Patriots 29, Bills 25

Only two coaches in NFL history have more regular season wins under their belts than Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Those two are Don Shula and George Halas. Belichick hit a significant milestone yesterday by recording his 300th regular season win against the Bills in Foxborough, MA. He stands only 18 wins behind Halas and 28 behind Shula. If you had asked me before yesterday's game if current Patriots quarterback Mac Jones would be the one to deliver the 19 and/or 29 wins Belichick needed to move up in the pecking order of coaching wins, I would have said no. But after his performance yesterday, leading his team from behind on a game-winning drive to deliver the winning touchdown pass with seconds remaining - although it came against an injury-depleted Bills defence - I will now say that he just might be. Yesterday's game may be the break-out moment Jones and the Patriots' fan base needed to bolster his confidence and begin to regain the team's winning tradition. The NFL is a humbling league where you're only as good as your last game. Just ask Bills quarterback Josh Allen.  

For the first time since probably the 2019 season, the Bills now do not look like a team in serious contention for - or at least with a legitimate shot at - a Superbowl championship. There is obviously a long way to go and with the team now at 4-3, all is not lost but the trend is not encouraging. Josh Allen's "nothing to see here" answers about his throwing shoulder this past week may not have been entirely accurate as his throws certainly looked off at times yesterday - starting with his very first throw for an interception which set up the Patriots first touchdown and staked them to a 10-0 lead. His offensive line struggled in pass protection much of the day and that didn't help but Allen and the offence have seemed out of sorts over the past three weeks. They need to regain the swagger they had in the Miami game which now seems like it was from another season although it was only three weeks ago. With so many injuries on the defence, the generally healthy offence is supposed to pick it up. Instead, they are regressing. 

In the AFC, the Chiefs once again have the inside track on coveted number one seed after disposing of the Chargers yesterday. The Eagles who, along with the 49ers who play tonight in Minnesota, are the class of the NFC this morning. The Eagles did the Bills a huge favour last night by beating the Dolphins who fell to 5-2, only one game ahead of the Bills who hold the tie-breaker against them. The Dolphins five wins have come against teams with a combined record of 8-25 and they have lost both games against teams with winning records (the Bills and Eagles). Still on the schedule for the Bills this season are the Chiefs, Eagles and the Dolphins in Miami. So, the opportunities for the Bills to regain their championship form will certainly present themselves but look for them to drop out of the top ten in this week's power rankings - and for good reason. 

Continuing with last week's thread on the college football schedule, Michigan faced its cross-state rivals Michigan State on Saturday with the Paul Bunyan Trophy at stake. This was the 116th meeting between the two schools which first faced each other in 1898 and have played every season since 1945. This year's game was in East Lansing and the Wolverines found themselves in unfamiliar territory, favoured by only 24 points. The game looked more like a football practice as the Wolverines won 49-0. I guess Jim Harbaugh has been much better at recruiting the best players in the state (and beyond) than have the Spartans. The  Wolverines won't be shellac-ing anyone this week as they have a bye before returning home to Ann Arbor on November 4th against the Purdue Boilermakers. The spread in that game should be at least 30 points as the uncompetitive college football schedule rolls on. 

Next up for the Bills is a home game three days from now - Thursday Night Football - against the Tampa Bay Bucanneers. If I could pick one of 31 NFL teams with which the Bills have the most "opposite of a rivalry", it  would be the Bucs. This is the 13th meeting all-time between the teams and only the third time the Bucs have ever travelled to Orchard Park. The Bucs lead the all-time series 8-4 but the Bills have won both games in Buffalo - in 2009 and in 2017. The Bills are 7.5 point favourites. I'm too old to be driving home (safely) at 2.30am and based on what's available on the secondary market, ticket demand for this game is weak. If anyone wants to go and see NFL football from the best seats in the house, let me know.      

Bills 14, Giants 9

Throughout Tyrod Taylor's three seasons as Bills starting quarterback, he earned the reputation as a very competent game manager: he is a good athlete who can scramble to sustain drives, his ball security is almost always impeccable and he can make some of the throws which an NFL quarterback needs to make. But at particularly crucial times, his arm strength and accuracy would often fail him. I have oodles of respect for Taylor as the man who was under centre when the Bills 17 year playoff drought ended in Sean McDermott's first season six years ago. Last night in Orchard Park, Taylor made just enough plays to give his team a good chance to win but on the final play of a long and frustrating game, he was unable to deliver the pass to tight end Darren Waller. He has parlayed his talent and consistency into an impressive NFL career (mostly as a back-up) but has not been able to make key plays at critical times. Last night, in addition to coming up short at the end of the game, his audible on what turned out to be the final play of the first half cost his team a chance at crucial points which probably would have changed the trajectory of the game. Giants coach Brian Daboll, a hot-head at the best of times, was in full melt-down as the teams went to their locker rooms with the Giants leading 6-0. 

The Giants, now 1-5, played as if their season was on the line - which it was. Wink Martindale, the 89 year-old former disc jockey and game show host turned defensive coordinator (how can two somewhat famous people with the same last name end up with the same nickname?) dialed up a solid defensive game plan which kept the Bills scoreless through three quarters. But he got little support from Taylor and the offence which could not find the endzone all night. The Giants effort and grit was impressive in a losing cause. It was clear that Daboll and Taylor really wanted this one - not only to try to salvage their season but on account of their respective histories in Buffalo. It must have been a bitter way to lose.

For the Bills part, they looked out of sync on offence for most of the game before finally finding the endzone twice in the fourth quarter. Josh Allen took some big hits including one where his helmet hit the turf, earning him banishment to the blue tent for two plays. He also wrenched his throwing shoulder although he finished the game and post-game X-rays were negative. We will hear more about this shoulder in the next couple of days. The Bills tight-end depth helped as little-used Quinton Morris, targeted for the first time all season, caught what turned out to be the game-winning score on a classic Josh Allen high risk thread-the-needle throw on a scramble with less than four minutes remaining. 

A word on college football: Having attended a game at the Big House in Ann Arbor 20 years ago, I am a casual to sometimes serious fan of the Michigan Wolverines. Through seven weeks of the season, Jim Harbaugh's team has maintained its number two national ranking in the AP poll. How the poll voters can really know how good the Wolverines really are is beyond me as they have won all of their games by a combined score of 276 to 47. They have been double digit favourites in every game including this past Saturday where the spread was posted at 33 against the Indiana Hoosiers who as far as I know are quite good at basketball. Michigan won 52-7. In short, the college football schedule is a mystery to me with so many lop-sided games, especially in the first few weeks of the season. The Wolverines have feasted on the likes of East Carolina, Bowling Green and UNLV - with all of these game played at the Big House before crowds of more than 108,000. I don't know who benefits from these mis-matches. Certainly not the Michigan fans unless they value being able to leave before halftime to beat the traffic. Aside from the season finale against Ohio State, the Wolverines will not face any legitimate competition at all this season with the exception of a trip to State College PA to pay the Nittany Lions on November 11th. I guess there just aren't enough quality teams for the NCAA to present a competitive schedule in September and October as the top 10 programs in the country sign all of the top national recruits every year. Maybe the time has come for a high school draft. College football remains popular with television ratings up this year but I can only imagine how much more compelling the games would be with more competitive balance throughout the season.

Up next for the Bills is a trip to Foxborough to play the sad-sack Patriots who sit at 1-5 as their fans question whether Bill Belichick is still a good coach and if Mac Jones is a legitimate franchise quarterback. Gillette Stadium was death valley for the Bills (and most other teams) for so many years, it's still hard for Bills fans to feel comfortable about it but maybe with the ill-fated trip to London and last night's nail-biter in the rear view mirror, the time has come for the team to regain their form as a Superbowl contender.  

   

Jaguars 25, Bills 20

The Jaguars and the Bills stand first and second in the NFL in terms of the most regular season games played outside the United States. The Jaguars have unwittingly become London's team after agreeing some years ago to play at least one game per season at Wembley Stadium for an extended period. Team owner Shahid Khan jumped at the "opportunity" when his team was a perennial league doormat and was suffering attendance problems in north Florida. Rather than have vast sections of empty seats in the upper deck (which look awful on television - like most CFL games do these days), the Jaguars made large tarps (with team branding) to entirely cover sections in the upper corners of EverBank Stadium in an effort to make the stadium look "full". Losing one home game annually to an overseas location seemed better than struggling to sell tickets at home. Now that his team is respectable at worst and a legitimate contender at best, Khan may be regretting his commitment but yesterday's win over the bad luck Buffalo Bills marks the team's second consecutive win in the UK this season. Their first win came last week against the Falcons at Wembley.

The Bills hold second position in games played outside the US because former team owner Ralph Wilson decided in 2008 to play one home game each season in Toronto for a period of five years. The Bills ended up seeing that five year commitment through and adding one more game in 2013. Rogers communications made Wilson an offer so good for the first five years (which also included one pre-season game each season)  that he couldn't - or at least didn't - turn it down. The "Toronto Series" was a disaster by any standard of measurement as the team lost its considerable home field advantage as well as all but one of the games. With losses to the Dolphins, Jets, Bears, Seahawks and Falcons in regular season play at the Rogers Centre, fans in Buffalo were furious while fans in Toronto seemed indifferent at best. The Bills only win in Toronto came in 2011 against Washington and Bills fans may remember that the team signed quarterback Ryan "Fitzmagic" Fitzpatrick to a lucrative contract extension following that game. He went on afterward to earn the nickname "Fitztragic" for good reason. The Toronto series left the Bills with a record of one win and five losses in what were supposed to be "home" games. Toronto fans' proved that, while there are plenty of NFL fans in the area, not all - certainly not enough - are Bills fans.

In 2015, the Bills headed to London to play the Jaguars at Wembley Stadium in the team's first game outside the US since the Toronto debacle. Quarterback EJ Manuel put on an interception clinic in a 34-31 loss - a score which flattered the Bills who scored a couple of late touchdown to make the score look close. Entering yesterday's game, the Bills took their 1-6 international record to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in north London and added another failure to the loss column. I saw almost none of the game as we were engaged in the moving of a building at the cottage - a project which was extremely difficult, fraught with problems, took two entire days but was ultimately successful (except for some minor damage to the roof). I did pop inside just as Matt Milano was being helped off the field in what looked like great discomfort. He is probably lost for the season with a leg break or a knee injury (or both), according to reports I read last night. His leg was "rolled up on" in what is a very common way to be seriously injured in football. After avoiding the injury bug for the first five years of the Sean McDermott era, reversion to mean is happening in real time this year to the Bills who have lost a star defensive player in each of the last two games - Tre White last week and now Milano who is one of the best linebackers in the NFL and one who played every down. Recovery from these injuries is certainly possible but it will take an offensive explosion every week to overcome them. If Josh Allen can lead the team to 40 points every week, they may have a chance but based on yesterday's mostly anemic performance by the offence, my confidence level is not high at the moment.

But, the Bills next three opponents - the Giants, Patriots and Buccaneers - may be just what the doctor ordered to get their offence back on track. Maria Taylor and the Sunday Night Football crew come to Orchard Park next week as the Giants visit the Bills. After a sizzling first half of the season and a road playoff win for then rookie head coach (and former Bills offensive coordinator) Brian Daboll in 2022, the Giants have been a disappointment so far this season, getting blown out yesterday in Miami. For the Bills, at least there are no more games on foreign soil on the schedule.

Bills 48, Dolphins 20

The Miami Dolphins joined the AFL in 1966 and since then the Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills have played each other twice each regular season. The two teams have also squared off in five playoff games. Yesterday's meeting was the 120th in the history of the series which has seen periods of domination by one team or the other as well as periods of parity and very intense competition. That's a lot of football games between two teams but is well behind the Bears v. Packers who have met more than 200 times. The Dolphins lead the regular season series 61 to 53 with one tie. The Bills have won four of the five playoff match-ups including the AFC Championship Game in Miami in January of 1993 and a first round playoff game in Orchard Park in January of this year. 

Due mostly to recency bias, many Bills fans probably consider the rivalry with the New England Patriots to be the fiercest one they know but historically, the Bills v. Dolphins rivalry has a much deeper meaning, particularly for those who remember the 1970s. Led by coach Don Shula and quarterback Bob Griese, the Dolphins dominated the Bills throughout the entire decade of the 70s, winning each and every one of the 20 games played between 1970 and 1979. The frustration of Bills fans through this period was not relieved until 1980 when Bills quarterback Joe Ferguson broke the streak with a home win which sent fans streaming onto the field like we often see in a major college upset. I think I have seen the Bills play the Dolphins five times with the biggest game by far taking place on December 23, 1990. With Jim Kelly injured, Frank Reich led the Bills to a critical home win which secured the AFC East division title and home field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs as they earned their first trip to the Superbowl. One of the most iconic images in Bills history is a photo taken during this game where Bruce Smith has his arms wrapped around Dan Marino as he brings him to the concrete-like astroturf. "Squish the Fish" is the Bills fans rallying cry for this rivalry. It was never more appropriate than it was yesterday in Orchard Park.

The Dolphins offence seemed unstoppable after the first three weeks of the season, especially after they hung 70 points on the Broncos last week. The game began as predicted with the two teams trading touchdowns on each of their first two drives. The Bills scored again on their third drive and then began stiffening their defence before pulling away. The 31 points the Bills racked up in the first half was the most in a half in 30 years. The Bills skilled players on offence shined throughout the game and the defence played well enough to slow the Dolphins down as much as was needed. 

The postgame celebration for Bills fans however had a bittersweet aftertaste. Tre'Davious White, the standout cornerback now in his seventh season is probably lost for the season (to be confirmed today by MRI) with an Achilles tear. When the Bills face the New York Jets in November, perhaps White and Aaron Rodgers can sit together and compare notes on season-ending Achilles injuries. For White, this will be the second season-ending injury in the last three years. The most infuriating part for him I would think is that both of these injuries were "non-contact" - as in caused either by the turf or just an awkward body movement. On Thanksgiving Day in 2021, White tore ligaments in his left knee just by catching his shoe on the turf which flexed his knee sideways. He did return a year later but was not 100% until the beginning of this season. Now an Achilles tear will keep him out presumably until 2024. For a sport known for its violent hits, head injuries and 300 pound linemen falling on other players legs, a player like White who has now had two major non-contact injuries must feel like the most unlucky football player ever. 

In response to player injuries, coaches like the phrase "next man up" as injuries present opportunities for whoever is the next man up. For the Bills, that man surely is Kaiir Elam. Last year's 23rd overall pick has been inconsistent at best (he was a healthy scratch in week one) and lost the second cornerback competition to Christian Benford who was drafted five rounds later. This is obviously the best opportunity Elam will have to show why the Bills made him their first round pick in 2022. Let's hope he rises to it.

Sean McDermott was quite emotional after the game when describing White's injury. He also said that in all his years in the NFL, he has never heard crown noise at any time in any stadium like he did yesterday. He said it was like a jet engine. Watching on television, it seemed loud as it always does but I didn't get the feeling that it was above and beyond the usual. It would have been a great game to see live as long as you brought plenty of sunscreen. 

Next up for the Bills is an overseas trip to face the Jaguars in London. Kick-off is set for 9.30am Eastern on Sunday. I hope to have my turkey stuffed and ready to go into the oven before game time. I'd like to extend a personal thank you to TcketMaster UK for shutting me out of their site and denying me tickets to the game despite the "special season ticket holder preferred access pre-sale" link I received. I'd say that one of the most challenging jobs I can think of would be Communications or Public Relations Director for this highly unethical company. I won't be applying.          

Bills 37, Commanders 3

Throughout most of the 1990s,Toronto sports radio personality Bob McCown maintained a residence in Las Vegas and often did his syndicated radio program Prime Time Sports from his home studio. After having his usual time slot taken from him by "Tim and Sid", McCown left the airwaves of the Fan 590 in Toronto in 2019 (after quite a public expression of his displeasure with the demotion) and earlier this year he suffered two serious strokes which left him unable to walk or speak - although he said this summer through his Twitter account that he is on the mend and hopes to be back doing his sports podcast again before too long. I remember McCown saying repeatedly that by far the best place to be for a Superbowl was Las Vegas. I presume that what he meant was that it was the best place to be if you couldn't actually be at the game in person.

Now that online sports gambling platforms have earned official status in most jurisdictions in North America (the television ads are ubiquitous on almost all live sports broadcasts) and now that the league has officially climbed into bed with them, NFL viewership ratings are climbing even further - something I doubted was even possible. With the Raiders now settled into a new stadium in Las Vegas, the Superbowl will be played there in a few months. The combination of the frenzy that takes over the sports books in the big Vegas hotels for the Superbowl and with the big game actually taking place there, Vegas will truly be the place to be in early February for even the most casual football fan. 

Last week, I received an email from the league setting out a few of the Superbowl packages offered by the major hotels on the Vegas strip. For a bit more than $14,000 USD, you can enjoy three nights at the Wynn, admission to the Superbowl Players Tailgate Party which features appearances by 50 NFL celebrities, a five-star food menu created by celebrity chefs, an open bar etc etc. The party will apparently not feature open fires in a parking lot which typifies the kind of tailgating we experience in Orchard Park. The package obviously includes ground transfers to and from Allegiant Stadium and a game ticket but air transportation to Las Vegas is not included. Since attending a Superbowl has long been an item on my own bucket list (although it is not really near the top), perusing these Superbowl packages did cause me to fantasize about it and if I were in a position to piss away $20,000 CAD on a Vegas weekend at the Superbowl, it would be tempting. But in the course of indulging my fantasy, I realized that my bucket list item is really to attend a Superbowl in which the Buffalo Bills are playing.

Although we may know well in advance that the Bills will not be playing in the big game, if they do in fact make it to their first Superbowl in 30 years, we will not know this until after the AFC Championship game - two weeks before the Superbowl. What will the price for these hotel packages be by then (if they are available at all) and what will a flight to Vegas cost if it is booked so close to the game, I asked myself. Why am I even wondering about this I also asked myself.... Then I remembered that if the Bills do make it to the big game, as a season ticket holder I will be entered in a Superbowl ticket lottery which I now realize is not only my best chance but my only chance of getting to the big game. I have it all planned out: After winning a pair of the tickets allocated to each Superbowl team (or winning the option to purchase them), I would drive my car to the California desert and camp in Death Valley National Park (as I have done before) and make the two hour drive to Las Vegas on game day. I might even watch the Superbowl Players Tailgate Party from outside the fence. So that's my plan to attend Superbowl LVIII in Las Vegas: the Bills win the AFC Championship Game, I win the ticket lottery, drive there and camp in Death Valley. It's a solid plan. Wish me luck.

Some of this fantasizing was made possible yesterday by a dominant performance by the Bills in Landover, Maryland. The game was not as close as the score would indicate as the Bills found the endzone three times in the fourth quarter to extend their lead to 37-0. By this point, I was looking at  specific campsites at the Furnace Creek campground. Buffalo's defence was too much for Commanders quarterback Sam "Thurston" Howell who threw four interceptions and was sacked nine times. 

In south Florida, the Miami Dolphins racked up no less than 10 touchdowns against the inept Broncos defence. The 70 points the Dolphins scored was the most in an NFL game since 1966 and the 726 yards of total offence was the second most ever in league history. Denver coach Sean Payton called his team's performance "embarrassing". 

These same Miami Dolphins, now 3-0, travel to Orchard Park next week in what will be a huge test for the Bills defence. For a week four game, there is plenty at stake: a Bills win would pull them even with Miami in the AFC East with a hold on the tie-breaker while a loss would put them two games behind with the Dolphins holding the tie-breaker (which would effectively give them a three game lead).  

Bills 38, Raiders 10

The Oakland (then Los Angeles then back to Oakland and now Las Vegas) Raiders tenure at the decrepit Oakland Alameda County Coliseum dates back to 1966 and, by all accounts, the stadium has not aged well. The Athletics baseball team - arguably MLB's weakest franchise at the moment - still calls it home (and plays most of its games before crowds of well below 10,000) but the Raiders, who have actually moved away from it twice, departed for good before the 2020 season. Overseeing the move to Las Vegas was the team's current "owner" Mark Davis. The only child of Al and Carol Davis, Mark assumed the de facto role of owner upon his father's death in 2011 when the team was left to his mother and him. Together, they own 47% of the team but under its governing partnership agreement, they hold a controlling interest. For having permanently moved the team away from Oakland, Mark Davis probably isn't the most popular personality in the Bay area or among certain traditional elements of Raiders Nation (which has a large membership across the US and beyond). 

Al Davis was one of the NFL's most colourful and controversial personalities. He is the only person in NFL history to serve as scout, head coach, general manager, league commissioner (for the AFL) and team owner. He was known as a very litigious yet highly principled man who, among his many notable actions as Raiders owner, sued the NFL in 1980 for not allowing him to move the team to Los Angeles (he succeeded in doing this two years later) and in the 1960s, he forbid his team from travelling to cities where black and white players would be required to stay in separate hotels. He hired the league's first black head coach (Art Shell) and its first Latino head coach (Tom Flores). The Raiders also became the dumping ground for some of the NFL's least savoury players (in terms of criminal records etc) and, partly in response to criticism for this, he coined the phrase "Just Win Baby". Son Mark, with his signature "bowl" haircut has followed in his father's social justice footsteps by being the first NFL owner to speak out against domestic violence in response to some of the more infamous incidents involving NFL players and when NFL owners voted to require players to either stand for the national anthem or remain in the locker room until after the anthem, the Raiders were the only one of the league's 32 teams not to vote in favour of the measure (they abstained).  

As the player warm-ups wrapped up yesterday at a mostly sun-drenched Rich Stadium, from our seats at the 45 yard line, we noticed a heavy security presence making its way up the aisle beside our section. Two Erie County Sheriff's officers and at least four very large suit-attired men were escorting Mark Davis up the aisle from field level behind the Raiders bench to his private box just above our section. It wasn't clear at first what the security was for but I recognized the bowl haircut and then Davis's rather unique face below it. If any disgruntled member of Raider Nation (or perhaps anti Colin Kaepernick hammerheads) wanted to get at Mr. Davis, they were certainly not going to be successful yesterday. Despite his feeling secure in the stadium as I am sure he did, Mr. Davis probably didn't enjoy the game very much.

The Bills treated their fans to a blowout win in the home opener but the game did not start well as they allowed the Raiders an easy touchdown on their first possession and then went three-and-out on their first offensive drive. But Terrel Bernard got his hands on a tipped Jimmy Garoppolo pass on the next series and Bills tied the game shortly afterward and never looked back. Josh Allen silenced the naysayers with a tidy three touchdown day with no turnovers. A very conservative offensive game plan seemed to be the perfect remedy for his wild turnover-filled Monday night in week one. James Cook looked dangerous all day and racked up 123 yards on 17 carries. The Raiders Josh Jacobs, the league's leading rusher a season ago, was held to minus two yards on nine carries. A comfortable fourth quarter lead also allowed us to leave with a few minutes left, beat the stadium traffic and enjoy a smooth trip through the border and home as we listened to Mike Schopp and the Bulldog take post-game calls. 

Occupying the seats just to the left of mine is a father/son tandem who attend every game  The father, in his early 80s, has been a season ticket holder for 50 years. The son, who has a clear resemblance to Metallica frontman James Hetfield, is a US Postal Service worker. They are dedicated "salt-of-the-earth" fans, life-long Buffalo residents and the kind of folks who make Bills Nation one of the best fan bases in the NFL. During the many television breaks yesterday, Mr. Hetfield and I discussed the new stadium under construction across the road and we commiserated about the lack of information from the team about timelines, seat selection and the likely cost of the personal seat licences (PSLs) which will be required to maintain seats in the best sections of the new stadium (if not the entire stadium). The most recent speculation I have seen is that for seats in our section, the PSL cost will likely be somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000 USD per seat (a one-time cost). Mr. Hetfield and his dad have determined that their budget could handle a cost of only about $5,000 or perhaps a bit more and they are very concerned that they will be priced out of their seats and will see their five decade long tradition come to an end in a couple of years. I have no idea what I will do once we know the cost of the these PSLs but if fans like Mr. Hetfield and his dad are shut out of the Bills new stadium for financial reasons, this would be quite sad for them and probably for many other fans in similar positions. 

Next up for the Bills is a trip to Washington to play the Commanders. They had better be careful not to look ahead to the looming week four game in Orchard Park against the now 2-0 Miami Dolphins.     

Jets 22, Bills 16

When the Green Packers came for their once-every-eight-years trip to Buffalo in 2022, it was reasonable to think that it would be Aaron Rodgers last trip to western New York as an NFL player. Whoever bought my tickets to the game must have thought so anyway - it's the only reason I can think of to pay almost $1,500 USD for a pair of tickets. "Unless he somehow ends up on the Jets next year" I said at the time. It obviously wasn't a stretch to suggest that scenario as the Jets had hired an up-and-coming, young and bright head coach in Robert Saleh and built a top tier defence but had suffered from horrible quarterback play under Zach Wilson who was benched late last season in favour of someone named Mike White. The "Gang Green" fan base in New York had grown restless with their team as they had watched the Giants, their NFC cousins, have a successful 2022 season (winning a playoff game) under former Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll. The Jets also own the league's longest playoff drought which dates back to 2010. The Packers were clearly going to move on from Rodgers and hand the quarterbacking reins to Jordan Love. Although the trade negotiations and the process of securing Rodgers buy-in for the deal over the off-season took longer than it should have - including his strange period of meditative isolation for several days in a remote cabin somewhere - but the deal finally received Rodgers blessing - only after his long list of requirements was met. Optimism abounded in J-E-T-S Nation through the summer, training camp and the pre-season.

Meanwhile, upstate, the 2023 off-season saw the only NFL team which is actually based in New York, (1) lose its all-important middle linebacker (the "mic" linebacker as it is known and the quarterback of the defence) Trumaine Edmunds to the Bears in free agency, (2) lose its respected defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier to semi-retirement from coaching (he said he was taking 2023 off) with the head coach assuming defensive in-game play-calling, (3) lose its kick returner and back-up running back Nyheim Hines who was badly injured in a jet-ski accident in July and is gone for the season (he commenced legal action last week against the other "driver"), and (4) its star wide receiver Stefon Diggs pout about something-or-other and, although he was on-site, miss the first day of the mandatory mini-camp in May without a full explanation of the exact nature of the issue or whether or not it had been fully resolved. Head coach Sean McDermott at one point said he was "very concerned" about the situation. The team did bolster its offensive line through free agency and the draft and selected another tight-end with the initials "DK" in the first round but the Bills fell out of favour with the pundits as the season approached and were no longer the favourites to win the Superbowl as they were a year ago. But they still had their all-world quarterback in Josh Allen along with a solid veteran roster around him. 

The first Monday Night Football match-up of the season last night between these two division rivals was therefore much-anticipated by both fan bases and by NFL watchers everywhere. Add in the 22nd anniversary of 9/11 with the game in New York (actually, New Jersey) and the hype meter was at its maximum for September football last night. 

Unfortunately for the Jets, their long-suffering fans and the league itself, four offensive snaps into the game, Aaron Rodgers went down on an innocent enough looking sack tackle. His left ankle appeared to flex the way ankles aren't designed to flex and, although he got up right away, he quickly sat down on the field and was attended to by trainers. At this point, I was thinking a sprain which would take him out of the game for a series or two before they taped him up and sent him back out. But he went first into the tent, then a cart picked him at the tent (by this time he had an inflatable boot on) and took him inside. Reports late last night indicate that he may have suffered an Achilles injury and could be lost for the season. For the Jets, this was the worst possible start to their season and, trailing by 10 points at the half, they looked dead in the water.

But Josh Allen, looking more like a rookie than a six-year veteran, singlehandedly turned the game around for the home team by turning the ball over four separate times: three interceptions - each of which looked to have been thrown into double coverage - and a late fumble deep in his own end with the game tied and the clock winding down. The Jets managed only a field goal on the next series and Allen led his team into position for Tyler Bass to connect (just barely) on the 50 yard field goal to send the game to overtime. The Jets sent their fans home happy (until they learned the news on Rodgers anyway) by returning a punt for a touchdown and pulling out an unlikely 22-16 win.

Week One was not a good one for the AFC's three top quarterbacks. Patrick Mahomes played well enough in the Chiefs loss to the Lions but Joe Burrow, now the NFL's highest paid player, looked like he should have been earning the league minimum in the Bengals loss to Cleveland. And last night, Josh Allen somehow reverted to being a turnover machine. Do these three losses by the top three teams in the conference portend what is to come for the rest of 2023? The only thing I can say with (some) certainty is that I wouldn't want to have to play the Chiefs, Bengals or the Bills in week two. Look for each of them to rebound. The Dolphins just might be the team to beat in the AFC.  

Speaking of week two, the Bills return home on a short week to face the Las Vegas Raiders in Orchard Park on Sunday in the home opener - the third last home opener at Rich Stadium (as I have decided, for nostalgic reasons, to once again call it). It will be my first trip to Buffalo since 2019.