Bills 27, Chargers 17

Chargers coach Anthony Lynn, former Bills quarterback coach and one of the contenders to replace Rex Ryan after the 2016 season, faced heavy criticism for calling a running play on the goal-line with 25 seconds remaining in yesterday's game. With no time-outs remaining and trailing by 10 points, the Chargers needed a score on that play and the Bills run defence denied them by stopping Austin Ekeler at the one yard line. As the offence scrambled to the line, the clock ticked all the way down to six seconds before the next snap, an incomplete pass which removed another three seconds from the clock,  The game then ended with quarterback Justin Herbert tackled on a keeper which may have been a broken play. How could Lynn be so incompetent as to call a run play up the middle in that situation? "Inexplicable" said CBS colour man Rich Gannon. "He should be fired for that decision alone" said another talking head later in the day. Well, had it worked and resulted in a touchdown, Lynn would have been praised for his innovative and gutsy play calling. Isn't one of the most important elements in offensive play calling to do what the defence isn't expecting? Sure it is but when the risk of the play being unsuccessful could easily foreclose any chances, however slim, that the Chargers had, it was tough for Lynn to defend afterward. I still compliment Lynn, whose team fell to 3-8, for taking the kind of risk that only a long-established head coach whose job isn't in jeopardy might take. He may not last the week and if this was his last game, I hope that he can sleep peacefully knowing that he truly believed Ekeler would score on that running play.

The Bills found a way to hang on for the win in a game which, for much of the second half, felt closer than the score made it look. After turning the ball over on three consecutive fourth quarter possessions, Tre'Davious White intercepted Herbert which led to a Tyler Bass field goal and a ten point lead. Shaking off the two week hangover from the "Hail Murray" loss in Phoenix to improve to 8-3, the Bills, amazingly, gave up another Hail Mary style pass which took the Chargers inside the five with a chance for a quick score and an onside kick attempt. We, and Anthony Lynn, know what happened after that. 

The Bills looked good in the first half with a re-established running attack and better run defence too. Although neither Devin Simgletary nor Zack Moss went over 100 yards rushing, together, they helped the team rack up 172 yards on the ground. And they needed it too as Josh Allen played on of his weaker games of the season, throwing erratically at times and personally causing two turnovers which could have been costly. I'll still take him over Baker Mayfield or Sam Darnold any day. 

The Bills next game, a Monday Night Football contest against the San Francisco 49ers, is just as likely to be played at Lawrence Park High School in North Toronto as it is anywhere else. In an effort to curb the rapid spread of COVID, on Saturday, Santa Clara County, California (where the 49ers Levi's Stadium is located) imposed a temporary ban on all contact sports within its boundaries. In addition to the MNF game against Buffalo, the 49ers have another scheduled home game the following week. The team will also have to find another facility in which to practice. According to The Sporting News, the most likely places for the 49ers to play their next two games are State Farm Stadium in Glendale, AZ (home of the Cardinals and the site of last week's Hail Murray game), the Oakland Coliseum (former home of the Raiders) which is in Alameda County or California Memorial Stadium (home of the PAC 10's Golden Bears) which is also in Alameda County. If Alameda County follows the lead of Santa Clara County with a similar ban on contact sports, that leaves only the Cardinals home field as a viable option right now. So, the Bills will be travelling somewhere, probably westward, next Sunday to play the 49ers on Monday Night. 

Although the NFL has managed to navigate almost all of the COVID roadblocks so far this season and has executed its schedule in full, yesterday featured the Denver Broncos having to resort to their 5th string option at quarterback after all four quarterbacks on the active roster were ruled out for either testing positive or having been in close, unmasked contact with a player who did. That meant that practice squad receiver and sometimes college quarterback Kendall Hinton got the nod under centre against the Saints yesterday. Hinton won't be hearing from his agent this morning about interest from other teams in his quarterbacking as he went one for nine, passing for 13 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions. The Broncos pulled out a 1930's era NFL playbook and ran the ball on almost every snap in a 31-3 home loss. Tomorrow's game between the Ravens and Steelers, originally scheduled to be the Thanksgiving night game, is still a go.   

Cardinals 32, Bills 30

The term "Hail Mary" pass came into the popular NFL vernacular after a playoff game which took place on December 28, 1975 in Minneapolis, MN. With his team trailing 14-10 in the game's dying seconds, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach launched a desperation pass toward the endzone which was caught by Drew Pearson at the two yard line as a Minnesota Vikings defender fell to the ground, allowing Pearson to walk into the endzone for the winning score. After the game, Staubach, a Catholic, told a reporter "I just closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary". The term had apparently been used as early as the 1930s by coaches and players at Notre Dame University and other Catholic schools to describe a low probability long passing play which would require Devine intervention to succeed. Although there are many examples of successful Hail Mary passes in recent NFL history (Aaron Rodgers has had a couple of them in his career), probably the most famous one comes from a college game the day after Thanksgiving in 1984. It was thrown by Doug Flutie of Boston College against the Miami Hurricanes and became known as "Hail Flutie". I can not recall a successful Hail Mary pass in Buffalo Bills history - either for or against - until yesterday.  

A successful Hail Mary pass requires Devine intervention. Or DeAndre Hopkins. Hopkins, one of the top receivers in the league and playing his first season with the Cardinals, leaped high in the air on the left side of the endzone and somehow plucked the ball away from three Buffalo defenders who surrounded him. It gave quarterback Kyler Murray and the Cardinals a miraculous win and crushed the spirit of Bills Nation after Buffalo had scored what looked to be the winning touchdown to take a four point lead with 34 seconds left in the game. Lost in the aftermath of the Hail Mary will be the drive which Josh Allen engineered, including the 21 yard touchdown pass which was an excellent throw by Allen and a spectacular catch by Stefon Diggs. Allen and the Bills played poorly at times over the course of the game but appeared to have pulled it out at the end as the team heads into the bye week after 10 games. Instead of an 8-2 record, the Bills sit at 7-3, with the 6-3 Dolphins in hot pursuit. As the weeks roll by, the Dolphins week 17 game in Orchard Park looms larger and larger. 

The bye week for the Bills comes with six games remaining. Three of the those games will be in prime time - at San Francisco, home to the undefeated Steelers and at New England. The other games see the Chargers come to Buffalo in two weeks and the Bills travel to Denver before Christmas before the week 17 Dolphins game on January 3rd. Through 10 games, the offense had generally been very good with the addition of Diggs and the defence has been disappointing overall. Special teams have been surprisingly good: Cory Bojorquez (yesterday's shank notwithstanding) has punted well if not infrequently, place kicker Tyler Bass has settled in very well with another strong game yesterday and return specialist Andre Roberts has been nothing short of outstanding. Recognizing that this may be a result of recency bias, I would still say that he is the Bills best kick-off and punt returner I can remember. He has sure hands, good speed and usually chooses the right return path.

I gave up a long time ago trying to understand the political strategy of Donald Trump. His continued delusional claim of massive electoral fraud which he surely knows will not succeed is just the latest inexplicable tactic. But it is the most destructive one yet. As President Obama said on 60 Minutes last night, Trump's ego and refusal to accept legitimate defeat by a clear (but certainly not overwhelming) majority of American voters is understandable to those who know him but the ongoing complicity of most other senior Republicans who "should know better" is not. They obviously fear retribution from him if they break ranks but as the transition to the Biden Administration moves forward and Trump's voice recedes to the far-right shadows of the internet, they will have to recognize reality sooner or later. History will not look kindly on them. Or on Donald Trump. I guess I would say that if American democracy can survive this, it can survive anything.   

  

  

Bills 44, Seahawks 34

I felt old when we heard that Josh Allen's grandmother died on Saturday as the last of my grandparents have been gone more that 25 years. Coach McDermott offered him the chance to sit out yesterday's game at Bills Stadium but he chose to play. And play he did. After four weeks of relative mediocrity, both Allen and the Bills reverted to the form they showed through the season's first four weeks, posting a convincing win over what was thought to be one of the league's best teams. It is certainly possible that the Seahawks, who had the NFL's worst defence statistically entering the game, actually aren't as good as advertised but the Bills played well in all three phases of the game and were deserving winners. The game plan was solid too: virtually no running attack on offence and aggressive pass rushing on defence. Jerry Sullivan, ever the glass-half-empty Buffalo-based sports writer, even called it Sean McDermott's signature win in his three and a half seasons as Bills head coach. I would point to last season's Thanksgiving Day win in Dallas for that but sure, it was a big one indeed.

The Dolphins continue to impress and surprise too. They won yesterday in Phoenix - the site of the Bills game next Sunday and the last one before their bye week. The Cardinals will be highly motivated not to lose a second consecutive home game to an AFC East opponent so it will present another big test in a season with a much tougher schedule than last year. But, with yesterday's statement win which improved their record to 7-2, the Bills held on to their claim of being one of the top teams in the AFC and could still challenge for a first round bye - something which they have not achieved since 1993. 

The song "Georgia on My Mind" was written in 1930 and popularized by native son Ray Charles in 1960. His version became the official state song of Georgia in 1979. Over the next 57 days, Georgia will be on the minds of the Republican and Democratic party machines, CNN, FOX News and everyone else who follows US politics. If the Dems can win both of the two run-off Senate races in Georgia on January 5, 2021, the parties would be deadlocked at 50 seats each. In the Senate, the Vice-President, who we now know will be Kamala Harris, holds the deciding vote in the event of a tie. Georgia voters will therefore play a key role in determining just how much of the Biden administration's agenda it can enact - until at least the next round of Senate seats (and the entire House) is up for election two years from now. The Republican message to Georgia voters will be that they and they alone can stop socialism in America. It will probably work. For the next eight weeks, we will all come to know more about every city, town, county and precinct in the Peach State than we could have imagined. Like it or not, the US election of 2020 rolls on. 

Even if the Democrats win both Georgia Senate seats to achieve an equal footing with the Republicans, with the Filibuster, which effectively makes a 60 seat majority necessary for passing bills without the other party's agreement, President Biden will have to find ways to make deals with the wily Mitch McConnell who has been his colleague across the aisle in the Senate for decades. Apparently, the two have a good relationship and have worked together effectively over the years. But that was back in the days of cooperation and bi-partisanship between the parties and between the Executive and Congressional branches - something which, in my view, ended in 2010 with the rise of the Tea Party. Biden has promised to begin the process of unifying the country and bridging its bitter partisan divide. He will have to navigate a split (and probably Republican controlled) Senate and a House of Representatives with a reduced Democratic majority if he is to succeed. I've heard no explanation from Trump or his surrogates as to how the perpetrators of the massive electoral fraud managed to engineer the defeat of Trump (while impressively growing his popular vote totals across the country) at the same time as the GOP (probably) held on to its majority in the Senate and cut in to the Dems House majority.      

A modest library could be filled with what I don't know about Snoop Dogg but I do know that he is from Long Beach, CA and is known to be a prolific marijuana smoker and huge professional sports fan. I also know that he - perhaps predictably - supported Barack Obama in 2008 and that he also - maybe less predictably - is known to have at one time supported Texas libertarian congressman Ron Paul. Here is the text of a very interesting Snoop Dogg tweet from last week:

"I get it, you hated him 4 years ago and you still hate him now, I’ve seen a lot of hate thrown his way, but this guy is a consistent winner and an overachiever. Call it jealously, call it envy, some people just can’t handle how successful he is and how much money he has, could even be jealous that he’s got a hot foreign model as his wife. That’s what the people who support him love about him. Yes there have been some scandals, yes there have been some lies, and maybe a few times he’s twisted the truth to make himself look better. He’s out there everyday proving those haters wrong time after time. You may not have wanted him in this role, but he’s there now and there is nothing you or I can do about it. I know its possibly going to get worse over the next several days, but like him or not, Tom Brady is turning things around in Tampa Bay."

I'll add that Snoop wrote this before last night's game against the Saints where Brady stopped "turning things around". 

Bills 24, Patriots 21

I've done some very rough calculations on the career football earnings of Bills defensive tackle Justin Zimmer. A native of the central Michigan town of Greenville, Zimmer, who played his college ball at Division II school Ferris State in Big Rapids, Michigan, was not drafted to the NFL when he left college in 2016. Since then, he has defined the role of fringe player, bouncing around the practice squads (with an occasional injury call-up to dress for an actual game) of the Saints, Montreal Alouettes, Falcons and Browns. 2020 represents his second stint with the Bills who first signed him as undrafted free agent in 2016 when Rex Ryan was coaching the Bills and Doug Whaley was the GM. The Bills signed him again on August 16th of this year, waived him on September 5th then, after having cleared waivers, signed to the practice squad - once again. He dressed for games this season in weeks one and six as well as yesterday against the Patriots. Entering the game, he had five career NFL tackles. I figure that, including his CFL earnings and four seasons mostly on various NFL practice squads, he has earned about $20 per hour - mostly for practicing football. Not exactly high paying work but more interesting and fulfilling than working at, say, an Amazon warehouse. 

With 16 seconds remaining in yesterday's game, the Bills appeared to have managed to play exactly well enough to lose the game 28-24 as Cam Newton had led his team into the red zone, and was surely about to complete the game's winning touchdown drive - or at least send the game into overtime if the drive stalled. But Newton wasn't ready for Justin Zimmer. Through his years of toiling in Division II, punching the clock on practice squads and even going north to the CFL for part of a season, Zimmer had been patiently biding his time, waiting for the opportunity to make his way to the headline of an NFL game recap - and into this blog. From behind, as Newton was about to be tackled, Zimmer punched the ball out of his hands and eventually into the hands of team-mate and fellow fringe player Dean Marlowe. It was the Patriots only turnover in a game where both teams were able to run the ball effectively at times on a windy and rainy day in Orchard Park. Maybe Zimmer will retire now that he has carved out his place in Bills history, delivering the key blow in the team's first home win against New England since 2011. But he probably won't. After all, he needs the money and with the economy the way it is.......

That last home win against the Patriots in 2011 also came as a result of a key and rare turnover in a game I attended. Tom Brady's 4th quarter pass was deflected at the line of scrimmage and landed easily in the hands of Bills cornerback Drayton Florence who ran it back for a touchdown. A few minutes later, Ryan Lindell then kicked the winning field goal as time expired as the Bills went to 3-0 on a warm September afternoon. Bills fans were giddy and sensed a magical season was at hand. After improving to 5-2 with win over Washington at the Rogers Centre in Toronto a month later, the Bills signed quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick to a lucrative contract extension. He then slumped badly as the team would win only one more game for the remainder of the season, finishing 6-10.

But things are different this time. Josh Allen remains on his rookie contract so we don't have to worry about him - at least not until 2023 when he could become an unrestricted free agent if the Bills do not sign him to an extension beforehand. If he continues the season-to-season progression we've seen since 2018, he will command a top NFL quarterback salary which will probably be more than $40 million annually by then. Eat your heart out, Justin Zimmer. And the coach Sean McDermott, who yesterday earned his first win over legendary coach Bill Belichick in seven tries, is more likely to lead the team to the division title and a home playoff game than Chan Gailey ever was. Now that the Patriots have sunk to 2-5, the Bills will now need to worry more about the Dolphins as a division threat this season. And those Dolphins, predicted in the pre-season to be in the running for a very high draft pick, earned their first win yesterday with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa over the Rams to stay a game and a half behind the Bills at 4-3. Maybe their week 17 game in Orchard Park will be a big one after all.

Tomorrow (Tuesday November 3rd) is a big day for me for a few reasons. It marks the 10th anniversary of the death of a good friend, the 21st anniversary of the death of another good friend's father, the 94th birthday of yet another good friend's mother.....and the US election. The main hope I have for the election is that it be decided by the American voters and not by Amy Boney Carrot. I mean, she hasn't finished the SCOTUS orientation program yet, still needs the photo taken for her office pass and was seen on the weekend wandering around the east side of Capitol Hill looking for a washroom which wasn't locked. Let her settle in at least until the next abortion case reaches the court. 

Bills 18, Jets 10

When the Bills lose a game, I usually claim afterward to have had a "bad feeling" about the game before it started. I make that claim once again this morning. Although my concern was certainly real after they fell behind the hapless New York Jets 10-0, the bad feeling I had was that the game was going to be much closer than pundits and most Bills fans were predicting. Plenty of NFL games quickly turn into blowouts even between relatively evenly matched teams but it seems that when one team is heavily favoured over an opponent, particularly in a divisional game with the visiting team favoured by double digits, blowouts rarely ensue. Instead, a nail-biting game which isn't decided until the last couple of minutes of the fourth quarter is just as likely as a rout. 

Sports books favoured the Bills yesterday by between 9 and 11 points - the largest pre-game spread I can recall in a long time for a road game. Callers to WGR 550 last week declared that anything short of a decisive margin of 25 to 30 points against the Jets would be considered to be reason for concern. The Jets were clearly a team in turmoil at 0-6 going into the game. A schism between the head coach Adam Gase and defensive coordinator Gregg Williams flared up over the week with Gase at the top of the list of NFL coaches on the hot seat. Williams, a former Bills head coach from 2001 to 2003, would be the logical interim replacement for Gase. The Jets were reportedly shopping around quarterback Sam Darnold, picked third overall in the 2018 draft (the Bills selected Josh Allen seventh overall in the same draft), as trade bait given that the team has the inside track to draft Clemson star Trevor Lawrence. Credit is therefore due and owing to the Jets players who started the game strong and played a good first half before regressing to what had been expected of them all along. 

Is the absence of a touchdown on the Bills side of the boxscore reason for concern? Quite possibly but some of the other data points related to the Bills offensive performance were impressive even if they came against a team which might struggle to beat Clemson: 26 first downs, 126 rushing yards, 296 passing yards for Josh Allen with no interceptions thrown. On the negative side of the ledger, the Bills were flagged for 11 penalties for 106 total yards. A Josh Allen touchdown pass to Gabriel Davis was negated on an illegal formation penalty. 

There were at least two dangerous hits in the NFL yesterday. Bills safety Micah Hyde was flagged for his vicious hit on receiver Breshad Perriman late in the game. Hyde's perfectly timed hit broke up a long passing play but was delivered too high as he hit Perriman's neck and head area. Cowboys quarterback Andy Dalton lay motionless on the field for several minutes after taking a helmet-to-helmet hit from Washington linebacker Jon Bostic who was ejected from the game (and will likely face further sanctions from the league). The Bostic play was indefensible. Hyde's hit was tough to watch but players will always say just how difficult it is to pull up when running at full speed and trying to time their hit just as the ball arrives. Hyde did lead with his shoulder rather than with his helmet but I wish (and I hope he wishes) that he had hit Perriman in the chest or hips. 

Watching the pre-game NFL Today on a Detroit CBS affiliate yesterday, nine days before the US election, exposed us to an avalanche of elections commercials. If I were an undecided voter who did not follow the Michigan Senate race closely, watching these ads yesterday would have caused me to lose all faith in the two main candidates whose messages only attack each other without making any case for why their own candidacies should be considered. Apparently, neither candidate will protect those with pre-existing medical conditions and both candidates intend to line their own pockets if they go Washington. These television ads are costly - both in real dollars for the candidates and, I suggest, in further eroding faith in the political process among potential voters.  

Up next for the Bills: home to New England Patriots next Sunday November 1st. With Tom Brady gone and Cam Newton doing a relatively poor job in his place, the Patriots have looked like shadows of their former selves the past two weeks.     

Chiefs 26, Bills 17

When the score in last night's game at drizzly Bills Stadium was 20-10, Troy Aikman remarked that the score looked relatively close but that the game itself did not seem close at all. Although the Buffalo Bills were able to avoid a blowout on the scoreboard and appeared to have forced a turnover deep in Chiefs territory in the fourth quarter while down by only six points, the Chiefs held control over the game throughout. The fumble was correctly overruled on replay review and the Chiefs tacked on a late field goal to seal their win. 

Bills head coach Sean McDermott explained after the game that his team's defensive approach was to take away big plays down the field - almost a "prevent" defence - and make the Chiefs earn their points by way of the short passing game and the run. So, that's exactly what they did. The Bills strategy could have worked if their run defence had showed up at all and if the offence had been able to generate any sustained drives not aided by penalties. McDermott, when asked if he had considered loading the "box" with nine defenders (thereby leaving two wide receivers in man-to-man coverage on the outside), he said that teams who have tried that approach against the Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes under centre regretted the strategy which lead to the Chiefs hanging more than 40 points on the board every time. The explanation made sense and the strategy could well have worked if the offence had done its part.

The Bills gave up 245 yards on the ground and had problems, once again, making plays against the run at the line of scrimmage. Chiefs rookie running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire, the last pick in the first round (32nd overall) of the 2020 draft, was able to get to the second level of the Bills run defence far too often and piled up 161 yards in the process. Mahomes, for his part, did what he was asked to do within Andy Reid's game plan, adding 221 passing yards. The Chiefs gained 466 yards overall, compared to the Bills paltry 206. In the fourth quarter, two of the leaders on the Bills defence, cornerback Tre'Davious White and safety Jordan Poyer lost their composure and each was flagged for personal fouls for late hits out of bounds two play apart. On WGR, Mike Schopp described Poyer's out of bounds tackle as being "about 3 weeks late".  Last season, the Bills fielded a top-ranked defence but, as happens in the NFL more often than in any other sport, the players who were good a year ago have fallen into mediocrity. Look no further than Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson who tore up the league last year. This year? Not so much. At least not yet.

At 4-2, the Bills remain on top of the AFC East, one game ahead of the Ryan Fitzpatrick led Dolphins. Next week, they face the league's worst team in the New York Jets for the second time. They are early 11 point favourites and had better not stumble for a third consecutive week. The Jets are a mess at 0-6 but, with their season lost, will be loose and willing to take risks which contending teams wouldn't. Time for Josh Allen to find his accuracy again and for the running game to get back on track.

I watch television in two places: in Muskoka on a satellite service where the main US network affiliates come from Detroit and in Toronto on an HD antenna where the US channels originate in Buffalo. In the past couple of weeks, I estimate that I have seen at least 10 Biden ads for every one Trump ad. In fact, I don't think I've seen any Trump ads coming from Buffalo stations in the last few days which makes sense given that New York is a solidly blue state (and Trump has no chance there with the "winner take all" electoral college system). But Michigan, which Trump won four years ago, is a swing state and, all things being equal, I would have expected an even split of ads on the airwaves. But over the past three weeks, I have seen multiple reports that Trump's fund-raising has fallen off dramatically and that his campaign has cancelled previously booked television ad buys in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The messaging on social media from the Biden campaign is now warning against complacency. The last Presidential debate is scheduled for Thursday as long as either of the candidates doesn't find a way to back out of it. 

Titans 42, Bills 16

Now that the 1972 Miami Dolphins have scratched the Buffalo Bills off their list of potential challengers to their record of an undefeated season, let's look back to another time that the Bills eliminated themselves from contention for this record. On October 7, 1991, the high-flying 5-0 Bills mailed in their second-worst performance of that season (second only to the ugly loss to Washington in the Superbowl) in prime time, before a national television audience on Monday Night Football. The Chiefs won the game 33-6, thanks to five Buffalo turnovers which highlighted an entirely uninspired performance by the Bills. Coach Marv Levy said after the game that in most football blow-outs, the difference between the teams is rarely as great as the score would suggest. I remember the game well. The Bills proceeded to cruise to a 13-3 regular season record which secured them home field advantage for the AFC playoffs and their second consecutive trip to the Superbowl. They were a dominant team which stumbled badly in that week 6 game but fully recovered.

I am not predicting a Superbowl birth this season but I do hope that the Bills will recover from last night's debacle in Nashville - the site of their most infamous meltdown in a playoff game 20 years ago when a play called Homerun Throwback ended their season after a playoff game appeared to be won. The schedule does not get easier from here. If, in retrospect, last night's stinker proves to have been a wake-up call, then Bills fans probably will see it as an anomaly in an otherwise successful season. But if the team's success over the first four weeks of the season fades to mediocrity or worse, the Tuesday in Tennessee will be seen as the turning point.

Despite some success moving the ball in the first half, the Bills looked un-prepared and rusty - which, as the CBS crew pointed out repeatedly on the broadcast, was what most were expecting from their opponents, a Titans team which had not played in 16 days, has been ravaged by positive COVID tests and locked out of their practice facility for most of the time since their last game. After a 9-7 regular season, the Titans, had a strong playoff run last season which took them to the AFC Championship game. Coming into the game at 3-0, they looked sharp and dominant. Ryan Tannehill in particular, after languishing for seven seasons with the Dolphins, looked like a Pro Bowl quarterback and had a flawless game last night. Signed two years ago as almost an afterthought by the Titans, he has clearly found his stride in the Music City. 

Josh Allen, on the other had, looked more like he did in 2018 than he has over the past four weeks. His two interceptions were both due to inaccurate or ill-conceived throws. The team's discipline was questionable as they took a season-high 10 penalties, many of which, like false starts and illegal shifts on offence, were obviously the result of mental errors. After their win over the Raiders the previous week, the Bills probably suffered to some extent from having the identity of their next opponent in question as the Titans continued to teeter on the precipice of a second postponed game as they battled the virus. The Bills were scheduled to play the Chiefs at home tomorrow night and the coaching staff would have prepared the team for a short week before the schedule was adjusted. This of course isn't really an excuse as the Titans had similar or more difficult challenges.

Up next for the Bills: a re-match from 29 years ago - Monday Night Football against the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs. Only this time, the game will be played in Orchard Park. New York State still has not authorized any fan attendance for Bills games. Last night in Nashville, attendance was 8,403 which is a number more in line with the average-sized crowd at a top-tier Friday night Tennessee high school game in usual times. Look for Sean McDermott to have his team ready to resume the season's trajectory set over the first four weeks.