Patriots 13, Rams 3

When I read last week that Maroon 5 had cancelled its customary Superbowl week press conference which is afforded to the halftime musical act,  I wondered if we would ever see another one of them. After Justin Timberlake famously declared that his young son would never play football in response to a question at that same press conference a year ago, the league was probably relieved that Adam Levine and company would, according to an NFL press release "let their show do the talking as they prepare to take the stage this Sunday". Maybe the NFL could see if John Ashcroft is available next year to sing his "Let the Eagle Soar" song at the 2020 halftime show. His press conference would likely only offend the liberal non-football watching crowd anyway.

As for the halftime show itself, I thought that Maroon 5's performance was fine - pretty good actually. USA today called it a "white bread performance" which allowed them to avoid being the worst halftime show ever. I'm assuming that rapper - and Atlanta native son - Big Boi's coat was fake fur. Imagine the PR nightmare for the league if it turns out that it wasn't? As if the NFL doesn't have enough to worry about with race relations, spousal abuse, close ties to the Republican Party, a history of extorting public funds for new stadiums.....an animal rights problem might just land Roger Goodell on the Agenda with Steve Paikin where he would be pitted against lawyer Camille Labchuk from Animal Rights. If that happened, my money would be on Labchuk for a number of reasons.

The on-field backdrop for last night's 53rd version of the Superbowl wasn't ideal from the league's perspective. After a season which saw television ratings rebound amid a reduced focus on off-the-field matters, including a President who had more pressing concerns this past season than whether or not NFL players were standing during the singing of the national anthem, an on-the-field controversy engulfed the football world after the NFC Championship Game. An inexplicable and critical non-call on a clear pass interference foul late in the game sent the Rams to the big game instead of the Saints who surely would have won the NFC title had the right call - and the blatantly obvious call - been made. Equally inexplicably, the league was silent on the matter and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said very little about it at his annual press conference last Wednesday. At least the Rams didn't win the game.

And it looks very much like there will be no significant change to the replay/review rule. For those hoping that pass interference might be added to the list of reviewable plays (along with other judgment calls like holding), don't hold your breath. As Don Banks pointed out on Prime Time Sports last week, among the unintended consequences of such a move would be to draw attention to the fact that there is some degree of pass interference and/or holding on virtually every snap. The only thing I would suggest is that if the officials can pick up a flag - and reverse a called penalty - upon further discussion among themselves (not replay review - just a brief officials meeting), then surely they could also sometimes call a penalty and throw a flag after a play is over, provided that one of the on-field officials actually saw the infraction. It still seems unbelievable to me that no official saw the blatant pass interference two weeks ago in New Orleans. 

On to the game itself: I wondered if its 14 punts had set a Superbowl record but nope, Superbowl XXXV in January, 2001 (Giants v. Ravens) featured 21 of them. The Rams, however did set two Superbowl records - the first by punting on each of their first seven drives and the second by Johnny Hekker who recorded the longest punt in Superbowl history at 65 yards (with 27 of them coming on a very favourable bounce). Those who took the under were happy at least. I found the game to be less interesting than Superbowls in recent years but still much better than a blow-out would have been.

So, Brady and Belichick have their 6th rings now. Will their run end there? I'm certainly not counting on it.

Bills 42, Dolphins 17

I saw not a single snap of yesterday's game in Orchard Park. Not live anyway; I have seen a couple of the game's key plays online just this morning. As Kyle Williams was leaving the field for the last time, I was leading a group of cross-country skiers across three frozen lakes in Muskoka. There just isn't enough snow to ski on the trails, although that is forecast to change later today.

Kyle Williams was picked by the Bills in the 5th round of the 2006 draft from LSU. As he said on Friday when he announced his retirement from the NFL, Williams has only ever lived in two places: Louisiana and Buffalo, NY. His family, including five children, call Buffalo home. Williams is not only one of the best players ever to wear a Bills uniform but he has been the undisputed team leader and ambassador. When the team made a successful push to sign defensive end Mario Williams in 2012, Williams was front and centre in making the case for him to come to Buffalo. When the team watched the Cincinnati Bengals upset the Baltimore Ravens in week 17 last season to send the Bills to the playoffs, Williams jumped around in the locker room like a kid on Christmas morning. Through his 13 seasons with the team, it would be the only playoff game he would see.

Williams has seen some very lean times in Buffalo with the team's record through his entire tenure being only 76-120. The team never really bottomed out (although the 2010 season where they ended at 4-12 after starting 0-8 came close) and rebounded - it just kept plodding along through various head coaches - Dick Jauron, Chan Gailey, Doug Marrone, Rex Ryan and now Sean McDermott - piling up disappointing but not disastrous records year after year. Always the team player and always seeing the positive in a sea of negativity, Williams remained loyal and committed to the team. His name will rightly go on the Wall of Fame maybe as early as next season. I have never seen a player deliver a more consistent effort on each and every snap he ever played. In last season's final game, Williams ran for a touchdown and yesterday, he caught a pass for a nine yard gain. To me, on that play, he looked like a better receiver than Kelvin Benjamin ever did. Kyle Williams wins the Vontae Davis Halftime Retirement Award for week 17 but for all the right reasons.

Josh Allen had another strong game for the Bills under centre, going 17 for 26 for 224 yards, and 5 touchdowns - 3 passing and 2 running - for a quarterback rating of 114. His counterpart, Ryan Tannehill, whose future with the Dophins is uncertain at best, finished the game with a rating of 43. Allen made one bonehead throw which was intercepted and returned for a touchdown, allowing the Dolphins to tie the game late in the first half. He will need to eliminate these disastrous plays in the future but the Bills fan base should feel optimistic about Allen's prospects going into next season and beyond.

Around the league yesterday, the Patriots secured another first round bye which sets them up for a likely trip to the AFC Championship Game in Kansas City. In the NFC, the Saints will be tough to beat at home but the Eagles made it in to the tournament and will play at Chicago next weekend. Should be some interesting games in what has been an entertaining season for the league.

I will have a post after the Superbowl. My prediction is the Saints and Patriots will play in Atlanta on February 3rd. Happy New Year. 
   

Patriots 24, Bills 12

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - at least it is where I am now. It's early morning on Christmas Eve - a few minutes after 6am - here on Clear Lake in eastern Muskoka. It's still dark but about 5cm of fresh snow fell through the night, pretty much ensuring a white Christmas. I arrived early yesterday morning to find a thin layer of crusty frozen snow and ice on the ground from the rain which fell on Friday. But I also found good skating conditions on the lake. The ice is about six inches thick so I donned my life jacket and a length of rope, wished myself good luck and set out on the blades. I stayed close to shore and had no issues. There are few activities as satisfying as skating on a frozen lake and I'm happy to have had an early season chance at it. Today I will cross country ski. But not before I make another batch of my Christmas jam. This year, it is apple / pineapple. The first batch turned out ok but I need to extend the cooking a bit to get it to the proper set point.

After skating, I settled in to watch the Bills take on the Patriots in Foxborough with a chance to deny them their 10th consecutive AFC East division title. It wasn't to be. Throughout the week, I was following the evolving point spread for the game which started and ended at 13.5 points. Early in the week, money came in on the Bills (for some reason) which pushed the spread down to 12 but, when the so-called "sharp money" came in late in the week, the 13.5 point spread was restored. For those who took the points and the Bills, you made the right call as they covered the spread by losing by only 12. And that included a missed field goal and a botched extra point which would have reduced the margin to 8 points.

The Patriots usually come up with game plans which serve them well against particular opponents and yesterday was no exception as they decided that they would run the ball against the Bills highly rated pass defence. And run the ball they did, piling up 273 yards on the ground and dominating the line of scrimmage and the time of possession. The Bills managed only 72 yards rushing. LeSean McCoy had 6 carries for 9 yards and looked so slow that he earns his second Vontae Davis Halftime Retirement Award in 3 weeks. Tom Brady needed only 117 passing yards, compared to Josh Allen's respectable looking 289 yards. Both threw two interceptions and each team fumbled the ball away once. Though the score never got out of hand, the game never felt like one where the result was in question.

If a win wasn't in the cards yesterday, Bills fans were hoping to see more positive development from Josh Allen. I would characterize his progress as steady but slow. He was unable to run the way we have seen over the past few weeks (probably a good thing) but I was hoping to see more improvement in his passing and I'm not sure I saw that yesterday. His arm strength is obviously impressive and serves him very well on deep balls and on broken plays or instances where he escapes the pocket and has more time to throw down the field but he still lacks the requisite touch on some of the mid-range throws which NFL quarterbacks need to make. I can't tell whether it looks like he will be able to improve enough on those throws to be the 10 year franchise quarterback we all hope he will be. 

Around the league yesterday, the Saints locked up home field through the NFC playoffs with a big win over the Steelers who are likely out of the playoffs. In the AFC, things are more complicated but the Chiefs and Chargers could each still claim the number one seed.

The Bills face the Dolphins in Orchard Park on Sunday. Both teams have been eliminated and if the weather is foul, the stands will be sparsely occupied.

Hoping that everyone who wants to has a Merry Christmas and safe travels. The photo was taken above the village of Pheriche, Nepal (4,700 metres above sea level) which is about a day's walk from Mount Everest Base Camp.

Bills 14, Lions 13

Jerry Sullivan was the lead sports columnist for the Buffalo News for 16 years before he was unceremoniously punted by the newspaper in May because his "voice was becoming bad for business". That was the reason given to Sullivan, now an independent Buffalo-based journalist, by the paper. Were his columns, particularly about the Bills (and especially during the post-2000 playoff drought and before Ralph Wilson's death), often quite negative? Yes they were. But for good reason in my opinion. A cheerleader he was not. Sullivan was critical of Wilson's cheapskate management and coaching hiring practices after the departure of the triumvirate of GM Bill Polian, coach Marv Levy and quarterback Jim Kelly. It was my impression that Sullivan had a large following of readers among Buffalo sports fans - those who agreed with him and those who didn't. The Buffalo News obviously saw it differently. I always loved his description of how he approached his job with the paper in terms of not being a homer: "I column as I see 'em".

I have no idea how Sullivan earns a living theses days. I follow him on Twitter and I read his columns after every Bills game (which he posts to his Twitter account). Maybe there are advertisements for Tops Friendly Markets or Dunn Tire embedded somewhere in his column that I subconsciously see but I certainly don't pay to read what he posts. Not to say that I necessarily wouldn't pay if it came to that but, for me, either way, he is a go-to source after every Bills game. Yesterday, Sullivan referred to the Bills win over the Detroit Lions as a key part of the equation in their "epic race to 7-9". It reminded me of something he said about Dick Jauron who coached the Bills from 2006 through November of 2009. The Bills finished 7-9 in 2006, 2007 and 2008 under Jauron. In a sarcastic reference to his pursuit of mediocrity, Sullivan wrote that "Jauron strings up 7-9 seasons like Christmas lights on his house".

Yesterday, Sullivan described the Bills v. Lions game at Ralph Wilson Stadium as "having an August feel to it". I'm quite sure that he wasn't referring to the weather - rather to the fact that the game felt much like it was taking place in the pre-season with little for either team to play for in terms of the importance of a win or a loss. The Bills and Lions do play every year in week four of the pre-season - usually the least relevant of the NFL's four-game season ticket holder punishment program before the real games start.

Another thought that Sullivan had yesterday was about the emergence of Robert Foster as a legitimate NFL wide-receiver. Foster, who played his college football at Alabama, was signed by the Bills as an undrafted free agent in May. This reunited him with Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll who was Foster's coordinator in Tuscaloosa. At last winter's combine, Foster's 4.41 in the 40 yard dash ranked him fifth among receivers but was not quite enough for any team to draft him. He was called up to the Bills from the practice squad last month and yesterday, he recorded four catches for 108 yards - his third 100 yard receiving game this year. Yesterday;s effort included catching the game-winning 42 yard touchdown pass from Josh Allen in the fourth quarter. Presumably the Bills will have a fresh new cohort of receivers on the team in 2019 but Foster has shown enough to deserve a chance to compete for the number one receiver position in training camp.

As for the Bills epic race to 7-9, it may prove to be too tall an order as they travel to Foxborough next week to face the Patriots who have now lost two consecutive games. They still lead the AFC East but currently occupy the third seed which means a home playoff game but no first round bye and road games in the second and third rounds. They would obviously like to move up to the second seed which would earn them a week off followed by a home game. If Josh Allen and Robert Foster can lead the Bills to a win, it would be truly epic.

Oh, and the winner of this week's Vontae Davis Halftime Retirement Award is.......Bills running back Marcus Murphy who left the game in the second quarter with an apparent broken arm. He's done for the season and may be done withe the Bills altogether. I wish him well.

Jets 27, Bils 23

Last week, I did feel some measure of redemption for my latest Vontae Davis Halftime Retirement Award winner. After last week's game in Miami, I gave the award to Kelvin Benjamin, who had been posing in a Bills uniform as an NFL No. 1 wide receiver for over a year. Last Tuesday, the Bills released him, along with another receiver, Andre Holmes. In a puzzling move, the Chiefs then proceeded to sign Benjamin to a one-year deal. As injury back-up I presume. Benjamin was not active in yesterday's Chiefs overtime win over Baltimore.

As for this week's winner, I'm afraid that it's going to be LeSean McCoy who injured a hamstring in the first half yesterday and did not return. The sand has run out of the hour-glass for McCoy this season - his 10th in the league and his fourth with the Bills. Until this year, McCoy has been excellent for the most part with an instinct for finding seams when none appear to be open and a unique ability to evade tacklers in space. As with many backs who turn 30 (like he did this year), the half step of speed he has lost seems to have made the difference between success and being ready to retire. He is averaging 3.3 yards per carry this season - not good enough for a featured running back. I expect that McCoy will not be on the Bills roster next season but he may be a useful third down back for a contending team in the future. His days of getting 25 touches per game are probably over.

Yesterday's game in Orchard Park was billed as the battle of the two first-round quarterbacks in the AFC East. With the Bills coming into the game at 4-8 and the Jets stuck at 3-9, the game was really part two of the AFC East Consolation Bowl. The Bills easily won the first round of it four weeks ago in the Meadowlands and yesterday was the Jets chance to end a six game losing streak and even the season series with their division rivals. More than 59,000 fans turned out on a sunny but cool day to see which of the two rookie quarterbacks would step up.

The answer is that it was Sam Darnold who came through for his team when it counted, leading his team for the game-winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter. As for Josh Allen, he showed a few more signs of developing into the franchise quarterback that Bills fans hope he will be but, in the end, he did not throw the ball well enough to win the game or as well as Darnold did. Yes, he ran the ball very well again yesterday and did hit some passes but his issues with inaccuracy cost him two interceptions, including on the potential game-winning drive in the final minute. In fairness to Allen, despite his risking injury with continued scrambling, I am starting to feel ever-so-slightly more confident with him under centre. Could just be familiarity.

The geniuses who create the NFL schedule gave the Bills three December home games this season - all, as it turns out, against losing teams. Two of those remain, including next week's tilt against the Detroit Lions. The Lions won in Arizona yesterday to improve to 5-8 on the season but the game offers virtually no compelling reason to attend, other than to see Josh Allen continue his evolution.

As I pointed out after their week one loss at Baltimore, the Bills have plenty of cap space going into next year. I think that the 2019 roster will look quite different from the current one, particularly in the offensive skilled positions. As nice a job as former practice squad players Robert Foster and Isaiah McKenzie have done late this season, the Bills need more play-makers to help Josh Allen along.

   

Dolphins 21, Bills 17

This photo was taken about 10 days ago at the top of Kala Patthar, the highest point we reached on our recent Everest Base Camp trek in northeastern Nepal - elevation 5,545 metres or about 18,500 feet above sea level. The top of Everest is above my head (where it shall always remain). Our entire team made it to this point but as illness took its course (in the form of either GI issues or chest colds - or both), two were evacuated by helicopter on the descent. The team was fully re-united in Lukla. By dumb luck, I was the only one who suffered no illness on the trek.

We generally had spectacular weather throughout the 12 day trek with deep blue skies every day offering us clear views of the Himalayan alpine peaks and the valleys we ascended. My small digital camera recorded about 650 images and I am starting the process of vetting them to come up with about 25 of the best ones. There are many images of animals - yaks, donkeys, goats, dogs - and some irresistible images of Sherpa children to choose from as well as all of the breath-taking shots of the various snow-capped sets of incisors which are the Himalayas. John Krakauer used the term "incisors" to describe the mountains in Into Thin Air and when I first saw them on the flight from Khatmandu to Lukla, it was clear why.

Our journey not only took us up the Khumbu valley toward the world's highest mountain, but also through the rich history of the region with our Sherpa guides providing an ongoing and thorough context for us which connected the ancient world of subsistence farming and animal husbandry with the rapidly growing tourism industry which is now the backbone of the local economy. Nepal is a desperately poor country with an annual average per capita income of about $400 USD. Licensed trekking and mountain guides earn enough to place them in the top 1% of the Nepalese income scale. Porters, many of whom carry unimaginably heavy loads of supplies to the teahouses where trekkers eat and sleep (not to mention loads of lumber, building materials, rolls of flooring and carpets etc), earn less than guides do but still more than most others in Nepal.

In May of 1953, Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary became the first humans to reach the summit of Mount Everest. After his famous ascent of the mountain, Hillary made it his life's work, through his foundation which carries on today (some 10 years after his death), to help build infrastructure in the Khumbu, including schools, hospitals and bridges. He is rightfully a revered figure whose legacy will endure. Our lead Sherpa guide attended one of the schools which Hillary built in 1962 (and which we toured). He was the only one of his 12 siblings to attend a proper school - and this enabled him to learn sufficient English to become a trekking guide. He hopes to be able to move with his wife to either the US or Canada within the next couple of years.

I last named a winner of the Vontae Davis Halftime Retirement Award in my post on November 5th. The winner that week was Nathan Peterman who claimed his third such honour. For the period since then, which includes two Bills wins and a bye week, I have decided to claim the award myself since I obviously abandoned the team by leaving the country. As for this week, I've decided to give it to Bills wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin who has been pretending to be a No. 1 NFL receiver for a season and a half. He isn't and should have retired weeks ago.

Yesterday in South Florida, Josh Allen took another step in his evolution to a No. 1 quarterback. In fact, had the ball not slipped from his hands on the Bills final offensive play from scrimmage, Charles Clay would have easily caught the go-ahead touchdown and the Bills could have found themselves at 5-7 this morning. Allen has shown that he is an accomplished runner with impressive pocket awareness and deceptive speed. This is all fine except the team also still employs LeSean McCoy and Chris Ivory in the running back position and, as has happened to so many mobile quarterbacks in the NFL, Allen's running - however prolific - will eventually lead to injury.

The New York Jets travel to Orchard Park next Sunday for an irrelevant game but one which will offer Josh Allen another opportunity to work on his throwing accuracy. I hope he focuses on that and tries to leave the business of running to the running backs. If anyone wants to go to the game, my tickets are available and at this point, I'm a pretty motivated seller. The Jets are ranked 32nd - or dead last - in the most recent NFL Power Rankings. Let me know. 

Bills 41, Jets 10

In Nepal, it is known as Sagarmatha. In Tibet, the name is Chomolungma. In 1865, Andrew Waugh of the Royal Geographic Society, who held the post of British Surveyor General of India, decided to "re-name" the world's highest mountain after his predecessor and the man who hired him, Welshman George Everest. Everest, who had never seen the mountain himself, apparently objected to his name being used in this case because, among other reasons, it was not easily pronounced in or translated to Hindi. The Society went ahead anyway and the name has obviously stuck.

Mount Everest rises 12,000 feet from its base which sits at about 17,000 feet above sea level. Its peak is measured at 29,028 feet or 8,848 metres. In other words, the top of the world's highest mountain stands almost nine kilometres above sea level. By comparison, the deepest part of the ocean lies south of Japan and east of the Philippines in a part of the Mariana Trench known as Challenger Deep. That clocks in at just short of 11,000 metres (or 11km) deep.

One day, I plan to dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, swim to India and then climb Mount Everest. But I will start by going to Nepal and trekking to Everest Base Camp - something which I am on my way to do right now. I have received more that $500 of vaccinations, filled prescriptions for Diamox (to prevent or minimize altitude sickness) and a powerful anti-biotic in case of intestinal infection and I have been climbing the stairs in my 12 floor building for a few weeks.

Am I ready? We'll see. This trip could make wilderness canoe tripping seem like 5-star luxury. Our guides tell us that Nepal is a mystical and spiritual place with wonderful warm people who rely largely on whatever income they can generate from the thousands of trekkers and others who come to see the world's most spectacular mountains. Everest Base Camp alone sees about 40,000 trekkers every year.

As you read this, I will be on a 15 hour flight to Hong Kong. We left Sunday evening and will arrive on Tuesday. Crossing the International Date Line in a west-bound direction means we will not experience Monday this week, although I understand that the Giants v. 49ers Monday Night Football game will take place anyway. On the way back, we will endure Thursday November 29th for a couple of days. The Saints play at Dallas that day.

Meanwhile, yesterday in the Meadowlands, the NFL dialed up another entirely unpredictable outcome as the Bills dominated the home team in all three phases of the game with Matt Barkley looking decidedly above average at least in terms of his ranking among the team's 2018 class of quarterbacks through ten weeks of play. I'm sure that Barkley jersey sales came close to crashing the Bills merchandise site when they went up 31-0 late in the second quarter. I have a feeling that I may be seeing soon-to-be former Jets coach Tod Bowles within the next few days. If I were him, I would seriously consider immediately going trekking in Nepal. 

I scheduled the trip in order miss only one Bills game - the November 25th home game against the Jaguars. The bye week is next week so there will be no blog posts from me until Monday December 3rd, after the Bills play the Dolphins in south Florida.