Earlier this month, after the Bills had won in Dallas on Thanksgiving Day, my friend Paul and I concocted what we thought would turn out to be a brilliant scheme. We decided to go all-in on the Bills final game of the season in Orchard Park against the New York Jets. He bought two lower bowl seats as Christmas gifts for his two sons and, with he and I using my seats, the four of us would witness a critically important game with complex playoff seeding implications for the Bills and for the other AFC teams jockeying for one of the six positions in the post-season tournament and/or for the admittedly remote possibility of securing a home playoff game and and the even-more-remote shot at one of the top two seeds which carries with it the advantage of a first round bye. Like a rookie quarterback trying to decipher a Bill Belichick defensive formation, we mis-read it. We were sacked, we fumbled and the fumble was easily returned for a touchdown. Did we lose the game? Well, like Sunday's upcoming regular season finale against the Jets, does it matter at all?
After the Thanksgiving win in Dallas, the Bills chances at their first division title since 1995 went from slim to almost none over the course of the next three weeks, even after the Patriots lost consecutive games to the Texans and the Chiefs and the Bills posted a big prime time win last week in Pittsburgh. Going into Saturday's game in Foxborough, the Bills had to win and then hope for a week 17 miracle in the form of a Dolphins win - also in Foxborough - while they took care of business against the Jets. The Bills, we figured, would leave their starters in against the Jets at least until the out-of-town scoreboard showed the Patriots with a big lead over the Dolphins. The possibility of something really big would exist for the first half anyway, we figured. This was all dependent on the Bills winning in Foxborough on Saturday. And they did not.
They came pretty close though and, although Sean McDermott doesn't subscribe to the theory of moral victories, the Bills showed, for the second time this season, that they can hold their own against their nemesis. As happened in their week 4 game against the Patriots in Orchard Park, the Bills came within one successful drive of tying the game. In week 4, after Josh Allen left the game with a concussion, Matt Barkley was overwhelmed by the Patriots defence on the Bills final drive and on Saturday, after leading the team all the way down to the 8 yard line in the final minutes, Allen couldn't overcome the Patriots pass rush when it mattered most and they came up empty on 4 consecutive tries for the tying touchdown.
So, locked into the 5th seed and awaiting a road game in either Kansas City or Houston (other remote possibilities of where they might play do exist - including going back to Foxborough), the December 29th game against the Jets is in effect the Bills bye week - and a well-earned one at that, after 4 consecutive weeks of high-pressure games against quality opposition. They can not change the fact that they will be the 5th seeded wild card team playing on the road on either January 4th or 5th. Unfortunately for those of us planning on going to the game, it is actually less important to the Bills than a pre-season game would be. At least pre-season games always carry elements of player evaluation and offer those players "on the bubble" the opportunity to move up the depth chart in the hopes of making the final roster of 53. But this game will largely be an exercise in avoiding injury while giving some real-time reps to the back-up position players. As for the Jets, their season was lost many weeks ago but as Bill Parcells said many years ago, "anyone who thinks that any NFL regular season game means nothing doesn't know what they're talking about." The Jets players and coaching staff will be motivated to secure jobs and contracts for next season and beyond by posting either their 7th win of the season after a win yesterday against the Steelers. The Bills will rightly be looking ahead to their playoff game, deploying nothing more than a vanilla game plan designed to reveal nothing for their playoff opponent to study.
We will make the drive anyway, immerse ourselves in the pre-game tailgate festivities and probably leave early to beat the traffic, get home at a reasonable time and prepare for New Year's Eve.
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