Archives for November 2009

‘The worst problem for the Bills is an inexperienced offensive line. We don’t know if the young nucleus ever will become a solid unit, but we do know that it now is overmatched. The team’s running backs and quarterbacks can’t fairly be judged because we don’t know exactly how little help they have up front.’

‘But then the Bills came out in the same Wildcat spread, this time with Lynch flip-flopped to the other side of the backfield. The defense, which might have been caught slightly off-guard by the first play, had the play scoped out from the outset. Jackson again faked to Lynch and sprinted left. Safety Bernard Pollard recognized the package, realized Lee Evans and Fitzpatrick could easily be covered on one side by two defensive backs, and came barreling in. That left Terrell Owens to block both Pollard and Glover Quin.’

‘The numbers speak for themselves.’

‘The simple truth, as he made abundantly clear, is the Bills’ offense is absolutely pathetic and it seems to be sinking to new depths every week.’

‘Dick Jauron’s decision to try a fake punt with 12:19 left to play at his own 40 in a game he trailed just 17-10 was another in a long line of blunders. He was looking for a spark for his moribund offense, but the play failed and Houston drove down to a game-clinching TD 2:29 later. The Bills were pathetic on offense with 204 yards and Alex Van Pelt did not call a very good game. On defense, Perry Fewell’s unit was chewed up for 439 yards including 186 on the ground, though in its defense it was on the field for more than 39 minutes.’

‘”Honestly, the defense has been playing their butts off the last four or five weeks and offensively we haven’t been doing anything to help them out,” wide receiver Terrell Owens assessed.’

‘Buffalo held Drew Brees, one of the NFL’s most prolific passers, without a touchdown. But at game’s end, New Orleans held a seven-minute edge in time of possession and the Bills’ exhausted defense, in the fourth quarter, surrendered 78 yards on eight rushing plays including two Pierre Thomas touchdowns. Yesterday was much the same.’

‘”The fake punt was huge, obviously … that left our defense with a short field to defend and they were tired out. They got tired out because we struggled offensively … (we were) just looking for some kind of spark and it didn’t work. They went from 17 (points) to 24 and it snowballed from there.”‘

‘”If you’re going to grow up in this league and you want to be a good football team, you have to understand that you’re going to go through adversity,” coach Gary Kubiak said afterward. “Through adversity, teams get stronger or they go the other way. This tells you the character of the group. They didn’t make excuses.”‘

‘With two more interceptions, rookie free safety Jairus Byrd became only the second player in NFL history to have three consecutive multiple interception games, the first being San Francisco’s Dave Baker in 1960. In picking off Houston’s Matt Schaub twice in the first quarter, Byrd also has interceptions in four straight games, tying the franchise record held by seven others, most recently safety Jeff Nixon in 1980.’

‘”We’re glad that there’s a bye week, because we’ve got a lot of stuff to figure out,” Fitzpatrick said Monday, a day after the Bills stumbled through a 31-10 loss to Houston. “It was a tough one to sleep on.”‘

‘Just when it looked like the Bills were taking a step forward coming off two consecutive road wins, they took a giant step back this week. However, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise considering the putrid play of their offense recently. Averaging 11 points in the last six games, the club has failed to reach 300 yards of offense in any of those contests and has topped out at 160 passing yards. In each of the past two weeks, Buffalo has recorded a whopping nine first downs.’

‘Promoting Hardy would require the Bills to drop a player, potentially one of the six receivers currently on their roster.’

‘Jairus Byrd (groin), Keith Ellison (quad), Jamon Meredith (MCL) and Aaron Schobel (groin) were the latest casualties on Sunday and Byrd spent Monday seeing a specialist to check up on his sports-hernia surgery from this past summer.’

‘”It’s just difficult when you need the stops and just aren’t getting them. In the second half, we needed to get the stops and just didn’t do it, the defense as a whole,” Terrence McGee said. “It’s something we’ve got to go back and correct.”‘