Baseball playoffs: The cursed sport continues
I’m sitting here trying to watch a little playoff baseball — the Tiger-Yankee game is postponed by rain — knowing that the post-season can’t hope to match the final night of the regular season, when four playoff-deciding games were staged with various stages of fabulous drama.
But even the fantastic finishes — the Orioles rallying past the Red Sox and the Rays beating the Yankees in extra innings to cap a 7-run rally, both within four minutes of each other – were cursed. Both finished after 11 p.m. That’s after midnight on the East Coast.
Sure, a ton of baseball fans stayed up to watch. But no novices. No borderline fans who might have been captivated by the agony and ecstasy of autumn baseball.
Think about this. This is the first time in decades that baseball scheduled its regular-season finales for mid-week. Had those games finished up on Sunday, they would have been in late afternoon, even with the extra innings. Of course, one game might have been shifted to ESPN — probably the Yanks — so we wouldn’t have had the simultaneous drama.
But finishing on Wednesday, every game was destined for night, and the extra innings of the Phillies-Braves and Yanks-Rays, plus the rain delay in Baltimore, sent the sport hurtling past midnight.
Here’s more to think about. Next year, baseball almost surely will expand the playoffs, to a one-game showdown between two wild cards. Sounds interesting, I suppose. But had that system been in place this year, all four of those games Wednesday night would have been meaningless, with the possible exception of homefield advantage. The Cardinals and Braves would have been National League wild-card qualifiers; same in the AL with Tampa Bay and Boston.
Now, you could argue that a one-game playoff is high drama to match even what we saw Wednesday night. I don’t think that’s true, but a one-game playoff guaranteed every year is hards to beat, and rarely will we see the kind of drama we saw Wednesday night.
So bottom line, it was a great night for baseball. But it also illustrated what ails the sport that once gripped the country. Even its greatest moments don’t shine like they once did.
Big 12 football: Big East merger would mean what?
If Missouri leaves the Big 12, the latest theory is that four Big East schools would replenish the league that won’t die: TCU, Cincinnati, West Virginia and Louisville. TCU to the South, the others to the North.
I don’t know if it has any legs or not. Seems to me that you could add TCU and then get three West schools just as easily — Air Force, BYU and Boise State. Which would be better? Let’s look.
NORTH PROWESS: Without Missouri, the North would be decimated. Strictly football, the West schools are better. West Virginia is a perennially good program, but Cincy and Louisville are squishy, even though both have won Big East titles since 2005. Boise State would become the North’s premier team, and BYU and Air Force are usually competitive. I’d give an edge to the West.
MARKETABILITY: Louisville is a market about the size of Oklahoma City, so that’s solid. Cincinnati is a big market, but I don’t know how much people in Ohio care about the Bearcats; maybe that would change in the Big 12. West Virginia is not a big market, but the Mountaineers have enough of a name that it would carry some weight. Sort of like Boise State. Idaho is not much of a market. Air Force doesn’t really have a huge Colorado following, though it has some national cache’. Brigham Young brings a good-sized market in Salt Lake City, plus a national following. Slight edge to the East.
TELEVISION ATTRACTION: Here’s how you look at it. How many attractive games would each expansion produce? Cincinnati-Kansas State or Air Force-Kansas State? Boise State-Oklahoma or West Virginia-Oklahoma? BYU-Texas or Louisville-Texas? I think you have to go with the West. The truth is, BYU football hasn’t been what it once was. But the Cougars still have a name. And Boise State trumps all. Boise State against Oklahoma State, Boise State-TCU, Boise State-Texas Tech. Those are games people will watch. Edge to the West.
TRAVEL: It’s a hassle to get to Boise and Morgantown, W.Va., so that’s a wash. But it’s also a heck of a long way to Provo, Utah. Cincinnati and Louisville are a little easier to deal with. Edge to the East.
BASKETBALL: I know basketball doesn’t count. But Louisville, Cincinnati and West Virginia? Are you kidding me? A North Division of KU, K-State, Iowa State, Rick Pitino, Bob Huggins’ current school and Bob Huggins’ former school. Wow. BYU would be an excellent hoops addition; Air Force and Boise would be total non-factors. Big edge to the East.
ACADEMICS: I have no idea if anyone in the Big 12 cares about academic reputation anymore. Lose Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M and maybe Missouri, and your academic status is shot. I suppose Air Force swings the nod to the West, but Boise State might swing it back the other way. I have no idea if Boise State deserves the poor academic reputation it has, but that’s exactly what Boise State has. I’d call it a wash.
CULTURE: Brigham Young is hard to deal with. That’s what people from the Mountain West say. They say Texas overflows with the milk of human kindness in conference talks, compared to dealing with BYU. I don’t know why West Virginia, Louisville or Cincinnati would be any trouble. Edge East.
SCHEDULING: BYU doesn’t play on Sundays, so that would cause all kinds of minor sports to adjust their schedules. But the addition of WVU, Louisville and Cincinnati would make it problematic if the Big 12 wanted to cointinue its travel-partner system in some sports. That would have to be worked out. Edge East.
CHAMPIONSHIPS GEOGRAPHY: A football title game in Dallas annually would eventually wear on West Virginia, I would think. I doubt you’d hear much from Boise State or BYU about that. I don’t see a solution. Is Kansas City somehow better for the Mountaineers? No easier to get to, though a little less convenient for whichever team West Virginia would be playing. I think the either East or West would have to suck it up and realize Jerry Jones has the football title game. The basketball game would stay in Kansas City, which would probably rankle Louisville eventually. Edge to the West.
Of course, if Missouri stays, all this remains the same, except you probably drop Cincinnati from the East discussion and either Air Force or Boise State from the West.
So what do you think? Here’s what I think. Going West would make for better football. Going East would make for better stability. Finances would seem to be pretty close. The Big 12 has a tough decision to make.
College football predictions: Can Upset Specials continue?
Not a bad week for me last week. Both of my Upset Specials came through — Kansas State over Miami and Temple over Maryland. Actually, not a bad season.
I count an upset special as anything with at least a five-point spread. The only exception to that was I picked UCLA to beat Texas, when the ‘Horns were 31/2–point favorites. There was scant few options in the Big 12 that week, so I had to pick something. And I didn’t win that one anyway.
This year, I’m 2-2 in Big 12 Upset Specials, losing Northern Iowa over Iowa State (almost) and UCLA-Texas. I won KSU-Miami and Kansas over Northern Illinois (easy pickings). I’m 4-0 on national Upset Specials: Maryland over Miami, Auburn over Mississippi State, Utah over BYU and Temple over Maryland.
So the pressure’s on to keep the streak alive. Here are this week’s games.
Ball State at Oklahoma: Sooners 55-14. Bad timing for Ball State. The Sooners seem mad — Bob Stoops included — just as the Cardinals come to town.
Bowling Green at West Virginia: Mountaineers 41-17. Pay no attention to West Virginia’s 500-plus total yards against LSU. Yards are overrated.
Air Force at Navy: Midshipmen 29-21. Underrated rivalry. Really good programs. Possible future Big East foes.
Penn State at Indiana: Nittany Lions 28-14. Man, Kevin Wilson is off to a horrible start at IU. Losses to Ball State and North Texas. But as colleague John Shinn of the Norman Transcript said, if it was such a cushy job, it wouldn’t have come open for Wilson.
Georgia Tech at North Carolina State: Yellowjackets 26-16. I watched the N.C. State-Cincinnati game last week, and if the Wold Pack was in the Big 12, it would finish higher than no one except possibly Kansas. And I say possibly.
Texas Tech at Kansas: Jayhawks 28-27. Upset special in the Big 12. KU can’t stop anyone inside, but it’s not like Tech is the 1967 USC Trojans. Tech barely survived mediocre Nevada.
UCLA at Stanford: Cardinal 49-20. Andrew Luck is the Heisman front-runner, but until the Oregon game, will he play on a stage that anyone watches?
Texas at Iowa State: Longhorns 24-21. I listened to the 2010 UT-ISU game while driving from Kansas City to Columbia, Mo. Kudos to the Cyclone radio crew. Big play after big play kept Iowa State in front, and you’d have thought the Cyclones were playing Ball State. I don’t know how those guys kept their excitement level down.
Michigan State at Ohio State: Buckeyes 17-16. Ohio State clearly was not ready for an extreme makeover, team edition.
Alabama at Florida: Gators 20-19. National Upset Special. I’m a believer in Will Muschamp. I don’t know if I’m a believer in Charlie Weis and John Brantley, but I’m a believer in Will Muschamp.
Texas A&M vs. Arkansas at Arlington, Texas: Aggies 30-29. Will the loss to OSU beat A&M again? I’m betting no in this SEC rivalry preview.
Arizona at Southern Cal: Trojans 51-31. Where’s the defense? That’s the biggest surprise to me about the Mike Stoops era. The longer he’s there, the better his offense, the worse his defense.
Baylor at Kansas State: Bears 30-24. Great game. Glad to see ABC pick it as the Big 12 game of the week.
Auburn at South Carolina: Gamecocks 33-20. The Tigers are 3-1 and incredibly close to 1-3.
Clemson at Virginia Tech: Hokies 26-24. Total coaching mismatch. V-Tech’s Frank Beamer outclasses Dabo Swinney by a mile.
Nebraska at Wisconsin: Badgers 28-21. What a Big Ten debut for the Huskers. Game of the day. Fabulous environment (Bob Stoops says Madison is the best he’s ever seen). Similar teams. Not a lot of flash.
Kentucky at LSU: Tigers 38-0. I’m not sure the Wildcats are better than Kansas. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re not.
Notre Dame at Purdue: Irish 42-13. Danny Hope, Howard Schnellenberger’s O-line coach at OU in 1995, has not wowed the Boilermaker nation. Hope is 11-16 since replacing Joe Tiller as head coach.
North Texas at Tulsa: Golden Hurricane 45-16. Dan McCarney might do something with the Mean Green. He’s got a brand new stadium — check out when you get to the I-35 fork in Denton — and UNT bounced Indiana last week.
SMU at TCU: Horned Frogs 27-22. Man, I hope the Mustangs don’t pull the upset. That would just means more nonsense about SMU joining the Big 12.
Lunch chat: More questions on OU football, Big 12 realignment
I didn’t get to all the questions on my lunch chat yesterday, so I saved them, and here they are.
Leroy: “What is the latest on the realignment stuff? Is the Big 12 going to drag its feet about extending invitations, or are they going to keep it under wraps who they invite to our conference?”
I think the Big 12 will try to keep it quiet. But that stuff doesn’t stay quiet for long. But before the Big 12 can pursue expansion, it must determine if Missouri will stay. First things first.
Larry: “What are your thoughts on the OU/Texas game this year?”
The Sooners clearly are the better team, but they were last year, too, and it was 28-20. One-possession game. So I think the Longhorns will be tough.
Guest: “David Boren got worked big time on this whole conference re-lineament debacle. Why isn’t he taking more heat? When did he lose his political acumen?”
I’d say he’s taking quite a bit of heat. Probably his lowest point in 17 years as president. Came out looking bad.
Larry: “Barring injuries at the RB position, I don’t think we will see B. (Brandon) Williams this year. What do you think?”
If I would guess, I’d say he’ll play this Saturday. Bob Stoops likes to throw curveballs. On the other hand, the only reason people are excited to see him is because of his recruiting ranking. Which means squat. Doesn’t mean anything at all.
Daniel: “With the ‘average at best’ defense that OU has, who will give the Sooners the most trouble this season….outside of OSU?”
Texas, clearly. The Sooners’ road tests aren’t much between Tallahassee and Stillwater. You’ve got Waco, Manhattan and Lawrence. I suppose you could put Texas A&M on the list of difficult games, but that’s at Owen Field. I don’t like the Aggies’ chances.
Guest: “Do you think OU and OSU are now on the sidelines with Baylor and Iowa State with nowhere to go after the actions of the Pac12 and David Boren last week?”
No. OU could always change its mind about the SEC. And the Pac-12 doesn’t really want to stay at 12, if the other major leagues are headed to 14 or 16. So I think the Pac-12′s moratorium is temporary.
Power Lunch recap: Columnist Berry Tramel
OSU football: 1962 Army game a big win
Reader Braniff Surtees studied our list of the four biggest wins in Oklahoma State football history, then offered another for consideration: the Cowboys’ 12-7 upset of Army on Nov. 10, 1962.
“Maybe I’m too old, but … I’ll vote that game into the mix,” Surtees wrote. “I was covering the team’s arrival at Stillwater airport that night for the OSU college radio stations. Pardon the expression, but it was ‘Bedlam.’”
OK, so let’s check out that game. First, the Cowboys. Cliff Speegle was in the last of his eight seasons as OSU’s coach. The Cowboys were 2-4, having beaten only Tulsa 17-7 and Colorado 36-16. OSU had lost at Arkansas (34-7) and Missouri (23-6) and at home to Kansas (36-17) and Iowa State (34-7). Speegle’s record for 71/2 seasons was 34-40-3. There was no reason for optimism.
Army by 1962 was not quite the national power it had been in the 1940s. Red Blaik’s final year as the Cadet coach, 1958, produced an 8-0-1 record and a No. 3 ranking in the final AP poll. But the next three Army teams finished 4-4-1, 6-3-1 and 6-4.
So a new coach was brought in, and he was a dandy. Paul Dietzel had been a big winner at LSU — yes, there was a time in America when Army could lure away the LSU coach — and his first season got off to good start. The Black Knights were 6-1, losing only 17-7 at Michigan.
When the Cadets hosted OSU at West Point’s Michie Stadium, Army was not ranked, but that’s because the AP poll consisted of just 10 teams. The Cadets clearly were a top-15 team.
And the Cowboys pulled the upset. Army halfback Ken Waldrop staggered the Cowboys with a 40-yard touchdown run on the first possession. But OSU rallied. Mike Miller threw a 24-yard TD pass to wingback Mutual Bryant on the first play of the second quarter. Then Tommy Jackson’s interception set up Wardell Hollis’ touchdown before halftime.
And Surtees wasn’t kidding. Stillwater went wild. According to The Oklahoman accounts, about 4,000 cheering fans gathered at the airport.
Students had been listening to the game on the radio, then jumped into their cars and paraded down streets, honking horns.
One student said “the final score was chimed out on the campus bells … there was a kind of stunned silence. Sort of like a bomb when the fuse is lit. Then it went off with blaring horns and bells that repeated the score.”
The upset staggered Army. The Knights lost to Pitt 7-6 and Navy 34-14 and finished 6-4.
Dietzel coached just three more years, going 7-3, 4-6 and 4-5-1. The golden age of Army football was over. Truth is, it was over before the Cowboys rode into West Point. But that loss didn’t help.
Speegle and the Cowboys did not take advantage of their upset. The next week, OSU lost 14-0 at Nebraska. The Cowboys then beat Kansas State 30-6 and lost Bedlam 37-6.
Speegle was out, and Phil Cutchin replaced him. It didn’t help. Between Speegle’s 6-4 season in 1959 and Dave Smith’s 7-4 record in 1972, the Cowboys did not post a winning record.
Their 1960s highlights were back-to-back Bedlam victories in 1965 and 1966, over mediocre OU teams, and a stunning upset of Army, in the Hudson River Valley in November 1962
OU football: MAC attack comes to Owen Field
Ball State running back Jahwan Edwards (38) breaks past South Florida defensive back Jon Lejiste (8) to score a fourth-quarter touchdown during an NCAA college football game on Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) ORG XMIT: TPS112
For the second time in history, a Mid-American Conference school comes to Owen Field. Ball State plays at OU on Saturday, and I love the MAC. Bunch of hard-edged football teams short on talent and short on money but long on grit.
Bowling Green came to Owen Field in 2004 and played the Sooners tough, losing 40-24 to a team that reached the national championship game.
The MAC rarely upsets a national-brand named school, though Toledo beat Michigan in 2008 and Western Michigan beat Iowa in ’07 and Toledo almost beat Ohio State this very September. Mostly, the MAC upsets are inflicted on programs a little lower down the food chain.
Akron beat North Carolina State in ’06 and Syracuse in ’08. Ball State beat Indiana in ’08 and this year. Bowling Green beat Minnesota in ’07 and Pitt in ’08. Central Michigan beat Indiana in ’08 and Michigan State in ’09. Kent State beat Iowa State in ’07. Northern Illinois beat Minnesota in ’10. Miami-Ohio beat Cincinnati in ’05 and Syracuse in ’07. Ohio beat Pitt in ’05 and Illinois in ’06. Temple beat UConn in ’10 (those Huskies made the Fiesta Bowl) and Maryland last week. Western Michigan beat Virginia in ’06. Toledo beat Kansas in ’06, Iowa Statte in ’07, Colorado in ’09 and Purdue in ’10 (in addition to beating Michigan in ’08).
So the MAC is good for a knockoff or three a year against the major-conference schools.
Bob Stoops actually coached a year in the MAC, Kent State 1988.
Ball State is 3-1 this season, with wins over Indiana, Buffalo and Army, with a 37-7 loss to South Florida. Stoops said it’s hard to compare this Ball State team to that 2004 Bowling Green team, because this Ball State is under a new coaching staff. That Bowling Green had a ton of experience.
But Stoops said, “In today’s world, there’s a lot of good football players everywhere. They’ve been very strong and sound schematically. You see it from a lot of those teams every year.”
The MAC indeed has some coaches. Miami-Ohio is the cradle of coaches; its head coaches have included Sid Gillman, Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian, John Pont, Bo Schembechler, Bill Mallory, Dick Crum and Randy Walker. Gary Pinkel and Nick Saban were head coaches at Toledo.
New Michigan coach Brady Hoke coached at Ball State. Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly coached at Central Michigan. Glen Mason coached at Kent State. Wake Forest’s Jim Grobe coached at Ohio, and Frank Solich does now. Miami’s Al Golden coached at Temple.
Road trip: One final visit to College Station
Who knows what the future will bring, but it’s possible I’ve made my final trip to College Station, Texas.
When I was a kid in the ’70s, the Southwest Conference seemed awfully exotic. SMU playing in the Cotton Bowl. Baylor games in Waco and Texas Tech games in Lubbock, places that seemed as much a part of the Wild West as Dodge City and Tombstone. The curious case of Arkansas being in a league it had no business being in.
And a place called College Station. Sounds like a place you’d have to arrive at by train. Like the town in High Noon. Get off the train, stand on the platform and there’s a big university with the cool name of Texas A&M.
The Sooners nor the Cowboys played in College Station in the ’70s, so in my mind, College Station lived only on the pages of the Dallas sports section.
Soon enough, of course, I experienced College Station myself. Been down there most every football season for 15 years. Bunch of OU games. Bunch of OSU games.
Great place to watch a football game. Not a great place to visit. I’m going to miss football games in College Station. I’m not going to miss getting to College Station.
College Station sits next to Bryan. Both cities are around 100,000 in population, so the metro is over 200,000. You can fly into Bryan/College Station’s regional airport, and we’ve done so in the past, on American Eagle. But it’s hard to get a good room rate in College Station, so that’s problematic.
We’ve flown into Austin quite a bit and drove the two hours over. I flew into Houston once and drove the 90 minutes up. In recent years, we just drive, usually spending the night in Waco, only this time we stayed in Dallas and drove almost three hours on Saturday.
None of it’s good. Some leagues are tough travel leagues. The Big 12 is. So is the SEC. Auburn, Ala., and Starkville, Miss., and Athens, Ga., can be hard to get to. Fly, then drive. Big 12′s the same way. Columbia. College Station. Waco. Stillwater. Manhattan.
I know College Station has to have some good places to eat. I just haven’t found any. I ran into Kyle Keller on Saturday at the game. Keller was on Eddie Sutton’s OSU staff and now is part of Billy Kennedy’s new staff at Texas A&M. Keller was telling me how much he likes College Station, how much money is around the campus, and I can believe both. It’s probably a good place to live.
But I’ve really found only two things that draw me to the place. A&M football games, which are big-time cool, thanks to the band and the traditions and the usually great games. The other is the George Bush (the first) presidential library. I toured it several years back and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I will miss Texas A&M being in the league. It will be darn impossible to replace the Aggies. They played a good brand of football and made the sport fun. But I won’t miss
Dallas Cowboys: Rob Ryan’s defense saves the day
Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Rob Ryan during a preseason NFL football game against the San Diego Chargers Sunday, Aug. 21, 2011, in Arlington, Texas. The Chargers won 20-7. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Monday night was Ex-Cowboy Night at JerryWorld. Dan Bailey kicked six field goals to account for all the Cowboy points in an 18-16 victory over Washington. Dez Bryant’s 30-yard reception from Tony Romo set up the final field goal, in the final two minutes. But don’t forget yet another guy who is part of Oklahoma State’s history.
Rob Ryan’s defense saved the day.
The Cowboy defensive coordinator, who was Bob Simmons’ d-coordinator in Stillwater in the late ’90s, has Dallas’ defense playing very well. The Cowboys had three sacks of Redskin quarterback Rex Grossman, giving Dallas an NFL-high 13 this season.
Grossman isn’t an elite quarterback. Despite their 2-0 start, the Redskins are not an offensive juggernaut. But still, in this era, anytime you hold a team to 16 points, you’ve played some defense. Look at all the scores from the first three weeks. Offenses are running wild.
You don’t win many NFL games without scoring a touchdown. Not just now. But ever.
But the Cowboys beat the Redskins without a TD. These Dallas nail-biters are nothing new. This was the Cowboys’ NFL-record ninth straight game decided by three points or less. Dallas actually broke the record in the season opener against the Jetropolitans. The previous record was six, held by the 2004-05 Raiders.
“If you look at the statistics in the National Football League, two out of three games in the NFL last year were within one score in the fourth quarter,” said Dallas coach Jason Garrett. ” We play a lot of those games. You have to understand and you have to believe you can make the plays when necessary. I thought it was a great job by our defense throughout the ballgame, just staying after them, continuing to fight.
“As a coach, it’s hard not to get emotional when you see the effort of those guys up front continuing to stay after the quarterback, determined to make a play. The whole crew of them were just working so hard throughout the ball game. We knew they were going to make a play and ultimately Anthony Spencer made the play to get the turnover late to seal the deal.”
Monday night was the 41st game in Cowboy history without a Dallas touchdown. That’s 52 seasons worth. But it was just the sixth time Dallas won without a touchdown. Here are the previous Cowboy wins in history without a TD:
2001: 9-7 over Washington
1996: 21-6 over Green Bay
1996: 12-6 over New England
1976: 9-3 over the Giants
1970: 6-2 over Cleveland
It’s too early to anoint Ryan some kind of defensive savior. But the early returns are very encouraging as the Cowboys seek to rebuild their defensive reputation, which withered after a strong start under Wade Phillips.
“We have a coach that has unbelievable swag,” said linebacker Bradie James. “You just feed off of him, and each other. We have a veteran group and we have guys that feed off each other. We are lifting up the young guys. And us older guys are just playing lights out when we get it in. It has been great. It’s early, we still have some ball to go, but you guys can see that we are playing on the same page.”
Said Marcus Spears, “The guys are just playing hard. We are doing what we’re doing. We are grasping the system that Rob has in. And we are realizing it is going to put us in a situation to make plays and guys are stepping up when they opportunities present themselves.”
NFL: Chan Gailey coaching up the Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills, void of a winning record since 2004 and void of a playoff berth since the victimized Music City Miracle team of 1999, are 3-0 after their stirring 34-31 victory over the Patriots on Sunday. Chan Gailey is Buffalo’s coach. It’s not a coincidence.
Gailey can coach pro football. College, I don’t know about. Gailey was head coach at Georgia Tech from 2002 through 2007; his predecessor, George O’Leary, did a better job, and so has Gailey’s successor, Paul Johnson.
But Gailey did an excellent job in two years as the Dallas Cowboy coach, 1998 and 1999. The Cowboys went 10-6 and 8-8 in Gailey’s two years, making the playoffs both years. Dallas lost at home to Arizona in the 1998 postseason (unforgivable) and at Minnesota in the 1999 postseason (that’s a pass).
That wasn’t good enough for Jerry Jones, and truthfully, most people agreed with Jones’ decision to fire Gailey after that Viking game. History has proven that to be a bad move.
In Dallas’ final two seasons under Barry Switzer, the Cowboys went 17-17: a 10-6 record, with a 1-1 playoff showing, in 1996, then 6-10 in 1997. The Cowboys clearly were a team in decline, with those great players from 1992-95 starting to age.
In Dallas’ three seasons under Dave Campo, who followed Gailey, the Cowboys went 5-11, 5-11, 5-11. So in the context of what he had, Gailey was a solid Cowboy coach.
And now he’s suddenly made Buffalo relevant. The Bills were 4-12 last season in Gailey’s first year, but at 3-0, Buffalo can equal its 2010 victory total with a victory Sunday at Cincinnati.
Don’t rule out Buffalo making the playoffs. The Bills won’t finish ahead of New England, and one of the wild-card spots is reserved for the Pittsburgh/Baltimore second-place finisher. But that leaves Buffalo having to beat out the Jets and Raiders. Not easy, but doable. Who else? Tennessee? Denver? I don’t think so.
