Bills 35, Rams 32

I am convinced that Josh Allen awoke yesterday morning with an unwavering determination to be the deciding factor in the afternoon game against the Los Angeles Rams at Bills Stadium in Orchard Park. He must have decided that, either way, win or lose, however it all turns out by around 4pm, that the final score in the game was to be because of his play between the lines. Speaking of lines, Allen is able, like no other quarterback I have seen, to straddle the line between brilliant and reckless. This season, he has clearly stepped up the brilliance but, true to form, just when Bills fans sense that he may have moved away from his reckless tendencies, he plants a foot on the reckless side of the line. Then another foot. And another. It seems that its just who he is. 

NFL rewind on the NFL Network replays the most exciting games from the previous Sunday over the course of the following week. There were some good ones to choose from yesterday (Cowboys v Seahawks, Packers v. Saints) but I think that the tilt between the Rams and Bills will make its way on to the NFL Network prime time schedule this coming week. There was obviously no other game yesterday which featured (1) the winning quarterback taking a face-masking penalty and then an unsportmanlike conduct penalty on what was the winning drive, (2) the losing team piling up 28 first downs and 478 yards of offence, or (3) an "interception" (Allen's first and only one this season through three games) where the receiver (Bills tight end Tyler Kroft) clearly makes the catch, has possession as he goes to the ground, then ends up in a situation which would be ruled a "jump ball" in basketball. FOX NFL rules analyst Mike Pereira disagreed with the ruling which was then upheld on review. Later, he agreed with what looked to be a questionable defensive pass interference call against the Rams which set up the Bills winning touchdown.  

I had the pleasure of attending what is known in Buffalo as "The Comeback Game" in January of 1993 when the Bills erased a 35-3 deficit and came back to win a playoff game against the Houston Oilers. I was thinking about that game as the Bills built a lead almost as lop-sided as the Oilers had and then, like the Oilers did on that January day 27 years ago, blew it and found themselves trailing late in the fourth quarter. Unlike the 1993 Oilers, Josh Allen and the Bills were able to generate one more touchdown to eek out the win before an audience of trainers and coaches in an otherwise empty Bills stadium. We almost left the game early in the second half in 1993 but agreed to stick it out until the end of the third quarter. Thousands of others didn't. No one needed to worry about that yesterday.

For casual sports fans, the rules of football can be baffling. I consider myself to be much more than a casual fan but yesterday, I found myself baffled by the non-call on what was clearly a horse-collar tackle on Josh Allen. He was obviously baffled too as he took that unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in reaction to it. FOX commentator and former quarterback Brock Huard pointed out on the broadcast that the horse-collar tackle rule excludes this particular tackle against a quarterback in the pocket. At the time, I made a mental note to look that up because it made no sense. It still makes no sense to me but I did look it up and Huard is correct: the rule does not apply to a runner in the tackle box or to a quarterback in the pocket. I can not think of why.

Speaking of FOX, I was amused by the promotion of the first presidential debate which is scheduled for tomorrow (Tuesday). The debate was promoted like a heavy-weight boxing match and will be moderated by FOX's Chris Wallace who was referred to on the promotion as America's best journalist. As the son of the famous Mike Wallace, he clearly has solid pedigree and is the only FOX News personality I can think of with legitimate journalistic integrity. I read some analysis recently which suggested that the televised debates, while they generate large viewing audiences, do not move the needle very much in terms of swaying voters; rather, they are mostly watched by those who are already firmly planted in their red or blue corners. Sort of like when I watch a Bills game. I am rooting for my team to win. No matter how well the opposing team plays, or how poorly mine does, there is zero chance that I will switch allegiance to the other team because of what happens in the game. Move over Malcolm Gladwell. My mind is made up.  

Bills 31, Dolphins 28

I wrote about Ryan Fitzpatrick in this space last season and I'm going to do that again now because his NFL career continues to be equal parts remarkable and enduring. This is Fitzpatrick's 16th season in the league after being picked by the St. Louis Rams in the seventh round of the 2005 NFL draft. He was the 250th overall pick and the last of 14 quarterbacks to be drafted that year. He signed with his eighth NFL team - the Miami Dolphins - in March of 2019.

When partnered with Chan Gailey, the current offensive co-ordinator of the Dolphins, Fitz seems to be at his best. The partnership has three chapters: first in Buffalo from 2010 to 2012 where Fitzpatrick was the starting quarterback and Gailey the head coach, second with the Jets in 2015 and 2016 where Gailey was offensive co-ordinator and now in 2020, after Gailey had been out of the league for three entire seasons, they are re-united. Gailey has a long track record as an effective play-caller who designs offences according to the strengths of the personnel at hand, rather than according to a particular philosophy. CBS NFL colour commentator Adam Archuleta reported that Gailey was quite surprised to receive a call from Dolphins head coach Brian Flores early this year to canvass his interest in the job he now holds.  

The partnership between these two obviously works quite well. But not well enough to achieve real success. Together, they have never really come close to the playoffs, nor have they ever even enjoyed a winning record together in any particular season. Fitzpatrick seems to bounce around amongst the league's bottom feeders while Gailey has had two unsuccessful stints as an NFL head coach along with his long tenure as a co-ordinator. Fitzpatrick has always been able to lead teams to the threshold of important wins but usually falls just short. His trademark has unfortunately often been a critical and devastating late-game interception to seal defeat. While he doesn't produce wins, he comes agonizingly close. Like yesterday. Predictably, the Fitzmagic did not carry through to success with the on-side kick his team needed after a late touchdown which brought them to within a field goal of the Bills. But the Dolphins, with Gailey and Fitzpatrick, are now 0-2 and likely headed for another high draft pick in the spring. 

Through two games this season, Josh Allen has more than 700 passing yards, 6 touchdown passes and no interceptions. In year three, it seems like he has made the big step forward that Bills fans were hoping for. Move over JP Losman, Trent Edwards, EJ Manuel, Tyrod Taylor and Nathan Peterman. Allen has now established himself as the best quarterback to suit up for the Bills since Jim Kelly who retired after the 1996 season. Yes it helps that he has a receiving core which looks to be one of the better ones in the league and the team's opponents through two weeks will probably each finish the season with lopsided losing records and both may have top-five draft picks in 2021. But Allen looks confident, is making much better decisions and has improved his throwing accuracy - something which the pundits who panned his high pick in the 2018 draft said couldn't be coached.

A much tougher test comes this week when the Los Angeles Rams come to the empty confines of what is now called Bills Stadium (after New Era negotiated its way out of a long term naming agreement). The Rams are 2-0 after a close home win over the Cowboys and an decisive performance yesterday in Philadelphia. Quarterback Jared Goff looks to be playing at his 2018 level which was good enough for a trip to the Superbowl (Saints fans may disagree) that season. The two teams have met only 12 times with the Bills holding a 7-5 margin. The last time the Rams came to Orchard Park was in 2012 when they pulled out a 15-12 win. Buffalo won 30-19 in Los Angeles in 2016.

The "attendance" at yesterday's game in South Florida was listed as slightly more than 11,000 but it looked to me that there were really only about 4-5,000 people in the stadium. The weather, which caused a near 40 minute game delay, could have kept some away. The health risk of attending a live sporting event in Florida may have done so too. Whether games are played before no fans or only a few fans seems almost irrelevant through two weeks of NFL play. Television ratings are strong and the games I have seen have been entertaining. Pandemic or not, the NFL is unstoppable. But then we always knew that.          

  

      

Bills 27, Jets 17

Seems like 2020 has been tough for just about everyone. My dad died in the early hours of March 7th and before that, I had been focused on matters related to his illness and hospitalization and, in the days after his death, on comforting my grieving mother. I was driving somewhere in St. Catharines on Wednesday March 11th when I heard the news that the NCAA had announced that its men's and women's basketball tournaments would proceed but without fans in attendance. It was the moment when I finally realized the potential reach of the pandemic which we were all about to experience. No fans in the stands for one of the biggest North American sports events on the calendar? I couldn't imagine it. Since the three games of the men's Final Four are played in a domed football stadium, viewers would see a backdrop of 70,000 empty seats? It sounded surreal. 

The very next day, the tournaments were cancelled completely. And then the NHL and NBA seasons along with MLB training camps were suspended as well. The WHO had officially declared a pandemic and professional sports around the world ground to a halt. I didn't make sourdough like I was supposed to but I did isolate at the cottage through the spring, making weekly trips to St. Catharines on luxuriously empty roads. We got an internet dish at the cottage and, to replace the sports we would have watched, we binged all five seasons of Breaking Bad and all three seasons of Ozark. To change things up, we have now seen almost all of the first season of Fleabag. I did slowly come back to hockey and basketball when they resumed "bubble" play and got fully engaged with the Raptors seven game series against the Celtics which ended last week. The Blue Jays are having success too and I've been watching a bit.

But I was not terribly confident that the NFL would be able to pull off a season. With the sheer number of people needed to support an NFL team - multiplied by 32 - it seemed very likely that infections would sabotage the season before it even began. That's why the most impressive statistic I heard on the weekend was that of the more than 5,000 Covid tests administered to NFL players, team personnel and game-day stadium staff on Saturday, there were exactly zero positive tests. With 16 weeks of play plus playoffs still to come, there is plenty of opportunity for the NFL season to find its way off the rails but with week one almost complete as of this Monday morning, I am encouraged. 

If this were a "normal" year, I would have been so fired up about the Bills prospects for the upcoming season that I would have needed a sleep aid on Saturday night. About six weeks ago, the Bills offered season ticket holders a full refund on 2020 tickets which were paid for (in my case) in March. We were of course urged to leave the funds on account with the Bills for 2021 and if we did, we would qualify for extra swag, free subscriptions to I'm not sure what and, maybe most importantly, an option on game tickets in the event that a limited number of fans could attend home games later in the 2020 season. So that's what I did. If fans are permitted for later home games and if I am offered tickets and if the border is opened, I still might not go. We'll see. Before the game yesterday, a reporter tweeted that there were "plenty of good seats still available". Indeed.

As for yesterday's game, I thought that it looked good on TV. Pretty close to normal. The actual play between the lines looked just as competitive as ever with the stands at Bills Stadium empty. Same for the bits of live action and highlights from other games around the league. Some stadiums are allowing fans but most are not. My sense is that this will end up making less difference than I would have predicted. The rules around piped-in noise in stadiums seem odd with a decibel cap of 70 which is well below normal noise levels in places like Buffalo, Seattle and New Orleans. 

The Bills were in complete control of the game yesterday despite the relatively close looking score. Next week, they will play before about 15,000 fans in Miami. Why the City of Miami and/or the State of Florida is allowing fans at all is a bit of a mystery to me but the same number were allowed in Kansas City on Thursday.