The Buffalo Bills are really good.
There’s really not much more to say that hasn’t been said here or many other places about it, or to add to that sentence.
It also shouldn’t be a surprise that they’re a good team. I’ve been saying it and writing about it since Week 1, and really before that, looking at their roster during the offseason and knowing what they had. I picked them to go to the AFC Championship Game back in September in my yearly predictions column.
The Bills are really, really good. Perfect? No. Only one team’s ever been perfect in the history of the league. One other one was until they got to the Super Bowl.
Buffalo wasn’t even perfect on Sunday, yet the team hung 56 points on, what was, the No. 1 scoring defense in the entire league coming into the game.
What else really is there to say about this team anymore?
We have a 17-week body of work. 16 games. 13 wins. Shattered offensive franchise records. An MVP caliber quarterback. A NFL Coach of the Year candidate. The No. 2 seed in the conference.
I’m running out of superlatives to talk or write about how great this team has been.
We can celebrate all of that, look back with some really joyous memories and think about how fun they were to watch, but now it gets real. None of that truly matters starting Monday.
Now, it’s a new season. No one cares about your record. No one cares about your offensive numbers. No one cares how you got here, who you bring with you, or any of the stories along the way. Now, it’s about surviving and advancing, to steal a term more commonly used in college basketball.
Head coach Sean McDermott said it Sunday afternoon on his postgame Zoom call with the media: It’s now a new season. Everyone starts over.
All of those great things the Bills did in 2020 don’t guarantee them anything this Saturday when they face the Indianapolis Colts.
What I can guarantee you is that this Bills team will be ready and prepared. Because that’s what they’ve been, and who they’ve been all season. It’s really who they’ve been since McDermott and general manager Brandon Beane arrived in 2017.
I was asked a couple of times last week which teams I did not want the Bills to face in the first round of the playoffs. My general response was, “the Bills can beat anyone. They’ll be better than any team they play.”
When I looked at specific matchups, I mentioned the Colts several times as a team that would give me a bit of pause. They’re balanced on offense, have a very good run game, and especially as of late. They have a good, not great, defense.
Indianapolis has (maybe) a Hall of Fame quarterback, who has had a very good season despite many thinking he was washed up. Philip Rivers never misses a game. He’s started 240 straight games. That’s incredible, especially at that position. He’s also hard to sack. The Colts are third in the NFL, allowing a sack on less than 4% of dropbacks.
The Colts are well coached. Frank Reich is just a few years removed from being on a Super Bowl winning staff, and he’s already taken them to the playoffs in two of his three seasons as head coach.
Reich is also 26 years removed from playing for the Bills, and is one of the most beloved players in franchise history for what he was able to do as the backup to Jim Kelly, including leading the greatest comeback in NFL history 28 years ago last Sunday. That was the day his Colts wrapped up a playoff berth and learned their fate of coming to Orchard Park.
I’m not writing this to worry Bills fans about the matchup. Not at all.
What I am trying to do is set the table for everyone to realize that as great as this season has been, none of it matters now. It’s all about to start again.
In a lot of ways, it’s been like living in a dream, or maybe playing a video game watching how this team plays and seeing their success.
It’s about to get very real, very quickly. It should be fun.
Welcome to the NFL playoffs.
Follow me on Twitter: @SalSports
