What, if Anything, is Wrong with the Bills?
y ? Things are not hunky dory. They go through spells where it looks like they’re like, you know, the Kirkland brand version of the Bills where you’re like, Oh, that’s not the Bills. But I understand it’s a knockoff like and yes, I’ll still watch it. But and you wonder like, Hello, hello, How many fingers are we holding up here? And you’re like, What is going on? And then they’ll snap out of it. They lost to the Patriots. They they rattled off about three scores in about about three minutes at the end of that game and
took the lead. If you remember, in the second half of this thing, we’re not doing this right now. If Mac Jones doesn’t have an incredible 80 yard drive, they were down this entire game. It was confounding. And then at some point with like 56 minutes off the clock, they decided to run down the field and score two touchdowns. And Josh Allen looked like the Josh Allen of old and Stefon Diggs is doing pirouettes. And that’s what it is to me. Like they go to London. It seems like they slept walked through that entire first half
against the Jaguars and at the end they’re like, All right, let’s wake up. So is that boredom? Is that is that inexperience? Is it? We don’t have a playmaker. That’s
I honestly think the Hamlin situation just just was a major, major shift in perspective and in in exhaustion levels. And then you added that to the travel issues they had. I don’t know if they’ve been the same team since before that Monday Night Football game against the Bengals, honestly. And we’re going to see him tonight on a short week. I have no confidence even at home and everyone and I even feel like the Bills Mafia is not jumping through the tables. They’re kind of like getting through that. All right, we’re doing this again. I guess
we’ll jump through a table for a television screen. Like, don’t you feel like the juice is kind of gone and it’s not 100% the way it was the last few years? They can get it back. But I think they need to play a complete game. And I haven’t seen that. So my issue is I don’t know if they necessarily are firing on all cylinders coming out of those gates and then it might be too late in some of these games to just say, okay, let’s turn it on as it was, I guess, last week against
the Patriots. I think what the Bills fans are saying is, are you there? God, it’s me, the Mafia. Peter’s final Jeopardy last night was about Judy Bloom, and he absolutely nailed it. We’ll get into it later. It’s unbelievable. I was watching a promo for this game, the Thursday night Amazon promo. I think it was recorded like a week ago. And it was like the surprising bucks versus the high octane bills. And I was like, Are they really a high octane? Like, are you sure what you’re selling us there? Amazon? Because you know what? They’re not
high octane right now. In the opening game of the season, they didn’t even hit 20 points against the Jets. They had 20in a loss against Jacksonville. They had 14 against the Giants and they win the game that they barely they’re not high octane. And we’ve talked a lot about the slow start and they’re terrible and they’re lethargic and they’re really bad. I think it’s interesting that they’re playing a prime time game. If they can’t get up for these early games or these London games like what are they doing all day today? What is their pregame
ritual? And there’s a thing that happens where when you start to lose and they’ve lost three out of four, not the first time in the Josh Allen era where they look at Josh on the sideline, they’re like, Hey, man, like start screaming at people like, be a leader, dude. That’s not his thing. Some guys don’t do it. Like Aaron Rodgers doesn’t do it. I can name the guys. He sits there on the bench and he focuses and he concentrates and he got into it and I thought was a very interesting piece of sound this week
in his press conference, he has a phrase for what he does and he has maybe a change that he’s going to make this week. This is this week. Josh Allen. I’m just trying to stay, you know, in this in this state called low Positive, where, you know, your energy’s not super high and you’re allowing your mind to think and be free and just just, you know, stay on top of everything. Because obviously, as a quarterback, there’s a lot of things going through our mind. So if I can limit, you know, myself and my energy and
my heart rate, I feel like I can I can maybe think a little bit more. But who knows? Maybe I need to think a little bit less and just play football. So this is so interesting. Yeah, the low positive thing, when we had him in our production meeting for the London game. Yeah, he said this really made me kind of sad when he said it to our group, which was he goes, I am one of the worst negative self-talk talkers I have ever come across in my whole life. He goes, People try to tell me,
Oh, Josh, be positive. You know, look at the look at the good decisions you’re making. And I’m like, No, screw all the self-help books. I am one of the harshest people on myself self. And he goes to Gabe Davis sometimes to pull him out of it. Like Gabe, I’m being a little bit too much of myself right now, but for her to for him to even say the words low positive, like the word positive, like before this week, I had never heard Josh Allen talk about it. He is like so harsh on himself, but maybe
he’s trying to change that. I think so. Like he’s in this Zen mode where I get I go into my low positive thing and that’s fine. It works for him. He’s been great and it feels like something Rodgers would say. It’s sort of like a philosophical psychology thing, and he loves Rodgers. But the thing at the end when he says, Maybe I need to think less and just play football, it reminds me of what we heard from Justin Fields a month ago. I’ve got to be stop being so robotic and just play. It makes me
think on a short week, losing three out of four saying, I got to just play and not think so much. I think we may get and I say this positively crazy Josh Allen tonight like we may get in a big in a big way like I think he’s going to go out and play some Madden can of whoop Yeah I can of whoop I think he’s going to be jumping. I think he’s going to be leaping. I think he’s going to go long because he does have it to a fault where he’s like, I’m going
to fix things right now. I’m going to Superman our way through this. I think we’re going to see like hero ball tonight from Allen. I think that’s a good thing. I think a short weekend’s Tampa Bay, it’ll work. But he’s clearly in his head and wanting to solve it. And he’s not going to do it by screaming and making speeches. He’s going to do it by chucking the ball and jumping people. It’s so interesting to hear him say those things. I’ve played with guys that we’d get on the bench after a series and you would
look over because you think they’re talking to you and they’re cursing themselves out of what they just did a series before. It’s fascinating to me when you watch guys and you hear what motivates them because from the outside, we hear Josh Allen say a little positive and he’s a harsh critic on himself. But that’s why he is where he is, because he’s aiming and trying to get to that perfection. And as I look at this team, they go as he goes. So when you talk about a low positive and what you just explained, when you
say hero ball, I think playing against this guy, that’s what we feared was him going out there and he gets into the secondary and instead of sliding, he runs over two DBS and their entire sideline goes absolutely nuts and everybody runs up to him and the crowd there is going absolutely insane bills Mafia, because that’s what Josh Allen brings when a guy like him plays a quarterback position and you get to Buffalo and you embody this hard working. I’m not pristine. I’m not this upper echelons. I’m one of you. And that’s the way I play
the game. I feel like that’s what drives this Buffalo Bills team. So hearing them say all of those words, low, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Maybe I just need to get back to playing football. I think that might be a little bit of what they’re missing. And I think some of it is the last few years the bills have been right there and they haven’t been able to get over the hump. And that weighs on, you. We saw the stuff that happened with Stefon Diggs in the off season. I’m not going to
try to say it was this against Josh Allen. Whatever the case, it was things happen. And I think for them as a team, you’re going through out the season now and you’re still thinking like you’re this team of the Super Bowl era and you’re trying to make that run. It hasn’t happened yet. And I think there’s levels of frustration for them right now. And they’re trying to figure out. But that clip you just showed, I think, might be what gets them out of Josh Allen saying, fellas, myself, you guys included, we just need to go
play football. Let me ask because there’s all these podcasts and there’s all these self-help books and there’s Adam Grant and there’s the Jon Gordons, and they’re these like leaders and I think these players are in such a in your own head space. Like, how do you unwire from all these different messages and jargons? And then like you said, Rogers has his own thing. And then Allen thinking that might what he’s saying the low positive all that like I’m not mocking it at all. But to your point, it’s like, can we just go play football? And
it’s how do you get out of that personal mental, you know, the restraints of what it is to be quarterback and all the pressure on you. Like that’s really difficult. I remember one of my high school teammates one year said to me, sent me a long message and it was like, Remember the kid that first started playing football when you were playing Pop? Warner? And I think about your son, Calvin. You go and you coach him playing my son Caden. When those kids go out there and play football, they’re not thinking about the mistakes, this,
that and the third. It’s such a good feeling to go out there and play with your friends. They’re like, Hey, when we get into the end zone, we’re going to try to chest bump. This time, we’re going to do the gritty. And I think for players, sometimes there’s so much business in between, there’s so much wonder does a coach like me, I’m trying to make this coordinator happy, or whatever the case may be, that sometimes you forget that, Hell, I just love playing football. I just want to run somebody over. I just want to score
a touchdown. And I think that’s how you get back to a win loss. Tie whatever. We’re going to go out there and have a blast. And I think that’s why we’ve enjoyed watching Josh Allen because to a certain extent you can tell how he studies the game and how he prepares for it. But when the game starts, you see a little bit of that backyard ball where he’s out there and he’s just having a blast. And I think as a fan, you love to see that side him. I’m hearing optimism from all of you. I
think it’s because the bills have kind of set that standard that somehow they always get back to it. But what if they don’t? What if they lose tonight? How is that going to make you feel? And if they lose tonight, they’re a 500 team. They’re kind of an also ran in the AFC but I will say it’s the one after that that I’m looking for that Cincinnati after this like and they got history they got recent history it’s mid-season the Niners are scuffling the bills are scuffling the good teams fix it but you can’t lose
you can’t go to four and five no doubt about it they lose this game. And obviously Tampa Bay is a team trying to get back on the run. They’re a team still in contention, trying to do a lot of things. But for Buffalo, we’re looking at a division where Aaron Rodgers goes down. Mike army is hot right now and you’re like all right it’s Miami and it’s Buffalo. They lose this game. All right. New England is right back in the picture and the Jets are still alive. Now you’re looking at it where you’re just like,
all right, we got to win. Like we thought this was a two team race. Now it’s wide open for anybody. With Miami still sitting at the top. So don’t lose this one of your year. There’s a division winner that just falls off a cliff. Yeah, and we were trying to identify it. At first it felt like it was Cincinnati. Then I hope it’s not the bills tonight. Home against the Bucs. On a short week after the Bucs have lost two straight Go win that game Really interesting article on the athletic about Josh Allen right now
and one word that I feel like I’ve never read about him as it pertains to his career which is hesitancy and they used it a lot in the article and I was like, I have nev
