BillsZone’s Bills vs. Rams Postgame Report Card

by Michael J. Thomas

Quarterbacks It was another solid showing at home for Drew Bledsoe. He was making plays when they needed to be made and he finally found Mark Campbell in the end zone for the first time in over a month. One of the best plays was a 54-yard flea-flicker to Sam Aiken. Bledsoe was 15/24 for 185 yards, with 3 touchdowns (all to Campbell) and 1 INT. He overcame an early interception in the 1st quarter by completing 3 solid drives for scores in the 2nd quarter. Two of the drives were for touchdowns. Drew even did a pretty good job avoiding the pass rush, taking only 1 sack and getting rid of the ball when he couldn’t find anyone open. There were a few bad plays, but overall it was a good game by Drew Bledsoe and he did exactly what he was asked to do. Let’s see if he can continue this at Seattle next week. Grade: A

Running Backs: Willis McGahee struggled in the beginning of the game with only 25 yards in the first half. However, he picked up the pace and helped run the clock down in the 2nd half, running another 75 yards to get a total of 100 yards for the day. McGahee had 20 carries for 100 yards, and 3 catches for 27 yards. His best run was not counted, because of a questionable holding penalty on Lee Evans. On that run, McGahee made a nice hurdle over the defender to avoid getting knocked out of bounds. He took the ball 49 yards into the end zone. Unfortunately, that one was called back. Travis Henry came in for McGahee on some 3rd downs and also to relieve him at times. Henry had 2 carries for 9 yards, and also 1 catch for 5 yards. Daimon Shelton had some nice blocks, but was called for an illegal motion penalty. Overall, it was a pretty good day for this unit, but it could have been better. McGahee kept his streak alive of 4 games with 100 yards and all 4 games were wins. Grade: B+

Wide Receivers: Eric Moulds had a bad day. He had problems catching passes from Bledsoe all day and also took 3 penalties. Moulds had 3 receptions for 17-yards, and was successful in a reverse for a 12-yard gain. Lee Evans had two catches for 38 yards, including a sweet 32-yard catch down the sideline to setup a touchdown. Sam Aiken showed that he has some speed, getting downfield to catch the 54-yard flee-flicker. He also made a nice 7-yard catch right after that, going out of bounds to stop the clock. Aiken had 2 receptions for 61 yards. Let’s hope we can start to see more of him, because he showed some nice speedy getting ahead of the Rams’ players for that ball. Overall, it was an okay day for the receivers. There were way too many drops by Moulds, and Evans had a terrible holding penalty, but it wasn’t too bad. Let’s see if they can do better next week. Grade: B-

Tight Ends: What a great day for Campbell Soup! Mark Campbell had a great game. When was the last time the Bills have had a tight end catch 3 touchdown passes? Never before! Campbell made some nice grabs in the end zone and even out of the end zone. He was finally involved in the red zone, like everyone has been wanting. Campbell had 4 catches for 37 yards and the 3 touchdowns. Tim Euhus was quiet, but made a couple of nice blocks for McGahee. Grade: A+

Offensive Line: It was not a great day for this unit, but not bad either. Penalties hurt them. There were 3 of them, including one killer “ illegal use of hands to the face” penalty on Jonas Jennings. That one nullified a beautiful 24-yard catch and run by Joe Burns on 3rd down and 9. They also seemed to struggle at making holes for Willis McGahee. It did get better in the second half, but that was mostly from McGahee wearing the defense down with his hard runs. On the plus side, Leonard Little had one sack that killed the first drive, but nothing after that. Bledsoe also seemed to get a lot of time to complete his passes and do the flea-flickers. Overall, it was an okay day. If the holes were bigger in the first half, this grade would have been much better. Grade: C+

Defensive Line: Aaron Schobel was contained for the most part by the Rams offensive line with some double coverage. However, he did get a chance to make some plays towards the end. Schobel had 6 tackles, including one play where he leveled Marshall Faulk at the 1-yard line for a loss of 2. Bulger was intercepted on the next play. Chris Kelsay continues to pressure the quarterback and force him to make bad mistakes. He only had 1 tackle, but he had at least 2 hits on Marc Bulger. However out of all the defensive ends, Ryan Denney did the best. Denney had 2 tackles, 1 sack, and even forced Tory Holt to fumble the ball. Unfortunately, Holt recovered his own fumble. The biggest story was how dominating Sam Adams was. He was all over the place, pressuring the quarterback and helping stuff the run. Adams had had 3 tackles, with 2 of them behind the scrimmage, and he tipped a pass and intercepted it. Pat Williams had a quiet day with only 1 tackle, but he was busy tying up the offensive linemen to allow Adams to run free. This is what we need to see out of the defensive line, some nice pressure on the quarterback and help stuff the run. Another great game! Grade: A+

Linebackers: Wow! What a way to make up for their terrible game against New England. The unit as a whole helped to shut Marshall Faulk to his lowest amount of yardage ever. Faulk had 13 carries for 6 yards. Steven Jackson did a little better, but he didn’t even break 30 yards. Takeo Spikes was the most dominating. He had 7 tackles, and an interception that he deflected, plus 3 other pass breakups. London Fletcher was a little quieter than usual, but he still had 7 tackles. Jeff Posey was in on 2 tackles and also was busy pressuring Marc Bulger several times. Overall, it was another great day for this unit. You know when you help hold Marshall Faulk to 6 yards; you did a good job. Let’s hope they can do the same thing to Shaun Alexander next week. Grade: A+

Secondary: Terrence McGee had one of his best games ever for the Bills. He was only beat by a tough Rams’ receiving corps, once. McGee had a total of 8 tackles, sacked Bulger on a blitz and intercepted a pass. Nate Clements had a pretty good game, but was burned a couple times. He also had 2 costly penalties. Clements was all over the field and had 5 tackles, plus forced Tory Holt to fumble the ball, along with Ryan Denney. Since it was the Rams, the Bills used their other cornerbacks more often too. Kevin Thomas was in for a lot of 3 and 4 receiver packages. He led the team with a total of 10 tackles. Jabari Greer had 3 tackles and 1 sack on the Rams’ last play of the game. The other rookie defensive back, Rashad Baker did a pretty good job holding his own at free safety. He did a nice job in coverage and had 1 tackle. However, the best defensive player of the game was Lawyer Milloy. He was all over the place getting 6 tackles and sacked Marc Bulger 3 different times in blitzes. Overall, it was another great day at home for the defensive unit. Let’s hope they can do the same thing against the Seattle Seahawks on the road next week. Grade: A+

Special Teams: Wow! It’s been a long time since the Bills have had a special teams that was this good. 17 points was a result from the great special teams play. It all started with an excellent 53-yard punt return by “Fast Freddie” Smith to the 5-yard line, with a great block by Nate Clements. The next play was a touchdown from Bledsoe to Campbell. Then, the defense forced the Rams to punt again. Nate Clements took it to the house for 86 yards and the touchdown. They weren’t done yet. The kickoff coverage team decided to have some fun too. Rian Lindell kicked the ball off towards the out of bounds line. Erik Flowers chose to field it and he fumbled it. Jason Peters recovered the fumble and the Bills offense took the ball down the field for another field goal. Terrence McGee had a nice average of 23.2 yards on 4 kick returns, with a 35-yarder as his longest. Rian Lindell was perfect in all 3 field goals that he made (21, 35, and 33 yards). He also did a nice job with some short kicks and squib kicks on his kickoffs. This contained the Rams to only an 18.2 average on kick returns. Brian Moorman had a pretty good day. He averaged 41.2 yards on 4 punts, with a longest of 51 yards. Everyone did what they needed to do and this unit is definitely the best one of the team. Grade: A+

Coaching: Mike Mularkey made up for a terrible coached game last week. He made Mike Martz look like a fool, although that isn’t hard to do. The offense started out slow, but then once the special teams helped them add some points to the board, started kicking it into another gear and took over. It was nice to see the Bills run the clock down in the 2nd half and run the ball for 3 times the yardage that they got in the 1st half. The defense did a good job of containing the receivers for most of the day, and completely shut down “The Greatest Show on Turf” in the second half. They also did exactly what was needed to put pressure on Marc Bulger and force him to make bad throws. It was nice to see the Bills continue to use the blitz and not go into the prevent mode in the 4th quarter. The only major negative was the penalties. Fifteen penalties for 123 yards is not a good way to win a game. I thought they were done with those. Let’s hope the coaching staff works on that for next week. It’s a big test for this team in Seattle next week. Let’s see if they can pass it. Grade: B+