Once again this week, most of my grades completely changed from the 1^st half to the 2^nd. I guess that’s why the games are 60 minutes long though right?

Let’s start off with a quick run down of the translation of grades:
A = Excellent
B = Above Average
C = Average
D = Below Average
F = Failure

Quarterbacks: B-
- Trent has been slowly building up my trust so far this season. I said at the beginning of the year that I need to see consistent play from him, while making steady improvements,, before I bought him as the franchise QB for this team. He took a small bump backwards this week though. I was thoroughly unimpressed with his play for the most part in the first half, where he seemed to force several throws when guys simply weren’t open. Part of that is because he didn’t have much time to throw the ball early on, but even when he did, he seemed to be trying to put the ball in places it just wasn’t going to go. Still, all in all, it wasn’t a bad game per se. He can easily bounce back from this game, and after all, he still walked away with a win.

Running Backs: B+
- Another 100 yard day for the running game, though honestly I expected a little more out of them this week. Marshawn played solid and hard as he always does. His numbers weren’t too impressive, but it’s hard to find too much fault with him. Fred Jackson proved his value yet again though, averaging almost 7 yards a carry when he got the ball, and putting up a big TD when the Bills needed it. At the rate these two are going, they aren’t going to get less than a B out of me all season.

Wide Receivers: B-
- Total output for the wide receivers for today’s game: 6 catches for 135 yards… Certainly not what you want to see, and not something you would think lead to a winning result. Lee Evans caught only two balls, though to his credit, they were big ones to catch, 49 and 39 yards respectively, including a touchdown. As for Josh Reed, I was one of his bigger critics a few years back, but I can say I’ve changed my tune about him quite thoroughly. He has quietly become one of the best possession receivers in this league, picking up first downs for the Bills left and right each week. As far as James Hardy, all I can say is that he’s been disappointing to me thus far. With Roscoe out, you had to figure Hardy would see the field some more, and they went to him multiple times right off the bat. What I saw was a rookie WR that didn’t understand how to properly make adjustments to the throw and go after the ball. The guy is 6’6, and multiple times he let a much smaller defender simply knock the ball away from him because it wasn’t in the perfect spot for him to catch. He’s got a long way to go it seems, and I think we fans now know why we haven’t seen much of him thus far.

Tight Ends: C
- Average seems to be the grade our Tight Ends are doomed to stay at. 2 catches for 29 yards this week. Hardly awe inspiring. Luckily the team hasn’t needed exceptional play out of this group, because I don’t think they can expect to get it anytime soon.

Offensive Line: C
- Note to Jason Peters: This is not a very good way to try and earn a fat payday. This guy has looked like absolute garbage since his return, and it’s clear he was not in game shape when he reported during Week 1. He let Chris Long blow him out of the water early for the first of 4 sacks on Trent Edwards. Throw in a couple of penalties, one of which cost the team a 20 yard gain, and you have yet another awful showing by “one of the best Left Tackles in the league.” Don’t worry, he’s not the only one I’m going to pick on. The whole line looked like trash in the first half, giving up the aforementioned 4 sacks, and having me worried for Edwards’ safety at one point. They redeemed themselves slightly in the second half, but this is two weeks in a row they’ve shown they are unable to handle actively blitzing defenses.

Defensive Line: B+
- I was ready to write about how the Defensive Ends didn’t do much of anything this game, and then I saw that Schoebel had 5 tackles and Kelsay added 3 + an assist. Stroud was the quietest he’s been this year, but Kyle Williams was in the backfield disrupting plays on a few occasions as well. Throw in a sack for Spencer Johnson, and it seems these guys had another pretty solid week. Yes, the Rams ran the ball quite well in the first half, but many of those carries didn’t come up the gut either.

Linebackers: B-
- I’m debating just leaving this line in here every week: “Once again, the word that best describes the Linebacking corps is solid.” However, with the rushing yards given up in the early going, they have to get dinged a little bit in their grade. Posluszny once again seemed to be absolutely everywhere, with a team leading 8 tackles. However, Kawika Mitchell had a pretty quiet game this week with just two tackles, and I don’t recall hearing his name too frequently. Once again, Ellison had a few tackles and was mostly unheard from throughout the day. Perhaps not their best performance of the year, but still respectable.

Defensive Backs: A
- This week’s lone A goes to the DBs. I was extremely pleased with their gameplay today, especially when you take into consideration that Terrence McGee left the game in the very early going with a sprained knee. Ashton Youboty stepped in and played very well, just as he has done all year long. Jabari Greer’s INT return for a touchdown was nothing short of huge at that point in the game, as well. A few more big plays, as Donte Whitner had a huge sack of Trent Green, which essentially took 3 points away from the Rams by knocking them out of reasonable field goal position. Finally, Leodis McKelvin saw his first real action at nickelback and came up with a huge hit on the Rams’ Dane Looker, causing a fumble which he subsequently recovered. Easily the best performance by the secondary so far this season.

Special Teams: B
- Nothing spectacular out of the special teams group today, but they fairly regularly gave the Bills good starting field position. The absence of Roscoe Parrish didn’t hurt as much as many had expected, with Fred Jackson and McKelvin handling the punt return duties pretty nicely. Rian Lindell is pretty much as automatic as they come when inside of 40 yards.

Coaching: B-
- I can’t complain too much about the play calling really, other than trying to force the ball to Hardy early on in the red zone, the game was pretty decently called in general. The coaches do have to share the load a little bit on the let up in discipline this week, as the Bills increased their number of penalties on the season by over 50%, with 5 today. Most teams would probably be fairly happy with only 5 penalties of course, but I think the fans have come to expect better from Buffalo at this point. The defense was very solid, other than early trouble against the run today. Slow starts have become a bit of a recurring problem at this point, but something has to be said for the adjustments made by the coaching staff in the past few games. They have proven that they are a very solid 2nd half team in the early season.

Overall Team Grade: B-
Another week with a barely above average grade… this time after a 17 point victory. You may say that’s pretty harsh, however, I think you need to keep in mind that this Rams team is really not very good at all. Our first half was pretty abysmal, and had me very disappointed at the half. The 2nd half was played like I think the entire game should have been, and there should have never been any real doubt in this one. I suppose if I had to choose a half for the Bills to be better in, it would certainly be the 2nd, but to me, this makes 3 straight weeks that we have not seen a complete game from Buffalo. Just imagine if they could put it all together for an entire 60 each week! Every game might look more like the Seattle game did. I’ll freely admit this team has shown themselves to be much better than I was expecting them to be so far this year, and the potential is there to get even better. They need to get out of 1st gear in first halves, though, or sooner or later it’s going to bite them. Next week should be an interesting one after seeing Arizona’s performance today, I just hope the Bills don’t spend too much time reading their own press. This is one of only two times this year that the Bills have to head all the way out west, and I think it has disappointment written all over it. Let’s hope the Bills continue to show me that I’m underestimating them though!

Constructive criticism is always greatly appreciated, and comments and suggestions can be directed to me via email: scottlunn@yahoo.com