Sean McDermott Gives A Parting Speech
I never got a chance when the story first dropped a while ago but you better believe I didn’t forget that Sean McDermott once tried to pump up his team by puffing up the teamwork of the 9/11 hijackers. He doesn’t deserve to live that one down. I’m glad I finally found a place to stick it into DrawPlay lore.
I had a thought during the game on Sunday. The Chiefs have replaced the Patriots as the defacto evil empire dynasty that every other team must get through to achieve anything. They are the pinnacle of the mountain now, the gatekeepers of recognition. So what does that make these Bills? They feel like the Peyton Manning Colts, at least pre-2006. Another team controlled by an otherworldly QB that wasn’t quite as well coached and just cannot get over the hump in front of them to claim their rightful place as a champion. They are the stepping blocks to the podium of the true masters. The footnote to legends. The sidequests. The tragedy. They are Gary to Ash in the original Pokemon game, although at least Gary beat the elite 4 before Ash did.
There are differences of course. For one thing, Peyton’s big knock was his failures in the playoffs every year. He seemed to struggle against playoff competition. Nobody can reasonably claim that Josh Allen has not balled his fucking ass off in these playoff games. Allen has been masterful in January, but the Chiefs have just continuously been slightly better. He should have won the “13 Seconds” game, leading an unbelievable final game-winning drive that wasn’t only to get let down by the defense and then never touch the ball again in overtime. They literally changed the rules of overtime because the world recognized how bullshit it was that we never got more Josh Allen. His team has let him down. If anyone has taken up the mantle of “can’t win in the playoffs” it’s Lamar Jackson.
But the Bills just can’t overcome that Chiefs-shaped mountain. That’s 4 of 5 playoff exits they’ve lost to Kansas City now, with one loss to Cincinnati in the middle. The Bills once again played outstanding football and it didn’t matter. The Bills once again had a chance and let it slip by. To be the best you have to beat the best and they can’t seem to do it. Will these Bills manage to break through the ceiling before their window closes? Every year makes every game feel more desperate. It must be agonizing for the Bills to finally emerge from their almost 20-year long playoff drought and suddenly become the most blue-balled team in the league. They are finally great, yet not great enough. I doubt any Bills fan would want to go back to the before times but it does mean these seasons end with harder gut punches now. I want them to have their 2006 Colts moment. To finally shove the Chiefs back down the hill and emerge at the top. Maybe get a freebie SB against a weak NFC opponent like the Colts did too.
A final word about Sean McDermott: anyone who wants him fired is an idiot. You know how hard it is to find a coach capable of taking you on good playoff runs every year? Extremely hard. McDermott has this defense playing above their talent level despite injury every year, and Josh can do the rest on offense. Firing him at this stage would be idiotic.
As for other news that dropped this week…so uh, add Justin Tucker to the list of Scumbag Kickers I guess? Hey Zippy, if you are reading this, don’t go back and read your comment on the last comic about scumbag kickers.
I mean, the Cigarette Smoking Man will never allow the Bills to win the Super Bowl so long as he’s still in power, so maybe some extreme measures are called for… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyhAJEPEHk4
Actually, the actor posted on Facebook that he was now allowing the Bills to win the Super Bowl. So that’s done.
Multi-decade Bills backer here. At least for me, no, it doesn’t hurt worse to lose like this than it did to start every season in the long drought thinking, “This year’s gonna be different!”, have it be a little different for a couple of games, and then have reality hit. It is so good to have really good Bills again, and watching is so much more fun, even at the price of falling to the Chiefs what feels like every year.
The comics all have an ALT text? Guess I’m going Archive Binging.
Maybe the Curse of Flutie still has not been exorcised
https://www.si.com/more-sports/2011/11/16/wade-phillips
What it would take to satiate the curse? Allen posted a perfect passer rating in 2023 week 4 with 21/25 for 320 yards and 4 TDs, so Flutie’s not alone there.
We need a Justin Tucker cartoon. Like, yesterday.
0 hours since last 9-11 joke on the internet
Hours?
A second joke has hit the internet this minute!
That should not have been that funny to me.
The 4th and 5 play is the Bills vs Chiefs in a nutshell, Steve Spagnuolo´s perfectly executed blitz that has never been called before has the Bills already on the ropes the moment the ball is snapped. Despite multiple unblocked defenders, Josh Allen somehow evades the defenders and desperately throws the ball on the back foot while being hit, where it miraculously finds the hands of the TE…who drops it.
Agree that anyone wanting to fire McDermott is wrong or Jed York. You don’t fire a coach good enough to get you to the championship game regularly.
We should wait for more info on the Tucker allegations, but if they are true then he’s definitely a Watson type shitty person.
We need an infinity gauntlet of scumbag kickers.
So why does Allen have antlers?
I think the week 11 chaos report was the first time Dave referred to Allen as a football moose. https://www.thedrawplay.com/comic/week-11-chaos-report-bills-make-me-wanna-shout/
“Josh Allen’s scramble on 4th down is the stuff of legend. Give the ball to the large football moose and profit! When he got the first down I fist pumped. When he kept going I cringed. When he made the goalline I cackled. I don’t know what Josh Allen would do if football didn’t exist. Maybe he would just wrestle pigs.”
I really like those big showy magicians that make well-known landmarks disappear. Who’s that guy who made the ones in New York disappear? Oh, that’s right – Bin Laden.
My first memory of football was hearing on the radio the bills were going back to the super bowl for a 4th time in a row. I suspect they’ll do similar with afc championship games
It was a 1st down and we all know it
So the refs stopped a potential terrorist attack!
To be fair to Tucker. Those allegations are from 9 years ago with no real evidence besides Tucker being told not to go back to the massage parlors. No letter, Email, nothing.
Now…Kraft and Deshaun.
multiple independent corroborations with the same exact behavior cited across incidents from seperate establishments. pretty convincing to me.
Just to let you know, the protagonist of the original Pokemon games is named Red. Ash is the main character of the anime.
Speaking of Pokemon game parallel, the closest I can think of is the 1996 Packers being more like Gary where they won a title before quickly getting dethroned by the Broncos who would be the game’s Ash.
Patriots -> Chiefs
Team that wins first championship since the merger
Has a QB that was likable but now is hated because he wins so much
Accusations of RefBall & league conspiracies
Colts -> Ravens
Has a QB that wins multiple regular season MVPs
Fantasy stud
Amazing plays
Come playoffs makes wtf are you doing plays but also supporting cast screws up
Steelers -> Bills
Winless in playoffs against team in their dynasty run
This happened to the Steelers & will probably be the best case scenario for the Bills to get to the Super Bowl
Steelers went to 3 Super Bowls in the Brady-Belichick Patriot era, winning 2. Not once did they face the Patriots in those playoff runs
When the Steelers faced the Patriots in that era (2000-19) it was in the AFC Championship. They went 0-3 and the Patriots went 3-0 in Super Bowls.
So for the Bills to get to the Super Bowl, they need a season where the Chiefs don’t make the AFC Championship (Steelers 2005, 2010) or the Chiefs not make the playoffs (Steelers 2008)
AFC West -> AFC South
The highest seed you can obtain is the 3 because of the teams ahead of you
Maybe you luck into the AFC Championship *IF* something happens to the dynasty team or the 1-seed is one & done
One could end up being Manning Broncos in this story
Jets -> Bengals
Chaos agent
Jets: How did they beat the Patriots in the 2010 playoffs?
Bengals: They beat the Chiefs in an AFC Championship Game?
I got into a big argument with a Bills fan in the past about how much this team loved each other and how great they get along after they punted on Diggs.
I said that it is easy for this fresher team to offload all their blame onto Diggs, and to be perfectly transparent I believe that Diggs was a diva, and to move on with their new “everyone eats” nonsense… but that people get along great when they aren’t facing adversity and that they’ll truly be tested when they play KC in the playoffs, and if they lose there then you’ll see some tension.
I’m more annoyed that the Bills lost though I hate KC.