Eagles 13, Bills 12

In baseball, the old adage was that you played for the win on the road and played for the tie at home toward the end of the game. Having the bottom of the inning to either match or best your opponent was enough of an advantage to justify the strategy and football offers nothing similar (except in the college football overtime format where who goes first is determined by coin toss). I would have found Sean McDermott’s decision to go for the win last night more understandable had the Bills defence been gassed, had the offence sputtered near the end, if the momentum had been with the Eagles or if Josh Allen hadn’t missed a wide-open Khalil Shakir in the endzone. But the Bills defence had stiffened in the second half and the offence, while not setting the house on fire, was finally moving the ball with success late in the fourth quarter after producing very little through the first 55 minutes of the game. Usually, two touchdowns will beat a touchdown and two field goals but when you can’t convert either touchdown, it doesn’t. I don’t blame the kicker for the blocked extra point on the first one, although maybe it came off his foot a bit low, but – and I realize this is a classic example of Monday morning quarterbacking – I think that playing for the tie and sending the game to overtime would have been the right call. And it would have been the conservative call which, had the kicker missed or if the kick had been blocked again, would have all of us Monday morning quarterbacks saying that they should have gone for the win. The play that Joe Brady dialed up was a good one and their confidence in it was probably a big reason why they went for it. But it didn’t work out.

Yesterday felt like a lot of waiting. Waiting for the possibly catastrophic ice storm here in Central Ontario, waiting for the power to be knocked out, waiting for the Bills game to finally start, waiting for the Bills offence to show up…...at one point I felt like I was waiting for Godot. Like in the Beckett play, Godot never did show up but the freezing rain certainly did and the Bills offence eventually and finally did but it came up one throw short of eking out another unlikely win. The ice accretion was somewhat less than the apocalyptic forecasts were suggesting it seems and, as of this writing early Monday morning, the power remains on in our corner of Muskoka. Strong winds and heavy snow squalls coming later today will probably change that. We’ll see.

While the Bills clinched a playoff spot with last week’s win in Cleveland, yesterday’s loss dropped them to the seventh and last seed in the AFC. They are tied with the Chargers and the Texans at 11-5 but do not hold the tie-breaker with either. The fifth seed is the best that they can hope for but that will require both a Chargers loss to the Broncos in Denver and a Texans home loss to the Colts. The latter seems unlikely as the Colts have completely unravelled since Daniel Jones went down and Philip Rivers admirably stepped in. The former is much more likely as the Broncos will want to seal the first overall seed in the AFC with a win – and they will play in the same 4.25pm window as the Patriots.

Assuming wins next week by the Bills, Broncos and Texans, the Bills will occupy the sixth seed which will very likely mean a road game at Jacksonville. The Bills finish up their season and their 53-year tenure at Rich Stadium next Sunday against the Jets who were trounced by the Patriots yesterday. A Bills win is likely. With the Chargers likely to lose at Denver and the Texans likely to win at home against the Colts, the sixth seed seems like where the Bills will end up. If they somehow manage to fall to the seventh seed, that will almost for sure mean a trip to New England to face the Patriots. I’d rather take my chances in Jacksonville where the Bills could easily be favoured on the road. For the Bills, the road to the Superbowl looks like it will go through Jacksonville. FL, Foxborough, MA and Denver, CO. For eternal optimists, there still remains a very slim chance of a Bills home playoff game in early 2026. It will require the following: A Bills win combined with Chargers and Texans losses on Sunday then in the Wildcard round, wins by all three road teams. This would result in Divisional round games being played in Denver and Buffalo. So, I’m saying there is a chance.

The NFL Week 18 schedule was finalized while most of us slept last night. For some reason, the Bills v. Jets game was slotted into the 4.25pm window on Sunday. The two games on Saturday are equally compelling: the Panthers play in Tampa at 4.30pm to determine the winner of the NFC South with the loser very likely out of the playoffs and the late game features the Seahawks playing in Santa Clara, CA against the 49ers who won last night against the Bears. This game will determine not only the winner of the NFC West but the number one seed in the NFC bracket. The loser will be a wildcard team. Then after a Sunday afternoon lineup of somewhat less interesting games, the Sunday night game between the Steelers and the Ravens in Pittsburgh will determine the winner of the AFC North with the loser going home.  

With the temperature rising overnight to about plus 4 at 7am, where I now sit, wind is picking up and ice is falling from the trees like shrapnel onto the roof and glancing off the windows of the cottage. If the trees can shed most of the ice and snow before the temperature drops and the winds arrive, it may in fact save us from much more severe damage – and long power outages - than were forecast. It’s a “weather bomb” they say and I’m looking forward to a return to normal winter conditions like we’ve been enjoying for about three weeks now.   

Bills 23, Browns 20

The winter solstice occurred at 10.03am EST yesterday. It marks the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and the southernmost point of the sun’s path across the sky from daybreak to sunset. A lesser-known fact about the variability of the hours of daylight and darkness is that the rate of change – the number of minutes and seconds gained or lost each day – is at its lowest point at the solstices and at its maximum at each equinox in March and September. The length of each day’s daylight hours in our part of the world remains close to constant over the two months on either side of the solstice - from November 21^st to January 21^st – but begins to increase much more rapidly toward the end of February and peaks in late March where daylight hours grow noticeably longer almost every day. At the end of the year, every place on this planet will have received the identical number of daylight hours. These are the darkest days of the year for us and we won’t notice much change for another two months. The photo I took yesterday shows the sun setting over the southwest corner of Clear Lake around 4.30pm. We would have to wait another seven hours before the sun set on the Buffalo Bills chances at a home playoff game in the dark days of January, 2026.

The 2025 winter solstice brought another long day of football – from the Bills frustrating win in Cleveland to the close and exciting games in the 4.25pm window to the late game statement made by the New England Patriots in Baltimore. I stayed up for all of it in the hopes of a second consecutive Patriots loss which would have brought the Bills even with them at 11-4. Down 11 points in the fourth quarter against the Ravens second-string quarterback, the Patriots stormed back with two touchdowns to seal the win and, although not mathematically just yet, clinch their first AFC division title since before COVID struck. Were they to lose to the Jets and the Dolphins over the next two weeks and if the Bills win out against the Eagles and Jets, the Patriots would then find themselves in a wildcard position. But that wildcard position, this season, will belong to the Bills who will aim to be the fifth seed, facing a trip to probably either Pittsburgh or Jacksonville in the wildcard round. The only shot they have at a final playoff game at Rich Stadium next month will be in the Divisional Round if all three wildcard teams, seeds five through seven, can win their wildcard games. The January 4^th game against the lowly New York Jets will almost for sure be the last game played at Rich Stadium after 53 seasons.

I found the Myles Garrett sack record chasing business to be an unnecessary distraction yesterday but I was relieved that Dion Dawkins was able to keep him in check. He did earn one half of one sack on a play where Josh Allen should have thrown the ball away but didn’t and ended up circling himself into falling down at the goal-line, hurting his right foot in the process. How the league ended up crediting Garrett and Alex Wright with a half-sack each I’m not really sure but he has now come within a half-sack of tying the season record set by Michael Strahan in 2001 and equaled by TJ Watt in 2021. Garrett has two games remaining to set a new single-season sack record but he had better do it next week against the Steelers to avoid the dreaded asterisk on account of the now 17-game season. Strahan posted his 22.5 sacks in a 16-game season while Watt had the luxury of an extra game which was added to the NFL schedule in 2021. The NFL officially began recording quarterback sacks in 1982. Before that, they were simply another kind of “tackle for loss”. Deacon Jones, who played from 1961 to 1974, might well hold the record had sacks been a statistical category when he played. I remember when the Bills signed high profile free agent edge rusher Mario Williams in 2012. His salary for that season was $16 million and, in the interests of symmetry, he recorded 16 sacks. But like the Cleveland Browns this year, the 2012 Bills were not a good team at all.

Up next for the Bills is a home date in the 4.25pm window next Sunday against the defending Superbowl champion Philadelphia Eagles who are coming off a decisive win in Washington on Saturday. The Eagles will win the NFC East division again but the road to the Superbowl on the NFC side of the draw looks like it will go through Seattle who managed a thrilling win on Thursday night over their division rival Los Angeles Rams. This the so-called “17^th game” for the Bills whose AFC East division was matched against the NFC South division this year. The Bills 2025 season consists of the standard six games against division opponents, four against the NFC South, four against the AFC North, two against last year’s AFC division winners from the AFC West and the AFC South (the Chiefs and the Texans) and this the 17^th game against the Eagles. The Bills are early 2.5-point favourites.

For those celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever else might be marked or observed at this time of year such as the pagan ritual of observing the winter solstice like I do, I wish everyone all the best.   

Bills 35, Patriots 31

As a keen follower of Buffalo Bills history and an observer of NFL football’s occasional symmetry, I must begin with a look-back to the events of September 25, 2011. In a game I attended, the Bills entered week three of that season, what would be their 12^th of 17 consecutive years finishing out of a playoff position, with a 2-0 record and the mighty New England Patriots visiting Orchard Park. After an opening touchdown by Wes Welker, native son Rob Gronkowski (he’s from Amherst) scored two touchdowns of his own to stake the Patriots to what seemed like an insurmountable 21-0 lead early in the second quarter. Game over. Probably. But quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, cornerback Drayton Florence and place-kicker Rian Lindell scripted an alternative narrative as the Bills stormed all the way back to a late lead on Florence’s interception of Tom Brady’s tipped pass which he returned for a touchdown. Brady then led his team to another touchdown to tie the game at 31. Fitzpatrick crafted his own game-winning drive which was capped by Lindell’s field goal as time expired for a 34-31 Bills win which sent Bills fans home in celebration with a 3-0 record and the prospect of a return to the playoffs. Shortly afterward, Fitzpatrick was rewarded with a lucrative contract extension as the Bills seemed set to revive their winning ways of 20 years earlier. They finished the season at 5-11 and Fitzpatrick was run out of town a year later.

To say that the Bills got off to a slow start yesterday in Foxborough would be like saying that the 2011 season didn’t play out as planned. With no first downs in the first quarter, they found themselves down by that familiar 21-0 score. “We’ve got them just where we want them” I said, recalling the game from 14 years earlier as the Bills did manage a score on a pass to James Cook before the Patriots got a late second quarter field goal to take a 24-7 lead into halftime. The Bills then stormed all the way back with three touchdowns to take a 28-24 lead before the teams traded touchdowns again which put the Bills up 35-31 in one of the best games in yesterday’s early window. Joey Bosa got a hand on Drake Maye’s final fourth down pass to seal the massive win for Buffalo. Dawson Knox had two touchdowns on the day to bring his career total to 26, passing Pete Metzelaars on the Bills all-time list for tight-ends. Cook had another big game with three touchdowns and over 100 yards rushing. Matt Milano whose impact seemed to have diminished this season, had a big game with two sacks.

Had the Bills lost yesterday, the issue of the role of replay assist would be top-of-mind this morning. On the Patriots first drive, Maye’s deep pass to Kayshon Boutte down the right sideline was allowed to stand while replay assist quickly nullified Josh Allen’s pass to the Brandon Cooks who could not tap his second foot down before going out of bounds. I don’t share the outrage as the replays of the Boutte pass did not clearly show that he may not have maintained control of the ball as he hit the ground. Replays of the Cooks pass did clearly show that it was incomplete and replay assist quickly corrected the call on the field. Easy for Monday morning quarterbacks to say but Sean McDermott should have used one of his challenges on the Boutte pass but he did not. CBS rules analyst and former NFL referee Gene Steratore said on the broadcast that the Boutte pass would probably have been ruled incomplete on review. On this Victory Monday morning, the point is moot.

I am a fan of one Greg Cossell, seasoned NFL analyst, senior producer at NFL Films and nephew of Howard Cossell. He appeared last week on the Colin Cowherd show previewing the Bills v Pats game. He told Cowherd that, in his learned opinion, the Bills do not have a particularly strong roster. The receiving corps is weak and there really is really no impact player on defence. Drafting near the bottom of the first round for the last five years may be catching up with the Bills, he said, and he was not confident that they could win against a motivated Patriots team seeking their first division title since 2019. Cowherd commented that beyond Josh Allen, “I don’t know what Buffalo is”. Well, Buffalo has proved over the last two weeks to be resilient, if nothing else. Is their roster skilled enough to carry them deep into the playoffs this season?  We will see.

Up next for the Patriots is a trip to Baltimore to face the Ravens who are battling the Steelers for a division title. Baltimore is an early 2.5 favourite and will present a significant challenge to the Patriots who may be feeling a small measure of self-doubt creeping in after posting ten straight wins before yesterday’s loss. A loss and a Bills win in Cleveland would pull the two teams even atop the AFC East at 11-4. The Patriots still hold the tie-breaker (after head-to-head where they’re also now tied) which for a division title is each team’s record within the division. The Patriots now stand at 3-1 against AFC East teams with games remaining against the Jets and Dolphins in weeks 17 and 18. The Bills stand at 3-2 and face the Jets at home in week 18.

The Bills travel west along the south shore of Lake Erie to face Shedeur Sanders and the Cleveland Browns. They are 10-point road favourites. Teams out of contention playing out the schedule can be dangerous and unpredictable and with nothing to lose, they can and often do pull out fake punts and other trick plays and generally take risks they wouldn’t take early in the season. The Bills would be well-advised to get off to a better start against the Browns than they have over the last two games – if only to save their fans another nerve-racking Sunday afternoon.        

Bills 39, Bengals 34

After yesterday’s wild game in Orchard Park, probably the third-last game to be played at Rich Stadium, Bills cornerback Christian Benford explained that the proper technique – which he obviously did not follow – is not to leave your feet when closing in on a quarterback who is about to throw the ball. But he jumped high enough to easily catch Joe Burrow’s attempted lob pass and scampered to the endzone with his second career touchdown in as many weeks. Along with last week’s scoop-and-score in Pittsburgh, each of Benford’s two touchdowns turned the game in the Bills favour. I’m really looking forward to his next four touchdowns against the Patriots, Browns, Eagles and Jets to close out the season with an even half-dozen touchdowns. They don’t call him Christian for nothing as he attributed his going off-script and leaving his feet to an act of God. Whoever was responsible for it - God, Burrow or Benford – it was a magical (Divine?) moment in this topsy-turvy Bills 2025 season.

As we watched the first half yesterday, I kept saying that the Bengals were just practicing on their first and second down plays from scrimmage. A running play here, an incomplete pass there or maybe a short completion for a few yards to set up a third-and-five – these were done only to set the Bengals up for where they would truly excel yesterday – on third down where they converted each of their first eight. They could have and should have made it nine if Burrow hadn’t overthrown a wide-open Tee Higgins on a scramble on third and 18. It felt like there was no way that the Bills would ever stop them on third down as the Bengals put together three long drives for touchdowns on their first three possessions and looked like they would cruise to an easy win as the Bills could only muster 11 points in the first half. Not until their 10^th third down attempt, on their final possession of the first half when it felt like they were about to go up 28-11, did the Bills pass rush finally cause Burrow to hurry a throw and miss out of bounds to force a punt and hold the lead at ten going into the break.

Once again trailing by ten in the fourth quarter, the magic (Divinity?) began for the Bills who reeled off 21 points in four-and-a-half minutes to take a 39-28 lead. Josh Allen started off the rally with a long touchdown run which was followed shortly afterward by Benford’s pick-six then on the Bengals next play from scrimmage, Jordan Phillips batted a pass which drifted easily into the arms of AJ Epenesa for another interception and the Bills then converted a fourth down attempt on the ensuing drive for another touchdown – this one to tight-end Jackson Hawes whose name makes him sound like a character from a Civil War era novel.

The game felt a lot like the season’s opening game, also at Rich Stadium, when the Bills made an unlikely comeback to stun the Ravens with the aid of a late fumble recovery. This season’s home schedule has now produced two such epic comebacks for the home team with two regular season chances remaining. Had the Bengals been able to hang on to the lead they enjoyed for most of the game, they would still be realistically alive in the AFC wildcard playoff race and the Bills would have finally been shutout of any chance at their sixth division title and the home playoff game(s) which go with it. While the Bengals remain mathematically alive with the best possible scenario having them finish 8-9 if they win out, they are likely done. The Bills still hold a mathematical chance at the division title but the programs which calculate such things put their chances of this at less than 10% as the Patriots will likely have a better division record, the first tie-breaker if they finish with the same win-loss record. But 10% means that there still is a chance, right?

Last week, I speculated that next week’s game in New England against the Patriots might be flexed out of the 1pm time slot to 4.25pm or maybe even to Sunday Night Football. The deadline for so doing came and went last Wednesday with no schedule changes so we are set for another early afternoon game next Sunday. I was quite surprised to see that the Bills have been installed as early 1.5-point favourites against the Patriots who have won ten straight games and will be coming off their bye week. If I were Mike Vrabel, I would be tempted to use this as a motivational tool. If the oddsmakers can’t see their way to favouring the Patriots, who beat the Bills in Buffalo earlier this season and sit at 11-2 with a chance to seal their first division title in six years for their home fans, what then is it going to take? The answer of course is a win over Buffalo at home on Sunday. I guess the Josh Allen factor is a major component in the setting of betting lines which, remember, are done not necessarily as a prediction of the game's outcome but to attract equal money on each team. Vegas likes big names and Josh Allen is one of the biggest in the NFL right now so on that level, the line does make some sense. The so-called “smart money” - bet in large amounts by professional gamblers – could and probably will come in on the Patriots which would move the line down towards a pick'em. Who knows? I just hope that the moment and the pressure will be too much for the Patriots and their young quarterback Drake Maye whose name sound like it comes from The Young and the Restless. I like the Bills in this game, 24-20.     

Bills 26, Steelers 7

As Stephen Brunt once said, you can put any football game of any kind on television and he’ll at least watch some of it. Even by that standard, that was a lot of American football over a four-day period: three NFL games on Thanksgiving Thursday enjoying their own time-slot, then another on Friday, then rivalry weekend in college football on Saturday then the slightly reduced slate of Sunday NFL games. By halftime in the Denver v. Washington game, I’d had enough football although when I checked the score in the night, part of me wished I had seen the dramatic and unsuccessful overtime two-point conversion attempt by Washington which gave the Broncos a one-point win and pulled them even with the Patriots at 10-2 as these two battle for the AFC’s number one playoff seed. But it really was a lot a football.

One thing that occurred to me after the first play from scrimmage of the second half of yesterday's game in Pittsburgh which featured a Joey Bosa blindside sack of Aaron Rodgers then a scoop-and-score by cornerback Christian Benford which propelled the Bills to what became a relatively easy win at Pittsburgh’s Acrisure Stadium was that as Mason Rudolph entered the game on the next play from scrimmage, it was not Rudolph who was sporting the red nose but rather it was Rodgers, who turns 42 tomorrow and looked old, hurt and defeated as he left the game clutching his lame left arm and with his nose bloodied by Bosa’s hit. I have never ever taken pleasure from an injury to any player but I will admit that when Rodgers went down on that play, my sympathy for him, for a few reasons, was ever-so-slightly less than it would have been for almost any other NFL player. To his credit, he returned to the game one series later but was just as ineffective as he had been earlier. If I were a Steelers fan, despite not posting a losing season in 20 years, the prospects at quarterback with Rodgers and the not-so-red-nosed Rudolph atop the depth chart are bleak at best. Add to that the expiring shelf-life of the very long-in-the-tooth (but still highly respected and for good reason) head coach Mike Tomlin, and Steelers Nation will be expecting, and will probably get, some big changes this off-season. The Steelers have only had three head coaches since 1969: Chuck Knoll, Bill Cowher and Tomlin. Looks like its time for a reset in Pittsburgh. The boos were loud and Tomlin, the Steelers head coach since 2007, acknowledged them afterward. He and Bills coach Sean McDermott were teammates at the College of William and Mary and share a close friendship. Tomlin is a class act but I’d say his time is done.

As for the Bills and their offensive mindset going into yesterday’s game, they obviously committed to the run and they certainly stuck with it. How many times did we hear Tony Romo on the CBS broadcast ask how many times the Bills were going to run the same simple rushing play with James Cook? Although there wasn’t much to show for it in the first half, they certainly did not waiver from the plan and the box score shows that it ended up working very well indeed. Cook ran for 144 yards on 32 carries, Ray Davis had nine carries for 62 yards, Ty Johnson had five yards on two carries and Josh Allen added 38 yards on eight carries. All told, the rushing effort added up to 249 of the Bills 372 total yards – the most the Steelers have ever given up at Acrisure Stadium (which opened in 2001) and the most they have allowed at home in 50 years. Keon Coleman, who will be chairing a series of team and community meetings this week, returned to the lineup and caught two balls on three targets with a touchdown. The team’s leader in the passing game yesterday was none other than James Cook with three catches for 33 yards. Cook continues to prove that he is, as Bill Cowher pointed out, the second-best player on the team.

Saturday’s big game at the Big House in Ann Arbor did not live up to its billing as the continuation of what ESPN has called the greatest rivalry in American sports. The Wolverines came into the game - known as “The Game”- as the 15^th ranked team nationally and a win over undefeated and top-ranked Ohio State probably would have propelled them into the 12-team college football playoff but the 121^st meeting between these powerhouse programs was not close with the Buckeyes winning 27-9, a score which flattered the Wolverines and sent their 112,000 fans home disappointed. This rivalry dates back to 1897 with the Wolverines and Buckeyes meeting every season since except for 1918 (because of WW 1) and 2020 (because of COVID). Michigan leads the all-time series 62-53 with six ties.

Up next for the Bills is a home game against the Cincinnati Bengals which was originally scheduled to be a featured 4.25pm game for FOX but was flexed last week to a less prominent 1pm start as the Bengals are not one of the top teams in the AFC as they were expected to be. But they do have Joe Burrow back and he led his team to a big win in the Thanksgiving night game in Baltimore. The Bills have struggled against Cincinnati in the Josh Allen era and with the Bengals having four extra days to prepare and with only a highly unlikely outside shot at a wildcard spot, they will present a real challenge on Sunday in Orchard Park.

Joey Bosa, who has bucked his injury-prone reputation so far this season, left the game in the second half with an undetermined hamstring injury. He was seen walking normally afterward so he may be available against the Bengals but hamstring injuries – just ask Dalton Kinkaid – can linger and usually need a week or two. Thankfully, the Bills came away from yesterday’s game with no other injuries that we know of.

As a side note, looking ahead to the Bills big rematch with the Patriots in Foxboro the following week, the game is currently scheduled to be a 1pm start but (this is pure speculation on my part) it seems likely that it will be flexed to 4.25pm or possibly to the Sunday night game which is currently scheduled to be Minnesota at Dallas.