[Author’s Note: As promised/threatened, this year’s Buffalo Bills Season Preview will be conducted in the medium of interpretive dance. Yes, I know it’s particularly inappropriate for Buffalo, which has no cheerleaders but a thriving post-angioplasty community.  Expand your minds and get some culture, you barbarian savages.]

Your 2018 Buffalo Bills: 6-10, missing the playoffs after sneaking in the previous year.

Your 2019 Buffalo Bills:

Your Quarterback:

Why Josh Allen May Not Be the Professional and Personal Tragedy That He Appears to Be:

GRAND JETÉ, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Your Coach:

Ok, I’ve kept it up as long as I can.

Maybe it’s the vague rosy glow over the world from new fatherhood. Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation. Maybe it’s the concussion I sustained when I walked into a bedpost. Whatever it is, I actually feel pretty decent about the Bills’ chances this year.

Everything starts with the running game for Buffalo, for better or worse. Buffalo’s leading rusher last year was Josh Allen. Normally that’s exciting, because it means you have a genuine Dual Threat Quarterback. Unfortunately, you have to be able to throw the ball in order to have that second Threat, and Allen’s hovering-around-51-percent completion rate doesn’t scare a lot of teams. That said, opposing teams knew he was going to run and he was able to trample them anyway.

Teflon Shady McCoy is 31, which is of course Worrying for any running back even if he hadn’t been injured a fair part of last year. So of course they went out and got Old Man Gore, because at 36 he makes McCoy look positively sprightly. They also drafted small-school small-person (5’7″ 203 pounds) Devin Singletary, whose Darren Sproles comparisons may not be too far wrong.

Aiding the running game will be a revamped offensive line. Four out of the five starters will likely be new. Normally, consistency and continuity are key to effective offensive line play. However, last year they were consistently awful. So if key free agent acquisition Mitch Morse can ever get out of the concussion protocol and Extremely Large Draft Pick Cody Ford ends up being a reasonable guard/tackle, they might actually have some lanes to run through.

The defense is also relatively Old School in its construction. The defensive line is rock solid, with Jerry Hughes and Star Lotuleilei as anchors and rookie Ed Oliver standing tall against Quenton Nelson in hot preseason action.

The linebacking corps is solid, with Defensive Rookie of the Year candidate Tremaine Edmunds playing alongside stout veteran Lorenzo Alexander and delicious cookie Matt Milano. Hell, even the secondary has some pop to it, with Tre’Davious White and Micah Hyde headlining and sneakily-effective Jordan Poyer providing support.

Our pass catchers are a goddamned abomination wrapped in a used diaper and set on fire. Zay Jones is starting to look bustish. John Brown isn’t going to scare anyone in the league now that Jerry Richardson is gone.

Cole Beasley was signed based solely on Grit, and yet Ray-Ray McCloud III– with a rare combination of good hands, hilarious name and amazing hair– may not make the roster.

The tight ends are largely new, with two draft picks and the other often-injured Bengals TE added to the roster.  Lee Smith rejoins the roster after several years in exile with the Raiders.

So yes. The Bills are actually going to be fine this year. They play the NFC East in their non-conference schedule and the AFC North for their non-divisional opponents- all reasonably-winnable games at this point.

More importantly, the Bills play an entirely outdoor regular season schedule this year. As we’ve noted, the weather has been Biblically Fucked Up the past 12 months, with bomb cyclones, 40 days and 40 nights of rain and wild temperature swings rendering Montana as hot as Arizona. With their stout defense and run-first/run-second offensive scheme, Buffalo is uniquely suited to succeed when the Gameday Forecast inevitably calls for frogs and rains of blood.

The Bills are going 9-7 and going to the playoffs. Here I stand, I can do not else. Amen, hallelujah.

/drinks paint thinner, jumps off china cabinet and through dining room table.