The Bills should take the advice of a recent children’s movie and “wreck it, Ralph.” The Bills have, if you can possibly believe, taken large steps forward from the Jauron regime, but still remain wildly undercoached. When Jauron left, there was no o-line, a struggling running game, questionable QB play and a talentless, undersized defense.

Today the Bills have a solid OL, a running unit that they don’t particularly like using for some reason, some wide receivers who make ridiculous catches from their inaccurate QB, some TE options, and a front 4 DL that could be good if the LB core played up to snuff.

That being said, the next coach for the Bills will have some pieces with which to work. “Why do we need a new coach, Kevin? You think he’s a good OC.” Because he has become one gigantic weenie. Take this example. The guy attempted four field goals. Two were from 4th and two inside the red zone and the other was with nine seconds on the clock before the half. He’s trying to hold the margin of defeat. That gutless effort is noted by the players whether it’s explicitly or implicitly noted.

A coach who has a run game that averages 6 yards a carry and opts not to run more than 12 times in the game is crazy. Gailey likes to pass the ball out of the spread. That’s his thing. But it’s no longer 1992. You can’t just assemble dream teams and have the best players do their thing. You have to work with what you got post Free Agency. He has a QB who is 5-14 since signing a huge contract. It’s almost cruel and unusual punishment that he’s out there. This is like letting a shellacked goalie stay out there. Pull him for his own good, Chan!

And to be honest, Fitz looked mildly capable. For a half. He threw his first pass to Donald Jones this year where Donald Jones wasn’t almost decapitated. But at the end of the half when you simply can not get sacked, he got sacked. At the end of the game when you couldn’t fumble, he fumbled. When it’s third down, he doesn’t convert. When they were down two scores, he’s throwing 8 yard passes.

For Ralph to wreck it, it could start with Gailey. But I think it goes to Russ Brandon. This is a guy who is wowing even Bank CEOs from the 2008 crisis. He has presided over two major seasons falling apart, four head coaches, three quarterback controversies, two old man GM signings and a partridge in a pear tree. He still has the job. In fact, he’s gotten promoted! And he started off as a baseball guy. Even the Bank CEOs under pressure for legal reasons still left their gigs eventually. Russ Brandon has the job for life.

Which pretty much ensures that this will never get fixed. And for those who think it’s such a conspiracy that the Bills are intentionally tanking, it is bizarre that 31 other teams have been to the playoffs once and we can’t get there from coaching changes, 4-3 to 3-4 changes, QB changes, drafts. Somehow the people in control of the draft keep messing up in ways that defy logic. It’s like watching a trader lose money every single year when they would have made more money buying a Vanguard Index Fund. Really? This is why we pay the high fees? But in high finance those guys don’t survive. In Buffalo they are credited for being the genius who sold Football to Buffalonians. At the halfway mark of the season its hard to tell if we’ve even seen football.

DVD Extras

Now what? Now we IR people who have injuries that take 3-6 weeks to heal. Then we sign guys named Leon Joe who last played LB at a division 3 school in Switzerland.

You talk so much, Shenoy, what’s your plan – Well, we have no quarterback. I’d host a dunk tank with Russ Brandon donating his time to raise funds for charity. First person to dunk him on a throw longer than 10 yards is next year’s starting QB. Second guy is the back up. You draft another QB in the draft. There are your quarterbacks for next year. Currently all better than the current three.

Texans first touchdown – What a play. How many times have you heard that you shouldn’t throw the ball across the field? How many times have you heard that slow developing plays are a bad idea? Yet Schaub rolled out, set his feet and launched a ball to Owen Daniels who ran 65 yards (25 across and 40 deep) to be wide open. Truly a pathetic defense.

A land of delusion – Kelvin Sheppard was in the news this week trying to defend his defensive corp. “We played lights out!” Really? He went on to say that the fans who look at the stats “don’t know football.” Clearly Sheppard’s hatred for math and facts has him looking at a front running position for the Republican 2016 ticket (I know, one political joke. You’ll survive.) The team gave up 52 points to a team that routinely embarrasses us. They gave up more than 35 points four other times. That’s lights out? I asked Sal Capaccio (@SalSports on Twitter), “what is the last team to give up two plus 50 point games?” I was kind of expecting “not in the modern era,” but Sal is a stat king and definitely worth following. He responded, “the 2007 Lions.” You probably are thinking of the 2008 Lions as the only team to lose every game in the season. But the 7-9 2007 Lions lost two games by allowing 50+ points. They also gave up 4 games with 40+ points. In 8 games, the Bills have given up one 50+ point game and three 40+ point games. We excel at being terrible. Sucking at almost twice the rate of a bad Lions team. Oh, and we have an 0-16 season to look forward to next year.

Patriot game – Oh, the good news keeps coming. The Patriots have cleaned up the spanking field and are ready to put up an easy 60 points to a Bills team that most likely will take the beating like a character in the “Fifty Shades of Grey” series. The Patriots will be playing us coming off their bye week for the 900th time out of 901 times. While Chan keeps wondering how to deal with an extra attacker in the box, Bill Belichick will phone in the refs to make sure all the calls are ready to go his way… again.

Two more wins… tops – Can someone look at the schedule and see more than two wins? I am stretching when I say I think the Bills can beat Jax and St. Louis. And you know they will get those wins because it’ll screw them in the draft.

Geno Smith – I just want to be on the record and say “I don’t think he’s going to be anything but a stat machine vs bad teams.” Go ahead and send this back to me next year when he’s tearing it up. But the guy has disappeared the last three weeks. In bigger games, he’s no where to be found. In easy games, he’s unstoppable. We have had that quarterback for 12 years. I don’t have a better answer, unfortunately… but I say no to Geno Smith. You heard it here first.

Kevin Shenoy can be reached at onefansview@gmail.com and @kevinshenoy on twitter.

Of late, museums are seemingly being built to try and get some tourism dollars into a struggling area. Cleveland got the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame simply because of a line from Spinal Tap. Kansas city is thinking about building a Museum for Suburbia, a museum for how you live right now. As we all know Buffalo has been looking for something since Bass Pro took 40 years or so before they decided against building a box store in Buffalo. So I propose we build the Museum of Suck.

It’s something that we understand. We have enough information to cull through to put together some incredible exhibits. And maybe local officials can, for once, build it in downtown, perhaps even on the waterfront. We can start with a nice piece on the Pan Am expo in the 1900’s and how we just wanted to show people a world with electricity, but the take away was that a President was killed

How Buffalo is that? We are introducing electricity at Niagara Falls to blow the minds of people who have never seen such a thing, but the only thing people recall is that the President died. Oh and the guy who takes over is a legend. Classic Buffalo.

Not much has gone better since Mckinley died. I knew last week that the Bills would lose this game. Little did I know that this would be a nice installation to add to the museum of suck. I took a couple angry emails just after the Cardinals game (all in good fun) that I need to enjoy the win and see that we are destined to be atop the AFC East going into the bye. My Dad’s friend even wanted me to publically apologize when I was wrong about the Titans game. I was genuinely excited to write that apology. I’m sorry than I can’t even be sorry (this sounds like another wonderful piece for the museum.)

However, the Bills for the second straight week (and third time in four games) took a game it easily had in hand and let it go with joy. At the 5 minute mark of the fourth quarter in a game they had wrapped up, they concluded it would be more fun for 70,000 people if they lost.

I listened to the post game show and most of the callers were livid that we didn’t go for two, we didn’t challenge that potential fumble, that we’d shank yet another punt at a critical moment, that fourth and 9 when you knew they had to throw to the touchdown was so easily converted. But those are all weenie moments that sprung forth from a terrible call in the second quarter.

I present you with the decision to kick the field goal on fourth and 1 when the game was 21-14. We were in a shootout. The last team to stop scoring, loses the game. I tweeted that early during the game, I said that to everyone in my section willing to listen, I texted that to people.

Now confronted with 4th and 1 at the 12 yard line with gusty winds in comes Rian “I only kick under 40 yards” Lindell. Fancy I is trotted out to kick something by no means is a gimme. Oh, yeah, every run play we ran worked. It’s fourth and 1 yard. Three feet. At home…against a weak team? And we kicked it. Sure we made it, but now we aren’t on the same footing. The message has been sent from Gailey to the team, “look you guys just aren’t that good. Plus I’m hoping for this game to be my first exhibit at the Museum of Suck.”

And to recap, in that very drive, the Bills had rushes for 10, 4, 20, 12, and 7 yards. So of course, 1 yard with the crowd into the shootout, going for it was completely out of the question. And the fact you are now asking a porous defense to make one stop which it hadn’t yet and would be unable to stop a 3rd down (titans converted 9 of 14 third downs for 64% and another 50% on fourth downs. Yay!).

The second they kicked that field goal, they were no longer equals in this shootout. The Titans were given a better gun and had confidence. I realize the Bills made some stops here and there and even eventually took the lead. But that weak call begat the other problems. With 7 minutes and the ball, they take a holding penalty on a 2nd down conversion. They decide to keep throwing screens because they don’t trust Fitzpatrick. They punt on 4th and 15. All things bad teams bring upon themselves for no reason.

Then they let the Titans run out the clock on their 4th and 9. (more on that below.) They try to dink and dunk their way 80 yards with under a minute. These are all weak calls. They all say, “we have no confidence. We want to win, but we don’t know how.”

Well, now we the fans have no confidence. I’m done with my journeys’s back to Buffalo for the year…for football at least. Perhaps I’ll make an exception if I’m invited to the museum’s opening.

DVD extras
Bill Polian – How bad is your team when it can’t win when Bill Polian is in the house and rooting for your team. I mean the guy has spent the last 20+years of his life being associated with winners. I even thought, “maybe this is simply good mojo for the long term. Take away the ill will between the organization and the guy who created 4 superbowl appearances, then the Bills ability to shoot themsevles in the foot will go away.” Yet this team just seemed to revel in ability to out do Bill Polian Mojo. Unbelievable.

Chris Johnson watch – He ran for 193 yards. He needed 54 yards to get to 6,000 career yards before the game. On one run for 83 yards, he got it and more. And he picked up a TD. Now, true to form, let’s all pay attention to Chris Johnson next week. I can almost guarantee you he won’t get 54 yards all game. Musuem of Suck.

Buffalo Bullies – I should have worn purple to this game. The Bills were bullies. They came out and took a handful of personal fouls and kept chipping after the play. And I think they did it because they just thought they were better and wanted to show the Titans who they were. And they got flagged for their behavior several times and could have been called a handful more. But where is this bravado when the team that kicks them in the face two times a year comes into town? They are little British school boys. “May I have another, Mr. Brady?” Never mind that I am disgusted by this team and their record, their whole manner in carrying themselves is pathetic.

50% of this team is religious – If you follow any of the players on twitter half of them are super religious. The other half is trying to grow a mustache for charity. So that leaves exactly 0% trying to win football games. But for a team that is so religious, isn’t it amazing that they can’t even pray right? I assume they are asking the big man for some of this crap to stop. Or maybe they are just praying for a ticket out of Buffalo, in which case, they are doing a great job.

Hypothetical situation – you are the coach – Ok, you are the coach of an NFL team, make the call. Your qb is 5-13 since you’ve handed out a monster contract. You’ve got a losing record going into the bye week, and he hasn’t done anything to give you confidence to throw the ball more than 10 yards in the air 3 times. Would you consider the bye week as a time to replace him? There are 31 other NFL coaches who without a doubt would. But not our coach. He’ll fire a pro bowl punter for 3 bad games, but will give a full 18 to a guy who won’t get you to the playoffs. I don’t even think the other guys can do anything better, I just don’t want to have to see T Jax or Thigpen to be heralded as options next year. Draft 6 QB’s

Powell – Ok, he’s terrible too. The guy’s last punt ended up in the stands. It traveled further to get to the stands than it did forward. So far he’s been put in two pressure punt situations. He’s punted the ball a total of 48 yards in those two punts. That’s not even a great single punt. It’s a putrid double punt. I’m not suggesting firing him or that he’s the issue, but the team created another issue when one did not exist. Keep proceeding through the classic blunders in Museum of Suck. The line needs to keep moving.

Fitz fumble – I liked at the start of the third quarter he fumbled. My dad said prophetically said as is usual, “if they don’t score on this drive they don’t win the game.” Literally one play into it and the game is over.

Kevin Costner – Well if you aren’t sick enough already, there is a movie by Ivan Reitman about the Bills scheduled to come out. And apparently the man who made Waterworld (Sr. donating member for Museum of Suck) is apparently going to be the GM in this fictional tale and tell the story of draft day where somehow it’s uplifting without the team winning anything. Classic, writers tasked with making people fly, make dinosaurs alive and other such moves can’t envision a world where the Bills can win. I can’t wait til the film comes out taking cheap shots at our beloved town. I also hate the fact that I’d rather have Kevin Costner be our GM. The guy had a plan to clean up the Gulf! I’m sure he’d be able to find a QB, or activate T Jax. But in all seriousness, I actually look forward to a movie about the Bills where hope is restored.

New Stadium – I wish NYS and Erie county opened up the vault to the Bills. “We will build whatever stadium you want at whatever cost you want and we’ll give you the parking revenues, the bond interest, everything! All we ask in return is for you to have a good season before we break ground. And if you can’t win this year, you sign a 15 year lease in the current stadium. And we’ll pay to keep the stadium up so it doesn’t fall on itself.” Men of honor would sign that deal. But when have you known Russ Brandon to be an honorable guy? I mean the Bills gave Bill Polian a Toyota Highlander as a present for bringing the only interesting 8 years span of football to a 50+ year old franchise. I’m thinking a multi-millionaire is kind of over this Toyota Highlander phase of life. You essentially just gave him a $20k tax bill for accepting such a crappy gift.

Small victories – As I progressed through security in my angry state, I saw a TSA agent pull a Dolphins carry on for extra security. Of course a Dolphins bag should be checked for extra security.

Lock out needs to end – This town can’t handle two overtalented teams that underperform and frankly that’s always been the Sabres thing. For the Bills they usually are never given the tools to succeed and when they are given talent, they do well. Obviously they never finish the deal, but they make it fun. The sabres have been the underperformers with no heart of late. I solely blame Gary Bettman for this transition.

Jet Patriots – I sat on the flight watching the last 4 minutes of Jets/Patriots game. Here is the difference between Buffalo and the Patriots. The Patriots fumble the ball, give up the game winning field goal, and then get the ball left with 50 seconds. There was no doubt in your mind that the Patriots, at the very least ,would tie the game. In Buffalo, after fumbling the kick, the Bills would have folded and lost. Then they’d come out and say they want to make a statement the following week . Meanwhile the Patriots make the statement in the week of the mistake. And yes, I’m giving the Patriots props. And no, their fans are still gigantic hacks that know nothing about football. Oh yeah, and they only won because a ref threw a pass interference flag from 30 yards away from the play while the ref standing right there saw no reason for a flag. So yes, NFL still has to take care of its most uninformed fickle fan base or it will just be an empty stadium as it always has been.

The Silver lining – We only face Houston and New England coming out of the bye. The Patriots put up 52 in the last visit and the Texans just took the second best team in the AFC out back and spanked them until they were blue. If the Bills escape these next two games giving up less than 200 points, I will be amazed.

Kevin Shenoy can be reached at onefansview@gmail.com and can be followed on twitter at @kevinshenoy.