One Fan's View: Getting Giddy

by Kevin Shenoy

I’m getting giddy. The Bills have won 3 out of 4, two in a row and taken out two AFC East opponents. It would be foolish of me to quote Elton John, but I will anyways. “The Bitch is back.” There was an indefinable swagger when the gun sounded at the end of the 4th quarter. The fans weren’t sitting there as though we survived like last years Cincinnati game. The team didn’t get off the field fast. They were smiling and walking with a certain stride.

Granted we are only two steps into this stride, so it’s hard to say exactly what kind of stride this is going to be. But if we just keep walking like that, it’s a bad-ass, Reservoir Dogs kind of stride. And you know what? I like it. They actually looked like a good team. The Bills were probably not the best team in the league, but definitely the better of the two who were asked to play in Orchard Park.

The key moment of that game that could very well be the turning point of the season was the 4th and 1 in the 1st quarter. The Bills ran the ball, scored a touchdown and took the lead. There is a reason why terms like “boo yeah” and “hoo ha” were created. There are no other words to describe watching a team face a tough situation and come through. Especially after the first weeks we went through. That was what good football teams do. It just felt so good to watch Willis romp untouched into the end zone. So good that I am taking the onus to create a new word, “Boo HA!!” We’ll see what comes of that.

I have said this before, but I am really impressed how the Bills make adjustments during the halftime. This is probably the 4th straight week, including the horrible display of football against Baltimore, that the defense has wandered out onto the field and have been a black hole to the opposing offense. Pennington while playing hurt, only completed one pass in the second half, it was to our beloved Lawyer Milloy. Terrence McGee, torched for 75% of the total passing yards that the Bills gave up, started to play bump coverage in the second half instead of giving the 10 yard cushion. If it weren’t for taking a lethal digger on the Moss touchdown, the Bills would have held the Jets to about 50 yards of total offense in the second half, and McGee would have had a complete turnaround in the second half.

Chris Kelsay came to play today. He was like a visa card. Everywhere you want to be. True, it was one game, but I don’t remember seeing a rush package like that from a Bills team in the last 4 years. It was awesome. I hope he keeps it up. Two decent DE with a gi-normus nose tackle can only mean a lot of confusion for opposing O-lines.

If I created a color coded chart, vis-à-vis the homeland security chart, I consistently had Bledsoe in the red. After the last two games, I have reanalyzed the terror threat and downgraded to orange. He actually threw some nice passes and avoided sacks. It wasn’t like Bledsoe was playing at all. In fact, it looked like we had a quarterback. The line wasn’t rock solid as everyone said after the game, but they allowed Bledsoe to move a little in the pocket to reset and throw. Bledsoe even avoided a sack and then scrambled for 17 yards in the 3rd quarter. I should have left the stadium and bought a lotto ticket. You know things are aligning in your favor when that happens.

However, he still stays in the orange for his horrible clock management and questionable reads. He takes timeouts in such strange places. And what makes it almost unstomachable is that after he calls the timeout, he looks up at the scoreboard or talks to a teammate and he hangs his head. I forget what game it was last year, but he took a time out right before the 1st quarter would have ended. Wind was not an issue. He just took a timeout and then looked up and got mad. The same mistakes are happening. There were also a couple passes that he made where I was just left looking like Ashlee Simpson on Saturday Night Live. The one that was clearest to me was on a 3rd and long situation in the first quarter. He ended up going long to Moulds but over threw him. On that play, Willis “Drummond” McGahee, was out on a screen with only CB covering him. I think if McGahee can steam roll over nose tackles and linebackers on a regular basis, its fair to say there was an easier, safer option available

Kevin’s DVD Extras:

• In truth, I don’t like to see drunken buffoonery at the games, however, this special moment was simply amazing and worth noting. A drunk guy got on top of the luxury boxes at the scoreboard side and proceeded to run over 100yards to the other end zone. What makes it so impressive that he went the entire distance with the entire stadium watching and clapping as though he was a soldier coming home after shooting the last Nazi. The second thing that makes it worth noting, is that once we, the stadium, realized security noticed, there was a 15 yard gap where the guy and security were racing towards each other like a medieval joust. The anticipation was brilliant. The guy put on a stellar move at the last second, escaped the grasp of security but not without paying a price. He tumbled off the luxury boxes into the crowd below. And with true fighting spirit tried to get back up on the boxes to run again. Idiots with Alcohol can sometimes be a beautiful thing.
• Lamont Jordon’s hit on Moorman was disgusting. True, it may be legal, but if you are going for the “boo HA” moment on a punter as a RB, you need to grow a pair.
• Again, the Bills get the screw-gie on 15 yard unsportsmanlike penalties. Freddie Smith, sporting number 19, got 15 yards for pushing a Jets player after the play. A few plays later, a Bills offensive linemen is on his back trying to protect himself from a catty Jets Defensive player slapping, punching, and otherwise simply being a Jet. The Bills even chose not to fight back in an effort to get the 15 yard penalty. But no flag. Play on, kids, play on. I just don’t know how the NHL refs say let them play when the Bills are on receiving end, but are stringent NFL refs when it goes against us.
• I must say that the power of the Zubaz pants is amazing. My dad went with the Zubaz, and we had two sweet tributes to the Zubaz. The first one had a guy chasing us down in lot 1, screaming, “Dude, Zubaz!!! Zubaz, please chug this beer with me.” He took it well when we declined the offer. And secondly, anytime you can get honked at after the game with someone hanging out the window screaming, “Yeah, Zubaz!!” it just doesn’t get much better.
• The Bills could have blown the Jets out somewhere in the 3rd quarter. For some reason, we just don’t like doing that. We love having teams hang around. In the first half we took a field goal to tie before half. I think that universally has been agreed on as being idiotic. However, after Lawyer Milloy’s interception, we only managed 3 points after starting on the 25? Come on. Then after the safety, we didn’t get the gigantic time consuming drive. Those kinda things would make me a true believer that we sit on the verge of something amazing.
• The Bills defense looks like it is transforming from the fantastic stat defense to a good game day defense. By getting turnovers and getting to the QB, they are forcing the plays. Last year and early this year, you’d see the stat line and say,” these guys are good.” However, they’d break in the waning moments or just wouldn’t get the turnovers. But it’s turning. They are slowly becoming great.
• There was a guy at the game, dressed as Captain Morgan. He missed the Halloween game by 1 week. Tough break, no? It was like watching the one kid in elementary school whose mom dressed him up on the wrong day for the Halloween party. All the kids point and laugh and all you can think was, “Damn, that could have been me.”
• I want this game against the Pats so badly. If they are 4-5 and have beaten all the AFC east teams at least once, I like what we got. Sure I am being delusional to think we could get into the playoffs, but I don’t even know if I need that. I just need the fun of feeling like I can get into the playoffs. I want to be Tim Russert somewhere in December. Sitting there with my dry erase board, “ now you see, if the Bills win these two games, and the Jets lose any combination of the these three games, we are in the playoffs. Now if the Bills lose these two games, there is still a chance as we wait for the 4 o’clock games to finish.” That’s really half the fun. And we haven’t had that fun in four years either. We’ve just been horrible and had to deal. But if we were horrible with hope, that’d be worth the price of admission for me.