Finale is ‘Super Bowl’ for Bills
The Buffalo Bills would love to end the New York Jets’ playoff push, Sam Farmer writes.
They didn’t make the playoffs, but the Buffalo Bills are in the “Super Bowl.”
“The Super Bowl is next week for us,” Bills running back Anthony Dixon said of Sunday’s finale against the New York Jets, a do-or-die game for the guys in green who can grab a wild-card playoff berth with a win.
“We’ve got something to play for now,” Dixon told reporters after his team’s Week 16 victory over Dallas. “We been having something to play for — that’s our respect and our pride. We always want that. But to send them home packing, that would be great.”
If the Bills were to win Sunday, they would have the dubious distinction of sweeping both the Jets and the Miami Dolphins yet still missing the playoffs — and that’s with the AFC East playing the NFL’s two weakest divisions this season, the AFC South and NFC East.
On Monday, Rex Ryan lamented making those hollow preseason guarantees about getting to the playoffs when he was hired last January. The Bills are 7-8 and haven’t reached the postseason since 1999, the league’s longest active playoff drought.
“We just didn’t produce the wins I thought we would . . .” Ryan told WGR 550 radio in Buffalo. “I let my mouth get ahead of everything. And I think if I would have come in there and said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna compete,’ and do all that stuff, maybe we wouldn’t have such a bad feeling about this team.”
There’s no denying Ryan’s colorful quotes are frequently entertaining. But so much of his motivation is about grudges, grievances and gimmicks. He made LeSean McCoy team captain when the Bills played Philadelphia, for instance, rubbing salt in that fresh wound. He made IK Enemkpali a Bills captain against the Jets, when it was that former Jets linebacker who sucker punched then-teammate Geno Smith, breaking the quarterback’s jaw.
So the Bills took a step backward, going from 9-7 last year to 8-8 or 7-9, and the Ryan-less Jets are back in the playoffs.
Sunday’s game might be a feel-good finale for the Bills in that they have a chance to deny Ryan’s old team a ticket to the playoffs, but in the end there’s not much staying power to that sense of satisfaction.
Considering the way quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick has played — he has already set the Jets’ record for touchdown passes in a season — Enemkpali might just be that team’s most valuable player.
Good news for the Seahawks . . . possibly. Running back Marshawn Lynch is back in the Seattle area after spending the last several weeks in the Bay Area, recovering from an abdominal injury that has sidelined him since mid-November. Coach Pete Carroll said on his radio show Monday that the team is hoping to get Lynch back but has no specific timetable for his return.
The Seahawks, who play Sunday at Arizona, could barely budge on the ground in their home loss to St. Louis. Fred Jackson ran for 11 yards, Bryce Brown had nine and Christine Michael six.
There’s more trouble brewing for Cleveland quarterback Johnny Manziel, who spent part of the off-season in a treatment center. A 10-second clip was posted to Instagram on Christmas Eve that shows him rapping while holding what appears to be a can of alcoholic beverage. Earlier this season, a video of him partying got him demoted from starter to third string.
In a conference call Monday, Browns Coach Mike Pettine did not rule out benching Manziel again, even though he said he had yet to watch the video in question.
“Any time there’s something with our players that casts them potentially in a bad light, whether it’s Johnny or any of our other guys, it’s certainly a concern,” Pettine said. “I’m sure I’ll see it. I’ll have a discussion with him about it.”
Turns out Odell Beckham Jr. was downed by conduct.
It’s ultra-rare for teams to opt to kick off after winning the overtime coin flip, something that’s happened just 13 times in the last 18 years. But the fact that Bill Belichick is responsible for three of those 13 decisions lends credence to the argument Sunday’s confusion was, indeed, about whether New England could also choose what goal to defend.
Belichick stood by his decision Monday, a day after the Jets drove to the winning touchdown after the Patriots elected to kick off in overtime. “I clearly thought that was our best opportunity, so that’s why we did it,” Belichick said on his weekly media conference call. “Didn’t like the way it worked out, but to me that was the right decision for our team at that time.”
Dwight Freeney keeps spinning and blockers still can’t stop him.
First-year coaches Todd Bowles and Dan Quinn had huge Sundays, with Bowles’ Jets beating the Patriots, and Quinn’s Falcons shocking Carolina.
Broadcasting visionary David Hill came up with the superhero-sounding NFL on Fox theme song while waiting in line with his son for the Batman ride at Magic Mountain.
One of my enduring memories of Charles Woodson was when he was a rookie in Oakland, and I was a Raiders beat writer. Like a lot of players, Woodson would saunter into the media room, open the refrigerator reserved for reporters, and grab a soda after practice. What made Woodson different — and memorable — is he’d always leave money for what he took.