The Bills have just pulled within a touchdown early in the fourth quarter and the defense takes the field.
"Are the Buffalo Bills winning?" asks Oscar, who has just wandered into the living room and sat next to me on the couch.
"No," I tell him. "But if they stop the Colts here and get the ball back, they've got a chance."
Oscar is six, so I try to emphasize the hopeful part of being a fan, the good feeling produced when optimism gets reinforced. He has plenty of time to learn the world's harsher realities.
"The Bills need the defense to do something," I say. "They need Mario Williams to do something."
Oscar is quite possibly the world's most devoted aficionado of MariO's, the Honey Nut Cheerios knock-off packaged in a box with the fearsome visage of the highest-paid defensive player in the National Football League. Thanks to a rather intensive brainwashing program, he has come to believe that actions such as the consumption of a particular food can impact the outcome of a sporting event.
"Do you think we should have some MariOs?" I ask him, brow furrowed in an effort to look serious.
His eyes get wider than usual.
"Yes!"
Oscar jumps off the couch, and runs into the kitchen.
"Mom! We need to eat some MariOs! Where are they?"
I can't see Josselyn's eye-roll, but think I hear it. Still, Oscar runs back with the box just as Marcell Dareus drops a scrambling Andrew Luck after a 1-yard gain on first down.
I open the box and Oscar grabs a handful.
"Do you think the Bills play better because we're eating MariOs?" he asked, repeating a question I have used several times during his indoctrination.
"I don't know," I say, taking my own handful. "What do you think?"
Again with the wide eyes.
"Yes!"
Luck hits T.Y. Hilton, who has scored both Indianapolis touchdowns, on second down, but Buffalo cornerback Justin Rogers wraps him up two yards short of the marker.
"It's third down, Oscar. If the Bills can stop them from going this far," I stand and point to the yellow line on the screen, "They get the ball back."
"Which one is Mario?" he asks.
"He's right here."
Still standing by the television, I point to No. 94 getting into his stance at the top of the picture. I sit down next to Oscar as the ball is snapped, and Williams swoops in on Luck and deposits the league's first overall draft pick on the artificial turf.
"Mario!" Oscar yells, his mouth full of cereal. He turns to me for a fist bump (which, in his near-constant state of exuberance, is usually more of a fist punch. We are working on it).
That, of course, would be the high point of the afternoon.
We could rehash the rest of the game -- the predictable Fitzpatrick interception, minimized by Stevie Johnson's terrific effort in stripping and recovering the loose ball; Chan Gailey's continuing insistence on not using his best offensive player, C.J. Spiller, in game-deciding situations; Gailey's decision to once again abandon the offense's most productive weapon, the running game, when down by one score with plenty of time remaining; Gailey's second craven choice of the day to punt on fourth down; and the defense's inability to stop an offense with wavering confidence and a rookie quarterback on an all-or-nothing third-and-10, this time due to rookie corner Stephon Gilmore's weekly pass interference infraction.
But that would be just as depressing as watching it all happen. Once again. (If you really want to get into that mess, Jerry Sullivan does so in style here -- if you have a subscription to the Buffalo News or haven't used up your monthly allotment of free articles yet.)
Such an accounting also would miss the main point -- for the 12th time in the 13 seasons since the Bills last reached the postseason, they enter December with only a mathematical chance so slim as to be delusional.
Their quarterback isn't good enough. Their coaches aren't good enough. The players who are worthy of a playoff roster -- Spiller, Jackson, Johnson, the improved offensive line, Kyle Williams, Jairus Byrd -- aren't good enough to make up for the components that are not.
Not even Williams producing the sort of game fans, Gailey and Buddy Nix envisioned when he signed that $100 million contract last spring -- three sacks, two other tackles in the Indy backfield and four hits on Luck -- is good enough to overcome the systemic shortcomings on and off the field.
Yes, the sorry state of the AFC, compounded by Pittsburgh's apparent free-fall in the absence of Ben Roethlisberger, means someone will make the playoffs at 9-7 or, very possibly, 8-8.
But as Gary, We Want Marangi's senior legal adviser, pointed out in the afterglow of last week's win over Miami, thinking about playoff scenarios requires you to ignore the shortcomings of the Bills themselves.
Watching them choke -- that's a harsh word, but painfully accurate -- on Sunday in what amounted to a regular-season playoff game -- makes such blissful ignorance impossible. Given the quality of the next five opponents, along with the fact three of them are at home, one is in Toronto and the single road game is in Miami, where the Dolphins have no discernible advantage, the Bills, now 4-7, could win them all.
As Sunday showed, however, they're at least as capable of losing any or all of them -- especially considering that they have frittered away any possible margin for error, which figures to only increase pressure, which they have shown no ability to handle.
"Are visions of playoffs still dancing in your head?" Gary asked Sunday night via text message.
Not this team. Not with this coach. Not with this quarterback.
"It must get old, writing about them losing all the time," Josselyn said after the game.
Yes. Yes, it does. Besides a lack of time, that was the main reason I had taken a few seasons off after writing regularly about the previous 19.
But it isn't just the losing. It's that the story just keeps repeating itself.
Gailey is Dick Jauron -- a seemingly decent person with some success as a coordinator and absolutely no business being a head coach -- but with a beard.
And Ryan Fitzpatrick is Kelly Holcomb -- a cast-off who fans detest less than the more acclaimed homegrown draft pick who came before -- but with a beard. And a much larger contract.
When Buffalo started 5-2 last year, it made for a nice story: The players nobody wanted led by the coach nobody wanted proving everybody else wrong.
The Bills have played 20 regular-season games since then. They have won five. Turns out everybody else was right.
WWM MVP: Johnson caught six passes for 106 yards, including a 63-yard catch-and-run that Gailey's play-calling helped turn into a field goal. The receiver also made the aforementioned strip on Indianapolis safety Tom Zbikowski, which should have been a game- and season-changing play.
Johnson gets extra credit for urging Gailey to give Fitzpatrick more latitude in changing play calls.
BUT it doesn't matter who calls the plays if Fitzpatrick can't execute them. Even with an almost-exclusively short-range game plan, he barely completed 50 percent of his throws (17-of-33). And he badly overthrew two open receivers when the Bills did try to stretch the Colts.
Fitzpatrick was particularly pitiful in the first half, completing just six of 15 passes as the Bills managed a pair of field goals against a defense that gave up 59 points a week earlier in New England.
AND it might help more if someone, anyone else decided who is on the field when the Bills have the ball. Spiller disappeared for long stretches of the second and fourth quarters, finishing with just 14 carries, despite averaging 7.6 yards each time he did get the ball.
Spiller sparked Buffalo's only touchdown drive with a 41-yard run and ran for 51 of the 66 yards that put the Bills at Indy's 13-yard line just two minutes into the fourth quarter.
So, naturally, his number was not called on a single running play the rest of the way.
IF you missed it, here's video of two Colts cheerleaders getting their heads shaved. Megan, the woman on the right, pledged to go bald if the team's mascot raised $10,000 for leukemia research, in honor of Indianapolis coach Chuck Pagano, who is sidelined while he fights the disease. The mascot, Blue, raised more than $22,000, so Crystal, who overcame leukemia as a child, donated her locks, as well.
I'm not sure what I like better about the video -- that a guy dressed as a blue horse started the shaving process, or that he did so in a way that briefly made Megan and Crystal appear both bald and mulleted.
That, of course, would be the high point of the afternoon.
We could rehash the rest of the game -- the predictable Fitzpatrick interception, minimized by Stevie Johnson's terrific effort in stripping and recovering the loose ball; Chan Gailey's continuing insistence on not using his best offensive player, C.J. Spiller, in game-deciding situations; Gailey's decision to once again abandon the offense's most productive weapon, the running game, when down by one score with plenty of time remaining; Gailey's second craven choice of the day to punt on fourth down; and the defense's inability to stop an offense with wavering confidence and a rookie quarterback on an all-or-nothing third-and-10, this time due to rookie corner Stephon Gilmore's weekly pass interference infraction.
But that would be just as depressing as watching it all happen. Once again. (If you really want to get into that mess, Jerry Sullivan does so in style here -- if you have a subscription to the Buffalo News or haven't used up your monthly allotment of free articles yet.)
Such an accounting also would miss the main point -- for the 12th time in the 13 seasons since the Bills last reached the postseason, they enter December with only a mathematical chance so slim as to be delusional.
Their quarterback isn't good enough. Their coaches aren't good enough. The players who are worthy of a playoff roster -- Spiller, Jackson, Johnson, the improved offensive line, Kyle Williams, Jairus Byrd -- aren't good enough to make up for the components that are not.
Not even Williams producing the sort of game fans, Gailey and Buddy Nix envisioned when he signed that $100 million contract last spring -- three sacks, two other tackles in the Indy backfield and four hits on Luck -- is good enough to overcome the systemic shortcomings on and off the field.
Yes, the sorry state of the AFC, compounded by Pittsburgh's apparent free-fall in the absence of Ben Roethlisberger, means someone will make the playoffs at 9-7 or, very possibly, 8-8.
But as Gary, We Want Marangi's senior legal adviser, pointed out in the afterglow of last week's win over Miami, thinking about playoff scenarios requires you to ignore the shortcomings of the Bills themselves.
Watching them choke -- that's a harsh word, but painfully accurate -- on Sunday in what amounted to a regular-season playoff game -- makes such blissful ignorance impossible. Given the quality of the next five opponents, along with the fact three of them are at home, one is in Toronto and the single road game is in Miami, where the Dolphins have no discernible advantage, the Bills, now 4-7, could win them all.
As Sunday showed, however, they're at least as capable of losing any or all of them -- especially considering that they have frittered away any possible margin for error, which figures to only increase pressure, which they have shown no ability to handle.
"Are visions of playoffs still dancing in your head?" Gary asked Sunday night via text message.
Not this team. Not with this coach. Not with this quarterback.
"It must get old, writing about them losing all the time," Josselyn said after the game.
Yes. Yes, it does. Besides a lack of time, that was the main reason I had taken a few seasons off after writing regularly about the previous 19.
But it isn't just the losing. It's that the story just keeps repeating itself.
Gailey is Dick Jauron -- a seemingly decent person with some success as a coordinator and absolutely no business being a head coach -- but with a beard.
And Ryan Fitzpatrick is Kelly Holcomb -- a cast-off who fans detest less than the more acclaimed homegrown draft pick who came before -- but with a beard. And a much larger contract.
When Buffalo started 5-2 last year, it made for a nice story: The players nobody wanted led by the coach nobody wanted proving everybody else wrong.
The Bills have played 20 regular-season games since then. They have won five. Turns out everybody else was right.
WWM MVP: Johnson caught six passes for 106 yards, including a 63-yard catch-and-run that Gailey's play-calling helped turn into a field goal. The receiver also made the aforementioned strip on Indianapolis safety Tom Zbikowski, which should have been a game- and season-changing play.
Johnson gets extra credit for urging Gailey to give Fitzpatrick more latitude in changing play calls.
BUT it doesn't matter who calls the plays if Fitzpatrick can't execute them. Even with an almost-exclusively short-range game plan, he barely completed 50 percent of his throws (17-of-33). And he badly overthrew two open receivers when the Bills did try to stretch the Colts.
Fitzpatrick was particularly pitiful in the first half, completing just six of 15 passes as the Bills managed a pair of field goals against a defense that gave up 59 points a week earlier in New England.
AND it might help more if someone, anyone else decided who is on the field when the Bills have the ball. Spiller disappeared for long stretches of the second and fourth quarters, finishing with just 14 carries, despite averaging 7.6 yards each time he did get the ball.
Spiller sparked Buffalo's only touchdown drive with a 41-yard run and ran for 51 of the 66 yards that put the Bills at Indy's 13-yard line just two minutes into the fourth quarter.
So, naturally, his number was not called on a single running play the rest of the way.
IF you missed it, here's video of two Colts cheerleaders getting their heads shaved. Megan, the woman on the right, pledged to go bald if the team's mascot raised $10,000 for leukemia research, in honor of Indianapolis coach Chuck Pagano, who is sidelined while he fights the disease. The mascot, Blue, raised more than $22,000, so Crystal, who overcame leukemia as a child, donated her locks, as well.
I'm not sure what I like better about the video -- that a guy dressed as a blue horse started the shaving process, or that he did so in a way that briefly made Megan and Crystal appear both bald and mulleted.
Oh to be a child,or at the least, an ovef exhuberant fan again. They dont give me much hope let alone anything to cheer about.
ReplyDeleteOh to be a child,or at the least, an ovef exhuberant fan again. They dont give me much hope let alone anything to cheer about.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy reading your writings.
ReplyDelete