Bills-Pats A Good Bet For A Bad Beat

I’m sitting in a sports bar in downtown Las Vegas (the gambling mecca’s smaller, seedier, much cooler tourist district, relative to the more popularly gaudy Strip), watching the Buffalo Bills take on the dreaded New England Patriots in a Sunday-night game with my brother-in-law.

It’s the evening before Halloween 2005. The Patriots have won the last two Super Bowls and three of the most-recent four, but are not yet the unstoppable offensive power they would become a couple years later.

A season earlier, the Bills came as close as they have come since Home Run Throwback to reaching the playoffs, going 9-7 but losing to Pittsburgh’s third- and fourth-stringers in the season finale. So, being the Bills, they released Drew Bledsoe after the near-miss, handing the veteran’s job to thoroughly untested J.P. Losman, who promptly lost it to journeyman Kelly Holcomb.

Buffalo is somehow only a game behind the 4-3 Patriots heading into the Sunday nighter. I wrote a weekly column picking games against the spread for various newspapers through the 1990s and early 2000s, but, beyond the occasional whim-based parlay card of the type sold in your less-reputable gin mills, had never bet real money on football games until this first trip to Vegas.

Emboldened by coming out ahead on the daytime contests, as well as Saturday’s college-football action at $5 or $10 per bet, I decide to go a little bigger on the Sunday-night game. I figure that if there is such a thing as an absolute lock in the National Football League, it is New England stomping Buffalo in Foxboro in prime time (the same situation the present-day 5-4 Bills find themselves in on Monday). So I put a $100 on the Patriots, considering the relatively small seven-point spread a bargain for such a sure thing.

So, of course, Buffalo dominates the first three quarters, with Holcomb excelling at handing the ball to Willis McGahee again and again, helping keep the ball away from Tom Brady for 35 of the first 50 minutes. Holcomb even manages to hit a big one, his 55-yard touchdown pass to Eric Moulds putting the Bills ahead 10-7 early in the third quarter.

Buffalo’s defense does its part, keeping New England’s running game, then the dominant factor in its offense, in check, while sacking Brady three times back when such an accomplishment was feasible.

Aaron Schobel gets two of those three sacks, the second coming early in the fourth quarter, jarring the ball loose to be recovered by the immortal Lavale Sape. That sets up Rian Lindell’s second field goal of the quarter, giving the Bills a nine-point lead with 10 minutes to play.

My bet virtually doomed, as the Patriots would need 17 points to cover the spread, I felt the karma incurred by betting against the hometown team filling the crowded bar.

“Watch,” I says to my brother-in-law. “The Bills are going to find a way to lose the game AND the Patriots are going to lose my bet.

Adam, a devout Steelers fan, cackles and nods.

“You’re probably right. These are the Bills.”

I am. And they are.

Brady immediately hits his longest throw of the night, a 37-yarder to Deion Branch to set up a 1-yard Corey Dillon run, cutting Buffalo’s lead to two.

Two plays later, inevitability kicks in. Holcomb is sacked and fumbles.

Patriots ball. Brady throws to Branch for 22. Dillon rolls into the end zone again.

In a minute-and-a-half of game time, a nine-point Buffalo lead turns into a five-point deficit. This being in the time before Brady and Bill Belichick began choking out vanquished opponents well after the competitive portion of a game had ended, that leaves me hoping for Holcomb to throw a pick-six.

Which he does not. Bills lose. I lose.

There have been other agonizing Buffalo defeats in Foxboro over the past couple decades. There was Leodis McKelvin’s fumbled kickoff return in 2009, which gave the Patriots a win in a game Buffalo led by 11 points with five minutes remaining. And the first game of the Dick Jauron era, in which the Bills led the 2006 opener by 10 at halftime, yet wound up losing by two, with an end-zone sack of J.P. Losman providing the final margin. And Ryan Fitzpatrick’s comeback-snuffing fourth-quarter interceptions in 2010 and ‘12 (it should probably be noted that in between, on New Year’s Day 2012, in the 2011 season finale, Fitz threw two touchdown passes as Buffalo jumped out to a 21-0 first-quarter lead, then tossed up four interceptions as the Patriots scored 49 unanswered points).

There could well be another coming on Monday. The 2015 Patriots are unbeaten, but no longer torching the league as they were during the season’s first month, with three of their last five wins coming by a touchdown or less, including last Sunday’s one-point escape in New Jersey against the Giants.

Their two biggest weapons not named Brady or Rob Gronkowski in their 40-32 win over Buffalo in Week 2—running back Dion Lewis and wide receiver Julian Edelman—are out with injuries, while their offensive line and secondary are banged up to varying degrees.

So the possibility of an upset exists, particularly if Rex Ryan can find a way to get the most expensive defensive line in football history to make the investment worthwhile. The Giants’ blueprint for beating New England both times the teams have met in the Super Bowl has been pressuring Brady up the middle, preventing him from stepping into his throws, and Buffalo’s defensive front should be capable of doing that to some degree.

After the way he shredded the Bills’ pass-defense schemes in Week 2 (38-of-59 for 466 yards and three scores, in case you’ve forgotten), it’s also very possible Brady will adjust to the loss of Edelman as well as he did against New York, throwing even more to Gronkowski and Danny Amendola. Shifting to a run-heavy game plan featuring LaGarrette Blount would also be a very Belichick-y thing to do.

The most likely scenario would be Brady, Belichick and the various wounded and previously anonymous Patriots toying with the Bills for a while, even spotting them a sizeable lead, before pulling things out in a morally and/or legally questionable manner.

New England is, at press time, a seven-point favorite, just as it was on that Sunday night 10 years ago. While I won’t be betting on the game (and, of course, strongly discourage illegal gambling in any form), if I were, it would be tough not to play it the exact same way.

(Editor's Note: You, too, can follow @DavidStaba on the Twitter. Come on. You know you want to.)

Rex's Homecoming Key To Ending Playoff Exile

Heading into Rex Ryan's first season in Buffalo, the big question was whether he would instill a new culture in the Bills, one that would finally end a 15-year run of watching the playoffs on television, or if he is little more than a blowhard who talks a great game, but rarely produces one.

As Ryan's new team opens the second half of its schedule with a Thursday-night visit to his old one, the answer is no clearer than it was two months ago.

The first eight games produced three victories that lived up to all the Rex hype -- the opener against Indianapolis and the sweep of Miami, completed with last weekend's 33-17 trouncing.

In all three, Ryan's Bills performed largely as advertised, with his trademark stifling defense augmented by an offense performing better than the most optimistic could have expected, highlighted by Tyrod Taylor's revelatory playmaking.

The most recent thumping of the Dolphins, whose new-coach muscles have clearly worn off since winning big in their first two outings following Gentle Joe Philbin's replacement with uber-bro Dan Campbell, snapped a three-game losing streak at Ralph Wilson Stadium that exposed every one of Buffalo's weaknesses.

New England, the New York Giants and Cincinnati each blunted Ryan's renowned pass-rush schemes with quick throws delivered by veteran quarterbacks, while Taylor struggled in the manner to be expected of someone who spent the previous four seasons holding a clipboard.

In the other win, Taylor floundered against Tennessee before producing a comeback win made possible by the defense limiting the Titans to 13 points.

As for the other defeat, well, the less said, the better about the meltdowns by E.J. Manuel early and the defense and officials late that combined for the mystifying debacle in London.

A 4-4 record reflects the season to date pretty accurately. And thanks to the extremely stratified AFC, which includes the unbeaten Patriots and Bengals and recently undefeated Denver at the top, Jaguars, Titans, Cleveland, Baltimore and San Diego at the bottom, that .500 record had Buffalo in the midst of the wild-card race heading into Thursday night's game in New Jersey.

The matchup with Rex's old team, the 5-3 Jets should be a pretty good indicator whether his new one stays in the postseason derby for long.

Ryan Fitzpatrick, who got yet another starting opportunity (the sixth of his NFL career and third since being dumped by the Bills following the 2012 season) when current Bills backup defensive end and temporary coin-toss caller I.K. Enemkpali busted Geno Smith's jaw with a training-camp punch, has been a big reason for the Jets' surprising start. He is also exactly the kind of quarterback Ryan's defenses traditionally feast upon, his propensity for key mistakes heightened by a damaged thumb that has him scheduled for surgery Friday morning.

The Jets defense has been markedly better than Buffalo's to date, allowing the fewest rushing yards in the league and ranking ahead of Rex's trademark in just about every major category under his replacement, Todd Bowles. But New York's secondary has shown cracks the last few weeks. It broke down late against Tom Brady, just like every other defensive backfield in football, but also yielded more big plays than you would expect from Oakland's Derek Carr and Jacksonville's Blake Bortles, who gave E.J. Manuel a pretty good run for the title of Worst Quarterback On the Field until the closing moments in London.

A win over the Jets would put the Bills in at least a tie for a wild-card spot with seven games remaining, with a tiebreaker edge and a home game against New York remaining.

After a 10-day break, Buffalo travels to New England, where things don't figure to be very pretty. From there, though, the Bills travel to Kansas City (3-5), host the Texans (2-6), travel to face wildly erratic Philadelphia (4-4) and increasingly feeble Washington (3-5) before closing with the disintegrating Cowboys (2-6) and the Jets again, both at home.

Other than the Patriots, who are again performing in a fashion that makes any suggestion that air pressure had anything to do with last year's championship run look pretty silly, every remaining contest presents a highly beatable opponent, with only the Cowboys possessing a better-than-average quarterback (if Tony Romo is healthy and playing what figures to be a meaningless game for Dallas).

Of course, that scenario presumes a team that has yet to win consecutive games stringing together consistently strong performances, something no Ryan-coached team has managed since his first two seasons with the Jets. With their defensive array of talent seeming to settle into Rex's system against Miami and Taylor returning from a knee injury with the most statistically efficient passing performance in franchise history, such a run is far more plausible than it was a week ago.

Rex's Bills have also shown themselves capable of losing to any or all of their remaining opponents. If the Jaguars can beat you, anyone can -- no matter who is throwing your interceptions.

Beating the Jets in what promises to be the most headache-inducing telecast in modern football history, with the visitors wearing all-red uniforms for the first time ever and the home team clad in all green, would give these Bills two straight wins to build on the rest of the way, even if – OK, when – that modest streak ends in New England.

 

Dropping to 4-5 with Patriots waiting in Foxboro, though, raises the prospect of the sort of long, ugly slog to the end of yet another lost season to which we’ve all become accustomed. And another winter, spring and summer trying to answer the same old questions.

(You too can follow David Staba on the Twitter at @DavidStaba.)

Goodbye, Manuel: E.J.'s Starting Dreams Vanish In London Horror Show

(Editor's Note: The following was published elsewhere in a more timely fashion last week, but never made it to the pages of WWM, for some reason. Those responsible have been sacked.But with the Bills returning from their bye week today with Tyrod Taylor reportedly fully healed for the annual visit from the Miami Dolphins, a painful look back seems in order.)

I turned on the television Sunday morning with low expectations for Buffalo's game in London against Jacksonville.

The Bills somehow managed to fall well short of them.

With a backup quarterback throwing to backup receivers while operating behind backup linemen, while operating against the National Football League's most pitiful franchise, a Jaguars team able to reduce any contest to the quality of the second half of an exhibition game, it was impossible to anticipate a dominant showing from Rex Ryan's purported bullies. Or even a mildly aesthetically pleasing one.

But, my God.

E.J. Manuel's steady disintegration in the first half was unlike anything I've ever seen in 40 years of watching the Bills and a quarter-century of writing about them.

The first sign that things were about to go horribly wrong came late in the first quarter. Manuel had some shaky moments on Buffalo's early possessions, but managed to pick up a couple first downs on the opening drive and get his team in position for a field goal during the second.

The third time Buffalo had the ball, though, Manuel froze and got sacked for a 9-yard loss on second down, despite his gum-and-string line giving him plenty of time initially.

On third-and-14, he locked in on LeSean McCoy circling out of the backfield. One of his linemen was tied up with Jaguars defensive tackle Sen'Derrick Marks, the two struggling directly between the quarterback and his target.

Manuel could have looked downfield for another receiver. He could have lobbed one over the scrum to McCoy, who was positioned to take the ball at least close to the first-down marker. Or he could have tucked the ball and taken off, using what seems to be his most consistent area of ability.

Manuel did none of those things.

Either he did not see the two 300-pound men grappling a few feet in front of them, or he engaged in the sort of magical thinking that makes a toddler believe that riding a tricycle down a flight of stairs will not result in broken bones or, at the very least, significant head trauma.

He threw the ball exactly as he might have if the blocker and blockee were not there. Marks simply reached up, and batted down the pass. Didn't even have to jump.

Manuel’s egregious second-quarter bumbling, which spurred Jacksonville to a 27-point spree in less than six minutes of game time, has been well documented and ridiculed elsewhere, so let's spare ourselves rehashing the horror here.

It got so bad that, following the three consecutive pass plays that ended with a trio of turnovers and a pair of defensive touchdowns by the Jaguars, it came as a welcome relief when Manuel merely one-hopped a 10-yard throw to a wide-open Robert Woods.

But it was well before that, after Marks snuffed what should have been one of the simplest throws Manuel will ever have to make, that I finally gave up. I've made the case a number of times over the past couple years that Buffalo's first-round pick in the 2013 draft had yet to prove that he might not develop into a reasonably decent NFL quarterback, given a reasonable opportunity to develop.

Whether or not he got that chance under Doug Marrone's stewardship remains in question. But the answer to that question no longer matters.

This is not to say there is not a spot on a roster for him somewhere -- even in Buffalo. After all, he did stabilize enough to get the Bills back in the game, and even the lead, before defensive breakdowns, mystifying officiating and the weekly suite of dumb penalties and questionable coaching gave the Jaguars a game that neither team was worthy of winning.

At the moment, fully two-thirds of the league’s starting quarterbacks suck more often than they do not. And those are the first-stringers. Until Jacksonville's penalty-aided game-winning drive, Blake Bortles -- the third overall pick a year after Manuel was taken at No. 16 -- stunk Wembley Stadium up badly enough that there was a legitimate argument to be made that E.J. was, despite the second-quarter implosion, the best quarterback on the field.

It's tough to make an argument that there are many, or even any, better backup passers than Manuel. His predecessor at No. 2 on the depth chart behind Tyrod Taylor, Matt Cassel, was horrid in his own way in Dallas' loss to the New York Giants later on Sunday.

All of which leaves the Bills hoping their badly needed bye week gives Taylor's medial collateral ligament enough time to heal, allowing him to be fully healthy when Miami visits on Sunday, and that all his other tendons and joints remain intact the rest of the way.

Not to say that Taylor, who has started all of five NFL games, has proven himself good enough to save a season that's quickly slipping away. But on Sunday, Manuel left Buffalo with no other option.

(You, too, can follow @DavidStaba on the Twitter.)

Careful What You Chant For: The We Want Marangi Origin Story

I’m seven years old, sitting in the lower bowl of Rich Stadium, along the visitors’ sideline, attending my first professional football game with my father.

It will have been 40 years ago on Monday (Nov. 9, 1975). The Buffalo Bills, led by superstar running back, widely beloved advertising pitch-man and aspiring movie star O.J. Simpson, mercilessly slash away at the Baltimore Colts for much of the first half. Simpson, two years removed from his national-headline-making 2,003-yard season and the midst of breaking the National Football League’s single-season touchdown record, hits the end zone three times in little more than a quarter, once on a run and twice with passes thrown by Joe Ferguson.

Buffalo leads 28-7 early in the second quarter, appearing to an easily impressionable boy to be perhaps the greatest football team in history, cheered on by the loudest crowd I had ever been in. For a few minutes, at least, until Bert Jones starts shredding a Bills secondary decimated by injuries, with an 89-yard bomb to Roger Carr cutting the margin to a single touchdown by halftime.

Now some of the fans around us, mostly young, very loud men, shift from joyously cheering on Simpson’s heroics to angrily belittling the defense and Ferguson, often using language I only heard my father use when he was at work or trying to fix something.

A few start chanting, “We want Marangi! We want Marangi!”

Buffalo’s backup quarterback, Gary Marangi, had won the undying love of Bills fans a year earlier, when as a rookie, he replaced an injured Ferguson and threw two late touchdown passes in Miami. The Dolphins, as they always did in the 1970s, won rather easily, but Marangi’s modest, if meaningless, accomplishment was enough for those who, for some reason, loathed Ferguson.

All I know is that Ferguson throws a beautiful spiral, a skill I am struggling to perfect with a small rubber football when playing catch with Dad. As I learn the game, I realize he also has a strong arm and excellent control of his throws—except on the occasions he throws one to the other team.

Then, and this is a big reason there are those who boo him at every opportunity, he jogs off the field with his head down, looking at the ground. That simple bit of body language is enough to enrage the faithful, turning a fair number of them into Marangi partisans.

At seven, I don’t understand any of this. All I know is that people are yelling obscenities at their favorite team, and demanding the replacement of one of their best, and most important, players.

“We Want Marangi” spreads throughout the stadium as the Bills struggle to move the ball in the third quarter, reaching a crescendo after the Colts tie the game early in the fourth and Ferguson throws an interception, leaving the field in the manner which is his wont.

“Why do they want Marangi?” I ask Dad, who played six-man football in the mid-1950s at the small rural school I attend.

He shakes his head.

“They’ve had too much to drink,” he says.

The Colts score to take a 35-28 lead. Ferguson gets knocked cold by Baltimore’s pass rush and the drinkers get their wish.

Whereupon their hero immediately throws another interception, this one setting up another easy touchdown that gives the Colts a 14-point lead with a few minutes left.

Marangi winds up completing only two of his 10 throws, but one produces another meaningless touchdown, and I hear one of the chanters blame the loss on the failure to get Ferguson out of the game earlier.

Ferguson returns the next week, but midway through the next season, suffers a season-ending back injury, and, at last, Marangi is truly The Man.

He proceeds to lead the Bills to seven straight losses, despite Simpson leading the league in rushing. For the season, Marangi completes 35.3 percent of his passes, finishing with a 30.4 passer rating. No regular quarterback has come close to undercutting either figure since.

Ferguson would return in 1977, and after a couple more tough seasons, lead the Bills to back-to-back playoff appearances. Simpson’s Buffalo career ended with a knee injury in ’77, and he later proved, at the very least, to not be nearly the all-around good guy we seemed to think at the time. Marangi was out of football a year after his historically awful ’76 season, but went on to become a highly successful educator and football coach in Medford, N.Y.

And three seasons ago, when I decided to start writing about the Bills and their fans again after a four-year hiatus, I couldn’t think of a name that better summarizes our sometimes-misguided passion, and how little we actually know than We Want Marangi.

***

To the surprise of absolutely no one outside Dallas, the signing of convicted woman-beater and all-purpose misanthrope Greg Hardy didn’t take long to show how much teams are willing to overlook if someone can sack a quarterback.

Hardy, who was convicted of choking a woman and throwing her onto a couch covered with assault weapons, but went unpunished by North Carolina’s hillbilly justice system, has compiled the following stat line through three games with the Cowboys: 12 tackles, three sacks, one interception, one sideline shoving match with a teammate, and one attempted assault on a coach.

On Friday, Deadspin released a rather disgusting series of photographs displaying the damage done to Hardy's ex, accompanied by an equally disturbing written account of the evening in question. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, whose own history with women is a little sketchy, issued a predictably tone-deaf statement, assuring the world that Hardy will be free to continue his history of violence on national television Sunday night against Philadelphia quarterback Sam Bradford, and whomever else irks him.

Hardy’s inglorious return is a shining example of the macho bullshit that permeates sports in general, and the NFL in particular. With women now serving as the sole or co-owner of five of the NFL’s 32 teams, including Buffalo’s Kim Pegula, maybe the league that so desperately courts the female demographic will start culling sociopaths like Hardy from its ranks.

And maybe E.J. Manuel will lead the Bills to the Super Bowl.

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.

***

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.)

Manuel Move Averts RGIII-Like Mess

Despite Rex Ryan's best efforts to make the Cincinnati Bengals think that Tyrod Taylor might start today, despite a sprained medial collateral ligament in his knee, turning to recent third-stringer E.J. Manuel is the only move that makes sense.

And if Rex has any doubts (or perhaps the past tense works better there, as multiple reports late Saturday and this morning suggest the decision has already been made), he should give Mike Shanahan a call.

Taylor, who was injured by an illegal horse-collar tackle on the improbable third-and-forever scramble that keyed last Sunday's how-did-that-happen 14-13 win against Tennessee, did practice some this week. But Manuel took most of the first-team snaps and, if Ryan and offensive coordinator Greg Roman did not spend much time thinking about Shanahan's experience with Robert Griffin III, they should have.

You might recall that RGIII was once the future of the National Football League, who won the Heisman Trophy at Baylor in 2011 and swept rookie-of-the-year honors the next season, leading Washington's rebound from a 3-6 start to a playoff berth.

But late in the regular season, like Taylor, he had injured a knee ligament. Shanahan sent his prized rookie, whose game relied heavily on his mobility, out to start the playoff game against Seattle in a knee brace.

Griffin threw two touchdown passes in the first quarter, but spent the rest of the day hobbling, falling and finally breaking down, his knee completely blown, as the Seahawks rolled to a 24-14 win. Griffin has never been nearly the same, repeatedly losing his job to the immortal Kirk Cousins.

Shanahan, meanwhile, was fired after going 3-13 in 2013, and Washington spiraled from a franchise with quite possibly the worst owner in modern professional sports history to a mainstream national punchline.

A few hours before the 3-2 Bills host the unbeaten Bengals, it would appear Ryan won't make the same gamble with his promising young quarterback (who, to be fair, has yet to approach RGIII's rookie-year level). If everyone involved is smart, Taylor will be in street clothes today, or at least league-sanctioned sweats, preferably as far from the field and any potential incidental contact as possible.

Which brings us back to Manuel, who, until little more than a year ago, was Buffalo's franchise-quarterback-in-development.

After a promising, if injury-plagued, rookie season, Manuel was yanked a month into his second capaign by a panicky Doug Marrone after a couple iffy performances and one lousy one in Houston.

The revisionist view holds that Manuel was irretrievably terrible, and that his replacement, Kyle Orton, saved the season.

To again quote Eric Cartman, bullcrap.

We're not going to rehash the Orton Era here (though you can do so by following this link), but the Bills could be in much worse shape. Like, for instance, if they were stuck with the smartly exiled Matt Cassel, the supposedly cagey, mistake-free veteran who somehow managed to commit nearly two turnovers a game over the past five seasons, and who will start for Dallas after their bye week because the Cowboys have no other choice.

While in his first two seasons, Manuel was not been as mobile or as accurate as Taylor has been through five weeks, he's put together some decent-or-better games, especially at Ralph Wilson Stadium. Buffalo was 3-1 with Manuel starting in Orchard Park in 2013, with the lone loss coming to New England on a last-second field goal in the season opener. He split the pair of 2014 home starts he got before being benched, with a scattered day against San Diego rating as his worst non-road game to date.

Even against the Chargers, though, Manuel didn't turn the ball over. In those six home starts, he committed a total of five giveaways, with three coming in a 23-20 upset of Baltimore in Week 4 of 2013. He completed 63 percent of his throws in those games (compared to 58.6 percent overall), with eight touchdowns and three interceptions (as opposed to an 8-9 split in road outings and one counterfeit "home" contest in the best-forgotten Toronto experiment).

Besides, the Bills have plenty of other things to worry about today.

There's the health of the reportedly returning LeSean McCoy and Sammy Watkins, both of whom would provide more explosiveness around Manuel than Taylor has enjoyed the last couple weeks.

And there is Rex's defense, which kept Buffalo in last week's game long enough for Taylor to pull out the late comeback and flattened Indianapolis and Miami, but has yet to bully a quality offense in the fashion promised since Ryan's arrival.

Not to mention the Bengals themselves. Andy Dalton takes justifiable criticism for his annual playoff flops, but is a week removed from a huge comeback win against Seattle, which triggered the sort of "Andy Dalton has finally arrived!" talk that always precedes those yearly January disasters.

Much of Dalton's supposed improvement can be credited to a potent running game in which Giovani Bernard gains most of the yards (377 through five games) and Jeremy Hill scores the touchdowns (five), as well as the emergence of tight end Tyler Eifert and wideouts Mohamed Sanu and Marvin Jones as complements to the rather brilliant A.J. Green.

The last time the Bengals were in town, Buffalo also operated with a backup quarterback. Filling in for Manuel, who went down with a knee injury against Cleveland 10 days earlier, Thaddeus Lewis threw for two touchdowns and ran for another, nearly pulling off the upset before the Bengals won in overtime.

Two years and five days later, Cincinnati and the Bills are both significantly better. If Ryan's defense can succeed against Dalton where it failed against Tom Brady and Eli Manning, Manuel should be good enough.

(NOTE: Be one of the cool kids, and follow @DavidStaba on the Twitter.

Offensive Woes Leave Bills Relying On Rex's D

This is where a proper bully takes the nerd's lunch money.

This afternoon in Nashville, Buffalo may have to find out if it is still possible, given the state of the National Football League, to win purely through force of defensive will. During the Bills' pair of wins in 2015, Rex Ryan's defense delivered on his press-conference promises, effectively ending the competitive portion of the games against Indianapolis and Miami by delivering first-half shutouts.

The offense did its part, too, putting up 17 points on the Colts and 27 against the Dolphins by intermission, highlighted by efficient and at times -- at least by the incredibly low expectations we have for quarterbacks around here -- spectacular performances by first-year starter Tyrod Taylor.

Today, the defense and Taylor can't count on much help. The Bills try to avoid falling below .500 for the first time under Ryan without many of the components intended to make Tyrod's life easier.

They're down to their third-, fourth- and fifth-string running backs, for one. If there is a bright spot to the hamstringing of LeSean McCoy and concussing of Karlos Williams, it is that fans, media and, you would presume, members of the Bills' roster and staff have used, and will continue to use, the word "Boobie" much more often.

Sophomoric delight does not necessarily translate into first downs, however. In little more than a year in Buffalo, Anthony "Boobie" Dixon has shown himself to be a solid special-teamer and imposing-looking short-yardage runner whose personality and experience -- including four seasons, three on a playoff team, in San Francisco -- gives him a larger leadership role than warranted by his on-field production to date.

Dixon scored a touchdown on a 1-yard run in the season opener, but for the year, has netted zero yards on eight carries.

Cierre Wood is neither a new type of chic flooring or a particularly unappetizing craft beer. Nor does he seem like a probable revelation at running back, having been in and out of five organizations before landing in Buffalo, where he occupied a spot on the practice squad until the Friday before last week's demoralizing loss to the New York Giants.

As a rookie with Houston in 2013, the Notre Dame product posted a career-high 9 yards on three carries before getting cut for "unspecified violations of team rules prior to a game in Kansas City."

Then there is Daniel "Boom" Herron, who ran for 170 yards and two touchdowns on 45 carries for Indianapolis during last January's playoffs, but was unemployed when the suddenly desperate Bills called after it was revealed earlier this week that Williams suffered a concussion while struggling for 40 yards on 18 carries against the Giants in his first NFL start.

None of this is good news for Taylor, who in his first month as a starting quarterback has done quite nicely when supported by even the threat of a running game, and looked like a guy win his first month as a starting quarterback when he is not.

With Sammy Watkins expected to miss another game with a calf injury sustained against Miami, Tyrod again lacks his most threatening downfield option, applying pressure to make plays without enough playmakers. And behind an offensive line that looks better than last year's disaster, but not good enough to prop up a gum-and-string running game and short-handed receiving corps operating around a developing quarterback.

All of which leaves the defense, which, like Taylor, has toggled demonstrating its potential with displaying its shortcomings, to live up to its hype.

A failure to communicate has been this week's talking point in trying to explain the ease with which Eli Manning, like Tom Brady two weeks earlier, sliced up the big, bad Buffalo defense. While the return of safety Aaron Williams should help the talking, focusing on carrying out Rex Ryan's schemes would be easier without handing opponents free yardage in maddeningly frequent 15-yard chunks.

The Titans, meanwhile, could be truly terrible. After opening with a blowout of equally questionable Tampa Bay, Tennessee got thumped by Cleveland and surrendered a 13-point lead to gimpy-armed Andrew Luck's Colts, who couldn't manage a single point against Buffalo when it counted.

After opening with a near-perfect day against the Buccaneers, who historically are obliging in that sense, Mariota has often looked like, well, a rookie. In Tennessee's two losses, he has been sacked 10 times, thrown two interceptions and fumbled three times, losing two of them.

This is where the most expensive defensive line in NFL history is supposed to take over, stuffing the league's 10th-ranked running game while forcing Mariota into another flurry of mistakes. That would also set up Buffalo's linebackers and secondary to produce the sort of game-changing plays on which Ryan's philosophy relies and, given the Bills' offensive limitations, even put up some points of their own.

Unleashing the blitzes largely kept in the playbook against the Patriots and Giants seems like a pretty good idea, especially given Mariota's problems dealing with pressure in his last two outings.

As kickoff approaches, the second overall pick in last spring's draft is the undersized, unassuming kid shuffling down the hall, head down and hoping not to wind up stuffed into a locker, like Luck and Ryan Tannehill.

Or ready, like Brady and Manning, to expose Rex's Bills as a lot of bluster compensating for deeply rooted inadequacy.

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