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.