One Fan's View: Fewell-E-Coyote

by Kevin Shenoy

Is there a better way to kick off a holiday season than having the Bills run up the score on the Dolphins? We saw a real, honest-to-god, NFL team play in the Bills pajamas on Sunday, and it was glorious.

Yes, I am one of the people who think that the 2009 Bills team is like a crack addict. They need to hit rock bottom and ask for help themselves before anything will change. I want the losses not so much for the draft pick as much as it is a clear signal that the front office needs to change. Yes, a real scouting department and a qualified, proven coach with a game plan need to be brought in. Hitting rock bottom means that “continuity” and status quo will be thrown out.

As much as that is what the team needs, I can’t help but root for the Bills on Sundays. I really want to be on the Fewell bandwagon and shout, “he is a stud!” Afterall, what Buffalo fan doesn’t love a good underdog story? Isn’t there just a small part of you that wants to see Fewell become the next Marv Levy?

But at the end of the game I was left thinking that Fewell actually called the game very similar to Jauron. Tied at 14, the Bills got the ball at the Dolphins 40 yard line with 6 minutes to go. A playoff team pounds it out, gets the score, and gives very little time back to the opposing team.

At that point, the Bills were gaining momentum, the crowd was getting into it, and it seemed like a great time to win a game. However, the Bills ran on first down, took a false start penalty on second down, got sacked on second down, and threw a check down on third and long. How is that not Jauron football? It was essentially a 3 and out.

Perhaps Jauron would have punted there, but I think he most likely would have trotted out Fancy I. Why? Because it’s not a bright choice and that was his thing. Fancy I is hardly automatic outside 40, let alone 50. He doesn’t instill confidence in clutch kicking. Surely, he’s made a few big kicks, but he’s also blown a couple big kicks especially when kicking towards the tunnel.

I heckled Fewell’s decision for the field goal as Fancy I walked onto the field. I turned to Shelly and said, “this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. If he misses this, they are giving the Dolphins an extra 8 yards on top of the momentum to the game. Go for it!” Fancy I not only made the kick, he blasted it through. It could have been made from another 5 yards back. Over the years it’s been well documented I’m not a Fancy I supporter, but in this case I have to eat my crow. He came up huge.

The second decision that seemed Jauron-ish was the bomb to TO. After the Florence interception, the Bills came out and threw long to TO. Jauron was infamous for bold, oddly timed strokes of hope in close games. I recall a season opener where JP threw it long on 3rd and 1 to ice the Bronco game. The only difference was that was incomplete, and in this case it was totally successful.

Maybe Jauron just got all the bad breaks and Fewell has struck some early luck. But from the post game comments it sounds like the players have a different outlook. Perhaps the Dog Whisperer philosophy on dogs is applicable to teams. According to the DW the energy you present can be passed on to your dog. Perhaps coaches pass that energy on to their players. Perhaps Jauron was an awful pack leader and Fewell is Ceasar Milan and poking the neck of all these players to shape up. While the calls may be very similar, the results are starting to become very different. We beat an AFC East team…at home…in the winter.

Perhaps Jauron was just the horribly unlucky Wile E. Coyote and Fewell is the Roadrunner. The Roadrunner was notorious for running through the exact trap set without any ill effects while Wile E. Coyote would walk right into the trap and have it explode on his head.

Either way, the Buffalo Bills squished the fish, and that’s all that really matters.

DVD Extras:

• Fewell for Head Coach: Not so fast. The Bills beat a very sporadic Dolphins team without Ronnie Brown. The Dolphins ran very well against the Bills until they oddly chose to stop running after the third quarter. I liked what Fewell is doing in terms of making it seem like a team as opposed to a smattering of players. There is some real energy being harnessed from some very mediocre players. That counts for something, but I think we all want to see him perform well over the 7 games he was given. To me, performing well means that he gets the team to finish 4-1 at worse over the next 5 games, he needs to keep showing that the Bills second half performances look better than their first half performances, and he has to show that the team is learning to win through discipline and execution. He has to keep the meritocracy that he’s instilled as the backbone of who gets to play and who doesn’t. The icing on the cake will be if he beats 3 AFC East teams and the team looks better and better each week. It’s a tall task, but what the heck, why not? Let’s root for the underdog.
• Old Dogs: If any of you have read the reviews of this Disney movie with John Travolta and Robin Williams, you know that this is perhaps the worst movie of the year. This is the type of movie where critics are excited to bash it and earn style points in doing so. The reason I bring it up is because the search for the new head coach could very well be the Bills’ version of Old Dogs. I’m sure some executive at Walt Disney looked at this terrible script and said, “let’s give this thing a budget and a couple of reliable old faces and this thing cranks out money.” Then the executive realizes weeks later, “wow this script is so awful no one wants to even be a part of it. I guess to bring a name to this thing we have to give them a piece of the gross. Well we can’t have a failure, can we? Let’s sign Travolta and Williams and give them whatever they want.” In the end, Disney is left with an atrocious “Old Dogs” flick that is making “Gigli” a Oscar contender. So as I read the cons on Shanahan (specifically his overzealous spending and lack of wins after Elway), we might be looking at our very own “Old Dogs”. This is not a matter of finding someone with name recognition and throwing money at him to solve everything. I really want us to bring in a reliable GM prior to the end of the season and let him select who the right scouts and coach should be.
• Live from Utah #1: I was in Provo, Utah with my wife’s father and step-mother for Thanksgiving weekend. Provo, for those not in the know, is 98% Mormon. Shelly’s dad and step mom are indeed Mormon. One thing about being Mormon is that Sunday is the Sabbath and the day of rest. TV watching is frowned upon. I knew this going in. I just didn’t realize that there was literally only one restaurant opened in Provo to broadcast the game. It was Shelly and me sitting in a pretty empty restaurant with only 2 Dolphin fans, 2 Bengal fans and a Chiefs fan in this huge restaurant. It was perhaps the most peaceful sportsbar I’ve ever been to.
• Live from Utah #2: I’m 3-0 watching sports with my in-laws. To start the BYU season in September, we watched the Cougars beat Oklahoma in stunning fashion. Then on Saturday we watched the Cougars beat their rivals Utah in overtime. Then I saw the Bills squish the fish on Sunday. While they weren’t watching the game with me, I was watching it from their hometown. I’m not sure what kind of spiritual thing is going on, but it seems to be working. Perhaps next season I see all games from Utah.
• Roscoe Parrish:When is he going to leave this team? Late in the game, a punt came to him, he got tattooed, and fumbled the ball briefly. He was lucky to land on the ball and recover. Roscoe is essentially the Lindsay Lohan of the Bills. You have no idea what he’s going to do, but you know it most likely won’t be good. Sure he’s talented, but he can’t seem to harness it for good. Lohan is a fairly decent actress, but she is just such a mess. The only way I want to see Roscoe fielding punts at this point is if the stickum gloves he wears is accompanied with a stickum helmet and stickum Jersey. I don’t want to say it, but he’s making me do this. I want Chris “the punt catcher” Watson back.
• Two Weeks of 2 minute drill: Last week we drove 80 yards and settled for a field goal with just over 2 minutes to go in the first half. This week the Bills attempted to embark on a 76 yard drive for points with under 2 minutes to play! In my best Van Miller voice, “DO YOU BELIEVE?” After 3.5 years of settling for running out the clock from 2:30 seconds out, it is going to take a few weeks to get use to watching a team attempt to control its own fate. This is beginning to look like real entertainment.
• Flomax: While the front office struggles to find free agents, every now and then they do a good job. Case in point is Drayton Florence. He is like a Visa card right now. Everywhere you want to be. All his open field tackles and good coverage have been rewarded with picks in the last two games.
• The three interceptions: I liked that the interceptions came on a sliding scale of talent for the Bills. Florence, a very good pick up at this point, got the first one, then the second one went to the often maligned Whitner (who in my opinion routinely gets picked on if he is asked to cover a guy man on man), and the third went to fresh off the practice squad Corey Mace. Based on the sliding scale a member of the Billszone staff was poised to make the fourth interception.
• Fitz faces adversity, again: Last week I mentioned how Fitz seems to put bad plays behind him. After a killer 7+minute drive by the Dolphins to open up the third quarter, you could feel the energy get sucked out of the stadium. It was typical Buffalo to come out with zero answers in the second half and throw away a decent first half effort. But there was Fitzpatrick running his own 7+ minute drive that featured a converted 4th and 1 and a rushing touchdown. What?! That doesn’t happen to the 2000-2009 Bills. Nice poise and effort by the entire team to not fold. In the words of Perry Fewell, “those were some big gonads.”
• TOP: The Bills lost the time of possession battle by approximately 2 minutes. Can you believe that? That’s amazing.
• Fitz touchdown run:Who needs Michael Vick when you have Fitz running for a 33 yard touchdown? That really seemed to embolden him for the remainder of the game. Every time they ran that bootleg and the TE was open, he elected to tuck and run. Next play for our versatile QB is the wildcat with Fred Jackson passing it back to Fitzpatrick. A side note to the TD run, I think I saw Fitz attempt to high step the last 5 yards in.
• Ted Ginn Jr.:I love watching this guy. With so many dud first round picks for the Bills, it’s refreshing to see a rival have a player taken way too early who can’t handle the expectations.
• Fred Jackson as a starter: Fewell gets points for personnel decisions. He’s making the hard decisions. He’s passed on Trent Edwards. That wasn’t such a hard choice play wise, but to pick Fitzpatrick over Edwards couldn’t have been an easy political decision. Then he elected to go with Fred Jackson, the merit based winner for the starter job. He put a first round draft choice in Lynch on the bench. Gonads! So while Jauron always said he’d have to look at the film, it seems that Fewell looks at the film and then makes real decisions based on what he saw. I love that this feels like it’s brilliant coaching when it really is just common sense.
• Just to ask:If Ralph is seriously considering giving a portion of the team to a big name, shouldn’t he just hire Jim Kelly so that he has a chance to buy the remaining percentage AR (After Ralph)? The fact that he’s considering giving a portion to another guy has me thinking that the Kelly group isn’t as close as they may think. And that makes me believe the Bills are still a question mark about staying in the WNY area.

As always, Kevin Shenoy can be contacted at binaural02@hotmail