Buffalo News

‘There were plenty of shortcomings on the Bills this year, but bad special teams was No. 1.’

‘How bad were they? Let us count the ways.’

‘”Tom Donahoe and I had a discussion yesterday and we have decided to talk again,” Wilson said in a statement Thursday. “It won’t be in six months. It will probably take place in the first part of next week.”‘

‘This year’s attendance is the lowest since 1997 (65,470) and is only the third time since 1990 that Buffalo finished below 70,000.’

‘Donahoe, 53, had a meeting with Bills owner Ralph C. Wilson Jr. in West Palm Beach, Fla. The Bills are searching for a replacement for John Butler, who was fired last week after he and the team were unable to agree on a new contract.’

‘The meeting usually is held the week after the end of the season. But the timing of the meeting may allow the Bills time to get a general manager in place to take part in the review.’

‘While I don’t mind Flutie at all, his super loyalists give me indigestion. They’d all like to see Johnson disappear, leaving the field to Flutie alone, even though he will be 39 by mid-season next fall.’

‘The Bills’ organization needs to find a new general manger, decide on the future of head coach Wade Phillips and his staff of assistants, settle a sticky quarterback situation, and make hard decisions that will allow them to get under the NFL salary cap in 2001.’

‘”I think we stayed together for the most part, the best that we could,” running back Antowain Smith said. This year was kind of a rocky situation for the whole team. As soon as things started going wrong, they started blaming a lot of people instead of the team coming together. I think we still continued to fight, but we were still kind of falling apart a little bit.”‘

‘Instead, Johnson regressed. He got battered, and he got worse. By the end of the year, he was a beaten man, both physically and emotionally, sidelined with a minor concussion that his coach termed a “headache” while Doug Flutie turned in the performance of his NFL career in the finale in Seattle.’

‘Flutie hit 20 of 25 passes for 366 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. The yards were a Bills best for the 38-year-old quarterback.’

‘”It was just another opportunity to go out and make the best of it,” Smith said. “You’re playing in front of the world on ESPN, and you want to be at your best. The offensive line did a great job and the receivers did a good job of blocking down field. Then it was up to me to make one man miss or break a tackle and see how many yards I could get.”‘

‘Flutie was, in short, the antithesis of Rob Johnson. It was as if he was staging a clinic for his rival, a demonstration of all the subtle qualities that Johnson lacks. He is still a better quarterback than Rob Johnson. Even at age 38, he has the superior instincts and improvisational skills required to function in Buffalo’s befuddled offense.’

‘Play of the Game: Doug Flutie had a bunch of them in the first half, when he threw for 249 yards and three touchdowns. The most impressive play, though, was a 33-yard pass to Peerless Price to set up the game’s first TD. Operating with an empty backfield, Flutie reacted to an all-out blitz by throwing the ball toward the vacated area and finding Price in single coverage.’

‘The number of ejections climbed from 580 in 1998 to 966 last year, or about 120 per game. Though the Bills don’t like to publicize the exact number, sources said the figure stayed about the same, between 950 and 1,000, for the just-concluded home season.’