MAYHEM’S 2023 PREDICTION: “12-5, tied for AFC East crown. As always, the injury factor will be dispositive, but we have reason for Hope.”

HOW’S THAT LOOKING?:

I mean, I was right. Injuries have decimated the Bills. Pro Bowl cornerback Tre’Davious White?

Pro Bowler Matt Milano?

Pro Bowler Dawson Knox?

All of the Safeties (except ironically Damar Hamlin)?

This is to say nothing about the range of walking-wounded injuries, including Josh Allen’s balky throwing shoulder.

And when they are On, the Bills look like the team we all kind of expected: offensively talented, defensively vicious. But they keep failing to launch- an incredible offensive malaise comes over them at the start of every game (they are averaging 4.2 points in the first quarter this year, versus a league-leading 6.1 last year). Combined with a 24th-ranked average of 5.2 points allowed in the first quarter, they are playing from behind constantly. They are scoring the most points in the league in the 4th quarter of games, but all this effort goes toward just trying to get even. That, as much as anything, is what cost Ken Dorsey his gig as offensive coordinator.

The frustrating bit is that all six of their losses have been by one score or less, including yet another overtime thriller against one of the league’s best (this time Philly). At least three of these games could have gone the other way based on one or two plays, and then we’re talking about a 9-3 Bills team with a real shot at home-field advantage.

In the absence of an effective or coherent offensive plan, Josh Allen has regressed to Hero Ball Mode. Stefon Diggs can’t get out of his own way. Sean McDermott is missing former defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier more than most anyone outside Buffalo realizes, and is making “scared” decisions like kneeling to go to overtime.

I hate the idea of the Jim Caldwell Situation- firing a successful head coach because of the perception that he ‘can’t get the team over the top’ (and because he’s Black).  But McDermott is legitimately on the hotseat because he’s pissing away the prime of Josh Allen’s career and the last productive years of Diggs, Von Miller, and Leonard Floyd. Bring back Frazier. Bring back Brian Daboll as offensive coordinator once the Giants fire him. Let the team vote on a figurehead head coach, like Bernadotte in Sweden.

Anyway. The Bills have a bye week and 5 games to get their shit together. Right now, powerhouses like the Broncos, Clots and Steelers (who also fired their offensive coordinator) sit between Buffalo and the playoffs. It should be doable. They have risen to the meet (or almost meet) the challenge of really good teams, so I anticipate they can get through the next two games (at Kansas City and home against the Fraudulent Non-Gendered Cowpersons) at 7-7. Their final three games are all very winnable- Belichick has already checked out, Brandon Staley is almost out the door in San Die..uh, LA, and Miami is a paper fucking tiger who folds at the first sign of real challenge. So 10-7 is a legit possibility, and that should give them either the AFC East or a wild-card spot.

But I’m not going to count on it. After all, it’s the hope that kills you.

NFL NEWS:

-Frank Reich is dead, all hail…Chris Tabor?

-Also, big ups to owner David Tepper, who felt the need to publicly justify choosing Bryce Young over CJ Stroud 11 games into their respective careers. Totally normal.

-Justin Jefferson is being reactivated from IR, just in time for the Vikings to (likely) start their fourth QB of the season…Nick Mullens!

-Brandon Staley is going to be fired on Monday if he loses to the Patriots.

RANDOM FACTS:

As I watched the wishbone being snapped at Thanksgiving and thought of Alex Smith, it occurred to me: how much money would the average person take to have their leg nearly ripped off? Yes, he earned $189 million dollars over his career, but:

Following the initial surgery, Smith developed life-threatening necrotizing fasciitis that resulted in sepsis which required him to undergo 17 surgeries, including eight debridements, across four separate hospital stays over a period of nine months. Doctors had suggested that an amputation above the knee might be his only option before performing skin grafts and an operation transferring muscle from his left quadriceps to save it.

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Smith

So then I started wondering about the other end of the spectrum: which quarterbacks made The Easy Money? Because I have small children, a short attention span and no patience with numbers, I decided to use Dollars Per Regular Season Touchdown as a metric despite that being more a measure of which teams overpaid the most for performance. I should have done Dollars per Sack, although in order to accurately capture suffering-per-dollar, I’d need to introduce multipliers based on things like which teams and coaches the guy played for. The Coughlin Co-efficient. Maybe next week.

ANYWAY: Some of the guys I expected to see at the top of the list were actually not too bad (by modern standards). Rob Johnson turned one good game into $20 million, but that actually works out to $588,235 per score- for reference, Peyton Manning was racking up $446,556,55 every time he scored. Matt Flynn managed a very solid $1.07 million per TD.

By this measure, Alex Smith didn’t do to badly at $883,177.57 per touchdown. Because I am legally obligated to compare him every time Smith is mentioned, draft classmate Aaron Rodgers has made a comparatively paltry $671,562.55 per touchdown, roughly on par with Patrick Mahomes’ $605,575,43 (love them rookie contracts!).

Then I started thinking about the end of the era before the Rookie Wage Scale artificially depressed the value of a journeyman/bust quarterback. Tim Couch, while establishing a bleak precedent for the revenant Browns, at least was a decent value at a little over $303,000 per touchdown. Sam Bradford starts to liven things up at roughly $1.238 million per score. JaMarcus Russell disappointed everyone except his accountant, managing $2.07 million per touchdown in his brief career.

The King* however, remains William “Chase” Daniel. Undrafted out of Mizzou, Daniel parlayed nine (9) career touchdowns (and seven interceptions!) into a truly spectacular $41,828,471 in cash, putting him at $4,647,607.89 per TD. Well done, Chase Daniel: you have set the standard.

*Note- this excludes players who signed but never threw a touchdown

because dividing by zero makes God cry. I can’t find out how much he actually made, but by virtue of his being drafted ahead of Tom Brady, I have chosen Giovanni Carmazzi as the Uncrowned King of Getting Paid.