NFL (2024 Season)

[Roadgeekteen]

Apparently the Buccaneers could have taken a timeout at the end?

[Ted$8roadFan]

Happy to see the Lions make it to the NFC Championship Game.

[Max Rockatansky]

My wife wants to go to the NFC championship game next week.  I'm committed to the idea (given I'm a Lions fan) if we can find a halfway reasonable ticket price.

[74/171FAN]

My wife wants to go to the NFC championship game next week.  I'm committed to the idea (given I'm a Lions fan) if we can find a halfway reasonable ticket price.

That would be a new venture for Gribblenation I think if you made a blog article about your experience.

[epzik8]

Are the Bills poised for their 13 Seconds revenge?

[jeffandnicole]

My wife wants to go to the NFC championship game next week.  I'm committed to the idea (given I'm a Lions fan) if we can find a halfway reasonable ticket price.

As the week goes on you'll see if prices go up or down from what they are now.  You could always take the chance and travel anyway, and wait till Sunday morning to purchase tickets.  I've seen often enough it's a decent trend that prices will fall the morning of the game, but rise slightly later as the then-cheapest tickets are scuffed up.

Many people will also have tickets for sale that if they don't sell, they're going to the game anyway, so it's not like they need to sell them.  I did this once last season - I was tailgating and about 2 hours before the game, the tix sold.  I already had my alternate plans ready to watching the game and we did that instead.

[Max Rockatansky]

My wife wants to go to the NFC championship game next week.  I'm committed to the idea (given I'm a Lions fan) if we can find a halfway reasonable ticket price.

As the week goes on you'll see if prices go up or down from what they are now.  You could always take the chance and travel anyway, and wait till Sunday morning to purchase tickets.  I've seen often enough it's a decent trend that prices will fall the morning of the game, but rise slightly later as the then-cheapest tickets are scuffed up.

Many people will also have tickets for sale that if they don't sell, they're going to the game anyway, so it's not like they need to sell them.  I did this once last season - I was tailgating and about 2 hours before the game, the tix sold.  I already had my alternate plans ready to watching the game and we did that instead.

My wife's cousin did that this week with the Green Bay game.  Apparently that wasn't even a total sellout until very late in the week.

[jgb191]

The Green Bay Packers have a very bright future ahead of them.  They are going to be a scary force to be reckoned with for many years to come; it shouldn't be too long before the Packers become the NFL's next empire like the NE Patriots have been adding several more Vince Lombardi trophies to their history (some consecutively).

[thspfc]

The phrase "house money" is starting to drive me nuts. People thought the Jaguars, Giants, and Seahawks were "playing with house money" in the playoffs last year because they were still in rebuilds and had a very good outlook for the future. None of those teams made the playoffs this year. The house money ran out real quick.

What's my point? I don't know. It's just weird to me that the narratives surrounding teams that netted essentially the same results are so different because of arbitrary expectations from five months ago, that we already know are often wildly inaccurate. The Texans had essentially the same season as whichever team loses tonight's game, yet tonight's loser will be relentlessly slandered all offseason for losing in the divisional while Houston will get nothing but praise.

Not to mention - this looks like a down year for the AFC, aside from the Ravens. Burrow hurt to some degree almost all season. Chiefs offense by far the worst they've been in the Mahomes era. Teams like the Jets, Chargers, and Jags, that have the potential to be dangerous, dying out largely because of injuries (or a bad coach that has since been fired). The Browns and Dolphins had pretty stacked IRs as well. Buffalo managing the 2 seed despite playing downright bad for the entireties of October and November is evidence of all that. So the grass won't always be greener next year.

[tmoore952]

I observe, without further comment, that NBC just showed Roger Goodell in a box at the Tampa Bay-Detroit game (indoor stadium). Not in snowy Buffalo.

Smart man.

Not so sure about that. Boxes are heated and Taylor is in Buffalo.

Well, Taylor has her reasons that don't have anything to do with football.

I wasn't really referring to boxes in Buffalo, which I am sure are heated, as they are in Kansas City and every other stadium (I assume).

The larger point was that Goodell was not in Buffalo this week, nor was he in Kansas City last week, dealing with the outside conditions. I know he's free to do as he wishes, and my opinion doesn't matter, but I'd respect him more if he went to the bad weather sometimes.

[thspfc]

I'm sure everyone who complained about the end zone fumble fule when it benefitted the Chiefs against the Browns 3 years ago is remaining consistent in their disdain for the rule now that the Chiefs are on the other end of it.

[Great Lakes Roads]

Chiefs are going to the AFC Championship game after the Bills missed a critical FG attempt to tie the game!

[Ted$8roadFan]

What a way for Buffalo to lose....bad decisions by Josh Allen and a wide right muffed field goal, of all things.

[thspfc]

I was thinking Buffalo winning the OT coin toss, scoring a touchdown on the first drive, and then losing afterwards due to the new rules that they basically created would have been the funniest outcome. But Wide Right II, as it's already dubbed on Wikipedia, is a close second. Eh, third actually, now that I think about seconds.

Also, I think Mahomes has earned his way above Rodgers and Brees in terms of all-time great QBs. Mahomes is now 4th, Rodgers and Brees 5th and 6th respectively, in my opinion.

[ozarkman417]

Anders Carlson 🤝 Tyler Bass

On killing their respective team's playoff run by a missed game-tying field goal.

[webny99]

What I hate the most is how much more that game meant to the Bills than the Chiefs. Not just the players, but the entire organization. Not even remotely comparable stakes. Sure, the Chiefs are happy to win but I will not be convinced there is any comparison to how devastated the Bills are right now with how the Chiefs would feel if they lost. Nor is there any comparison with how ecstatic the Bills would be if they won to how ecstatic the Chiefs are right now. And there are dozens of examples of this with the Bills... probably a dozen since 2020 for that matter.

At this point I'm ready to hit a deep dive on which NFL - heck, sports franchise period - has dealt with the most heartbreak and I can tell you right now it'll be Bills in a landslide. Chargers and Vikings are the only NFL teams that might be in the same ballpark but they don't do it in the way the Bills do... 6-6, left for dead, 6 straight wins, the hype and momentum building, win a playoff game, set up an insanely great game back and forth with the defending champs... and then the knife twist. Simply can NOT happen AGAIN. The only reason the Bills aren't as parodied as the Cowboys is because of Allen and because they were sentimental favorites due to having never won a Super Bowl. Literally who is going to be rooting for the Chiefs next weekend? 1 fanbase. For the other 30 teams and fanbases watching there is zero joy in rooting for the Chiefs.

And (webny99 enters salty mode) I won't be hearing any crap about the snowball throwing. Spend a decade or two in WNY rooting for the Bills and see how you feel about it then. I'm seeing people saying "Bills Mafia does not condone this activity"... false, 99%+ of them do and you would too if you were in their shoes. It's snow, literally water in lightly frozen form. It's western NY and we've got a crap ton of it, have some for the road and get over it. (no throwing at anyone's face though).

[webny99]

And so the AFC title game will NOT be hosted in Kansas City for the first time since Blake Bortles and the Jaguars faced Tom Brady and the Patriots in Foxborough six years ago. An unprecedented run of five straight home conference title games for the Chiefs, in which they went 3-2 and won two Super Bowls, has come to an end.

I apologize to all of Western NY for clinching the Chiefs' ticket to a 6th straight title game. It was foolish, unhinged and uncalled for and I know better.

I cannot apologize for the Lions winning to set up the Bills to be the only home team to lose in 2023 after being the only road team to lose in 2021, as that was not in fact the clincher, but only some pre-salting of the wound.

[thspfc]

The only reason the Bills aren't as parodied as the Cowboys is because of Allen and because they were sentimental favorites due to having never won a Super Bowl.

Precisely.

If you need more evidence that the relentless mocking of the Cowboys today is more emotion-based than it is football-based, look at the difference in treatment between the Cowboys and the Bills.

Total record over the last 10 seasons
Cowboys: 97-74
Bills: 96-74

Division titles over the last 10 seasons
Cowboys: 4
Bills: 3

Playoff berths over the last 10 seasons
Cowboys: 5
Bills: 5

Playoff record over the last 10 seasons
Cowboys: 3-5
Bills: 4-5

If the narrative is that the Cowboys always overperform in the regular season and underperform in the playoffs, why isn't Buffalo getting the same treatment? They're getting some heat from what I've heard, but not nearly to the extent Dallas is. Buffalo's loss was undoubtedly more embarrassing. They were the higher seed, at home, favored to win, and got stomped from the first drive of the game to the last. The Cowboys were the lower seed, on the road, underdogs. The game was tied going into the 4th and in the end the margin was one touchdown.

Sure, there's the fact that the Cowboys haven't made a conference title game in 27 years. But here's why I take issue with using that as a "gotcha": if the point is that the Cowboys have not been successful recently, then why do the late 90s and 2000s matter now? Does "recent" simply mean every year since they last won it all? Because that's obvious cherry picking. 1997 is recent but 1996 is not? OK. I think 10 years is a fair definition of "recent" when it comes to sports. And in those 10 years, Dallas and Buffalo have been basically the same franchise. Buffalo made it one game further one time. That's the only difference. And they benefited from a Lamar Jackson injury in that divisional game they won in 2020.

Granted, I agree with this post less now than I did a year ago. Buffalo's loss was worse last year, Dallas' loss was much worse this year. And it seems like most people are catching on anyway.

I think being the first 2 seed to lose to a 7 seed, and getting blown out at that, really bumps the Cowboys into a different tier of playoff choking. I'd say the Bills are more so the Packers of the AFC, minus, you know, the four championships. The Steelers are the Cowboys of the AFC right now, except their team is worse and their winless streak is longer, but they do have a title (two actually) this milennium. One could also argue the Chargers or Dolphins are the Cowboys of the AFC, but I think that's just insulting.

[webny99]

Disagreed on the Cowboys-Steelers comparison only because the Steelers are never as good as their record and haven't even shown the upside of being a great team. Cowboys at least earn it by beating up on bad teams, while the Steelers only squeak by the bad teams which I find almost more annoying.

I do see some Cowboys-Dolphins parallels developing but will not yet make that comparison definitively. But not the Chargers, they are in their own category.

[Max Rockatansky]

Disagreed on the Cowboys-Steelers comparison only because the Steelers are never as good as their record and haven't even shown the upside of being a great team. Cowboys at least earn it by beating up on bad teams, while the Steelers only squeak by the bad teams which I find almost more annoying.

I do see some Cowboys-Dolphins parallels developing but will not yet make that comparison definitively. But not the Chargers, they are in their own category.

My favorite meme of the day pointed out that the Lions have been to one NFC championship this century and the Cowboys have not. 

[Brandon]

Disagreed on the Cowboys-Steelers comparison only because the Steelers are never as good as their record and haven't even shown the upside of being a great team. Cowboys at least earn it by beating up on bad teams, while the Steelers only squeak by the bad teams which I find almost more annoying.

I do see some Cowboys-Dolphins parallels developing but will not yet make that comparison definitively. But not the Chargers, they are in their own category.

My favorite meme of the day pointed out that the Lions have been to one NFC championship this century and the Cowboys have not. 

Hopefully this will not be the last.  Of course, approaching it as a Lions fan, you take it one at a time, just hopeful they don't embarrass themselves in the next game.  If they get at least this far next year, it's something I might get used to - want to get used to.

[webny99]

Disagreed on the Cowboys-Steelers comparison only because the Steelers are never as good as their record and haven't even shown the upside of being a great team. Cowboys at least earn it by beating up on bad teams, while the Steelers only squeak by the bad teams which I find almost more annoying.

I do see some Cowboys-Dolphins parallels developing but will not yet make that comparison definitively. But not the Chargers, they are in their own category.

My favorite meme of the day pointed out that the Lions have been to one NFC championship this century and the Cowboys have not. 

Hopefully this will not be the last.  Of course, approaching it as a Lions fan, you take it one at a time, just hopeful they don't embarrass themselves in the next game.  If they get at least this far next year, it's something I might get used to - want to get used to.

The good news is, they've reached the point where any performance aside from maybe getting shutout or blown out by 20+ points wouldn't be that embarrassing. Much like the 2020 Bills, it's still an incredible season regardless of what happens next week.

[ZLoth]

My favorite meme of the day pointed out that the Lions have been to one NFC championship this century and the Cowboys have not.

This will also apply to the Houston Texans, Miami Dolphins, the Cleveland Browns, and the Washington Commandos. Of course, with the Detroit Lions winning a playoff game last weekend, the Miami Dolphins now hold the current longest playoff losing streak with no playoff wins since the 2000 AFC Wild Card.

[Big John]

My favorite meme of the day pointed out that the Lions have been to one NFC championship this century and the Cowboys have not.

This will also apply to the Houston Texans, Miami Dolphins, the Cleveland Browns, and the Washington Commandos. Of course, with the Detroit Lions winning a playoff game last weekend, the Miami Dolphins now hold the current longest playoff losing streak with no playoff wins since the 2000 AFC Wild Card.

Last conference championship game appearance for that franchise was in the 1991 season.

[webny99]

My favorite meme of the day pointed out that the Lions have been to one NFC championship this century and the Cowboys have not.

This will also apply to the Houston Texans, Miami Dolphins, the Cleveland Browns, and the Washington Commandos. Of course, with the Detroit Lions winning a playoff game last weekend, the Miami Dolphins now hold the current longest playoff losing streak with no playoff wins since the 2000 AFC Wild Card.

Last conference championship game appearance for that franchise was in the 1991 season.

Yes, no appearance this century is why they're on this list. I did a double take as well but this list is teams that could replace the Cowboys in the analogy, not the Lions.