I had a bad feeling about it. Belichick would find a new way to slow the game down, run the ball and keep Josh Allen off the field, capitalize on the Bills weak punting game or somehow make Tim Hudak hate them even more. But that's not what happened.

Even Jerry Sullivan, local naysayer and glass-half-empty sports columnist (who was relieved of his duties at the Buffalo News a few years ago for being too negative) tweeted near the end of the game "How do you watch this and not consider them the favourite to win it all?" Well Jerry, I would have to agree. With a clean injury report going into the game, on every series the Bills looked motivated, prepared, focused and disciplined. They shredded the Patriots defence, plain and simple, scoring seven touchdowns with no turnovers. And Matt Haak had one of his best games of the season, only taking the field as the holder on extra point tries (two of which were blocked but not because of poor holding). Whenever Josh Allen faltered this season, Jerry Sullivan was quick to point out that he wasn't really earning his $258 million contract extension, signed before the season started. With Saturday's performance, he certainly did. Maybe not all $258 million in one game but enough to take Jerry Sullivan out for dinner every night for the rest of his life. And enough to shift Tim Hudak's focus from hating the Patriots to finding new ways to drive Ontario real estate prices ever higher.

Last night, I was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. At least until I went to sleep when it looked like they had little chance of coming back against the Chiefs. The Bills will make another January trip to Kansas City next Sunday night in the Divisional Round against the number two seeded Chiefs who rolled easily over the Steelers last night. The Bills will need to play at least as well as they did on Saturday to move on the the AFC Championship Game, especially on defence. Patrick Mahomes matched Josh Allen's five touchdown passes last night, throwing for over 400 yards against the Steelers. He is no Mac Jones and the Bills number one ranked defence will need to bring their best game. This will be the fourth game between the Chiefs and Bills over the last two seasons. The Chiefs have won two of the three so far and I wonder if Tim Hudak might be starting to hate them too.   

Bills 27, Jets 10

Last night's Raiders v. Chargers game featured an intriguing possibility which did not come to pass although it sure looked like it was going to literally right up to the end of the ten minute overtime period. Going into the NFL regular season's last day, the unprecedented scenario of a mutually beneficial tie in the season's final game, which depended on the league's worst team, the Jaguars winning against the Colts, was discussed but mostly theoretically on account of the unlikelihood of a Jacksonville win. But the Jags did win and this set up what could have been a nightmare for the league - two teams colluding to produce a certain result. If last night's game had ended in a tie, then both the Raiders and the Chargers would have been playoff bound with the Steelers being eliminated. Although there is not a specific rule against such collusion, I wonder if the league office contacted the teams before the game to implore each of them to play the game to win it. If that happened, it certainly worked. 

Buffalo Bills fans were more than a little interested in the outcome in Las Vegas last night as well. A Chargers win would have brought them to Orchard Park next weekend but the Raiders not only ended their season and earned a playoff birth of their own, but set up a third game this season between the third seeded Bills and their arch-rivals the New England Patriots who come again to Buffalo on Saturday night for a playoff game, the first between the two teams since the AFL Divisional round of 1963. I think that most Bills fans would have preferred to see the Chargers make a winter trip to Buffalo but the Patriots, who stumbled down the stretch, offer the Bills another chance to slay that particular dragon - this time in an elimination game. 

Last time the Bills clinched the AFC East in front of their home fans was 1995 and the last time they played a home playoff game with a full house was in December, 1996 against Mark Brunel and the Jacksonville Jaguars. It was Jim Kelly's last game in the NFL. The Bills clinched their second consecutive division title yesterday in a strangely frustrating game which was much closer than the boxscore would indicate. Some patches of empty seats were visible on wide shots of the stadium yesterday but the game still drew more than 64,000 fans as the Bills finished the season with two January home games, both against relatively weak teams in the Falcons and Jets. 

The Jets came into the game with what was statistically the league's worst defence and an offence which looked to be making improvements. But in the NFL, trends don't always hold: the Jets offensive output yesterday was limited to four first downs and 53 total yards. Both of these are franchise record lows for the Bills defence. On the other hand, the Bills offence generated 25 first downs and 424 total yards while the defence also recorded nine sacks, a season high. Despite the statistical dominance, the game was still in question into the fourth quarter when Devin Singletary scored two touchdowns to put the game away. 

The game featured no less than 18 punts - 11 by the Jets and seven by Matt Haack who clearly had his most stressful day as a professional football player. Haack, who had not seen the field (except for a free-kick on a safety) since the Panthers game three weeks ago, had a rough time in the third quarter in particular as he bobbled a snap and barely got off a partially blocked punt before shanking three consecutive punts into the wind, giving the Jets great field position each time. But the Jets offence could only manage one decent play from these opportunities. Haack will be hoping for less wind and a more dynamic performance from the Bills offence on Saturday night. 

The long range forecast for Saturday looks ok with the temperature expected to be around minus five which is fine for two cold weather teams but would have been a clear advantage for Buffalo against the Chargers. Among his many memorable pre-game expressions, Marv Levy used to say to his team just before a winter game against a warm weather or dome team "When it's too cold for them, it's just right for us". Seems like it will be just right for both teams on Saturday. Let's hope that the Bills offence from Boxing Day shows up.

Bills 29, Falcons 15

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan believed that he had scored a touchdown with about four minutes remaining in yesterday's game in wintry Orchard Park - one which would have brought his team to within one score of the Buffalo Bills, making it a closer game than Bills fans would have wanted. NFL rules say that a quarterback who slides "feet first" is deemed to be down by contact when his slide begins and he need not even be touched by a defender for the play to be whistled dead. But Ryan didn't slide feet first at all; rather, he dived toward the goal line and was clearly well over it when Jordan Poyer bumped him, prompting Ryan to say something to Poyer earning him a flag for taunting which would then be enforced on the ensuing kickoff, right? Wrong. When Ryan's left knee came down, the ball was not over the goal line but over the one yard line. No touchdown. I'm still not sure why since he did not slide feet first and clearly wasn't touched before he crossed the goal line. Instead, it was third down and goal from the 16 yard line after enforcement of the 15 yard taunting penalty. Two incomplete passes later and the Bills were a couple of first downs away from victory formation and the clinching of a spot in the NFL playoffs. A difficult exit from playoff contention for Atlanta and for Ryan who will complete his 14th season as the Falcons quarterback next week. For the Bills, a win they needed to maintain their inside track toward a second consecutive AFC East title. 

Bills punter Matt Haack did not "punt" for the second consecutive week although he did take the field and kick the ball by dropping it from his hands and booting it down the field. But there was no long snap to catch and no rushing defenders to avoid. The box score reads that Buffalo punted zero times yesterday but the scoring of a safety, a relatively uncommon event in football with a strange sequence which follows, meant that Haack had to take the field to execute a "free kick" which gave the Falcons the ball back after taking a 2-0 lead on a fumbled punt return by Marquez Stevenson. I found myself trying to explain the phenomenon of a safety to my partner who is now an enthusiastic watcher of NFL football but who had not seen such a play before. I was impressed a few minutes later when she correctly predicted the play calls which led to the Bills first two touchdowns later in the first half. "Josh Allen will run it in for a touchdown" she said not once but twice. She was right both times. "Should they play man or zone on this series?" I asked next time the Bills defence lined up against Ryan. I didn't really want an answer and I didn't get one either. 

Josh Allen had a tough day throwing the ball. His passer rating for the day was 17, the lowest of his four-year career. The quarterback passer rating is a calculation which takes into account attempts, completions, yards, touchdowns and interceptions. The highest possible passer rating is 158.3. The calculation resembles the one used in consumer lending for credit scores in that it isn't completely clear how all of its elements fit together (it isn't a proprietary algorithm like the credit score is - you can look up how the calculation works) but common sense says that if you throw three interceptions, your passer rating will suffer. And that's what happened to Allen yesterday. But he still had a good game in my opinion and contributed over 80 yards rushing, including the two touchdowns. Aside from Allen, the Bills running game had its best day in a long time as Devin Singletary had career highs in carries with 23 and yards with 110 while scoring two touchdowns as well. The Bills posted 28 first downs to Altanta's 18 and dominated the time of possession. 

The only team standing between the Bills and another AFC East title is the pesky New York Jets who come to Orchard Park on Sunday to close out the 17 game regular season. The Jets built a big lead over Tom Brady and the Bucs yesterday but eventually found a way to lose. In addition to seeing their team blow the lead against the heavily favoured Superbowl champs, fans at the Meadowlands of New Jersey also witnessed what will hopefully be the final NFL side show by Antonio Brown who inexplicably left the game in the third quarter with the Bucs down 24-10. He removed his jersey, threw his gloves into the stands and did some jumping jacks in the endzone before disappearing for hopefully the last time. I presume that he's having lunch today with Vontae Davis who left the NFL in similar fashion (without the public disrobing) in week one of the 2018 season while playing for Buffalo.