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.