Hello, and welcome to another NFL Preseason!
You remember the preseason! It’s that one thing you did not miss last year.
OK, maybe you missed that one or two warmup tailgates that we get that end up being a little bit of fun. You wanna make sure the portable grill works, I get it. And yes, Kids’ Day is fun too. So have the games, but just have them without the players that matter the most.
Of course the Buffalo Bills' key players should skip out on the preseason. Last year, without a preseason, the Bills offense rolled out of bed putting up 30 points per-game.
Finding rhythm?
Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs, who had never played together in a game, opened the 2020 NFL season with eight hookups on nine attempts for 86 yards, including six first downs. They went off in Week 2 for 153 yards and a touchdown.
They’re fine. They’re ready.
WGR Bills beat reporter Sal Capaccio has told us the Bills offense is rolling at practice. He says, “The ball doesn’t hit the ground.”
They don’t need three throws against the Detroit Lions on a Friday in August to be sure they’re ready for the big tests that come this season.
What about that one new guy?
This offense is returning 10 of 11 starters, and the new guy, Emmanuel Sanders, is a 12-year NFL veteran that is going to be just fine jumping into this offense.
I tried searching for Sanders' preseason career stats, but guess what, that stuff is hard to find. Why? Cause it’s half-football that should be reserved for the back end of your roster.
You wanna see the CB3 battle? Great. You want to know how your special teams unit is working and make sure the gunners are staying in lanes? I’m into it.
Otherwise, the preseason is all risk and no reward.
Maybe you forgot, or never heard, that both Diggs and Cole Beasley got those nagging injuries that affected their postseason, late in blowouts in the waning weeks of the regular season. Those games mattered, and those injuries had consequences.
It’s a lesson I hope this team learned last year. Style points are an awful lot of fun, but now that they’ve slayed that New England Patriots dragon and started focusing on the big boss that’s past them, they need to act like it.
These games don’t matter, so sit your starters. Which ones? These ones:
- Josh Allen
- Stefon Diggs
- Emmanuel Sanders
- Cole Beasley
- The starting offensive line
- The running backs
- Tre'Davious White
- Jordan Poyer
- Micah Hyde
- Matt Milano
- Tremaine Edmunds
- Jerry Hughes
- Anyone else you feel like sitting
It’s the Lions. No one should be taking this too seriously. It's the Super Bowl you should be taking seriously.
And perhaps this is the best way to drive the point home:
The idea that the Bills need to be at their sharpest to start the season isn’t even true anymore. The drought Bills, scratching out any win they could to try to mercifully get "Bills Mafia" to a postseason needed to worry about that stuff a little bit. The case was dubious, at best, back then.
This team is focused on January and February. They play the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 5. Even that won’t end up defining this team. A win or a loss to Patrick Mahomes in the early stages of the season will be part of the narrative when the two teams meet in the playoffs. The result that day is what will actually matter.
The NFL preseason is a fools errand (I’m using that phrase a lot lately, and I’m enjoying it), and for this Bills team, should be treated as such. They’re going deep. They’re going for the whole shebang.
As the golfers say: You can’t win a golf tournament on Thursday, but you can lose one.
The preseason will offer no wins, and carries with it mild threats of astonishing injury loss.
Sit. Your. Starters.
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