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.