It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - at least it is where I am now. It's early morning on Christmas Eve - a few minutes after 6am - here on Clear Lake in eastern Muskoka. It's still dark but about 5cm of fresh snow fell through the night, pretty much ensuring a white Christmas. I arrived early yesterday morning to find a thin layer of crusty frozen snow and ice on the ground from the rain which fell on Friday. But I also found good skating conditions on the lake. The ice is about six inches thick so I donned my life jacket and a length of rope, wished myself good luck and set out on the blades. I stayed close to shore and had no issues. There are few activities as satisfying as skating on a frozen lake and I'm happy to have had an early season chance at it. Today I will cross country ski. But not before I make another batch of my Christmas jam. This year, it is apple / pineapple. The first batch turned out ok but I need to extend the cooking a bit to get it to the proper set point.
After skating, I settled in to watch the Bills take on the Patriots in Foxborough with a chance to deny them their 10th consecutive AFC East division title. It wasn't to be. Throughout the week, I was following the evolving point spread for the game which started and ended at 13.5 points. Early in the week, money came in on the Bills (for some reason) which pushed the spread down to 12 but, when the so-called "sharp money" came in late in the week, the 13.5 point spread was restored. For those who took the points and the Bills, you made the right call as they covered the spread by losing by only 12. And that included a missed field goal and a botched extra point which would have reduced the margin to 8 points.
The Patriots usually come up with game plans which serve them well against particular opponents and yesterday was no exception as they decided that they would run the ball against the Bills highly rated pass defence. And run the ball they did, piling up 273 yards on the ground and dominating the line of scrimmage and the time of possession. The Bills managed only 72 yards rushing. LeSean McCoy had 6 carries for 9 yards and looked so slow that he earns his second Vontae Davis Halftime Retirement Award in 3 weeks. Tom Brady needed only 117 passing yards, compared to Josh Allen's respectable looking 289 yards. Both threw two interceptions and each team fumbled the ball away once. Though the score never got out of hand, the game never felt like one where the result was in question.
If a win wasn't in the cards yesterday, Bills fans were hoping to see more positive development from Josh Allen. I would characterize his progress as steady but slow. He was unable to run the way we have seen over the past few weeks (probably a good thing) but I was hoping to see more improvement in his passing and I'm not sure I saw that yesterday. His arm strength is obviously impressive and serves him very well on deep balls and on broken plays or instances where he escapes the pocket and has more time to throw down the field but he still lacks the requisite touch on some of the mid-range throws which NFL quarterbacks need to make. I can't tell whether it looks like he will be able to improve enough on those throws to be the 10 year franchise quarterback we all hope he will be.
Around the league yesterday, the Saints locked up home field through the NFC playoffs with a big win over the Steelers who are likely out of the playoffs. In the AFC, things are more complicated but the Chiefs and Chargers could each still claim the number one seed.
The Bills face the Dolphins in Orchard Park on Sunday. Both teams have been eliminated and if the weather is foul, the stands will be sparsely occupied.
Hoping that everyone who wants to has a Merry Christmas and safe travels. The photo was taken above the village of Pheriche, Nepal (4,700 metres above sea level) which is about a day's walk from Mount Everest Base Camp.
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