Remaining Ambulatory Bills Face JV Foe

Tyrod Taylor. Sammy Watkins. Percy Harvin. Seantrell Henderson. John Miller. Karlos Williams. Marquise Goodwin.

All are out for Buffalo's Sunday-morning meeting with Jacksonville in London. That's the starting quarterback, the Bills' No. 1 and 2 wide receivers, two starters on an offensive line that has not exactly dominated opposing defenses when fully healthy, their most effective running back through the season's first month and another wide-out, who, though he rarely ever touches the ball, would be a nice deep threat to have around with the other two downfield targets sidelined.

And that's just the offense.

Kyle Williams will also watch from the sidelines or press box at Wembley Stadium, leaving a 303-pound hole in the midst of a defensive line that has rarely approached its anticipated form during Buffalo's 3-3 start.

Meanwhile, the secondary still lacks projected starters Aaron Williams, who is on injured reserve, and Leodis McKelvin, who started practicing again this week, but is not on the active roster (though he is listed as questionable for Sunday, suggesting such a move might be possible).

Aaron Williams' absence means plenty of Duke Williams, who shares little beyond a surname and propensity for stupid penalties with the safety he's trying to replace.

That's eight Buffalo starters in all who will miss Sunday's game, as well as two key (under the circumstances, at least) reserves. Fortunately, the Jaguars represent the National Football League's junior varsity, staggering in at 1-5, their lone win coming against the Joe Philbin-era Miami Dolphins.

As Big Cat Country, SBNation.com's Jaguars-centric page, puts it in a headline: "Buffalo lists everyone as 'out' and will probably still win."

That assessment is more a function of Jacksonville's ceaseless putrefaction than praise of the Bills' depth chart. It's not like Buffalo has looked like a powerhouse for any extended period of time, either.

Maybe an offense involving E.J. Manuel (who was neither horrid nor good enough to overcome the defensive flaws against Cincinnati) throwing to Robert Woods and Chris Hogan while protected by the oft-replaced Kraig Urbik and Cyrus Kouandjio will thrill the United Kingdom with a series of big plays, giving Rex Ryan's defense a lead with which to work out the schematic issues so glaringly evident in each of Buffalo's three losses.

And maybe Duke Williams will finally figure out where he's supposed to be in pass coverage.

More likely, this one turns out to be a re-run of the Bills' 14-13 win in Tennessee, without Taylor's late-game heroics, with the defense doing enough to compensate for the offense's deficiencies long enough for the Jaguars to find a way to lose.

Which will do little to fuel the sort of overseas fervor for the American version of football that the NFL has been trying to generate for the last few decades, or to slow the steady cooling of Rex Fever back home.

Between sniping from the veteran defenders who were supposed to thrive in Ryan's acclaimed system and the meticulous dissections of same by Tom Brady, Eli Manning and Andy Dalton, the Bills and their coach find themselves in an excuse-free zone against the Jaguars.

Blake Bortles has improved in his second year as Jacksonville's starting quarterback, with 13 touchdown passes and two straight 300-yard performances (following a 298-yarder the week before that). The Jaguars lost all three, though, and Bortles has also thrown seven interceptions, fumbled three times and taken 17 sacks.

He also sprained his throwing shoulder two weeks ago. Ordinarily, that might cause a team to give its young franchise quarterback a chance to rest and recover. But these are the Jaguars.

If Rex's rush -- be it of the three-, four- or 10-man variety -- can't do some damage against Bortles, it's time to start seriously considering if the game's evolving offenses and rule book have antiquated Ryan's tactics.

And if the Bills don't find a way to beat the Jaguars, they limp into their bye week at 3-4, wondering where a season that opened with such optimism all went wrong.

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For anyone relying on DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket for live game action, or who lives outside the Buffalo or Jacksonville television markets, the only way to watch the game (legally) will be to stream it live by going to this link by 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

Which does little for anyone who would prefer to DVR the game and watch it at a slightly more reasonable hour, such as expatriate Buffalonian Erik Brady of USA Today:

Matters not to me on what TV channel I watch, only that I can — and that I can record it to watch later, if need be. That’s an option that’d be especially nice for a game that kicks off when much of America is at church.

Brady goes on to explore the league's rationale for limiting the nation's exposure to Bills-Jaguars, which WWM's crack team of corporate-speak translators indicate amounts to "What part of Bills-Jaguars don't you understand?"

For those with technology capable of handling a live stream telecast, here's a quick explanation of how to see the game on a screen bigger than your smartphone or computer.

If you must.

(NOTE: You, too, can follow @DavidStaba on the Twitter. I'll follow you back, and we can all enjoy Sunday's inevitable technical glitches and on-field bumbling together.)