Bills 27, Patriots 21

New Year’s greetings from Muskoka where our lake remains mostly open and we have no snow whatsoever on the ground. I feel for those businesses in the north and the “near north” who rely on good skiing, ice fishing and snowmobiling conditions for their livelihoods. This holiday season has been a bust but maybe things will turn around this month. For now, November-like conditions are stretching into a third month. Like Mark Maron sarcastically said recently, we have probably passed the tipping point in terms of irreversible and disastrous climate change but we should take comfort in knowing that we have done absolutely everything we could have to avoid it and it’s clearly not our fault.

Bills fans would have to describe their relationship will Bill Belichick as tortured. For the last 25 years or so, he has been the mastermind of many of the Bills most painful losses. Yesterday probably marked his last trip to Orchard Park as Patriots head coach so I’d like to pay tribute to him and suggest a new angle he could take if he wants to continue coaching. Pundits have suggested that some owner somewhere – Carolina, Arizona, Los Angeles (Chargers), perhaps even the Jets if they decide to move on from Robert Saleh – will want to bring him in as head coach next season. His name carries as much coaching cache as anyone’s and his hiring would surely advance (or at least shore up) ticket sales and general fan engagement in any market in the league.

My view is that hiring Bill Belichick as head coach would not be a smart move in terms of a team’s long term football interests. The correlation between the departure of Tom Brady and the Patriots offensive anemia is quite clear. Add to that the recent history of his drafting misses (as he is currently the Patriots defacto general manager as well) and Belichick’s resume on the offensive side of things is sliding badly. But – and this is the gist of where I’m going with this – he remains a defensive genius. Yesterday, his team’s defensive performance would have been enough to register a significant upset (similar to last week’s win in Denver) but his offence coughed up the ball too many times for his defence to overcome. The Bills had just enough success on third down late in the game to hang on for the win but their explosive offence never really got comfortable; the Patriot offence kept giving them short fields to work with and they converted just enough of these opportunities. It was another defensive gem for Belichick but another loss for his team.

If he would be willing – and if I had to guess, I’d say that he would probably not be – to take a position as defensive coordinator somewhere in the league, teams should be lining up to hire him. Throw in “Associate Head Coach” to sweeten the pot and maybe he’d be interested in the right situation. Call it a sort of phased retirement if you like. The combination of a young offensively creative head coach (like the Dolphins Mike McDaniel for example) and Belichick running the defence would make a formidable force to reckon with. No drafting or offensive responsibilities at all for Bill – just defence. His presence in this role would bring instant credibility to any organization and I honestly think this is the highest and best use of his skills and experience in the NFL. Wherever he lands later this year, I wish him all the best. Except against the Bills.

The stars aligned perfectly yesterday for the Bills in terms of preserving a shot at the division title but they didn’t get the help they needed to clinch a playoff spot just yet. The New York Times playoff chance simulator still gives them a 97% chance to make the playoffs going into week 18. A win over the Dolphins gets them the second seed in the AFC (which would mean a second home playoff game if they win their first one) but if they lose to the Dolphins, they will need help next week in the form of any one of (1) a Steelers loss, (2) a Jaguars loss or (3) a tie between the Texans and Colts.

The NFL released the times for the full slate of week 18 games last night and to no one’s surprise, the Bills v. Dolphins game will be final regular season game of the 2023 season – the Sunday Nighter on NBC. They will obviously know before kick-off whether or not any of these three results above became reality. It’s like the home team batting in the bottom of the ninth knowing exactly what they need to do. The NFL has enjoyed many individual game television ratings bonanzas this season and it seems reasonable to think that the game next Sunday night might generate the highest ratings of any regular season game in a long time. NBC and its sponsors must feel like they’ve hit the jackpot this time. I’ll start adjusting my sleep patterns mid-week for yet another late-night game. As Steve Tasker likes to say, late in the season, if you win a big game, it always leads to another even bigger game next week.