B-B-B-B-B-Blew It

Well the Millman is obviously too heart-broken to post his thoughts. But someone should be touching on the choke-job that was another Buffalonian start for the Orchard Park Bills.

First, let me say that as much as I was ragging on the Bills and as much hatred as I have harbored for the Bills in my past five years of living out the football season in the area of Buffalo, PA, an All-America city...I actually felt a little bad for the true Bills fans out there. And there are some true Bills fans out there, some good football fans that know the sport and know their team - that go into every season with hope and hold onto that hope until every single mathematical equation they can run on the wild card contenders proves the Bills to be dead in the water.

However, I must say that knowing the Buffalo fan-base pretty closely I sense that it is one which aligns itself closely to the fan-base of the team that ripped its heart out last night actually...only baseball...That's right, I'm talking about the Boston Red Sox. And not today's Boston Red Sox. But the Red Sox fan-base pre-2002 championship season. The Bills are a fan-base that prides themselves on misfortune. They love to wallow in their own pity. The like to carry out their misery on their faces. They like to whine and complain. They like to hope, almost only so that they can feel more crushed when it all inevitably goes wrong. I wonder what would happen if the Bills actually won the Super Bowl before the team gets moved to T-Dot. Fans wouldn't know how to react. They would be lost. They would need to re-create their entire persona. I dare say it might ruin them. That day seems far off however.

Let's face it. If the Bills won last night they probably would go 5-11 instead of 4-12. The Patriots came out with an odd, vanilla game-plan that left Bill Bellichik showing nothing in way of complex defensive alignments and blitzing schemes...and a rare heavy dosage of ineffective running and a refusal to let Tom Brady even think about throwing the football down-field. I don't know whether the Patriots a) didn't take the Bills seriously, b) don't feel confident that Brady is ready yet, c) are finally feeling the losses of all of their coordinators or d) simply aren't that good this year. Either way, the Bills somehow managed to put on a pretty effective blocking display despite an inexperienced, mix-matched offensive line. Defensively, they were probably more fortunate with Brady showing some rare fits of inaccuracy, Bellichik with some bizarre play-calling and overall missed opportunities for the Pats.

But make no mistake about it, the Bills should have won that football game. And as the Millman told me yesterday "I'd gladly take a 1-15 season, if it means taking out the Patriots tonight." And that is what makes it so painful I'm sure. Therein lies the problem, however. Bills fans have taken on an incredible hatred for the Patriots - as all other fans of this division's also-rans have taken on as well...and with such a limited roster, Bills fans really don't have much to hope for outside of beating the Patriots in a "well, if we are going down, then we want to take you with us" approach. My step-dad is a huge Jets fan and has tickets to the game against the Pats at the Meadowlands this Sunday. I have heard him say, "hopefully we don't get crushed." The Bills squandered a golden opportunity last night to take the Patriots back down to the level of the rest of these teams. Instead, they do nothing but add to the mystique of the Patriots. To the invincibility of this team..the magic that makes all the other team's feel that somehow, someway, despite score, down, distance and time - that the Patriots and Tom Brady will somehow find a way to win. In just two minutes last night the Bills missed an opportunity to strip that from them in 2009. Instead, if I were feeling more cruel, I would have posted the top-5 prospects in the 2010 NFL Draft...and in the mean time we are all forced to believe that the Patriots will against get it together and win the AFC East.

A couple other things from the game: Tirico, Hodge and anyone else who thinks Leodis McKelvin shouldn't have taken that ball out of the end-zone: you're an idiot. Of course he should have taken it out of the end-zone and spoiled the two minute warning. The problem wasn't that he took it out, but that he prioritized gaining yards ahead of what should have been his two main goals: getting to the 2 minute mark and holding onto the football. And while I'm ragging on Tirico, nice comment he made right after they showed the stat that was something like, TO: targeted twice, one catch for 26 yards. Randy Moss: targeted 12 times for 10 catches and 126 yards. "Terrence McGee has done an outstanding job covering Randy Moss tonight." I don't even know how much McGee covered Moss, but I do know that Moss was a one-man wrecking crew and the only thing that really kept the Patriots offense moving the chains all night.

I already mentioned that I thought the Pats looked vanilla. Their defense looked remarkably slow and I'm really not sure what to make of that. Bellichik might need to really show off his genius by getting this unit to be productive this year. I think the offense is obviously going to get better as Brady gains his confidence back, but the defense looms a large question mark. With the Dolphins already losing, is this division open for the Jets? I liked them before the season and don't want to be another one jumping all over this team after just one game (against a constantly overrated Texans team no less)..but their defense right now may be the best in the division. They can block and they have a couple play-makers. Interesting division if New England doesn't take off.