Coping With Loss: Buffalo Bills Edition

Dec 3, 2022 - 4:00 PM

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I know I usually post these Coping With Loss articles on the day after the game. But tomorrow is Saturday, and who wants to spend a Saturday reliving that Bills game in any capacity? So may as well just get this up now so everyone can enjoy their respective weekends.

Expected loss. If you had the Patriots winning this game, I admire your optimism. The 2022 Bills aren’t just a better team than the 2022 Patriots; they’re light years ahead of them across the board. As we were blessed to know for a long time, great teams beat up on mediocre teams, and that’s what happened tonight. What can you do.

Josh Allen is a blast to watch. I realize that this may not sit well with a lot of folks around here, but I’ve always appreciated great quarterback play, and Buffalo really has something special in Josh Allen. Now I may be singing a very, very different tune if Allen pulls a Tommy B and goes 33-3 against New England over the coming years... but for now, as the Patriots are still very much rebuilding and Buffalo is right smack in the middle of their title window, I’m going to enjoy watching the man play. He’s one of the best in the game right now.

No more Thursday Night Football. Thursday Night Football is one of the worst things the NFL has ever done, in my opinion. It’s just a bad product in general, and now you can only watch it if you have Amazon Prime. The Patriots did absolutely nothing to make the case that good games happen on Thursday nights, and I for one am glad I don’t have to even acknowledge that this nonsense exists until next year.

Winnable games coming up. Vikings and Bills were games the Patriots should lose, because the Vikings and Bills are better than the Patriots. But the Raiders, Cardinals, and Bengals are all winnable games, and in my opinion, must-win games if this team is going to have any shot of sneaking into the playoffs. A three game winning streak would be a great way to get the good vibes back as they close out the year against Dolphins and Bills teams that will likely be playing for the division title and possibly even that One Seed.

World Cup! That other kind of football has been on since last week, and I for one am enjoying the hell out of it. And even if you aren’t a soccer fan, I’d like to hope you’d root for the United States no matter what. The US Men’s National Team is up against a very tough opponent in The Netherlands tomorrow with the opportunity to move on to the Quarterfinals, where they’ll likely have to play Argentina (crap). But an upset over the Netherlands would be huge, and tomorrow’s 10AM game should be a ton of fun to watch, no matter your interest level. So buckle up for a great day of football and let’s go US!