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OFV – Week 2: The First Win

Part of me wants to say, “you can’t get to 2-14 without a win” and the other part of me wants to say, “my faith is fully restored. We have not suffered 12 years for no reason. Championship bound!”

I said to my dad on the drive to the game, “the bills have created just a terrible situation. They can blow out the Chiefs and it was expected. They can play a 6-3 Browns type game and we’ll hate them, and of course, they could lose and that will be the season.”

And it was true, the Bills made it hard to jump up and down after the game. We beat the fat kid in a foot race. But when you are out of shape, you sometimes just need to destroy the fat kid. No offense to the fat kid.

I loved watch Spiller run wild with a run first offense. I liked watching the defense cause Cassel throw from his backfoot (or better yet, just collapse into the fetal position), I liked seeing moorman angle almost all of his punts to the sideline, I was all about watching Mckelvin seal the game, and I liked watching another team pull a Bills and fumble at the 1 when the game was still a game.The only thing missing was watching a celebration dance using the moves from the Gangnam Style Youtube video (worth searching if you haven’t seen it. It’s an NFL touchdown dance if there ever has been one)

But as I walked out the stadium, there was one really nagging feeling. I’ve lost my nerve on Fitz. And the scariest thing is that Fitz seems to have lost his nerve with Fitz. On that first pass play on third down, he ran a bootleg. Chandler was wide open. There didn’t even need to be touch on the ball. There was no safety over the top, just chandler dusting his man. A moon ball for chandler to get under was ok. just a completion even if chandler could have picked up like 25 yards of YAC. But instead, he worm-burned the pass and then looked like JP Losman. And it didn’t get better. He missed chandler one more time before hitting him on the TD and the long pass before Stevies TD. He has zero chemistry with Donald Jones. I’m talking Liza Minelli and any husband she’s ever had bad.

It worked here. Kansas city looked like they gave up. They kept trying to see if Gilmore was as bad as he was in the JEts game…and he wasn’t. They seemed to count that the Bills were going to be ineffective in rushing the passer…but they were wrong. By the third quarter, they just didn’t care.  They looked like they were bummed that Matt Barkley is falling in talent scout eyes.

With all that being said, i still see how this plays out. They’ll engage in their annual pull your hair out Cleveland game. Both teams will play as though they all want to see 30 yard field goals from both kickers. Someone will “win” 9-6″. That teams fans will be excited and mock the other team as sucking. Fitz will not manage a game well and throw at least 2 interceptions. The defense will tire. They will look terrible. The Browns will wrap it up for us in the fourth quarter.

We as fans will say, “we are tied for first no matter what!” New England will come to Buffalo and kick our butts. Of course, we all see it. The Bills defense could knock Brady out of the game, something we’ve all secretly wanted since 2003. We remain convinced that Spiller can run roughshod in the game. But some how, the bills will do what they did to start the second half of the Chiefs game. With the game clearly in their command, the bills deferred the openning toss for the second straight week so they could get the ball to start the second. And despite Spiller having almost as many yards as the Chiefs entire offense, the Bills came out and passed, passed and passed some more.

Sure, that kind of mistake can be overcome against the chiefs, at home. Can you do that to the AFC champs who have beaten us repeatedly over a 10 year span? I doubt it. Hopefully the Bills got that out of their systems. They seemed to stop having Fitz throw the out passes after a week of bad out passes.

 

DVD Extras

Replacement refs still stink –  Again, there wasn’t anything glaring but the replacement refs on the whole listen to the whining of the players. Kevin Boss gets injured on a big hit. No flag. They come out of commercial and the Bills are assessed a personal foul. It wasn’t just the Bills game. The Monday night game was brutal. So you must think, “well the NFL must have had enough. They’ll bring the real refs back before there is a real blown call.” I don’t think they will. Each game is about half an hour longer. Which of course means more commercials, which means more money, which of course means someone in the NFL offices still feels that moving the Bills out of Buffalo is the only way to generate more revenue.

Last of Ref complaints –  I find it absurd that the field judge got cut because he was a fan of the saints. Are we to believe that people become refs because they love reffing? I’m guessing they all have a favorite team because they loved the game so much they were willing to dress in those uni’s just to be on the field. Some of us just accepted, “hey, i’m not athletic. Hey, i’m under 5 feet and I’m 15.” Not that any of this autobiographical. Point is the NFL should probably let us know who all their refs are fans of see which ones get to control our fates. I wonder who what team the ref liked when he said, “just give it to them” in the 98 Pats Bills game.

KC Punter – Say what you will about McKelvin. The guy has his problems as a first round DB, but the guy can run. And the KC punter kept up with him until the bitter end. I almost wanted him to get caught. It was such an honest effort and I would have liked to see spiller pick up some more TD’s.

The guys who dropped into the game –  The California Navy seals who were air dropped into the stadium during the national anthem were awesome. The second one in particular who landed at the 50. The third guy looked like he came in without a parachute once inside the stadium.  He got up and trotted off. Perhaps the toughest move amongst all the people in the stadium.

Musical selection-  Somehow I think the Bills are trying to channel the 90’s teams through music. They played, “U can’t touch this.” “This is how we do it”, “Jump” by House of Pain, “Unbelievable” by EMF and “Poison” by Bel Biv Devoe. No doubt the first method in getting our 90’s swagger back on is having the 90’s music that was popular during the run playing all the time.