Bills vs Panthers

Well, a win is a win. The boys played much better than last week that's for sure. As bad as they are, do you realize that they are 2 plays away from being 5-2 and in first place in the AFC East? Is the AFC East a weak division? I think so.

The Patriots are solid again, but they are not the same team that they were during their super bowl years. They are still taking the AFC East for fun. And if the Bills can get hot - and I mean fire and brimstone hot - they could sneak into the playoffs as a wild card. But they are gonna have to get some lineman that can block. They might want to start by moving Demetrius Bell to the practice squad or maybe make him a entrance gate attendant. He would probably be good at the entrance gate due to his on field experience. To the left is a picture of him in action from Sundays game. The offense was again the boring, unproductive product that we have seen for the past 5 years with few exceptions.

That being said the Bills defense clearly won this game for the Bills. Yes they gave up 400+ yard of offense but that's the style of defense that Dick Jauron coaches. Putting less emphasis on total yards and more on the turnover ratio. That's exactly what we have dominated on the past two weeks. How scary would it be if the offense was just average and could actually capitalize on some of them. Jairus Byrd is clearly a huge plus for the defense. He has more interceptions in 3 games than Dante Whitner has in his entire career. He's the new Free Safety. when Whitner gets back he can duke it out with George Wilson for Strong Safety.

Just a Side note on Whitner, what a waste of a #8 pick. I remember where I was when they made that pick. I was playing golf at Greystone in Rochester and monitoring the draft on my cell phone. We couldn't believe Matt Leinert was still available when our pick came up and we took Dante Whitner. Where could this team been had we picked Matt Leinert. He may not be proven yet because Kurt Warner just won't die but I guarentee he's better than the slop we have had on the field at quarterback since he entered the league.

The Special Teams really showed up this week, finally. The punt coverage couldn't have been much better. The were on top of the return guy all day. The Panthers had 6 punt returns for a total of 12 yards. That's a pretty good stat. Kick return was just as good only allowing 45 return yards over four chances.

As I had eluded to earlier this team really could sneak into the playoffs. not because they are good, but because the NFL has a bunch of horrible teams this year and Buffalo plays a bunch of them. They are going to have to win at least three of the Houston, Miami, New England, Atlanta and Indy games. And chances are Indy might be playing its scrubs in week 17 as they are playing well and at 6-0 right now. The rest of the games are totally winnable games against other crappy teams

They are going to have to ride the coat tail of the defense in these games against better teams and they are going to have to figure out how to produce some consistant offensive production.
I am just not sure that this defense can continue to make this many plays at this pace. But I am hoping they can.