Your Titans-Bills Open Thread: Something Free, Something Old

As of Oct. 29, a week from tomorrow, you will no longer be able to peruse all areas of the online version of The Buffalo News for free. That's when the newspaper begins its experiment in seeing if enough of its readers are willing to pay for what they are already getting for free.

The list of businesses able to make a living by convincing internet users to pay for non-pornographic content is pretty short. At the same time, something has got to give.

I grew up a newspaper junkie and eventually went pro with my addiction, working in the business for the better part of two decades. Yet the only times I have purchased a print edition in recent memory have been when I needed four broadsheet pages with which to light my charcoal chimney (one of mankind's great recent inventions, incidentally) and when venerable News columnist Larry Felser wrote his final Sunday column.

And I'm part of the last generation for whom flipping through a paper over coffee, or spending a leisurely few hours with the Sunday New York Times, was an actual experience and not just something you see people do in old movies.

So We Want Marangi wishes the newspaper all the best in its pay-wall endeavor. In the meantime, head over there and get the free stuff while it lasts.

In today's sports section, Bucky Gleason nicely sums up the atmosphere heading into today's Clash of the Mediocrities, the 1 p.m. contest between the 2-4 Titans and the somehow 3-3 Bills:

In Buffalo, it takes a dozen years to tear down a decrepit sports arena, a generation and counting to get a bridge built and several lifetimes to develop a waterfront. Our economy is a mess, our city schools need an overhaul and let’s not waste any time haggling over red tape and local politics.

One thing people in this region do know, at least the 35-over crowd that remembers the Super Bowl years, is the difference between good and bad football. The Bills fail to pass the eye test. If fact, they look more like one of the teams that missed the playoffs for a dozen straight years than a first-place team.

Buffalo is 31st in total defense, last against the run, second-last in points allowed, 21st in total offense, 29th in passing yards per game. Ryan Fitzpatrick is the 21st-rated passer in the league. The two games against New England and San Francisco were pitiful. The win over Arizona easily could have gone the other way.

And yet they’re tied atop the division. Amazing.

Buffalo's unlikely place in a four-way tie atop the AFC East had me thinking about another visit by Tennessee, late in the 2006 season. While the 12 seasons and counting since the Bills last made the playoffs sort of all run together, I had almost forgotten that 2006, and not 2004, was the last time Buffalo had a shot at making its own way into the playoffs as late as its 15th game of the season. Which, of course, it lost in painful fashion.

The column (which appears in its entirety below because I have no interest in sending any traffic to the abomination that the newspaper that originally published it has become) is also notable because it stars not only Bills punchlines-to-be Dick Jauron and J.P. Losman, but also past and future disappointments Travis Henry and Vince Young.

So enjoy, and see you in the comments below.

MIAMI'S LOSS EASES BUFFALO'S PAIN

By David Staba At least the Jets won.

There probably haven't been too many times in the 46-year history of the two franchises that a victory by the green shirts from the metropolitan New York area was a good thing for the Buffalo Bills or their fans, but Monday's 13-10 escape against Miami spared their lifelong division rivals an even more agonizing bout of the what-ifs.

Had the Dolphins won on Christmas night and the Bills been able to protect a nine-point fourth-quarter lead at home against a rookie quarterback a day earlier, Buffalo's season finale in Baltimore would have constituted the simplest of playoff scenarios: Win and you're in.

After the Bills defense proved itself unworthy of meaningful January competition, though, a Miami victory to complete the trifecta of what-needs-to-happen games would have just been cruel.

The second-guessing would have been suffocating. To wit, Buffalo should have taken the wind in the fourth quarter, rather than the third, so kicker Rian Lindell would have had it at his back if needed. Dick Jauron should have sent Lindell out to try that long one into the gusts, anyway. The Bills should have gone for it on fourth-and-1 from the Tennessee 47-yard line early in the fourth quarter, when another score would have put the game away. Jauron should have ordered a two-point conversion attempt after J.P. Losman's 37-yard touchdown pass to Lee Evans in the third quarter, which would have put Buffalo ahead by eight.

If only Robert Royal had gotten both feet down late in the third quarter. If only Losman had found a receiver on Buffalo's last offensive play. If only Tom Donahoe hadn't dumped Travis Henry.

None of that matters much now, thanks to the Jets.

Which is just as well. The Bills aren't going to miss the playoffs for the seventh straight season because of coaching decisions made or not made, but because, despite a season of remarkable development in some areas and overachievement in others, they aren't quite good enough.

The biggest deficiency glared most painfully during that fourth quarter, as Tennessee stomped inexorably down the field twice against a Buffalo defense that needed only one stop to seal the deal.

The defensive collapse would have been galling enough had it involved Vince Young prancing around like a video-game character eluding mere mortals, the phenomenon that kept the Titans competitive through three quarters.

Young displayed both athleticism and poise during the fourth quarter. He made a nice third-down throw down the middle to Brandon Jones that turned into a 29-yard touchdown and had a 9-yard scramble on each drive. But he primarily handed off and got on the way on the decisive possessions.

And to make things even more irritating, he was mostly handing off to Henry.

The vengeful former Buffalo running back carried 10 times in the fourth quarter, slashing through what passed for the Bills run defense for 67 yards. Young and Lendale White picked up another 31 on the ground.

That's 98 rushing yards in one quarter. By a team that one week earlier managed precisely the same number of yards, running and passing, in an entire game.

But despite such debilitating weakness in a fundamental aspect of the game, with another break or two against Tennessee, or in close losses against New England, the Jets, Detroit, Indianapolis and San Diego, and the Bills would be playing for a playoff spot on Sunday in Baltimore. A couple more instances of good fortune, and they'd already be assured of a berth.

That's at least partly a commentary on the state of the National Football League. But that Buffalo, which started the season 2-5, played a game on Christmas Eve that mattered at all is also a statement on a young team that got better after reaching the depths in mid-October. And it also says plenty about Jauron, who began absorbing criticism from some quarters about an hour after he was hired last winter.

The loss to Tennessee guaranteed another non-winning season, Buffalo's sixth in the last seven campaigns. But the Bills, as managed by Marv Levy and coached by Jauron, have already won two more games than last year's model and at least that many more than most national prognosticators anticipated.

Most of all, they managed to make yet another season that ended before the playoffs feel like an unquestioned success.
 
BILLS MVP: Lee Evans may not have won the popularity contest that puts players in the Pro Bowl, but he's established himself as Buffalo's most dangerous offensive weapon since Eric Moulds' prime. And he can throw the ball, too.
 
THE OTHER GUYS' MVP: Travis Henry: 25 carries, 135 yards. Enough said.
 
RADIO DAY: Due to the blackout and the demands of the holiday, BillStuff wound up experiencing the game like just about everyone in Western New York, the announced attendance of 54,765 aside -- listening to the game on the radio.

In the interest of full disclosure, last-minute shopping took a bit longer than anticipated, so we took in most of the first half in between various retail experiences. Every time we turned the radio on, somebody had scored.

Two plays, each which seemed to last much longer than humanly possible when listened to, rather than seen, summed up the day.

The first was Young's 36-yard touchdown run at the end of the first half, which seemed to last for about seven minutes when related by play-by-play man John Murphy's disbelieving call.

Then came Losman's final heave, which followed another impossibly long scramble.
Young's wild dash ended with the ball in the end zone. Losman's finished with an interception. And Murphy's tone captured both perfectly.
 
WING REPORT: Shopping completed, we picked up a batch of mediums at M.T. Pockets on Hertel Avenue, along with one of their brilliant steak sandwiches. I figure the two doses of fat and cholesterol cancel each other out.

Last week, while in Corning on non-BillStuff business, we sampled the offerings at Captain Morgan's Sport 'n' Seafood. On a previous visit, one of the friendly servers mentioned that their wings earned multiple awards at past Buffalo Wing Fests. Unfortunately, this was after we finished an order of the crab-stuffed shrimp. So this time, in addition to an appetizer of bacon-wrapped scallops, we tried their mediums and a one of their award-winning variations -- honey-habanero.

I'd never tried that particular combination before. Never given out two As in one week, either, but both establishments were more than deserving.
 
BS FAN(S) OF THE WEEK: The Catania clan moved from BillStuff's hometown to South Florida a few years back, but took fierce loyalty to the home team with them.

Pete called shortly after the game and left a voicemail that indicated the big picture had yet to dilute the pain of Sunday's near-miss.

"My dad can't believe it -- he's going nuts here," Pete said of his father, a loyalist also named Pete.

It can't be easy being a Bills fan in Dolphins territory, but the Catanias unfailingly keep the faith. So to Pete, Pete, Marilyn, Jackie and Jesse: Just wait until next year.