Broncos 24, Bills 17

This game was not nearly as close as the score would imply. Despite a solid defensive effort which ended Payton Manning's streak of 51 consecutive games with at least one touchdown pass, the Bills fell rather easily to the Broncos who ran for three touchdowns and were never really in danger of losing this game. They built a 24-3 third quarter lead before simply letting the Bills run out the clock and score a couple of late touchdowns in the process.

Kyle Orton returned to Denver where he famously lost his starting job to Tim Tebow at the end of the 2011 season. That led one Denver sports writer at the time to create an amusing headline to describe Orton's performance: "Orton hears a boo". He might have heard more boos had the game been played in Buffalo as he did what he had done a good job of not doing so far this season: throwing interceptions. For his part, Payton Manning did not have a great day throwing the ball either but the Broncos earned the win with their defence and running game - two things that the Bills were also expected to rely on as the season began.

The AFC playoff picture is no more clear than it was a week ago, There are now three teams at 8-5 (and two of them are likely to earn playoff spots) and five teams at 7-6, including the Bills. With three games remaining and two of them against the two teams favoured to earn Superbowl births in Green Bay and New England, Buffalo's playoff hopes are now dead. Even the winnable looking trip the Black Hole in Oakland looks a little less winnable now after the Raiders took care of the 49ers there yesterday. Even an 8-8 season looks tough now.

I felt sorry for the Cleveland Browns and their fans yesterday. Losing their game by one point to the Colts dropped them to 7-6 and reduced their playoff hopes to slim at best. As I nursed a hangover from a rockin' house party the night before (thanks Jen and Martin), I watched the Browns dominate the Colts for most of the game and I ended up missing a good portion of the first quarter of the Bills game because I stuck with the Browns until the bitter end. Despite both the Bills and the Browns losing yesterday, this morning I feel hangover free and fantastic.

I wrote an article about my experience working on the Toronto election and it was published in the December issue of True North Perspective. Here is the link. My account may represent one of the final impacts that the Fords have had on Toronto politics and it was almost as chaotic and crazy as any of the others. I recently saw Robyn Doolittle speak and I'm now about halfway through her account of the Ford story called Crazy Town.