Bills fall to 4-2

by Coast

The Bills suffer another tough road loss to the Giants 27-24. Steve was once again at the game and the Bills once again lost. It has been nearly 7 full calendar years since the Bills have won a game that Steve has attended. Steve, do us all a favor, start watching the road games at UCONN on the HD TV. It will be cheaper for you and less painful for everyone else.

The Bills have a lot of problems, which I will get into in a minute, but I want to look at the big picture first. The Bills are 4-2 heading into the bye week. Who would have been upset with that when the season began? They have wins over the two super bowl favorites before the season, New England and Philadelphia. They have another solid win over Oakland, who appears to be a good football team. The Bengals and Giants, the two teams they lost to, are each 4-2. Regardless of yesterday’s result, the Bills are a solid football team, and WILL have meaningful games in November, which is a rarity.

Yesterday’s loss was depressing. The Bills had the game at their fingertips once again but let it slip away. It pains me to say this…but the major reason why the Bills lost the game was Ryan Fitzpatrick. He made two absolutely critical mistakes in this game that cost the Bills points. The first came in the 2nd quarter. The Bills had 1st and 10 from the Giants 22. At this point, getting a field goal attempt should be worst case scenario. Instead, Fitzpatrick took a sack on first down to back the Bills up to the 28. Then on third down and 16, Fitzpatrick, in true JP Losman fashion, took a 9 yard loss on a sack setting on 4th and 25 from the 37. The Bills were now out of field goal range and forced to punt. Fitz had plenty of time to throw the ball on the third down play but held onto it looking for the big play and it backfired. This CANNOT happen.

The 2nd mistake came on the Bills’ 2nd to last possession. The Bills had 1st and 10 from the Giants 27 with the game tied at 24. There was a hair over 4 minutes left in the game. The Bills decided to pass and Steve Johnson had a step on the Corey Webster, but the ball was grossly underthrown and intercepted. To add insult to injury, Johnson tackled Webster by his facemask and the Giants got the ball at the 19 instead of the 4. Of course, this led to the game winning field goal drive. I have no problem with the ball to throw the ball here. The Bills were trying to win the game and not settle for a 3 point lead like Dallas did later in the day. Fitz absolutely cannot miss this throw short. Fitz needs to make sure that this pass is long and out of bounds if it is going to be incomplete. The throw had no chance.

I won’t put all the blame on Fitz for the loss. There were many things that jumped out at me.

Drayton Florence got abused. He had multiple pass interference penalties. He got lit up by Nix on a long pass setting up a touchdown. The Giants picked on Florence and were successful all day.
The Bills have no pass rush. I know they were missing Kelsay, Merriman and Williams, but I would think that they still should be able to at least get 1 sack on Eli Manning. The Bills just could not generate pressure at all on him. If you pressure Eli, he will make mistakes, if you don’t, he can pick you apart.
The Bills have offensive line issues. Not only were they overmatched yesterday at the tackle position, they have serious injury issues. Levitre had to play tackle after Hairston got hurt. Talk about perfect timing for the bye week.
Fred Jackson had a great run, but other than the 80 yard touchdown run, he had 15 carries for 41 yards and was ineffective.
I thought the 2nd half play calling left a lot to be desired. We never seem to try and run the football from standard running formations. I want to see us put Corey Mac in the game once in a while. Did he see the field on offense yesterday? We had a 3rd and 1 and ran from the wildcat. Sometimes I think Chan still thinks he is playing on Thursday night in Blacksburg taking on the Hokies, not on Sunday afternoon at the Meadowlands.



It wasn’t all bad though.

CJ Spiller looked good playing receiver. He had 5 catches and a few of them were on the outside. It’s a good thing we are finding a way to get him involved. He has to make us a better offense when he is more involved.
Another great play from Naaman. He is stepping in nicely for Don Jones.
Terrance McGee was back in action yesterday and I thought he looked great. He made a great pass breakout in the end zone and had some great hits in run support and on receivers. In total, McGee had 11 tackles, all solo, to lead the team. Maybe Florence is the guy McGee will supplant at starting cornerback after yesterday’s performance.
The Bills (Alex Carrington) blocked a field goal. When was the last time that happened?



The Bills will play Washington in Toronto after the bye. This game is a must win in my opinion. We will split against Dallas and the Jets, at best, so if we lose to Washington, we are looking at 5-4. Its such BS that this game is on Toronto. I wouldn’t give the Skins much of a chance to win if the game were in Buffalo, but the Bills chances of winning in Toronto are about equivalent to the Bills chances of winning a road game that Steve attends.