Jalen Carter is the same guy he was at UGA and since arriving in Philly in terms of talent and skill-set. Can dominate on any given snap. Difference is now there's no drop-off over the course of a game. Belichick said it best a couple weeks ago. https://t.co/mRPnNXExQ9

— Brandon Thorn (@BrandonThornNFL) December 16, 2024

Gary Klein@LATimesklein
McVay on possible Aaron Donald return: “I would almost feel disrespectful reaching out to him, just based on the principles and knowing him the way that I do. If that was something that he got interested in, then that would obviously be something that you’re always open to.”

Los Angeles Rams PR@TheLARamsPR
Last week the Rams had multiple players (S Quentin Lake, S Kam Curl and CB Ahkello Witherspoon) with two-or-more passes defended in a game. It was the first time the Rams have had three players with multiple passes defended dating back to Week 13 of 2007 vs Atlanta.

zn wrote:

McDermott says, “I probably didn’t have them prepared the way I needed to” for the game against the Rams.

etc.

So the upshot of all that blah blah blah is that the Bills think they lost because they took the Rams lightly.

Kamren Curl with the blanket coverage on George Kittle.

The safety play was very strong against the 49ers. Curl has been a solid pickup from Washington. He leads the team in passes defensed pic.twitter.com/Pcvqm4BVc9

— RAMS ON FILM (@RamsOnFilm) December 16, 2024

From Albert Breer: https://www.si.com/nfl/week-15-nfl-takeaways-sirianni-eagles-bumpy-week-bills-rebound#_r2u4986ha

Buffalo Bills

Last week’s loss to the Los Angeles Rams stuck with the Buffalo Bills—in a good way. The NFL season is long. It’s hard for a team to bring its best every week. And if every team is going to hit a ditch or two at some point over the course of the year, the Bills sped right into theirs last Sunday in Los Angeles.

On paper, it was understandable. The Bills beat the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs in Week 11, had their bye in Week 12, then throttled the other Super Bowl team, the San Francisco 49ers, in Week 13.

But that doesn’t mean Buffalo was going to accept how it played in Week 14.

“We’ve had tight teams before, Albert, but this team is, I would say, extra tight,” coach Sean McDermott said, leaving Ford Field on Sunday night. “I mean, they really enjoy playing, and they really enjoy playing with one another, from a teammate standpoint. And they also realized that we probably didn’t have the focus that we needed a week ago. And the leaders took over and led by example this week.”

The result: a 48–42 win in Detroit against a Lions team that came in 12–1.

The Bills showed plenty in the win. Josh Allen played like the MVP of the league, and he may well be named that, officially, a couple of months from now. The Bills rushed for 197 yards on 34 carries. Nine different skill guys caught passes. The defense did allow 42 points and nearly 500 yards through the air, but rendered the Lions one-dimensional on offense and allowed a lot of that yardage, and scoring, while Detroit played catch-up, and with a secondary that’s pretty banged up right now.

What you, and everyone else, will remember is James Cook’s 41-yard touchdown run; Allen exploiting a depleted Lions linebacker group by throwing to running back Ty Johnson; and Allen’s strikes downfield to Keon Coleman, Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox. You’ll remember Greg Rousseau and Ed Oliver getting after Jared Goff, and the Bills jumping up 14–0, 21–7 and 35–14 on their stunned hosts and in front of a stunned crowd.

McDermott, though, is going to remember, like he said, how one week affected the next.

Even now, he can’t explain exactly what went wrong early on in L.A. But the way the Bills reacted, even in the moment, made him feel a lot better about it. Buffalo was down 38–21 going into the fourth quarter, and the Rams might not have survived had the fourth quarter been 16 minutes instead of 15.

When I asked McDermott what happened at the end of that third quarter, he joked, “Uh … Josh Allen?” And there was a ton of truth in that—Allen was a force of nature that could only be stopped by the expiration of the clock at SoFi. But there’s more to it, too.

That includes what he saw during the week leading up to Sunday’s showdown in Detroit, after, McDermott says, “I probably didn’t have them prepared the way I needed to” for the game against the Rams. And it really came alive, from his own standpoint, in how much he was looking forward to going back to work with the guys.

“We’ve all been there, where you’re like, hey, you’re kind of just trudging through the snow, the wet snow, and it’s like, ‘Hey, we’re good.’ But every week’s a headache, you got guys late, you know how it goes,” McDermott says. “Not that we were perfect and everybody’s an angel. But they want to win and they’re willing to put the work in. And I’m saying, I feel like—-as across the board as it could be—-it’s almost like they don’t want to let each other down.”

And that, McDermott continues, is, and was, especially true with Allen, who’s embraced the leadership role he’s moved into as some of the Bills’ old cornerstone captains left the building in the offseason.

“It’s staying after to work with receivers for an extra five to 10 minutes to make sure they have the detail, the timing down, in order to execute at a high level in some of those moments,” McDermott says. “I mean, that’s just one example I would say that happens during the week. And then just coming in a way of [being] ready to work. Again, I don’t want to sound like he hasn’t done this in the past, but there’s a difference.”

As a result, there’s a difference in these Bills too—-because the group is more tightly knit, more focused and with an increasingly maniacal quarterback.

It showed Sunday, in the lessons they took from the week before.

“Every lion picks up a scar along the way. And we picked up a scar,” McDermott says. “Now, that scar has got to stay with us.”

If these Bills truly are as different as McDermott thinks they are, there’s no doubt it will.

‪ProFootballTalk‬ ‪@profootballtalk.bsky.social‬
In the last two games the Bills have played, 176 total points have been scored.

Andrew Whitworth@AndrewWhitworth
@BuffaloBills have avg 45 ppg last 2 weeks, both games came down to an onside kick, and they are 1-1 in those 2 games. Wild!

Doug Farrar@NFL_DougFarrar
The last team to both score and allow more than 40 points in consecutive games was the 1966 New York Giants.

Adam Schefter@AdamSchefter
Oddity of the day: The Lions now have won a game this season in which Jared Goff threw five interceptions (Week 10 vs. Texans) and lost a game this season in which he threw five touchdowns (Week 15 vs. Bills).

pic.twitter.com/RV5siaEw1a

— roberto clemente (@rclemente2121) December 16, 2024

GB up 30-13 w/ 5 minutes left in the game.

+ Smith was injured. Hope he’s okay.

…

Stu Jackson@StuJRams
Rams are about to move into first place in the NFC West and the No. 4 seed in the NFC playoff picture entering Week 16.

(Bucs have conference record tiebreaker, which is why they’ll be the No. 3 seed)

JARED GOFF TO AMON-RA ST. BROWN FOR 66 YARDS ON 3RD AND 17 pic.twitter.com/c8mumlSLO8

— PFF (@PFF) December 15, 2024

Jonathan Jones@jjones9
Initial diagnosis for Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes is a high-ankle sprain, source says. He will continue to be evaluated tomorrow and is considered week to week now.

Holy smokes, Jayden Daniels & Terry McLaurin. pic.twitter.com/88pC76yCDz

— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) December 15, 2024

The all-22 look of Kevin Dotson manhandling 49ers defenders in the open field to clear space for Puka pic.twitter.com/DjBxWCCzpT

— Rams Bros. (@RamsBrothers) December 14, 2024

wv wrote:

You sure about that?

No. Not sure. I think the ILBs as a unit, Speights and Rozeboom, have been playing better than what we saw early in the season. But not to the point of impressive. I said Speights is getting some praise and that’s true. But I don’t know what a cold coaching eye will see in that unit. I expect draft attention to go to both CB and ILB. (Along with OT and WR).