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.