One Fans View: Emotionally Fragile

by Kevin Shenoy

Well, here we are in mid October, and I am enjoying the first win of the season. There you go, I gave you the good news first. I hate to be the overbearing, parental figure who sees their child get a 99 on a test and ask, “Where’s the other point?” I am going to dissect this win and bring us back to earth as Buffalo Bills fans. There is no need to go hog wild with delusion.

I’m an emotionally fragile fan. I refuse to completely buy into this feeling of a big win for Buffalo. I don’t think they’ve found something sustainable. Not after one victory against the weakest team to be assembled in the AFC East since the Jets in the mid-90s. If I put too much of my heart into this, I’m just going to get hurt.

That’s why I look at this win as a middle child who has been mentally broken by his father, his mother, his older brother and younger sister for 4 straight weeks. Just because they found the gumption to kick the family dog in week 5 doesn’t mean much. The good news is the Bills get to refight the older brother next week against a formidable Ravens team, and take on the younger sister when we play the Cardinals. Four points on why we still aren’t all that good as advertised:

Point 1: The Bills still only scored 1 offensive touchdown. This is not cool. I realize that the last drive from 94 yards out was impressive. It looked like the drive where you realized that you couldn’t play Madden on Rookie level anymore. But the Bills still have yet to cap a complete drive with a touchdown. I mean a nice 70+ yard drive where it eats the clock, and you see them in the end zone at the end. No cheap bombs or 15 yard penalties that get you around 3rd and long situations. That’s what I am looking for. Early in the fourth quarter, they marched to the 1 yard line again, and settled for 3. That doesn’t look like they’ve improved to me. Against a better team they would have been so mad that they couldn’t punch it Against a better team that would have cost then dearly. That last drive was impressive, but they ran out of time. They were damn close, and if the Bills had another minute, maybe they would have scored the TD. I, like the rest of Bills nation, am enthused by the win, but I don’t see that they’ve turned some magical corner.

Point 2: Talking about turning corners, I don’t understand how all of Buffalos defensive guys consistently can’t get around the corner. It doesn’t matter how many people they rush, no one ever gets penetration. Is there not a term called “shooting the gaps”? Like lemmings they just run into other players and themselves. The Dolphins are supposed to be insanely porous, but for the majority of the game, the Bills would blitz and Fielder would have time to under throw his receivers. Again, Buffalo got better at the end when Schoebel got a big 3rd down sack. He registered two for the game.

Point 3: Still questionable play calling. I don’t know if at home you could see this, but the DB’s were giving Miami huge cushions when Miami was going into the wind. Fielder proved on his picturesque pass to Spikes that he didn’t understand the wind. I also don’t think I’ve heard the name of a Dolphin Wide Out since Mark “Super” Duper. Ok, I’ve lied, but who are they to consistently get 10 yard cushions? And that with the wind! It honestly made me think that maybe Nate Clements isn’t all that good. And I love Nate Clements. (By the way he dropped a sure TD INT early in the second quarter. That’s two in two games that he’s missed sure money picks.)

Additionally, kicking the field goal on 4^th and 11? That was stupid. During the pre-game, both kickers struggled with the wind at that end of the field. Literally neither of them made kicks from the 20 yard line. Rian “Fancy I” Lindell also missed a field goal in the same spot against Jacksonville. Being at the Jaguars game, I’ll tell you this. It was about 70+ degrees with a 1 mph wind caused by a fart from a guy wearing a Rob Johnson Jersey in section 215. Rian Lindell missed the field goal and said after the game, “there was a wind condition.” I don’t know why I put that in quotes. He said something else, but the gist of it was blamed that miss on the wind. Now at the Dolphins game we had a wind ripping through layers of clothes caused by Mother Nature and the same Johnson fan contributing his 1mph wind. They send ‘Fancy I’ out to kick. In the post game, Mularkey said, “we figured, what’s the worst that could happen? We miss the kick.” That is literally the quote. Well Mike, if I may call you that, the worst is that you miss the kick and give them 8 more yards. If you went for it and even took a knee, you would have done 7 yards better than missing the impossible kick. We forgive you because the team won, but know that I was fuming at that call thinking they were going to lose.

Point 4:As a team in the basement, the Bills are going to be screwed by the refs no matter what. You know they say good teams get the breaks. The flip side of that is that bad teams don’t. Again, the officiating is unbelievable. They called a 15 yard penalty on Spikes for pretending to bowl the football into the goalpost. I know, I put a period at the end of that statement. But it was written in shock and in confusion. Perhaps an exclamation point and a question mark together would better suit the tone in which I want to emphasize that statement. How is bowling the ball overly different from spiking the ball? I need a page reference in the rule book. Thanks. It would have been excessive if say, the rest of the team formed a triangle and then Spikes bowled the ball towards the team and everyone fell over. That would have been excessive and funnier. It also would have perhaps been worthy of the 15 yards.

Eric Mould’s catch that was ruled incomplete (leading to the asinine FG attempt) was not overturned. Again, we go back to the Pats game where the zebras overruled a call that clearly shows nothing. From the angle that they watched the McGee interception, you couldn’t even tell if the game was being played at the Ralph. Then on Mould’s catch, there are 3 angles all showing the guy come down with the catch. No call. There were at least 2 unsportsmanlike calls that they didn’t call. One was a late hit call. If you were mildly retarded, I could see how you could say, “mmm, the game moves so fast, I don’t know. I’ll let the players play.” That would be a nice NHL like call. The second one was near the endzone at the end of the game. There have been land wars fought in the dark ages with less maliciousness than the hit delivered way after the play. I’m eating non-dolphin safe tuna all week in protest.

Kevin’s DVD extras:

- In last week’s article, I asked for input about a theory I had on devastating losses. Andrew from NY gave me the Cleveland Browns. After the Drive’s 1 and 2 by Elway. The team fell apart. Yes, they were good enough to beat us in the Ronnie Harmon game, but that was it. Mike from Cheektowaga also told me that perhaps the Packers are a team in decline after giving up 4^th and 26 in last year’s playoff loss. They certainly aren’t the team they once were. So my theory is growing in strength. I like it. I feel very presidential. I am polling my ideas. I’m getting some good vibes. I am ready to go out there and take my voice to the people. Sadly, I am beating both Bush and Kerry in Florida.

- Mark, the high school chum with whom I attended the Miami game due to my father being out of town, noted that there maybe another conspiracy under our noses. I mentioned that the NFL is trying to keep the Pats numero uno to keep people patriotic. Well, here is a new one on the Bill’s inability to score points. Either Celino and Barnes, Tim Hortons, or Dick’s Sporting goods have conspired with the Bills offense. All three have tie-ins to lose money/profits when the Bill’s offense is clicking. Without this corporate sponsorship, the Bills scored at ease. Now Celino and Barnes are offering up $10,000 bucks on every TD the Bills score, Tim Hortons offers free Medium coffee if the Bills score 2 touchdowns or more, and Dicks give you 10% off of any purchase when the Bills win. Mmmm, I’m just saying, but it seems like there might be some activity on the grassy knoll.

- One of the Bill’s coaches was in a short sleeve t-shirt the entire game. Props to that man. That is something you’d never see from the Greg Williams Era.

- I’m proposing new lyrics to the Bills Shout song. How about “throw your hands up and sigh.” “brush the sweat off your fore head and sigh” “the bills are fighting to get back in the game” “the Bills are bringing out Moorman now” “He just crushed a 60-yarder now.” I think I’d be more into it if the song was accurate. That’s all I’m saying.

- Does every player on the Bills with the starting letters McG kick ass? McGahee. McGee. I’ll be entitling my work Kevin McGhenoy from now on.

- Even though I pointed out the things that didn’t go right in the win, a win still feels so damn good. I hope they take advantage of the crack-less backfield next week with Jamal Lewis out on Drug suspension. I hope Henry is back and there are more 2 backsets so that Ray Lewis can’t just come zipping through. I’d also love to see Lee Evans go zipping by Deion Sanders for a big score. I’m already getting emotionally involved.