Bills 33, Patriots 21

I watched all three-and-a-half minutes of Bill Belichick's post-game press conference after yesterday's home loss to the Buffalo Bills. There is no chance that he would even consider doing these if the league didn't require him to and he is notoriously brief in his remarks and answers after losses. One reporter who was somehow allocated a question yesterday explained to him that she was working on a piece on New Year's resolutions and then asked if he had any to share with her readers. "Not right now. Maybe next week." was all she got - and maybe all she deserved in the circumstances. It almost seemed like her goal was to get him to answer rudely, thereby giving her a possible viral clip to share with her grandchildren decades down the road. Belichick said that Buffalo made more plays than his team did, executed better and were coached better. I'll add that they had the far better quarterback too. 

If the slate of week 16 games weren't played against the backdrop of the growing list of COVID casualties around the league, the Bills win yesterday at Foxborough would rank among the most significant regular season road wins in recent franchise history. Not that COVID took away from the importance of the win or that it sidelined many players from either team (as it did with some other teams) but this coming week might be a tough one for the NFL in terms of keeping its star players out of COVID protocols and on the field. If any league can pull it off, its the NFL but if it suffers anywhere near the same level of disruption as the NHL or the NBA, the quality of the product on the field will be called into question just as the season reaches its most critical period. I watched a few minutes of the Raptors game at Cleveland yesterday and couldn't help thinking that if I were a Cavs season ticket holder paying good money to see my team take on a ragtag group of D-Leaguers in Toronto uniforms, I would have asked for a refund. Maybe the NFL needs to isolate its players; maybe its new policy of not testing vaccinated non-symptomatic players will reduce casualties; maybe fans won't care who is wearing their team's helmets as long as they get their football. We'll see what happens but it might get ugly.

Three weeks ago, Isaiah "William Lyon" McKenzie was a healthy scratch against the Patriots on that windy night in Orchard Park. The sometime kick returner and occasionally used receiver, listed at five feet, seven-and-a-half inches, was drafted by the Broncos in the fifth round of the 2017 draft from the Georgia Bulldogs (who play Michigan on Friday night for a chance at the National Championship Game). The Bills claimed him on waivers mid-way through the 2018 season from Denver and, other than returning kicks, have used him effectively on power sweeps once or twice each game he dresses. Yesterday was by far the best day of his pro career as his 11 catches for 125 yards included a couple of acrobatic grabs and some valuable yardage afterward. He is a likeable guy too and I was very happy for him. 

As good as MacKenzie was yesterday, Josh Allen was the best player on the field for either team. Allen was 30 of 47 passing for 314 yards, three touchdowns (and another two sure touchdown passes were dropped) and no interceptions. He also ran for 64 yards which led the team. He was a force in every way and is clearly one of the top quarterbacks in the league. He's come a long way from Firebaugh, CA to the University of Wyoming to Buffalo, a town he now owns. 

We often see professional athletes doing charitable work - visiting children's cancer hospitals, food banks and shelters - and these are usually media events arranged by their teams and/or agents mostly for public relations purposes. On Christmas Eve, Stefon Diggs went to a MacDonalds drive-through in suburban Buffalo and decided to give $200 to each employee working there that night. The story was picked up because one of the lucky employees let someone in the media know about it and then it was widely circulated as a national wire story. I can't confirm this but as far as I can tell, Diggs did this on his own without planning any publicity around it. That's a nice Christmas story for me.

Now that the Bills control their own destiny in terms of winning the AFC East, they have two January home games to win, starting with the Altanta Falcons on Sunday. The Falcons have not been to Orchard Park since 2005 as the 2013 game, in which Matt Ryan led them to a come-back win, was the sixth and final game of the ill-fated Toronto series. I was at the sleepy Rogers Centre that day and thought it was a fitting way to end it.      

Bills 31, Panthers 14

When we learned moments before kick-off yesterday that the Carolina Panthers placekicker Zane Gonzales was injured in the warm-up and would not play, The FOX broadcast showed punter Lachlan Edwards nervously playing catch on the sidelines. He was probably the best of a few bad options as the Panthers held an emergency placekicking job fair minutes before kick-off with no one showing any game-worthy ability. To the great relief of Edwards, an Australian, the Panthers chose not to try a kick at all, going for a two-point convert on each of their two touchdowns and never lining up for a field goal even when well within in easy range. How much of a factor this was in the end? I'll say not as much as the FOX crew of Kenny Albert and Jonathan Vilma thought it was anyway. A healthy and competent kicker would have kept the Panthers a bit closer but the Bills were going to win this game one way or another.

On the FOX halftime show, Jimmy Johnson commented that the Buffalo Bills, a consensus Superbowl contender early in the season, are inconsistent in all three phases of the game and can not be trusted. I know what he means. I really was hoping for a more emphatic and dominant performance yesterday in Orchard Park, especially early in the game, but as Dick Jauron used to like to say, "It's hard to win in the NFL" and any win, any way is all you can hope for each week I guess. This season has felt like we are on a perpetual search for evidence to justify the lofty pre-season expectations and, as Jimmy Johnson said, sometimes we see glimpses of it but not often enough and not consistently.

Late in the season as we now are, big games usually lead to even bigger games. Sunday's week 16 game in Foxborough, MA is very big for both the Patriots and the Bills. A New England win would virtually guarantee them the division title and a Bills win would move them into the driver's seat, holding the tie-breaker with the Patriots. The tie-breaker for a division title between two division teams is: first, head-to-head games (where they would be tied at a game each if the Bills win on Sunday) then each team's record in games played within the division. If the Bills win Sunday then if both teams win their remaining two games, the Bills win the tie-breaker on this basis. This seems a likely scenario as the Patriots week 17 and week 18 games are against the Jaguars and at Miami while the Bills play at home against the Falcons and Jets. It all rests on next week's game. Yes, Boxing Day 2021 will probably decide who wins the AFC East and offer the Bills another perfect opportunity to re-establish themselves as a contender in the AFC. If the COVID Omicron variant doesn't derail them or derail the remainder of the NFL season.

With well over 100 players testing positive last week, the NFL found a way to re-schedule games to complete the week's schedule with two games tonight (Monday) and another two tomorrow. Thanks to COVID, Tuesday Night Football returns in 2021 with two games, both on FOX at 7pm Eastern. I can't help thinking that these won't be the last changes to the schedule over the next few weeks. The NBA and the NHL have similar problems with postponed games and some teams shut down for 10 or more days. 

I was lucky to have procured my third vaccine dose last week and I have ditched my Bills-branded cloth mask and switched to wearing a KN95 mask at all times when I'm not home. With my third shot five days ago, a good well-fitting mask and a cottage to retreat to, I am cautiously optimistic about my own ability to avoid the virus but I fear that, with COVID weariness turning to COVID exhaustion - particularly in the US  - this might get away from us in a hurry. Maybe I'm just feeling the effects of not eating for the last 36 hours as I have a colonoscopy set for noon today. 

For those who want to have one, I'll wish them a Merry Christmas. And for Boxing Day, more than ever, I will say Go Bills!   

      

Buccaneers 33, Bills 27

After watching the ESPN documentary "The Four Falls of Buffalo" a few weeks ago, a friend suggested to me that surely I would have found it better to not have had my team make it to four consecutive Superbowls than it was to have done this and then gone on to lose each and every one of them. He figured that the pain of the losses must have exceeded the joy of making it to those championship games in the first place. For me, it didn't. The way I look at it is that the ultimate achievement for an NFL team as each season begins is to win the Superbowl. It follows therefore that the second-best achievement must then be to lose the Superbowl. Believe me, the thrill of winning those conference championship games, each of which preceded two weeks of analysis, hype and anticipation, far outweighed the disappointment of losing the final games. Think about it: would you rather have your team lose a game to avoid the let-down of possibly losing the next game? Of course not. 

Yesterday's game in Tampa reminded me of this and provided the same somewhat conflicted emotion. With the Bills trailing 24-3 at halftime and then 27-10 with just over 11 minutes remaining in the game, they looked to be dead in the warm salty waters of Tampa Bay. Would I have preferred that they simply went on to lose 34-10 rather than staging a thrilling comeback and forcing overtime before going on to lose on Tom Brady's 700th career touchdown pass? No. And for a couple of reasons: first, as a spectator, the game went from brutal to hopeful to fantastic and then finally ended on the wrong side of the ledger - all of which is better than it being brutal all the way through. Second, as difficult as it was to have lost the game after storming back to tie it, the team can take something positive from it as they prepare for the last four games of the regular season. If they had rolled over and lost 34-10, how would they be feeling this morning? I'm sure that local naysayer journalist Jerry Sullivan would be claiming that McDermott has "lost the room" and that his "process" has now been proven to be faulty. It may still be but the season isn't lost yet. Three of the last four games come against teams with losing records with the fourth being in New England on Boxing Day. 

In three-down football, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers won their first Grey Cup in 30 years two years ago and have managed to remain at the top of the CFL throughout the missed COVID year and through to last night in the Hammer where they won in overtime. Good for them and good for Winnipeg. As we've been saying for about the last 40 years, the league really has to try to attract some younger fans. I have no idea how they might do this but if they don't, we'll be saying the same thing 40 years from now. I'll be 99. I wonder how many fans the Argos will be averaging in 2061.

In US College Football, as we await the two national semi-final games on New Year's Eve, the first of the litany of bowl games kicks off on Friday in Nassau. The University of Buffalo Bulls will unfortunately not have a chance to defend their Bahamas Bowl title. The winner will be either heavily favoured Toledo or Middle Tennessee. I wonder if fans of Middle Tennessee wish that their team hadn't made it to this bowl game. After all, they could easily lose. On Saturday, Navy beat Army in the 122nd meeting between the Black Knights and the Midshipmen. 

Next up for the Bills is a home date with the 5-8 Carolina Panthers. I predict that they will blow them out and, in the process, regain their confidence and general mojo. They find themselves on the outside of the AFC playoff picture this morning at 7-6, a game behind the Los Angeles Chargers who occupy the 7th and final spot. With their relatively easy schedule (with the exception of the re-match with the Patriots) over the last four games, I still like their chances to make the playoffs. With the division title seemingly now out of reach, if they do make it, they will be playing on the road and could easily be one of those teams whose record looks worse than they actually are and who no one wants to play. After all, this team, which arguably has improved from last season (on defence anyway), went to the AFC Championship Game a year ago. And, yes, I wish that they had won it and gone on to lose the Superbowl to Tampa Bay.            

Patriots 14, Bills 10

November 11, 1990. Bills v. Phoenix Cardinals. This is considered the windiest game ever played at the now almost 50-year-old football stadium in Orchard Park. Cold with bitter wind gusts and snow squalls literally blew the Cardinals away as the Bills improved to 8-1 on their way to their first of four Superbowls. I was there. In the upper deck. 

Last night was windy but not as bad as that Cardinals game. The Patriots were able to run the ball very effectively and the Bills were not. Simple as that as I see it. Now that the Bills have taken the long and much more difficult road to the NFL playoffs by practically ceding the division title last night to the Patriots, the high expectations with which they entered this season have now been officially grounded. A wildcard spot and a road playoff game are probably the best the team can hope for now and that will be difficult too with the logjam that is the AFC playoff race. 

The game was close. Two trips to the red zone in the 4th quarter, into the wind, and they came away with no points. As with any close game, there were a few plays made (and not made) which could have changed the outcome but if I had to pick one, it would be the Damien Harris 64 yard touchdown run into the wind in the first quarter - followed by a two-point convert. Matt Jones threw the ball only three times. THREE TIMES! The Bills also tried the ground game which the weather conditions called for but abandoned it in the fourth quarter and came quite close to getting what could have been the winning touchdown but the Patriots strong redzone defence prevailed. For the 1990 Cardinals game, I'm glad I was there. For this one, I'm quite happy to have watched the game in comfort while tending my woodstove.    

We're now down to the final game of three-down football with the 108th Grey Cup set for Tim Horton's Field in Hamilton on Sunday. The game is expected to be a sell-out but, with the stadium having a seating capacity of only 23,000, that isn't saying much. State Championship high school games in the US regularly draw more than that. But the East and West championship games were relatively well attended. I had to dig to find the attendance numbers but finally did. The Argos, with plenty of help from fans coming up the QEW from Hamilton, broke the 20,000 mark (attendance was 21,492) for the first time this season after averaging just 8,600 in the regular season. In Winnipeg, the Bombers drew just over 31,000 which was about 2,000 short of a sell-out. Not bad overall considering that the league did not play a single down in 2020. In Laval, the Vanier Cup drew only 5,600 in minus 11 weather. Not too surprising that few in the Montreal area would come out to see the Western Mustangs, a team from London, ON, play against the Regina-based Saskatchewan Huskies. Western won its 8th Championship which is second only to the Laval Rouge et Or with 10. 

A recent survey of Canadian sports fans asked them, among other things, how they viewed the possibility of the NFL coming to Canada. 55% did not feel strongly about it either way but a surprising percentage (to me anyway) were in favour of it only if the CFL survived as well. Nationally, about 21% of us say that we follow the CFL - almost exactly the same number as those who say that they follow the NFL. The main point of differentiation (not surprisingly) is that CFL fans skew considerably to the 55+ age group. Hockey and the NHL lead the way with 38% saying that they follow it. The Grey Cup has always been a big television draw in Canada with audiences often topping four million. This year's game will probably fall short of that number but I'll be tuning in for at least some of it. Kick-off is at 6pm but the Bills play at Tampa at 4.25pm so I'll likely not see much of the first half. I continue to feel a sentimental attachment to the CFL which is largely based on my dad's life-long interest in it and his support of the Argos. Before he died, on any summer or fall afternoon, if I turned on the television and told him that there was a CFL game on, he would sit down and watch it with me. Because of my keen interest, he became a Bills fan of sorts but he never cared much for American football. He loved the joke about the "Argo play book" which consisted of only three plays: a first down run for two yards, a second down incomplete pass and a third down punt. 

Having attended one game at the Big House in 2003 (along with 112,000 others), I have since been a casual to semi-serious fan of the Michigan Wolverines. With 24 years having passed since its last National Championship, the Jim Harbaugh coached team has made it to the four-team playoff for the first time since the format began in 2014. They will face the Georgia Bulldogs on New Year's Eve in the Orange Bowl with a chance to face the winner of the Alabama v. Cincinnati game which is this year's Cotton Bowl. The National Championship game will be played in Indianapolis on Monday January 10th.   

The Bills now travel to Tampa on a short week where at least they should be able to pass the ball the way they want to but they will face the defending champs who look fully capable of winning another title. At some point, the Bills will need to figure out a running game. 

Bills 31, Saints 6

So much football to go over. Let's start with the CFL which appears to have ceased releasing in-game attendance figures. After yesterday's conference semi-finals, I was interested in the actual attendance at the two games - in particular the game at Mosaic Stadium in Regina which went to double overtime. As I watched the last part of the game, I noticed swaths of empty seats in the 33,000 seat stadium which opened in 2012. The Saskatchewan Roughriders are the best supported team in the league and I would not have predicted that they couldn't come close to selling out a home playoff game. The next best CFL sell-out opportunity will be for the Western Final this Sunday at IG Field in Winnipeg which also holds 33,000. The Eastern Final between Hamilton and Toronto will be played at the 30,000 seat BMO Field but the crowd I expect to show up for it could probably just as easily fit into Lamport Stadium or maybe even Jaak Parn Memorial Field at Lawrence Park high school. 

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of what is now remembered as an iconic Canadian football game and a low point in Toronto Argonaut history. It is probably the first football game that I can personally remember watching. My dad was an Argos fan and we watched together as Leon "X-Ray" McQuay fumbled near the Calgary Stampeder goal-line with the Argos trailing 14-11 late in the fourth quarter of the 1971 Grey Cup. McQuay ran to his left, carrying the ball in his right hand, then slipped on the soggy astroturf, fumbling the ball - and the game - away in the process. It was the first Grey Cup ever played on turf and as pouring rain fell throughout the game, the flat surface at Vancouver's Empire Stadium did not drain at all. McQuay wasn't touched by a defender before he went down and the play stood as a fumble - one quite similar to Isaiah MacKenzie's fumble on a kick-off return a week ago in Buffalo. Argos coach Leo Cahill famously said afterward "When Leon slipped, I fell". 

The 1971 Argos featured a star-studded line-up (by CFL standards anyway) which included Jim Stillwagon, Jim Corrigal, "Tricky" Dick Thornton, Mel Profit and a star American quarterback from Notre Dame named Joe Theismann who was drafted by the Miami Dolphins in the 4th round of the 1971 NFL draft but decided to sign with the Argos for a whopping salary of $75,000. The Argos had not won the Grey Cup since 1952 and would not win another until 1983. Leaving the CFL after the 1973 season, McQuay went on to play for the Giants, Patriots and Saints before dying of a heart attack at age 45. 

The biggest game of the weekend was played in Ann Arbor, Michigan before more than 111,000 fans who witnessed only the second Wolverines win over arch-rival Ohio State since 2003. It was the 117th meeting between the two schools and one of the most important ones ever as Michigan has now taken the Buckeyes place on the inside track to a spot in the four-team college football playoff - Michigan's first if they can beat Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game on Saturday. The Wolverines have not won a National Championship since 1997.

In Canadian University football, Western clobbered St.F.X. 61-6 in the Mitchell Bowl and will face the Saskatchewan Huskies in the Vanier Cup on Saturday at Telus Stadium in Quebec City which holds more than 12,000. Let's see how close they can come to filling it. 

The week 13 Monday nigher a week from today in Orchard Park could easily determine the 2021 AFC East division winner. The Bills are early 3.5 point favourites over the visiting Patriots as both teams won their week 12 games - the Bills winning easily in New Orleans and the Patriots running away from the Titans and taking over the top seed in the AFC. The Patriots then have their bye week while the Bills travel to Tampa.  

The Bills won 31-6 on Thanksgiving night but they lost one of their best players in stud cornerback Tre'Davious White whose torn ACL required surgery on Friday. White is a native of Louisiana and was playing professionally in his home state for the first time on Thursday when his left knee flexed sideways on an innocent looking play. Bills fans feared the worst as the NBC broadcast showed White's pained and tearful facial expression as he left the field for the last time this season. Dane Jackson, the 2020 seventh rounder from Pittsburgh, entered the game and the Saints immediately went after him. Thankfully, Saints quarterback Trevor Siemian couldn't find much traction as the Bills defence held them to just six points. The Bills still have their two star safeties in Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde along with cornerback Levi Wallace and "nickel" cornerback Taron Johnson, all of whom have played very well this season. Dane Jackson better have a good week of practice because he will be busy next Monday night.       

Colts 41, Bills 15

I had a feeling that the Canadian government would announce the lifting of the costly PCR test requirement for Canadians returning from short trips to the United States within a few days of my electing to return all of my remaining Buffalo Bills tickets, including any option on home playoff games for this season, to the club for resale. The remaining home schedule - Patriots, Panthers, Falcons and Jets - doesn't hold great appeal anyway and the chances of a home playoff game, while still well within reach for the Bills, look much less likely than they did even a week ago. Unless I decide to buy tickets on the secondary market for one of those games or a playoff game, I will have missed two entire seasons of live NFL football. I'll survive.

Last night on the NBC's Football Night in America, Tony Dungee said that the Bills will need to be able to run the ball effectively in their remaining late season home games at least - and not with designed runs for Josh Allen every time. Drew Brees said that the team had no discernable identity at this point of the season. On CBS's NFL Today, Boomer Esiason was sticking with his prediction of the Bills earning a Superbowl birth but Bill Cowher now favours the Patriots and their surging defence to win the AFC East, thereby restoring normalcy to the division after last year's anomaly of the Bills winning it for the first time since 1995. 

Yesterday in Orchard Park, fans witnessed the phenomenon of Jonathan Taylor. The Colts second round pick last year from the Wisconsin Badgers shredded the Bills run defence and found the end zone no less than five times while racking up 185 yards on 32 carries. He is the best running back in the league at the moment - at least the best one who isn't on injured reserve (referring to Derrick Henry). While the run defence looked soft, the offence was inconsistent and uninspired with Josh Allen not looking much at all like an MVP candidate any more. Even Tyler Bass missed a couple of kicks. It was a mess all around.

Missing from the game yesterday were defensive lineman and run stuffer Star Lotulelei and perhaps the team's best offensive lineman in rookie Spencer Brown. Both were on the COVID reserve list. If Brown is unvaccinated, he will also miss this week's game four days from now under the league's rules. Talk is increasing in Buffalo media circles (and Jerry Sullivan has been leading the charge on this) that the Bills are one of the least vaccinated teams in the NFL with somewhere between five and ten players opting not to take the COVID vaccine. Secrecy around the actual number and around the specific reasons why individual players are placed on the COVID list prevents us from knowing the real story but with a relatively large cohort of unvaccinated players compared to other teams, this may be costly to the team in the last crucial weeks of the season. But we still don't know enough about the long term effects of these vaccines, do we?

How about some Canadian University football to cleanse the pallet? Well, my Western Mustangs won the 113th Yates Cup 29-0 over Queens on Saturday before a decent gathering in Kingston. They now move on to one of the two national semi-final games - the Mitchell Bowl - at home in London against the St. Francis Xavier X-Men next Saturday. The Uteck Bowl features the Saskatchewan Huskies and the Montreal Carrabins with the Vanier Cup set for Dec 4th in Quebec City. I caught some of the Mustangs game on Saturday and while the game had plenty of intensity, neither quarterback had a strong arm and the passing game was less than dynamic. But I like football enough that I'll watch pretty much any game anywhere. After all, I've had season tickets for my local high school team, the Lawrence Park Panthers, since the early nineties. Go Panthers!

For the second time in three years, the Bills will play on American Thanksgiving Day this Thursday night in New Orleans. Maybe a short week is what they need to move past yesterday's stinker. Josh Allen usually rises to the occasion for prime time national games as he showed two years ago in Dallas on Thanksgiving. After that, the team has a long break before another prime time game as the Patriots come to Orchard Park for a critical Monday Night match-up December 6th.   

Bills 45, Jets 17

Last Thursday afternoon on WGR 550,  Chris "The Bulldog" Parker made what sounded like a reasonable prediction about week 10 of the NFL season which was set to begin that evening in Miami. He declared that the phenomenon of one or two-win teams upsetting various contenders was going to come to an end and that it would begin that night with the Baltimore Ravens playing the Dolphins in south Florida. "The Ravens are a far superior team", he observed "and they will show that tonight. The cream will start to rise to the top in the NFL." Seemed logical to me and probably to other Bills fans as the hometown team was three days away from playing the lowly Jets and their flash-in-the-pan rookie quarterback who threw for over 400 yards in a Jets win over the Bengals a couple of weeks ago. A few hours later, the Bulldog's prediction would not come true as the Ravens fell to the Dolphins 22-10. Made me wonder if the Bills could fall victim, for the second week in a row, to a team they should beat easily or would Sean McDermott find a way to re-focus his team and not only get back in the win column but recover their status as a contender in the AFC. We got the answer yesterday and, for Bills fans, it was the one they were waiting for.

Despite a bit of a lull in the second quarter yesterday in the Meadowlands of New Jersey, the Bills dominated the game against the Jets and made Jets quarterback Mike White look every bit like the overwhelmed 5th round draft choice appearing in his third NFL game. Scoring 21 points in the third quarter, they extended their lead to 38-3 and allowed me to start closing up the cottage and prepare for snowy drive south. When the lead was pushed to 31-3, I reached into my bag of Van Miller quotes and declared that "the rout is on". 

Stefon Diggs has had a good season so far in 2021 but his performance yesterday was spectacular. He had eight catches for 132 yards and a touchdown on the second consecutive fade pass from Josh Allen, after making the catch on the first one but with his second foot not quite connecting in bounds. And the running game also returned. The Bills appear to have three viable options with Devin Singletary, Zack Moss and now Matt Brieda all contrbuting yesterday. Breida, inactive since week 2, had two touchdowns - one running and another on a pass from Allen on the first drive of the game. Even without Trumaine Edmonds, the defence was disruptive and Mike White and the Jets never really had a chance.

On Friday night, I watched soccer. I usually end up seeing the World Cup Final and I saw a bit of the European Championship Final this past summer because England made it that far. Canada was playing our arch-rival Costa Rica at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton as part of an eight-team World Cup qualifying tournament. The game started slowly with a decided lack of urgency on both sides which, in my view, characterizes soccer far too often. But the Canadian side turned it on in the second half and were finally rewarded with a rare "goal" and cruised to lopsided one-nil win. Fan support in Edmonton was impressive with more than 48,000 taking in the game. What made very little sense to me was the state of the playing surface. Football and baseball have long been played on artificial turf and most non-grass playing surfaces in North America now feature "field turf" which is much softer than the concrete-like astroturf from the 1970s and 80s. Commonwealth Stadium appears not to have installed new turf since Warren Moon came to town in 1978. And we could see the same partially erased yard-line markers as Moon must have played on when the stadium opened for the 1978 Commonwealth Games (which I attended). Soccer, I think its fair to say, needs to be played on grass. Did anyone consider BMO Field for this game or was it time to not be Toronto-centric and give the game to another city? I can't say and I'm happy that Canada won the game and now has a legitimate shot at making the World Cup Final for the first time since 1986. But the field looked terrible.

The Indianapolis Colts come to Orchard Park next Sunday as the Bills return to playing teams which have playoff aspirations. With the Canadian requirement for a negative (and costly) PCR test for travellers (including returning day travellers) still in place, I have accepted the Bills offer to take back the remainder of my tickets for this season. Looks like I won't see a live game until September of 2022.  

Jaguars 9, Bills 6

The last 9-6 game I can remember was played 33 years ago at Rich Stadium. I was one of more than 78,000 in attendance that day as Fred Smerlas blocked a field goal in the final seconds of regulation time to send the game to overtime where the Bills would win the game and clinch the AFC East division title. Delirious fans stormed the field, tore the goal posts down and gave birth to Van Miller's "fandemonium" catch-phrase. The rain-soaked game became a classic in Bills history and marked the beginning of the team's mini-dynasty which included four consecutive Superbowls. 

Yesterday's game in north Florida was one of the worst NFL games in recent memory - and not just because the Bills lost. The officiating crew, led by referee Land Clark, will probably not be at the top of the list for playoff game assignments after yesterday's highly questionable performance which included, ironically, far too many flags and some key missed calls. Josh Allen looked more like the Josh Allen from his 2018 rookie season with multiple turnovers and his offensive line had its worst game of the season. Much was made of the fact that the Jaguars have a defensive player also named Josh Allen who was the best player on the field for either team. If their names were Cornelius Bennett or Billy-Joe Hobart then it might have been more noteworthy. I wonder how many Josh Allens there are in the United States? 

The Aaron Rodgers story dominated the off-field NFL news last week as he contracted COVID and had to miss yesterday's game in Kansas City. Boomer Esiason made an excellent point on the NFL Today broadcast when he compared Rodgers' approach on the question of vaccination to that of Colts quarterback Carson Wentz. Wentz made no attempt to conceal the fact that he and his family have decided to forego the vaccine and he has, by all accounts, followed all of the NFL's protocols for unvaccinated players. It remains unclear if Rodgers has done this himself. Wentz's main reason for refusing the vaccine is that he thinks that there isn't "enough" known about its long-term effects. I would go a step further and point out to him (and to others who use this excuse) that the vaccines were developed within the last year and there is literally no data on their long-term effects. Taking into account the fact that side effects from vaccines are almost always evident in the very short term (usually days or weeks at most after vaccination), the decision is a matter of balancing risks and, in my view, its an easy choice. But Wentz has the right to his opinion and I do respect him for being transparent about it and accepting the conditions imposed by the league. The same can be said about Bills slot receiver Cole Beasley who has been outspoken on the issue but not misleading.

The problem for Rodgers is one of credibility as he clearly set out to mislead the public about his vaccination status. He used the word "immunized" to describe his status and we now know that means he has subscribed to some sort of homeopathic "immunization" regime rather than taking one of the approved vaccines. He decided to "do his own research" and says that he submitted some 500 pages of this research to the league or to his team or maybe to FOX News. Now that the US has reached a 70% vaccination rate among adults, it seems clear that he is on the wrong side of public opinion on this issue. It has already cost him as Wisconsin-based Prevea Health terminated a sponsorship deal with Rodgers which has been in place since 2012. State Farm Insurance also cut back on television spots featuring Rodgers during yesterday's NFL broadcasts from an average of about 25% of its spots over the course of the season to date to 1.5% yesterday. The insurer would not comment on what plans it has for future spots with Rodgers but it seems likely that the saturation of the "Rodgers Rate" spots which NFL viewers have seen in the past few seasons will not continue. Executives at GEICO, Liberty Mutual and Progressive are undoubtedly pleased. Jake from State Farm could not be reached for comment.

Josh Allen said after yesterday's game that his team "played like shit" and that they will be better for it in the long run. That may be true but the team has mailed in two clunkers so far after the bye week and really needs to get on the right track against the Jets on Sunday. The Jaguars probably played as well as they could yesterday and certainly played with a measure of intensity which the Bills did not match. These three games - against the Dolphins, Jags and Jets - looked like classic trap games to me and the team has fallen into the trap with the first two. I'm expecting things to turn around next week and the Jets will see it first-hand. The score will not be 9-6. 

       

Bills 26, Dolphins 11

Tomorrow is election day in the United States. "Off-year" elections aren't usually big new stories nationally with this year's main exception being the Virginia gubernatorial race between Democrat and former Governor Terry McAuliffe and Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin. Won by ten points by President Biden a year ago, if the Dems manage to lose Virginia tomorrow, shockwaves will rattle through Washington as the mid-term elections in a year's time could be disastrous for the party which currently holds the House, the Senate (just barely) and the White House.  

Citizens in several major American cities will elect mayors tomorrow and the race I'll be watching is for the mayoralty of the 90th largest city in the United States: Buffalo, New York. If we could see an election ballot in the Buffalo mayoralty race, it would carry the name of only one candidate: India Walton. The Republicans have not held the top job in Buffalo since Chester Kowal left office at the end of 1965 and the GOP did not even bother to nominate a candidate this time around. Incumbent mayor Byron Brown, seeking a fifth term since he was first elected in 2005, managed to lose the Democratic Primary to Ms. Walter and then failed in a court challenge to create his own party (the Buffalo Party) which would have allowed his name to appear on the ballot. He is now seeking re-election on a "write in" basis, using the campaign slogan "Write Down Byron Brown". 

Turnout at the Primary in June was very low and the result was close but Walton won it fair and square and the Buffalo mayoralty race has now taken on a national flavour as she has earned the endorsements of Democratic Party heavyweights like New York Senator Chuck Schumer and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Brown, the city's first black mayor, has marshalled the support of the Buffalo business community (including many Republicans) and has branded Walton as a socialist who would defund the police and bring chaos to what remains one of America's most segregated cities. Recent polling gives Brown a 17 point lead over Walton but he will need his supporters to first turn out tomorrow and then remember to "write in" his name on their ballots. To my knowledge, throughout the campaign, India Walton has not proclaimed her support for the Buffalo Bills and I hope this does not cost her. Her story, the subject of a recent long-form piece in the New Yorker, is quite compelling and, if I were a voter in tomorrow's Buffalo election, I would find it hard not to cast my vote her way. Plus, with hers as the only name on the ballot, I'd be more inclined to write in the name Josh Allen than I would Byron Brown. If his name were on the ballot, Allen would win in a landslide.

I guess I wasn't surprised to see that Terry and Kim Pegula did not invite India Walton to join them in the owner's box yesterday at Highmark Stadium. Could be that they knew she would have difficulty getting to Orchard Park on public transit. What she missed was hardly an NFL classic but her hometown team managed to make the plays they needed to make in the second half to pull away from the Dolphins who, at 1-7, are clearly in the hunt for the first overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft. The Bills defence looked fearsome in the second half as Tua Tagovailoa was overwhelmed at times and hardly looks like the franchise quarterback the Dolphins thought he was when they drafted him while leaving Justin Herbert on the board. Cole Beasley returned to form yesterday with 10 receptions for 110 yards.

Yesterday marked the first of three consecutive games against the league's lesser-lights with two road games coming up: at Jacksonville then at the Meadowlands against the Jets who earned their second win yesterday. The Bills, if they are still legitimate Superbowl contenders (and I think they are), will be heavily favoured in all three of these games. Favoured by a spread of 14 points yesterday, they struggled in the first half but won by 15. They are early 10.5 point favourites against the Jaguars in north Florida next Sunday. They can not afford to stumble in any of these games as they chase the Titans, who won again yesterday, for the coveted home-field advantage in the playoffs and a first round bye.

 

Titans 34, Bills 31

For the second consecutive year, the Buffalo Bills enter their bye week after a tough last-second loss in game they could have won - and probably should have won. Last year, Kyler Murray's Hail Mary in Phoenix before the break gave the team enough motivation to run the table for the rest of the regular season. The bye week came much later last season but last night's aggressive decision to go for a first down, followed  by a very conservative play call which failed, will loom large over the next two weeks for Sean McDermott and Josh Allen. The sneak attempt fell short due in large part to the push that the right side of the Titans defensive line made and in small part because Allen's foot slipped as he tried to gain the last few inches needed for a first down in the game's dying seconds. 

The decision to try to win the game rather than play for overtime will probably not be one which Bills Nation will question for long. A more creative play call at that moment would have been better in retrospect but with only inches needed, Allen is probably able to gain those inches 95% of the time or more. The decision to go for it rather than kicking an easy field goal then going to overtime is easy to question on this Tuesday morning but, based on their performance in the second half, Sean McDermott couldn't have been all that confident in his defence as overtime loomed. Problem for the Bills is that, with last night's loss, the Tennessee Titans are now tied with them at 4-2 and now hold the tie-breaker in the AFC playoff seedings.

After the break, the Bills welcome the Dolphins to Orchard Park on October 31st. This will be last home game before the US-Canada land border crossings are set to open on November 8th. The first opportunity for Canadian fans to cheer on the Bills in person will be November 21st against the Colts. If the Canadian government continues to require a negative PCR COVID test for re-entry to Canada, we can tack another $200 on to the cost of the trip. The Bills are now only half-way through their 2021 prime time schedule with remaining games at New Orleans on Thanksgiving night and another Monday night game in New England on December 6th.  

In other NFL news, after 10 months of work, including interviews with dozens of witnesses and the review of some 650,000 emails, the NFL's investigation into the "workplace conditions" around the Washington Football Team (WFT) has produced one scapegoat far. And, last week we learned that his name is Jon Gruden, the now former coach of the Las Vegas Raiders whose racist and sexist emails, written to then WFT general manager Bruce Allen, from several years ago were "leaked" to the media. They were discovered, the league claims, as part of the WFT investigation and were deemed, six weeks into the NFL regular season, to be important enough to be brought to the attention of Raiders ownership and management and then made public. They of course led to Gruden's resignation early last week which a cynical observation would conclude is a classic bait and switch engineered by the NFL to protect WFT owner Daniel Snyder, at whose feet the problems with the WFT's workplace culture lie. Ironically, the Raiders, under their late founding owner Al Davis, were the first NFL team to hire a black head coach (Art Shell), the first to hire a Latino head coach (Tom Flores) and the first team to name a female as CEO (Amy Trask).  

Snyder became the youngest CEO of a NYSE traded company at age 32 and completed a leveraged purchase of the WFT from the estate of Jack Kent Cooke in 1999. The workplace culture of the team has been described as pervasively mysogynistic and toxic to female employees and, after an avalanche of allegations and legal action by a group of 40 former female employees of the WFT, the NFL struck its investigation. After the Gruden emails were released, calls for further release of emails reviewed as part of the investigation have been met with refusal by the league on the grounds of confidentiality. Seems like that's all we're going to get. Jon Gruden goes down and Daniel Snyder is protected. The NFL looks after its owners; always has and always will. And in the long run, this latest apparent public relations disaster won't put even a minor dent in the league's juggernaut of popularity. Nothing ever does. Whether it's repeated incidents of spousal abuse by star players, concern about player health in the form of concussions and CTE, limited upward mobility for black managers and coaches, the extortion of public funding for new stadiums - whatever seemingly bad news there is, it never really tarnishes "the shield" as Roger Goodell refers to it. The appeal of NFL football endures.   

  

  

Bills 38, Chiefs 20

As the second quarter ended last night, I got up, went outside and wandered around a bit in order to help digest the excellent Thanksgiving dinner enjoyed by a group of nine at our cottage earlier in the evening. I must have missed the first mention of a lightening-related delay in Kansas City because when I re-assumed my prone position, Mike Tirico, Tony Dungee and Drew Brees were going over highlights from the day's action in the NFL - but in a level of detail that seemed far too much for the tail-end of a 15 minute break. The studio team and the rest of the NBC broadcast crew did a pretty good job of filling an additional hour before the third quarter finally kicked off. I watched right to the end because I wanted to see the mid-field hand-shake between Andy Reid and Sean McDermott. It's the latest I've been awake in a long time. 

If an NFL coach enjoys a long tenure in what Bill Parcells described as "the most competitive business there is", he will unwittingly build his own "coaching tree". Those who have coached on his staff and have gone on to their own measures of success are the branches of the tree. Some of the branches grow strong enough to become trees themselves while others never really rise the level of the tree from which they originated.

While Bill Belichick is a good example of a coach whose tree branches have generally fallen short of the expectations associated with their originating tree, Andy Reid is probably the best example of one whose descendants have flourished. The list of successful NFL head coaches whose careers started or were jump-started under the tutelage of Reid is extensive and impressive. Topping the list would probably be John Harbaugh, now in his 14th season as Baltimore Ravens head coach and with one head-coaching Superbowl championship under his belt, who served as an assistant under Reid in Philadelphia for nine seasons. Next might be Doug Pederson who also won a title as Philadelphia Eagles head coach in 2017 after five seasons as an Eagles assistant under Reid. Current Washington head coach Ron Rivera, former Vikings head coach Brad Childress, current Bears head coach Matt Nagy and former head coaches now serving as assistants Todd Bowles, Pat Shurmur, Steve Spagnuolo and current Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier are all members of the prestigious Andy Reid coaching tree.

That takes us to Sean McDermott, the 19th head coach in Buffalo Bills history, who served under Reid in Philadelphia for 10 seasons before moving to Carolina under fellow Reid coaching tree member Ron Rivera for five seasons as defensive coordinator. Now in his fifth season as Bills head coach, McDermott has guided the Bills to the playoffs in three of his first four seasons after the team went without a post-season appearance for 17 consecutive years before his hiring. If Brian Daboll lands a head-coaching job next year, McDermott will have germinated his own coaching sapling.

In comparison, Bill Belichik, arguably the most successful coach in NFL history, has seen many an assistant coach achieve a head-coaching position only to fall flat and revert to assistant or coordinator jobs. This list includes Josh McDaniels, Matt Patricia, Eric Mangini, Romeo Crennel, Bill O'Brien and Todd Bowles. 

Entering last night's game at Arrowhead Stadium, the Bills under McDermott were 1-2 against the Chiefs under Reid, including last season's AFC championship game. For the Bills, although they were up a game on the Chiefs in the AFC standings, a loss would not only have closed that gap but it would have given the Chiefs the tie-breaker over the Bills just as they enjoyed last year. That dragon is now slayed. After signing his massive contract extension a couple of months ago, Bills fans were looking to Allen for a signature road win and last night they got it. His first touchdown pass to Emmanuel Sanders was as perfect a pass as I've seen a quarterback throw this season. 

If the league office wants more penalties called, they would have been very pleased with last night's flag-fest. Most of the calls were valid I suppose but there were two in succession on the Bills last touchdown drive which were both phantom calls - and critically important ones. Josh Allen's scramble for a first down to the right sideline was negated by a holding call on centre Mitch Morse which was undetectable to me on replay. Then the Chiefs were flagged for a highly questionable roughing the passer call on a play where they intercepted Allen around mid-field. The two calls cancelled each other out I guess but neither should have been made.

Next up for the Bills is another prime time match-up with a team they lost to last season as they travel to Nashville next Monday night. I'll probably still be eating left-over turkey and then trying to stay awake. Let's hope for clear weather.    

Bills 40, Texans 0

Now in their 20th NFL season, the Houston Texans are the youngest team in the NFL. When the Oilers left town for Memphis TN after the 1996 season, Bob McNair, who had become an energy industry titan (founding Cogen Technologies in 1984 which he sold to Enron in 1999), was determined to bring NFL football back to his home town and, at a cost of $1 billion, was awarded the rights to an expansion team which began play in 2002. The team has enjoyed some success over the past two decades winning six AFC South division titles starting since 2011 but the franchise remains the only one of the league's 32 teams never to have played in a conference championship game. 

McNair died in November, 2018, leaving his wife Janice as majority owner. Son Cal McNair is the team's general manager. After the 2019 regular season, the Bills played their second playoff game of the Sean McDermott era in Houston and lost by a field goal in overtime. The Texans went on to lose to the eventual Superbowl champion Chiefs in the next round. Since then, the team has sunk to the lowest competitive level in the NFL. Bill O'Brien served, mostly successfully, as head coach of the Texans from 2014 to 2020 but was disliked by players. The title of general manager was added to his responsibilities in early 2020 and his first move was to trade Pro Bowl receiver DeAndre Hopkins away for a running back, some draft picks and bag of footballs. This was a move from which he would never recover and he was fired from the team early in the 2020 season. 

This past off-season, Deshaun Watson, the team's star quarterback, officially requested a trade from the Texans (which he never got) and refused to report to any of the team's spring workouts. Before training camp began this summer, Watson was accused by several women in the Houston area (and the number is now approaching 20) of sexual misconduct. The disgraced former 12th overall pick has not dressed for the Texans this season and may never take another NFL snap. 

NFL team fortunes can change quickly as rosters turn over year-to-year more than in any other sport and for some players, one calendar year can make the difference between being a serviceable player and finding themselves out of the league. The Texans fall from the top tier of teams to the bottom has been as fast as any I can remember. The formula was simple: take an unpopular coach, make him general manager, have him trade away a top player, fire him, appoint your son as general manager and have your star quarterback's personal life derail his career. The Texans entered the game with a deceptive 1-2 record but their win came in week one against their division cousins and fellow basement dwellers, the Jacksonville Jaguars who are now playing better each week. I predict that will turn out to be the only win they register and that the Texans will finish the season 1-16. All of which is why yesterday's contest in Orchard Park looked more like a football practice for the Bills than an actual game.  

The box score is as lopsided as any I can recall. The Bills posted 26 first downs to the Texans 6. Buffalo racked up 450 yards of offence to the Texans 109. 109 yards of total offence. Add 4 interceptions, a lost fumble and pelting rain to the mix and you have a laugher. I felt sorry for Texans quarterback Davis Mills (whose name sounds like he should be Commodore of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club) who was drafted in the third round this year to serve as a third stringer behind Watson and Tyrod Taylor who Bills fans will remember well. Mills looked overwhelmed and, at times, terrified and rightly so. On offence, both Singletary and Moss ran well for the Bills who had no need to dig very deeply into their playbook.

They will probably need everything they've got in the playbook this week as the Kansas City Chiefs are up next at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday Night Football. The Bills lost twice last season to the Chiefs - once in October at home and then in the AFC Championship Game. Defensively, they are much better this year but will it prove to be enough to slow down Patrick Mahomes? That's why they play the games.  

Bills 43, Washington 21

Speculation has been rampant about a new stadium for the Bills. Although no formal or official negotiations between the team's owners, Terry and Kim Pegula, and state or local governments have taken place yet, the Pegulas have made some of their demands known to the public in considerable detail by way of what seem to be carefully orchestrated media leaks. The Bills play at the oldest stadium in the NFL which opened in 1973 and was known as Rich stadium for most of its existence. The new stadium is also expected to be in Orchard Park and an obvious site is the tract of land directly to the west of the current stadium, on the southwest corner of Abbott Road and Southwestern Boulevard.

The Buffalo News reported last week that the stadium financing plan will include the sale of Personal Seat Licences (PSLs). The paper spoke to Ron Raccuia, EVP of Pegula Sports and Entertainment, who explained that the the goal will to be to sell 50,000 PSLs which would likely start at $1,000 each and go up from there. PSLs have been associated with all new NFL stadiums built since 2009 and they can generate significant revenue to fund construction. The revenue from PSLs if often referred to as the "owner's contribution" but the funding really comes from the fans who decide to subscribe. The Pegulas are also looking for significant public funding - to cover at least half of the stadium's costs - and they will probably get it. After all, the Governor of New York State, Kathy Hochul, is a Buffalo native and she will want to be able to count on strong support from her home base in the western part of the state.

I've been thinking about my own situation with my seats at the 45 yard line 20 rows up from the field in the current stadium. The PSLs associated with seats in a similar location in a new stadium are surely to be among the most expensive there are (other than for the private suites). PSLs can be sold for a fixed term - like 10 years - or they can be sold as "perpetual" which really means for as long as the team plays in the venue. In the world of life insurance, it is sort of like the difference between term insurance and whole life. Raccuia said that any PSLs sold will be both perpetual and transferrable. The Bills will have played for 50 years in the current stadium by the time any new one is ready so if I were to buy a perpetual PSL, it would likely last longer than I do.  

The actual pricing for a PSL in the best seats in this yet-to-be-built stadium is obviously unknown. When the Dallas Cowboys built their new stadium a few years ago, the most expensive PSLs cost upwards of $150,000 each. The Buffalo market will command much lower pricing than that but my best guess is that I will be facing a cost of between at least $10,000 and $15,000 USD per seat - perhaps more. If the PSLs are perpetual, then they will have a value on the secondary market and could be a good long-term investment. The NFL is the most popular sports league in the US and should continue to be for some time. But, for how long? 20 more years? 50? I know my way around a net present value (NPV) calculation and the PSL analysis is is similar to stock valuation where the price of a share is just the NPV of all of the issuer's future profits. Leaving aside the fact that the purchase of PSLs will be required in order to buy Buffalo Bills tickets at the 45 yard line, would I want to add a couple of perpetual PSLs to my investment portfolio? Its hard to say right now but I find the question an interesting one to consider. Plus I could leave them to someone in my will.

On to the actual football from yesterday which saw Josh Allen return to his 2020 form. After giving up a couple of touchdowns in the second quarter, the Bills first drive of the second half set the tone for the win. Allen took the team 93 yards in 17 plays and chewed up more than eight minutes before he found Emmanuel "Larry" Sanders for his second touchdown of the game. The Bills cruised from there as Washington quarterback Taylor Heinicke struggled through his first road start. The Bills now have one of the best receiving corps in the NFL with Sanders, Diggs, Beasley and Davis as well as tight-end Dawson Knox who also made a great catch for a touchdown. 

Up next: the Houston Texans, who have managed to turn themselves into a near-disaster of a franchise, come to Orchard Park on Sunday. The Bills will need to avoid looking ahead to week five when they travel to Kansas City for a prime time re-do of last season's AFC Championship Game.  

    

Bills 35, Dolphins 0

The way that the NFL allocates broadcast rights to CBS and FOX for the early and late afternoon Sunday time slots is a bit of a mystery to me. Prior to a couple of years ago, CBS exclusively carried games between AFC teams while FOX had the NFC. For inter-conference games, the network which covered the visiting team got to carry the game. That's why a FOX broadcast team would come to Orchard Park twice (and only twice) each year - for the two Bills home games against NFC opponents. While the network allocations are still made mostly according to this formula, there are now "cross-over" games where some all-AFC match-ups, like yesterday's game in steamy south Florida, are carried by FOX. CBS also gets a few all-NFC games each year. I'm not sure why the league and the networks made this change but it means that some Bills games are broadcast by crews which Bills fans rarely, if ever, have seen or heard before. 

The NFL produces a "broadcast map" for both afternoon time slots each Sunday, showing the regions where each game is shown. Every NFL game is a "national network" game but some are carried by more network affiliates than others. Yesterday's game in Miami was shown only in south Florida and western New York (and eastern Pennsylvania) and, with a relatively small regional viewership, the broadcast crew which FOX assigned to the game was possibly the lowest one on their depth chart (with the team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman occupying its top spot). The play-by-play yesterday in Miami was handled by someone named Brandon Gaudin who was joined by the much better known former NFL linebacker and team executive Matt Millen.

Millen is a somewhat controversial figure in NFL circles. As a player, through 12 NFL seasons, he won four Superbowls with three different teams - two with the Raiders, one with the 49ers and one with Washington. As an executive, his record couldn't be more diametrically opposed. From 2001 to 2008, Millen was President and CEO of the Detroit Lions who posted a 31-84 record over that period. The 2008 Lions became the first NFL team to lose all 16 regular season games (a record later matched by the 2017 Browns) but Millen was fired in September of that year after an 0-3 start. He has been a broadcaster since 2009. I guess FOX encourages him to make "controversial" statements and yesterday, Gaudin, his partner in the booth, egged him on. I just found his commentary to be generally poor. After he described a particular player as "one of the best out there" for about the sixth time, I said "too bad Matt Millen isn't one of the best colour commentators out there". There is a reason why FOX has relegated him to the bottom of its NFL broadcast depth chart and I hope not to have to listen to him again any time soon.

The fact that the Bills cruised to an easy 35-0 win obviously gave me more time focus on the shortcomings of the broadcast crew. Although the Bills offence, and Josh Allen in particular, still haven't matched their quality of play from last season through two weeks in 2021, a few key plays were all they needed yesterday. Last season, the Bills pass rush was probably the area most in need of improvement and yesterday, first round pick and south Florida native Greg "Jean-Jacques" Rousseau and the rest of the Bills front seven had a strong game with six sacks including one by AJ Epenesa which bounced Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagavialoa from the game early in the first quarter. 

Although Devin Singletary had more rushing yards, gained mostly on a long touchdown run on the first possession, running back Zach Moss, another south Florida native, had a strong game after being a healthy scratch in week one. He scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter and earned another key first down with strong second and third efforts on each run. The Bills have now beaten the Dolphins six straight times. No wonder so many Bills fans travel to Miami every year.

Up next: Washington, the team that only dropped its offensive name after a threat from its major sponsor, FedEx, to either drop the name or lose their sponsorship, comes to Orchard Park on Sunday. 

In Canada, we apparently have a federal election today. Most voters cast their ballots by mail, voted in the advance polls last weekend or have lost interest entirely. Tonight, I'll mostly be watching the Blue Jays who open an important series in Tampa.  

    

Steelers 23, Bills 16

I had a conversation on Saturday with a cottage neighbour who lives in West Virginia. He said that the COVID situation there has worsened considerably in recent weeks (and he is headed back there shortly) so I looked up some of the numbers. With a population of 1.8 million, the state recorded 1,800 new cases on Saturday alone and 8,000 over the past week. That would be like Ontario, with a population of 14.5 million, seeing more than 65,000 new cases in a week. Republican Governor Jim Justice has refused calls for a new indoor mask mandate and is likely to join other GOP Governors in a court challenge of President Biden's recent vaccine mandate for businesses and organizations in the US with more than 100 employees.

There were more than 50,000 unmasked fans on hand at Milan Pusker Stadium in Morgantown for the Mountaineers 66-0 win on Saturday over the apparently toothless Long Island University Sharks. The Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio and the Big House in Ann Arbor, Michigan both saw mostly unmasked crowds of more than 100,000 on Saturday - nothing out of the ordinary in non-pandemic times but I can't help but wonder if these football games will turn out to be "super-spreader" events.   

With US land border crossings still closed to Canadians travelling for "non-essential" purposes, the Bills have offered (and I have accepted) refunds for the first four home games of the season, obviously including yesterday's game against the Steelers. It's sort of a blessing in disguise as I'm not sure I would have been comfortable being in close quarters with 70,000 vaccine-status-unknown Bills fans whose pent-up desires for screaming have been building for nearly two years. So, the earliest game I'll attend is October 31st against the Dolphins but I'm not optimistic about the border opening by then anyway.

With all the pre-season hype about the Bills being legitimate Superbowl contenders (which I believe they still are), the scope of the letdown for Bills fans yesterday was massive. Although the boxscore reads as if  Buffalo was the better team - in terms of some key metrics like yards gained, first downs and time of possession - their play did not live up to what fans were expecting and the team posted its first opening game loss since the Nathan Peterman debacle in Baltimore in 2018. 

A couple of key plays made for the Bills undoing: A questionable 4th down play call which had quarterback Josh Allen fake the keeper then throw a backward pass to Matt Breida (who dressed in place of Zack Moss, a surprising healthy scratch yesterday) which resulted in a seven yard loss and a disastrous special teams play in the form of a blocked punt which the Steelers returned for a touchdown, giving them a 10 point lead with less than 10 minutes to go. 

One of the most disappointing areas for the Bills yesterday was the play of the offensive line. They were flagged for no less than six holding calls, four of then enforced. Dion Dawkins, who spent most of training camp rebuilding his strength after a serious case of COVID was responsible for three of the holding penalties. The Steelers rushed only four lineman most of the game and successfully thwarted the Bills passing game with tight coverage and some inaccurate passing by Josh Allen, fresh off the signing of a new $258 million contract extension. Looking more like he did in his rookie year than last season when he was in the running for league MVP, Allen also fumbled the ball twice, losing one of them. 

So, at 0-1, the Bills travel this week to the heat, humidity and COVID of South Florida to play the Dolphins who squeaked out a 17-16 win yesterday against the Patriots. I look for the Bills to be much better. I wonder if tight end Dawson Knox will wear his shiny red gloves in the Florida heat. I'd love to get me a pair of those. For washing dishes.     

Chiefs 38, Bills 24

I’ll admit to listening to far too much of WGR’s eight-day pre-game show which started immediately following the Bills win over the Ravens. One of the more interesting segments on One Bills Live last week was on the subject of superstitions – both the ones followed by NFL players, as described in some detail by Steve Tasker, and those practiced by fans who were invited to call in and share their strategies. All of them could be considered manifestations of obsessive compulsive disorder. A common theme is the idea that if the team wins, then the various actions and steps (in a specific order) employed before or during games which yielded the win must continue to be followed, in every detail.  It follows then that players and fans of winning teams feel that their ridiculous and well-tested superstitions are provably successful.  

Tasker explained that the most superstitious team-mate he ever had was Jim Kelly. Tasker himself claims to have had no superstitions as a player and if he was noticed to have donned his equipment in a certain order more than once, it was the product not of superstition but simply of finding an efficient way to dress. Kelly, on the other hand, created numerous elaborate superstitious routines with his team-mates which would start on Wednesdays and carry through to kick-off. Tasker remembers thinking (but not saying) that if the team were to win on Sunday, the win would not come about because Jim Kelly had come to him and tapped his helmet three times with his left index finger after the Saturday walk-through practice. And it also seemed like a lot to remember, in addition to the play-book.

Going into last night’s game in Kansas City, the Bills were 2-0 in this year’s playoffs with Siobhan and Sophie in attendance at my north Toronto apartment and with me wearing the same clothing each time. And with my three Bills-branded winter hats laid out with the logos showing. So, to assist the team in achieving a 5^th Superbowl birth, we of course repeated all of this. Believe me, it wasn’t anywhere near the effort put in by the fanatics who called in to WGR to describe their rituals. Watching in the same location with the same group (or alone) while wearing the same clothing are all popular strategies but many of the more committed Bills fans employ in-game adjustment moves such as switching seats, turning hats inside out or backwards, changing clothing or beer glasses – whatever it takes to get the team going. But sometimes, as was confirmed last night, nothing works and your team loses.

So now I can retire my Bills gear for a few months. It was a great run through the 2020 season and I retire it with great optimism for the future. As every team has, the Bills have some difficult personnel decisions to make with the extension of Josh Allen chief among them. Despite a rough first half last night where Allen’s throwing accuracy escaped him a little, the team needs to give him the contract he deserves which should make him among the highest paid players in the league. Among others, Boston College product Matt Milano will also need a new contract. With the league’s salary cap expected to decline after the loss of gate revenue this season, the decisions will become even more difficult. Successful teams retain their key players and hope to find late-round gems in the draft and role players in free agency to fill out their rosters.

Tom Brady will play in his 10^th Superbowl in a couple of weeks. I was hoping for a Buffalo v. Green Bay game which would have matched-up two of the league’s smallest markets. The Buccaneers now become the first team in the game’s 55 year history to play “at home” in the Superbowl. With the number of fans limited to 22,000 (including 7,500 vaccinated front health care workers invited to attend the game, courtesy of the NFL), it will probably not be the home field advantage it would be in any other year. I’ll be rooting for the Chiefs.  

Bills 17, Ravens 3

It was hardly a classic game that we’ll see on NFL Films two or three decades from now. A windblown defensive struggle with one offensive touchdown and less than 600 combined yards gained but, for Bills fans, the biggest game in 27 years will be well-remembered anyway. An efficient drive to start the second half broke the 3-3 halftime tie as Stefon Diggs found the endzone - part of another productive outing for the former Viking who continues to make Brandon Beane look like a genius for trading Buffalo’s first round pick last year to get him. Then Taron Johnson caught lightening in a bottle and that was more than enough.

As long as the Bills keep winning, I guess I’ll have to keep writing this blog. I’m not looking for sympathy but this weekly task has been taking me longer than usual the last three weeks as I’ve been a one-handed keyboard operator. I fell awkwardly off my bike in late December, badly broke the pinky finger on my dominant hand and had it surgically repaired a few days later by a top hand surgeon at Sunnybrook. K-wires come out on January 26^th. Although my direct experiences with our healthcare system thankfully remain rare, they continue to be positive – even in 2021. Despite COVID and the resulting well-documented strains on the already over-loaded system, I received timely and expert treatment, for which I am grateful. Yes, they are busy and stressed but each and every person I interacted with at Sunnybrook – even the nurse who administered my assembly line style COVID test – was equal parts pleasant, efficient and professional. It was all very impressive which is the only reason I mention it at all.    

Back to Taron Johnson. His 101-yard pick-6 is already an instant classic in Bills playoff lore. In real time, I could tell that the ball had been caught by someone and for a very brief and fleeting moment, I accepted and processed the reality that the game was tied. But, it was the Bills nickel cornerback in whose hands it landed. While some defensive backs would surely have gone to the ground in the endzone, happy to give their team the ball on the 20, Johnson saw a wide open field ahead of him, brought it out and quite easily went ALL THE WAY. Nothing like a 14 point swing on one play to permanently change the course of a game. Bills fans can relate: How many times did we see Drew Bledsoe or JP Losman, late in the game, trailing by a touchdown and driving for the tie, get sacked, fumble the ball which the defence then returned for a touchdown? I know for sure that they each did it at least once. Taron Johnson has two key pick-6’s this season. Most defensive players go years in the league and never get one.

Next Sunday will mark the Bills sixth AFC Championship Game since the 1970 NFL – AFL merger. They enjoy a 4-1 record (3-0 at home) in these games, winning four straight between the 1990 and 1993 seasons. Their only loss came in January, 1989 in Cincinnati – a game which I watched with a group of drunken obnoxious Bengal fans in a straw-roofed “sports bar” in Peurto Escondido, Mexico. Their only road win was in Miami in January, 1993. A win at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday will send the Bills to their 5th Superbowl in Tampa on February 7^th.

The NFL Concussion Protocol came into existence in 2009. A team of league-employed spotters, some on the sidelines and some in a booth high above the field, along with team-employed neurologists on each sideline, are charged with watching players for signs of loss of balance, disorientation, head-clutching, etc. These officials have the authority to call time-out on the field and remove a player from the game who exhibits any of these symptoms. We saw this happen twice over the weekend – each time involving one of the NFL’s marquee players: Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson and Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Neither returned to their respective games. Enter rookie Tyler Huntley for the Ravens who was actually quite impressive in playing out the rest of the game in Orchard Park and veteran back-up Chad Henne for the Chiefs who made a couple of key plays in finishing their game and helping his team get past the pesky Cleveland Browns for a chance to meet the juggernaut Buffalo Bills. Let’s hope that Mahomes progresses quickly through the four stages of the protocol this week and can play on Sunday.             

Bills 27, Colts 24

Any NFL game which comes down to the very last snap with the outcome still in question always has a handful of plays over the course of the game which, had any one of them turned out even slightly differently, would have altered the final outcome. Saturday’s AFC playoff game in Orchard Park is a case in point and examples come easily to mind: The Bills were the beneficiaries on three of four key replay reviews, with the fourth and last unsuccessful one looming large until the final Hail Mary was knocked to the ground. A little earlier, Josh Allen fumbled the ball trying to wrestle his way out of a sack which had already become inevitable (and ended up costing 23 yards as the ball squirted backwards after leaving his hands) but Bills offensive lineman Daryl Williams recovered the bouncing ball. But I look to two second half special teams plays which, since we can all count, clearly determined the final score: a made 54 yard field goal by Buffalo’s Tyler “bass-o-matic” Bass and a missed 33 yard field goal by the Colts’ uniquely bi-spectacled kicker, Rod Blankenship. In a game decided by three points, why would more analysis be required?

Going into Saturday’s game, the Bills has lost their last six consecutive playoff games, with their most recent post-season win coming in December, 1995. Throughout Saturday’s game, it felt like for the team to win, it needed to lift up and cast away the collective weight of those six losses and this was going to be neither quick or easy to do. Bills Nation sweated and fretted for nearly three-and-a-half hours, even having to endure the added stress of a potential Deja vu Hail Mary pass attempt by Philip Rivers before Sean McDermott could finally cast a gaze skyward, first in relief, then in celebration. Immediately after Micah Hyde drove the final pass to the ground, we took a brisk 60 minute walk just to relieve the tension. We, and our dog who had clearly sensed our angst as the afternoon played out, needed it badly. Pro sports are supposed to be an enjoyable diversion, aren't they?  

Statistically, the Colts probably fared about as well as they could have hoped to. A glance at the box score shows them notching 27 first downs, 472 total yards, no turnovers and more than an eight minute advantage in time of possession. They certainly played well enough to win but the Bills did too. In the intense pre-game analysis on WGR last week, most of the pundits pointed to the challenge that the Bills run defence would face stopping Jonathan Taylor but, in the end, he carried 21 times for 78 yards – hardly the shredding we feared. And Josh Allen continued to look masterful passing the ball, going 26 of 35 for 324 yards, 2 TDs and no turnovers. Rookie kicker Tyler Bass has not missed a field goal or an extra point attempt since week 9.

Last night, as I sat stunned by the first quarter explosion by the Cleveland Browns in Pittsburgh, my theory that the Ravens stood a decent chance of knocking off the Chiefs in Kansas City next weekend, thereby setting up a Ravens v. Bills AFC Championship Game in Buffalo (assuming another home win against the Steelers next weekend), fell apart. So, the Bills will now have to knock off the Ravens a week earlier. As for the Browns chances of winning in Kansas City? I’d say they are about as likely as them winning in Pittsburgh. Ok, maybe not quite as good.

When the Sunday Night Football crew came to Orchard Park a few weeks ago, Al Michaels had the week off. No such luck this Saturday night for Michaels. The Bills, who played the Ravens tough last season but came up short, will need a special game plan to contain Lamar Jackson who yesterday in Nashville made what his coach said was the best running touchdown by a quarterback in NFL history. Maybe the best approach will be to put up 40 points and hope that it’s enough. 

For North American sports fans, and for Bills fans in particular, this NFL season has been a welcome distraction from the pandemic and from the political turmoil playing out in the United States. I hope the Bills can maintain their playoff run at least through inauguration day on the 20th.   

 

Bills 56, Dolphins 26

28 years ago yesterday, on January 3, 1993, the game which featured the greatest comeback in NFL history was played at what was then called Rich Stadium in Orchard Park, NY. The Bills trailed the Houston Oilers 28-3 at halftime and prospects for a return to a third consecutive Superbowl did not look good for the 75,000+ on hand, including me. My friend and I agreed that we would stick it out until the end of the third quarter and then try to beat the stadium traffic if the Bills hadn't mounted a comeback by then. On the opening series of the second half, the Oilers intercepted an errant pass and returned it for a touchdown. The rout was clearly on at 35-3. We stuck to our plan of staying until the start of the fourth quarter but many thousands did not. NFL rules did not allow re-entry to the stadium which meant that those who left could only listen in their cars even if they lived close to the stadium because the game was blacked out on local television, having not sold out by the requisite 72 hours prior to kick-off. The Bills then proceeded to score back-to-back-to-back touchdowns in the third quarter, making the score 35-24. They completed the comeback and took the lead late in the fourth quarter before the Oilers tied the game with a late field goal. The Bills won the game in overtime 41-38. That day, Jim Kelly was injured and the Bills quarterback was back-up Frank Reich. Coincidentally, Reich had led his Maryland Terapins to what was then the largest comeback in college football history in November, 1984, leading his team to to a 42-40 win over the Miami Hurricanes, after trailing 31-0 at halftime.

This coming Saturday, Reich returns to Orchard Park as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts for the first game of the NFL's expanded Wildcard Round which features six games over the course of the weekend. The NFL should change the name of its opening playoff weekend because six of the 12 teams playing in the round are division winners. When the Bills played the Oilers in 1993, both actually were Wildcard teams. Reich obviously holds a special place in NFL and Buffalo sports history but we hope that he and his team's success this season ends on Saturday which would earn the Bills their first playoff win in 25 years. And, looking on at Bills Stadium will be 6,700 fans, including New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo who may be considering a run at the White House in 2024. 

The Bills presented a plan for limited fan attendance at their home playoff games to the State government immediately after clinching the AFC East division title in Denver a couple of weeks ago. It included a sparse sprinkling of fans, representing about 9% of the stadium's capacity, no tailgating, staggered and specific entry times and mandatory COVID tests three days before each game for everyone planning to attend. The plan was approved by the New York State government as submitted. My seniority as a season ticket holder qualified me to apply for tickets but because of the border being closed to vehicle traffic (and the tickets not being transferable or eligible for third party sale), I passed. The 6,700 tickets were snapped up quickly and team officials are warning that the numerous online re-sale ticket listings which have popped up in the last couple of days are entirely fraudulent as no re-selling is permitted (enforced by verification by photo ID which must match the season ticket holder). All those attending the game will be seated outside as the enclosed and heated suites are off limits. Andrew Cuomo will be seated in the open air and in full view of the CBS cameras which, if he plans to run for President, suits him perfectly. My cynical instinct tells me that Cuomo, as part of his decision process, must have made a political calculation about support to be lost or gained in the Western New York area by whatever decision he made. I am confident that he made the right decision politically. Let's hope that it's not the wrong one for public health.

After Josh Allen lit up the Dolphins in the first half, Sean McDermott rested most of the team's starters in the second half. We got a chance to see some of the second and third string players in live game action. The one who stood out for me was running back Antonio Williams, a rookie undrafted free agent from North Carolina who had been on the Bills practice squad for the entire season. Yesterday was his first NFL game and, although the Dolphin defence was deflated by the time he entered, he ran powerfully and with a tenacity and determination which impressed me. For the day, he had 12 carries for 63 yards and two touchdowns, with a 5.3 yards per carry average. Possibly most important for him was the first NFL game cheque he has ever earned - in the amount of $30,000 - representing one sixteenth of the NFL rookie minimum salary of $480,000. For him, I am sure that it's a welcome holiday season bonus and I hope it is the first of many game cheques he earns in his career but, barring injuries to Devin Singletary and Zack Moss, it will be the only one for him this NFL season.

Expectations for playoff success are running high in Bills Nation (as a friend recently pointed out, the term "mafia" seems curious and I choose not to use it). If they can not beat the Colts on Saturday, the season will be considered a disappointment despite a 13-3 record achieved with a difficult schedule, playing against the NFC West and the AFC West, with the strong teams in those divisions and the heavier travel burden. Opening lines have the Bills as early 6.5 point favourites. If they win, I may apply for tickets to the Divisional Round game and find a way to fly to Buffalo which is, for some reason, still allowed.