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.
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