Tag: josh allen sean mcdermott

Regardless of who, Colts are loose ahead of facing Bills

What the Indianapolis Colts had to say about facing the Buffalo Bills over Wild Card weekend.

What are the Indianapolis Colts planning to do at Bills Stadium on Saturday? Simple. Play Colts football.

The Colts enter the weekend as the first-ever No. 7 seed in the NFL’s postseason history since the league’s decision to expand the playoffs in 2020. Yes, they know the Bills (13-3) are good, even mentioning Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen as an MVP candidate.

Still, that’s not what these guys are worrying about this week. Word out of Indy has simply been one that Bills coach Sean McDermott would respect. They’re just going to control what they can control.

“The pressure is not on us. We should be loose, aggressive and freed up to play our best game of the year. No one is going to give us a chance,” Colts head coach and former Bills QB Frank Reich said.

Echoing the familiar face to Buffalo was linebacker Darius Leonard. He’s the lone Pro Bowler for the Colts this year and like Allen, earned a big honor on Thursday. Leonard was named the AFC’s Defensive Player of the Month.

“It’s always no pressure,” Leonard said via video conference. “Like coach said, when you’re the seven seed, everyone expects you to fail. That’s the mindset.”

Leonard is even using any “pressure” and turning it into motivation.

“I looked at something today, it was pretty crazy that everybody said the Bills was going to win, everybody is counting up out. We can just go in there and be us, nothing more, nothing less, be us,” Leonard added. “Pressure? Nah. We don’t have any pressure on us. We’re very relaxed.”

Above Reich and Leonard, there’s one guy on the Colts’ roster that stands out the most and perhaps has the most to lose on Saturday. A 16-year vet, quarterback Philip Rivers hasn’t won the big one in his career. It’s not even clear if he’ll be back with the Colts in 2021 just yet. Him winning a championship, potentially, is a legacy thing now.

All things considered, pressure is not a word that even Rivers would use.

“We don’t have to do anything different now,” Rivers said via The Herald Bulletin. “It’s not like, ‘Now we made it to the postseason, so let’s really prepare hard and let’s really put in our best stuff and let’s really try our hardest to do things right.’ If that were to be true, then we’d been cheating each other for 16 games.

“We do have to make some plays, obviously, but you don’t have to do anything unbelievable. Just go play sound football, complementary football together, and we believe if we do that, then it will be enough.”

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‘Majority’ of Bills starters to play vs. Jets

Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott says starters will see playing time vs. New York Jets.

Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott made an interesting decision on Wednesday ahead of his team’s season finale against the New York Jets.

McDermott announced that his team’s starting players, or at least a “majority” of them, will play in Week 17.

The decision is an interesting one because the Bills (10-5) are heading to the playoffs and are also locked into their seeding. The Bills have nothing to gain in the game via standings as Buffalo will be the fifth-seed in the AFC playoffs, regardless of outcome.

Still, starters, including quarterback Josh Allen, will play.

“We talked to the team and we’re going to play a majority of the guys and they’re going to practice this week and they’re going to play,” said McDermott. “To go into detail will take some time, but the majority of guys will play, not all of them. Josh (Allen) will play.”

But McDermott added that it might not be as cut-and-dry as that. Amount of playing time for starters is still up in the air.

“They’re not all going to play the same amount in the game. We’re going to be smart with that, but it’s important that we get work in fundamentally and in terms of execution and we stay as sharp as can be,” McDermott said.

In this scenario, playing the Bills’ first-string players, particularly on offense, could be a good move in terms of the “rust” factor. It’s hard for teams to simulate actual game time and with how healthy the Bills have been this season, playing the starting offense a few series might be a safe play.

But playing them past the first quarter would be an outrageous move by McDermott & Co. at this point of the year. Don’t get overly cute.

Speaking of which, McDermott was asked if backup quarterback Matt Barkley could see playing time in the contest. Sounded reassuring.

“Yeah, he could,” said McDermott. “Yes.”

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