Bills suck the air, life out of the dome

By Anthony Bialy  |   Monday, December 08, 2008  |  Comments( 136 )

Buffalo Bills
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This disgraceful Buffalo Bills team did the unthinkable: They made their fans forget to hate the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, as backers had no reason to summon the energy to get pumped. It was bad enough watching this franchise pretend to play a home contest actually staged in a foreign province, but even worse was the game itself, specifically the way in which a wholly useless offense did nothing other than lose. Six points over two games leads to a failed season brought about in the dullest manner possible.

It started at quarterback: J.P. Losman just needs to try this somewhere else. He’s been given one thousand chances under one hundred different scenarios to prove he can deliver on potential, and at this rate Will Smith is more likely to show that he can act well before Buffalo’s onetime hope plays even competently. There are no statistics needed to prove how dreadfully Losman played, and here are some anyway: The fifth-year passer completed 13 passes against 14 failures and only gained 123 yards on the ones that worked. Throw in his crushing interception and, of course, the fact he couldn’t manage to lead his team to a touchdown, much less throw for one, and this matchup stands as the perfect ending for Losman’s relationship with the Bills; it’s never been more evident why both sides can’t start seeing other people soon enough.

Sadly, the passer wasn’t the only problem. Was there one positive memorable play executed by the offense in Toronto? Sifting through memories of this game is like attempting to recall a dinner at Ponderosa from three weeks ago: The event was either unremarkable or bad enough that it should be deliberately forgotten. In the same way, virtually every snap taken by the Bills was either pedestrian or awful.

Of course, Losman habitually overthrew every receiver the Bills have; a few footballs he egregiously heaved wouldn’t have been caught even if the wideouts were allowed to engage in Argonauts-style forward motion before the snap. On the other hand, the targets blundered frequently, too, namely with a series of unspeakable drops they collectively made on some of those remarkable moments when Losman was accurate.

On top of that, the line occasionally committed horrible gaffes before the quarterback or catchers could get the chance. For one, there was left tackle Jason Peters playing like a holdout at the worst possible time, helping to kill any chance of a momentum swing by allowing a third-down sack worth 10 negative yards on Buffalo’s first drive of the second half. It’s not exactly the answer Bills fans wanted, but at least there’s closure to the question of whether he’s going to noticeably loiter on at least one play per game through the entire season.

Meanwhile, center Duke Preston’s unawareness of where his quarterback stood was the sort of moment that would have ended up on a football follies-type video you’d get free with a “Sports Illustrated” subscription 20 years ago. His non-shotgun snap to his shotgun-aligned Losman means he was just another wrench in the machine who helped create the utterly miserable feeling that the offense was going to find a way to mess things up whenever presented with the chance.

This was already a stuffy, airless game to begin with; enduring it was like watching a movie about football directed by Stanley Kubrick. And yet the quasi-home team found a way to exacerbate the boredom. The sterile atmosphere can naturally be partly blamed on the game’s detached setting; followers should thank the NFL for taking away home-field advantage from the Bills for the one contest where the team enjoys it the most, namely against a despised rival that’s allergic to chilliness. But Buffalo’s offense was the true source of pain, as its unfortunate showing proved this team is remarkably not done heading south, no matter the high latitude.
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CommentsComments: 136  |  Sign Up  View all comments
No.1
Kegman		09:51 AM
12/08/2008
Good rant AB. This franchise seems to be able to set the bar lower each week...how is that possible? What a grand afternoon of...
No.2
Achilles		10:21 AM
12/08/2008
Dolphins won one game last year. Seems to me that a turnaround doesn't have to take 20 years. A turnaround takes an owner who...
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No.3
8and8Forever		10:24 AM
12/08/2008
Well on the way to 6-10. However, the Bills are the only game in town in good ole WNY and the cheapest ticket in the league,...
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