The following has been submitted by Paul Svoboda.
Need proof that summer is humming right along?
This is the NFL’s 2026 Hall of Fame weekend in Canton, Ohio, which includes the first pre-season contest of the year. The regular season kicks off in less than six weeks.
That brings us to the Buffalo Bills, arguably the most popular NFL club in the Quinte Region. And, the holders of the league’s longest current playoff streak, having appeared in the last seven straight NFL post-season parties.
That said, the Bills finished all of those past seven playoff appearances by losing their last game — twice in the AFC Championship final and four times in the Divisional Round. Twice the Bills scored at least 30 points, and lost. The overall points differential in those last seven playoff losses was minus-49.
That’s not a lot. But it clearly demonstrates that the Bills offence, for the most part, has not been the problem in the playoffs.
And, for that reason, head coach Sean McDermott lost his job following the 2025 NFL campaign. McDermott, with a sparkling 98-50 regular-season record as Bills’ boss, just couldn’t win the big one, going 8-and-8 overall in the playoffs over the course of his mostly successful nine-year run in Buffalo.
McDermott, a defensive specialist, shouldered the blame for the Bills’ inability to advance to a Super Bowl with perhaps the most talented overall quarterback in the NFL — Josh Allen — manning the offensive controls.
Take last season, for example. Bills lost 33-30 in overtime to Denver in the Divisional Round. Surely, in the playoffs, 30 points should be enough to win. Well, maybe not in the CFL, but certainly in the more conservative confines of the NFL.
The Bills had already suffered a similar type loss, 42-36, to the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2021 Divisional Round. Again, 30-plus points should be enough to win.
So, McDermott takes a walk and the Bills promote offensive guru Joe Brady who has been Buffalo’s O.C. since 2022 and has had a huge hand in the way Allen operates one of the most potent attacks in the NFL.
As for the much-maligned defence, former Bills safety Jim Leonhard takes command after coming over from the Broncos, bringing what some insiders are already calling a drastically new scheme that will not remotely resemble the Buffalo D of the past few seasons.
For the Bills, with Allen and company not getting any younger and Buffalo’s Super Bowl window as wide open as it is ever likely to be, Brady and Leonhard have one job. Win the big one. That’s all.
NEED TO KNOW: The Seattle Seahawks this season will attempt to become the ninth team in NFL history to win consecutive Super Bowl titles. The most recent repeat occurred in 2022-23 when the Kansas City Chiefs captured back-to-back championships. The Pittsburgh Steelers (1974-75 and 1978-79) are the lone NFL club in the 60-year history of the Super Bowl to pull off the rare double twice.
SUPER SCORING SPREES
Tyreik McAllister of the Calgary Stampeders recently became the first player in CFL history to score a rushing touchdown, a receiving touchdown and a kick return touchdown in a single game during a 52-30 win over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
McAllister’s scoring spree is indeed impressive, but arguably the most sensational single-game pro football performance belongs to NFL legend Gayle Sayers. In a 1965 game against the San Francisco 49ers, Sayers scored six touchdowns for the Chicago Bears: four on the ground, one on a reception and one on a punt return.
By the way, Sayers was a rookie.
