Calling all struggling NFL teams looking for a solid win!  Attention coaches of teams in the thick of the playoff hunt!  Do you need your offense to get back on track?  Do you need to instill some confidence in your D and get that elusive win?

Well, do I have the solution for you!

One game against the Buffalo Bills!  That’s right folks, all it takes is one game against the Buffalo Bills and all of your worries will go away!  Your QB will put up his best numbers of the season!  Your running back will make his fantasy owners the happiest football fans on the planet!  Your defense will play at a championship caliber!

So, step right up, folks and play the Buffalo Bills!  All your worries will vanish in just 3 short hours of exciting and easy football!

Sarcasm aside, back to my usual format (albeit slightly less in-depth as I missed the 3rd quarter and had to watch the first half on my iPhone).

• Mark Sanchez looks like JP Losman against the rest of the league.   He looks like Peyton Manning against the Bills.  This D is really soft.
• George Edwards needs to be fired.  There is no way around it.   The D looked confused all game.  Even on that key 3rd and 11 conversion on the Jets’ final drive, the receiver at the bottom of the formation was left uncovered and Williams was desperately pointing at him trying to get one of his teammates to shift and cover him.   Not that it mattered- Sanchez still easily completed the pass to one of the guys that was “covered.”
• Dustin Keller burned us for two TD’s and 61 yards.  Another big day for a TE against the Bills.  The Ghost of Donte Whitner strikes again.
• The only good thing I have to say about the D is that Nick Barnett had a solid game.
• I knew losing Lindell was going to bite us in the ass at some point.  Raynor has hit some long field goals but that botched kickoff was pathetic, and it came at the worst possible time.
• Should we really be using CJ Spiller to return punts when the only other health RB’s on the roster are Johnny White and Tashard Choice?
• Fitz had one of his better games, and I liked the way he attacked Revis with a fair amount of success.
• Fitz and Brad Smith always seem to be out of sync.
• Erik Pears struggled against Aaron Maybin.  I don’t really need to add anything to this statement because every Bills fan already understands just how pathetic that is.
• Maybe it’s because he’s so new to the team, but bad things happened every time Tashard Choice was on the field.
• And finally, Stevie Johnson… what the hell, man?  He had a great game going against Revis, but he burned us with that stupid celebration penalty, then again with not one but TWO drops on the final drive.  Another Thanksgiving, another game lost due in large part to a Stevie Johnson drop in clutch time.  Can’t wait for his tweet blaming Jesus…..

OpIv: Back to Earth

by OpIv

Well, we knew the video game numbers and perfect season wouldn’t last forever. They had to end sometime, and Cincy knocked the Bills back down to earth. This was an all-around loss, with both the offense and the defense struggling and the coaches having no answers, all against a very mediocre Cincinnati team.

The Bills looked flat from the start. This was a classic “trap” game and they fell into it big time. Too much energy and emotion went into the win over NE and they were unprepared on Sunday.

-I was very disappointed in how Fitz handled the pressure. He rushed passes when he didn’t have to and it destroyed his accuracy. On the sack where he got his jersey ripped, he locked on to his receiver and it was way too easy for the defense to cover.

-Fred Jackson was about the only player worth a damn.

-Spiller came through with a key first down but still isn’t contributing consistently enough.

-It was nice to see Brad Smith involved in the regular offense and not just a part of gimmick plays.

-The lack of offense was disconcerting, but I’m more worried about the D. Despite all the effort put into the unit in the off-season, they still need some serious help. They live and die by the turnover- if they don’t get the big play, then they get pushed all over the field. They got picked apart by Andy friggin’ Dalton.

-As soon as the Bills failed to convert that 3rd down right at the 2 min warning, the game was over. I knew Cincy was just going to march straight down the field on this D. I hate that feeling.

-The pash rush is still terrible, even with Moats back at OLB.

-Troup and Carrington have been non-factors all year so far.

Broken record department:

-Merriman has been a non-factor. If anything, it looks like the opposing offense takes advantage of his over-pursuit by running draw plays straight at him.

-McKelvin got eaten alive again.

-George Wilson continued his Donte Whitner impression when attempting to cover TE’s.

-After the last couple of weeks, I started to think that maybe the curse was over and the sports gods no longer hate us. Then, we get burned by the “tuck rule,” we get burned by the incomplete pass to Johnson even with a review, Spiller and Jackson get dinged up on consecutive plays and Bell gets injured. They cut us a break, but the sports gods do indeed still hate Buffalo teams and their fans.

-I’m not going to blame the officials for the loss, because the officials weren’t the ones who gave up 400 yards of offense and only managed 13 offensive points, but the officiating in this game was god-awful. Cincy was mugging our WR’s all day and by my count, there were two obvious and one borderline PI calls that the refs missed. At one point I saw Kyle Williams being blatantly held in pursuit of Dalton and it wasn’t called. And, of course, the aforementioned Johnson non-catch is just inexplicable.

-My biggest concern about this game is that it provides a blueprint for how to beat the Bills. When the Bills are on O, get pressure on Fitz and make him move around in the pocket, and it’ll stifle the offense. When the Bills are on D, go to a power running game, or throw to the TE because we still can’t cover one, or get a tall WR on McKelvin and throw at him all day.

So, since I am now without DirecTV, I attempted to watch the game using the PS3 Sunday Ticket app for the first time. This took forever to load, then it was slow and it kept cutting out to buffer. I missed several key plays on NE’s first touchdown drive, which was kept alive by a stupid Buffalo penalty.

Technology was failing me and the Bills were shooting themselves in the foot and appeared headed towards another epic defeat at the hands of Tom Brady and Bill Bellicheck. As the Bills fell behind 21-0, it looked as if I was headed towards a very frustrating afternoon. There was no way in hell we were going to come back and get the win for the 2nd straight week.

Then, something happened. The PS3 app settled down and it was just like streaming a Netflix movie. And the Bills didn’t roll over and die. They showed an unbelievable amount of resolve and toughness. And they made a game out of it. I thought “well, they’re not going to get the win, but at least they’re tough enough to come back and challenge.”

Then, something else happened. Something that’s never happened before. The Bills got in Tom Brady’s head WITHOUT hitting him. He started making mistakes. Stupid, amateur, JP Losman/Trent Edwards/Rob Johnson type mistakes. And the Bills made them PAY.

I kept waiting for the soul-crushing collapse. That epic last-minute failure like the Music City Mirage or the MNF collapse against Dallas in ’07 or the ’08 opener against NE. But it didn’t come. This team is just too mentally tough, despite the lack of experience and the unheralded way that many of these guys made it to the NFL.

And, we ended the streak. We did the impossible and came out on top in a shootout with the Patriots. I was convinced that we wouldn’t beat them again until Brady and Bellicheck were long gone, but it was OUR day. Tequila shots and Black Label all around!

-Ryan Fitzpatrick is proving to be the real deal. He had his misses and his bad moments, but he was never phased. And he kept going back to Donald Jones despite some early miscues by Jones (one of which led to an INT when the ball bounced off his hands). It was a poised, veteran game.

-Fitz did make a huge mistake on that INT in the endzone on the last drive. He got bailed out by the penalty. But, that’s the risk you take with having a gunslinger QB.

-I don’t think I can say enough good things about Fred Jackson. What a find.

-Chandler had another nice game despite the penalty.

-Wood is a good player but he didn’t have his head in the game in the first half.

-The unsung hero of the offense is Andy Levitre. Just focus on him sometimes, particularly on screen plays. He buries guys.

-I hated the call to go for it on 4th and 14 in the first. If there was no penalty on the prior play and it was 4th and 1, then going for it would have been the right call. But the percentages are just too low. That call wreaked of desperation.

-I loved the way that Gailey played it at the end of the game: killing the clock instead of punching in the TD. It was the right move. Brady is too good and our secondary is bad and beat up. The BEST part of the entire game was seeing Bill Bellicheck go ape-shit screaming at the refs at the 1:43 mark when he knew he was being outsmarted by Gailey and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

-Merriman had one good pressure but was a no-show other than that.

-Kyle Williams gets off the snap so fast it’s ridiculous.

-McKelvin came through with a big INT but also struggled at times.

-No one on this team can cover Wes Welker.

-Wilson came up with a big INT, but I really got tired of him doing his Donte Whitner impression attempting to cover Gronkowski.

-Like Wood, Barnett is having a great season but he made some key mistakes in the first half, particularly the two penalties.

-The personal foul call on Barnett was the correct call. The personal foul on Byrd was complete BS. It wasn’t helmet-to-helmet- Byrd’s head was actually to the side of Welker and he hit him with his shoulder pad. It was the “Wes Welker’s too exciting for the league to let him get injured” penalty.

-Kelsay is actually having a decent season.

-This team still lacks pass rush.

-I hope Aaron Williams is ok, because he is starting to look like a pretty good player. This secondary was hurting with him and will be even worse without him.

-The DL was well-coached with the way they were jumping and putting their hands up when they couldn’t get the pressure. It caused at least 2 of Brady’s four INT’s.

-On Florence’s TD, Brady was running toward him but completely backed off without attempting to make a hit. There was another Bills player running with Florence and Brady likely would have gotten smacked if he attempted to make the tackle. It was a gutless move by a prima donna QB.

-Brady threw 4 INT’s today (did I mention that yet?). He only threw 4 in all of last SEASON. I think I speak for us all when I say, “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!”

-S/T came to play. The kickoff and punt coverage was very good, Moorman was booming them and Lindell came through when it counted most.

-The Buffalo Bills scored a mere 34 points- their lowest total of the season. They are leading the NFL in scoring. And they sit alone atop the AFC East after the Jets’ choke job against the Raiders and Miami’s inexplicable loss to Cleveland.

-The slow starts at home are frustrating.

-The second half comebacks are exhilarating.

-After the game, we met some friends at a local dive bar to watch the Ravens. I had my Kelly jersey and throwback Bills hat on. At least 3 Ravens fans shook my hand and said positive things about the Bills. It probably helped that the Ravens were up 30-0 at the time, but the hatred of the Patriots is universal amongst non-Boston football fans.

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