Orton, Fitz, Marrone, Chan -- What's The Difference?

When you don't win a truly meaningful football game for a decade-and-a-half, it's only natural that the losses start to resemble each other.

This, however, is ridiculous.

The most recent kick in the groin -- Buffalo's improbable, come-from-ahead 17-13 loss to Kansas City -- managed to cause not one, but three disturbing flashbacks.

--- The first, and most obvious, came on the Bills' opening drive of the second half. Already leading 10-3, their longest extended possession of the afternoon had them ready to take a two-score lead that the Chiefs are not built to overcome when Bryce Brown somehow got stripped on his way to the goal line. The ball bounced into the end zone, where Scott Chandler somehow failed to keep it from escaping the end zone.

The particulars were a little different, but the double blunder conjured painful memories of last year's Chiefs game, when the Bills led 10-3 and were moving inexorably toward a larger margin on their first drive of the second half. Until Kansas City cornerback Sean Smith grabbed Jeff Tuel's panicky slant pass and went the length of the field to tie the game. Buffalo never scored again, and the Chiefs took that one 17-10.

--- This time, the Bills clung to the lead for another full quarter. And then Leodis McKelvin happened.

You might recall Buffalo was a little more than two minutes from its first win in Foxborough since 2000 in the 2009 season opener. The Patriots kicked off after cutting Buffalo's lead to five points. and all McKelvin -- beginning his second season after the Bills made him the No. 11 overall pick in the 2008 draft, was not fumble.

After catching Steven Gostkowski's kick in the end zone, McKelvin -- beginning his second season after the Bills made him the No. 11 overall pick in the 2008 draft -- could have taken a knee.

He did not. Still, after deciding to try for a splashy, game-sealing runback, all he really had to do was not fumble.

He fumbled.

Two plays later, the Patriots took the lead for the first and only time.

On Sunday, with Buffalo up by three points and having just forced Kansas City to go three-and-out, McKelvin -- who seemed to have finally shaken the injuries and mistakes that marked much of his first six seasons -- went back to field Dustin Colquitt's punt. He could have called for a fair catch, just to be safe.

He did not. Still, after deciding to try for a splashy, game-sealing runback, all he really had to do was not fumble.

He fumbled.

Three plays later, the Chiefs took the lead for the first and only time.

(Note: Providing Brown, McKelvin and every other member of the Bills who has occasion to touch the football with this photograph of Chris Hogan scoring the only Buffalo touchdown WITH BOTH ARMS WRAPPED AROUND THE BALL would be a pretty solid idea.)

--- As if the above were not traumatizing enough, the Bills got close enough for one more shot, thanks to McKelvin holding on to the Chiefs' next punt, then returning it 23 yards.

To be precise, it was four more shots from the 15-yard line. With a chance to pull off his third late comeback win in five starts, Buffalo's well-traveled veteran quarterback short-armed Watkins at the goal line twice and sailing a pair of passes intended for Hogan in the end zone sandwiched between.

Much like when another well-traveled veteran Bills quarterback brought them to the brink of an unlikely comeback on the road against New England in 2012, only to misfire on the game's decisive throw.

That game would turn out to be Ryan Fitzpatrick's last 300-yard passing performance with Buffalo. Orton's inaccuracy -- especially in a situation where you would expect a seasoned quarterback to hit at least once in four tries, and on a day when the defense did more than enough to win the game -- is the biggest flaw making it hard to imagine him as anything but a placeholder at the position.

Speaking of guys with destabilizing job security, Doug Marrone did not help his cause to get a third season from the Bills' new owners with a series of fourth-down and game-management decisions that triggered unpleasant memories of Chan Gailey and every failed coach to cycle through Buffalo over the last 15 years.

So the Bills are 5-4 heading into Thursday night's game at Miami for what amounts to a playoff eliminator for the loser. Whatever the outcome, a brutal December schedule looms. And the cycle of changing forgettable coaches every few years and swapping out non-descript quarterbacks even more frequently, a rotation underway since Jim Kelly retired after the 1996 season and Marv Levy followed a year later, continues unabated.

Bills Take On Chiefs, Legacy Of Late-Season Failure

A little history to think about leading up to today's meeting between the Buffalo Bills and the equally 5-3 Kansas City Chiefs:

Since they last made the playoffs following the 1999 season, the Bills have played 47 games after Nov. 1 against teams that ultimately reached the postseason.

Buffalo has won nine of them.

That's a .191 winning percentage.

Much of that is ancient history, by modern NFL standards. Since 2008, though, it gets even uglier. The Bills are 2-13 against playoff-bound teams since Trent Edwards' first season as Buffalo's full-time starter.

Even those two victories come with caveats. In 2011, the Bills exposed Tim Tebow -- again -- as a charismatic, earnest young man not good enough at playing quarterback to last in the league at that position. And the 30-7 win over Indianapolis in the season finale came against a 14-1 Colts team with nothing to play for, as evidenced by Curtis Painter replacing Peyton Manning for the second half for the second straight week.

So the Bills have not won a game against a playoff-caliber foe operating with a legitimate starting quarterback for the entire contest since 2007, when they edged Washington 17-16. And that one barely qualifies, since the quarterback in question was Jason Campbell and coaching legend Joe Gibbs tried to ice Rian Lindell twice at the end, the second time with a timeout he did not possess.

Today's visit by the Chiefs is the first of six occasions on which the Bills will face an opponent in contention for this year's postseason tournament.

Kansas City enjoys a couple of key match-up advantages:

-- The league's sixth-ranked running attack goes up against against a Buffalo rush defense that has yielded 158 and 175 yards in its last two outings.

-- A pass rush that ranks third in the NFL with 27 sacks (one fewer than the No. 2 Bills) will be chasing after Kyle Orton, who has been dumped 17 times in four starts, thanks in no small part to an offensive line that could generously be called shaky.

Orton and Doug Marrone have had an extra week to prepare for a chance at succeeding where Chan Gailey, Perry Fewell, Dick Jauron, E.J. Manuel, Jeff Tuel (whose goal-line pick -six one year and six days ago helped keep Kansas City unbeaten), Ryan Fitzpatrick, Edwards, and J.P. Losman have repeatedly failed.

After all, in sports, history doesn't mean anything.

Except when it does.

Halfway There: Time To Break Out The Zubaz?

Halfway through their 2014 schedule, the Buffalo Bills have positioned themselves to earn their first playoff berth since:

• Fans were debating the relative merits of Doug Flutie and Rob Johnson in the present tense;

• Dominik Hasek was starring in national credit-card commercials; and

• Hopes for downtown revitalization hinged on grandiose plans by the owner of the Sabres.

Fifteen years later:

• No one is arguing over who should start at quarterback for the Bills (this week, at least);

• Much of the general public would be hard-pressed to spell, or even come up with, the name of either Sabres’ goalie; and

• Hopes for downtown revitalization are already fueled by actual construction financed by the owner of the Sabres (and, this being Buffalo, helped along by $57 million in tax breaks).

Coming out of their bye week at 5-3 and off of their most impressive win of the season, the Bills could inspire the sort of local hysteria over the next two months that leads employers to re-institute “Bills Fridays” and inspires radio stations to record awkward fight songs.

Or their playoff run could be effectively over in a week, before you can even find that pair of red, white and blue Zubaz you stored away in the basement back in the ‘90s.

Buffalo hosts one of the AFC’s three other 5-3 teams when Kansas City visits Sunday, then travel to South Florida to take on another four days later.

By the end of the Thursday-night game against the Dolphins, Buffalo’s lone scheduled prime-time appearance of the season, it will be clear whether these Bills are actual contenders for the postseason, or if their record is the product of good timing, fortunate breaks and lousy opponents.

The Chiefs and Dolphins -- who have looked nothing like the team that got swamped 29-10 by the Bills in Week 2-- have each won three straight and four of their last five since their respective shaky starts. Their quarterbacks are playing well, their key offensive weapons remain ambulatory and their kickers are not horrific, eliminating the built-in advantages Buffalo has enjoyed throughout the Orton Era.

Which is just as well. Getting to 5-3, even given the softer first-half schedule, has been an accomplishment given the offensive turmoil brought about by injuries at running back, upheaval at quarterback and ineptitude along the offensive line.

At least the same record will be required to grab one of the AFC’s two wild-card berths (we’re not even going to discuss the division title until and unless the Patriots start playing like humans again). The Bills have to get significantly better if that’s going to happen.

In all, six of the final eight opponents have records equal to or better than Buffalo’s. Assuming wins over the Jets and Raiders (which is admittedly presumptuous, even if they are a combined 1-17), three more victories need to be found among the Chiefs (5-3), Dolphins (5-3), Browns (5-3), Broncos (6-2), Packers (5-3) and Patriots (7-2).

Any improvement starts with the offensive line, to this point the worst of any AFC playoff contender.

The running game was dismal, even before Fred Jackson and C.J. Spiller went down against Minnesota in Week 7. Buffalo is 23rd in the NFL in rushing yards per game and 22nd in yards per attempt. And those substandard rankings get a boost from the few long runs the Bills have broken—a 53-yard sprint that ended with Spiller writhing on the turf, his collarbone broken; Jackson’s 39-yard romp to set up the game-winner in Chicago; and Dixon’s 47-yarder against the highly permissive Bears.

Without those three runs, Buffalo’s runners have averaged 3.2 yards per attempt, with even that feeble number trending downward. The Jets may be otherwise in complete disarray, but Buffalo was able to scrape out just 2.1 yards a carry in the blowout.

The pass protection has not been any better, with Orton absorbing 17 sacks in four games since replacing E.J. Manuel, who was dumped six times in his four starts. Again, the line regressed in New Jersey, permitting four sacks and forcing its highly immobile quarterback to scramble twice among 23 drop-backs.

Despite the blocking issues, Orton is playing at least as well as he ever has, thanks largely to Sammy Watkins becoming the breakout star of this year’s rookie class.

With Marcell Dareus, Kyle Williams, Jerry Hughes and Mario Williams dominating up front and rookie Preston Brown ably filling in for Kiko Alonso, Buffalo stands eighth in run defense and 13th against the pass (a deceptive ranking, since the Bills are No. 1 in both interceptions and sacks per game).

All of which won’t mean much if they can’t start blocking at least nearly as well as they have been tackling, starting Sunday against Kansas City.

From Dareus To The Donald: Two Months Of Ups And Downs

With the Bills preparing to face equally 5-3 Kansas City in the first of a series of games against fellow AFC playoff aspirants, We Want Marangi presents its prestigious Half-Season Awards:

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER/DEFENSE: Last summer, the off-field misadventures of Marcell Dareus had fans and some media demanding the Bills cut ties with the third overall pick in the 2011 draft.

Good thing the Bills didn't listen.

Turns out the massive defensive tackle's pair of arrests -- first for felony drug possession, then for drag-racing defensive end Jerry Hughes near Ralph Wilson Stadium -- within a 19-day span, and subsequent entry into the league's substance-abuse program, were not signs that Dareus was yet another disastrous Buffalo first-round selection, after all.

After showing flashes in his first two season and earning a Pro Bowl berth in his third, Dareus emerged as one of the NFL's dominant interior linemen through the first eight games of 2014, leading a unit that has Buffalo leading the league in interceptions and sacks per game while largely stifling opposing running games.

Having recorded a career-high 7.5 sacks last year, he already has seven through eight games, as well as four stops of opposing runners for losses and a forced fumble. When not ending plays himself, he occupies multiple blockers and disrupts both run-blocking and pass-protection schemes, creating openings for the rest of Buffalo's defensive front.

Playing next to Kyle Williams helps, but Dareus showed he can cause havoc all by himself, taking down Detroit's Matthew Stafford three times with Williams sidelined by a knee injury, while blowing up the middle of the line on what seemed like every Lions run.

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER/OFFENSE: Sammy Watkins gets this one over Kyle Orton, in part because Orton has started four of Buffalo's eight games, and was pretty lousy for at least three-quarters of the first three.

Buffalo's first-round pick in 2014 (and, in essence, 2015) had a decent first quarter of the season, despite dealing with bruised ribs and E.J. Manuel's accuracy issues, but has fully weaponized since Orton took over, piling up 21 catches for 393 yards and three touchdowns over the last month, including the game-winning score against Minnesota and a pair of morale-shattering bombs in Buffalo's 43-23 destruction of the New York Jets.

Those numbers would be even more impressive if offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett had not apparently forgotten Watkins was on the roster during the lone loss during that stretch, the 37-22 hammering by New England. Or if Watkins had not gotten a little carried away on what should have been an 89-yard touchdown against the Jets.

No question, the veteran quarterback has helped make the rookie receiver better, but the reverse is also true.

LEAST VALUABLE PLAYER/OFFENSE: Name an offensive lineman. Any offensive lineman.

When Cordy Glenn is your best linemen, you have problems. Two 2014 draft choices, left guard Cyril Richardson and right tackle Seantrel Henderson, have looked lost. Veteran guards Erik Pears and Kraig Urbik have looked shot. Center Eric Woods may have been marginally better, but it's pretty tough to tell with all the chaos around him.

Marrone says another rookie, second-round selection Cyrus Kouandijo, may join the rotation at guard. The young blockers should get better the longer they work together, particularly given Marrone's reputation as an offensive line coach.

It's unpleasant to imagine them getting much worse.

LEAST VALUABLE PLAYER/DEFENSE: Tough choice given how well the defense has performed and the lack of a consistently weak link, but Duke Williams' unprovoked assault in lieu of pass coverage on New England's Julian Edelman deserves special recognition.

The worst part of the infraction that set up the Patriots' first touchdown was not the two-handed shove, though that was both pretty bad. The worst part was that the penalty was totally unnecessary, as he was in good position to at least deflect Tom Brady's pass, had he simply turned and looked for the ball.

Williams has made some nice special-teams stops, but clinched the LVP/D award later in the same game by getting himself totally lost on both of Brandon LaFell's fourth-quarter touchdown catches, the second of which sealed the game for New England.

BEST WIN: It may not have been a complete aesthetic success, and it came against a team actively disintegrating, but a 6-0 turnover advantage, four touchdown passes in 10 completions by Kyle Orton and Watkins' 157 yards on three catches added up to a 43-23 win against the Jets, sending the Bills into their bye week at 5-3 and preserving the chance to make the second half of a season mean something for a change.

WORST LOSS: Manuel's confused performance in Houston not only derailed his professional career, it cost Buffalo a game it should have won and could really use heading down the stretch.

Other than J.C. Watt's usual transcendent afternoon, the Texans were terrible. But Manuel's afternoon, particularly his game-turning misfire to Watt, made Ryan Fitzpatrick look halfway decent by comparison.

Subsequent events have proven otherwise. The 4-5 Texans at long last became the fifth NFL team to realize the immensely likable Fitzpatrick simply is not good enough earlier this week, benching him for longtime Tom Brady caddy Ryan Mallett.

BEST LOSS: None of the three have been what even someone who believes in such things would call a moral victory. But the Bills started strong against New England and should have been up by a couple of scores at halftime, but for a couple of Orton turnovers.

Of course, that was the game in which the Patriots became self-aware and began laying waste to the rest of the league, so past performance is no guarantee that the Bills can hang with them for even two quarters when they visit Foxborough in the season finale.

WORST WIN: Tough one. Neither the Lions or Vikings games were particularly pleasant to watch for the first 58 minutes of game time or so, and both should have been much more comfortable scores than 17-14 and 17-16, respectively, given the state of the opponents involved.

The survival against Minnesota gets the nod, though, because Buffalo lost C.J. Spiller for the season and Fred Jackson for at least a month.

BEST PLAY: Dan Carpenter kicked the longest game-winning field goal in team history to beat Detroit.

Spiller's 102-yard kickoff return broke open the win against the Dolphins.

And Fred Jackson's 39-yard romp through and over the Bears set up Carpenter's overtime winner in the season opener.

Orton's 28-yard throw to a leaping Chris Hogan at the Minnesota 2-yard line, setting up the decisive slant pass to Watkins, takes the honors, though. If not for that play (and the Orton-to-Carpenter fourth-and-20 conversion moments earlier), the Bills would have lost to a team with a struggling rookie quarterback and without its franchise running back. At home. And this post would certainly have a more cynical flavor.

WORST PLAY: How could E.J. have not seen J.J.?

BEST OFF-FIELD DEVELOPMENT: Terry and Kim Pegula's purchase of the Bills from the estate of Ralph Wilson spared everyone additional years of speculation about the team's future in Western New York.

It also returned Jon Bon Jovi and Donald Trump to their rightful place as C-list celebutantes to be mocked and scorned, rather than carpetbagging vultures to be feared and loathed.

Strange Times In Bills Country

Well, this is weird.

Buffalo's 43-23 mockery of the New York Jets on Sunday puts the Bills in the best position they have occupied midway through a season since 2002 -- with a 5-3 record and on a winning streak.

OK. It's a two-game winning streak. And the Jets are clearly not very good at playing football.

But it certainly beats the alternative. Outscoring an opponent that turns the ball over six times and imagines that it possesses the power of invisibility may not have a lot of predictive value, but it does set the 2014 Bills apart from the 14 also-rans that came before.

All of which causes a great deal of confusion here at the We Want Marangi offices. This is the point in the season where discussion of the local football team usually starts to involve firing the coach and/or general manager, benching the quarterback or figuring out which college players might be available when Buffalo makes its first pick in the following spring's draft.

Some fans seem similarly bewildered, judging from such forums for rational, contemplative discussion as radio talk shows and Twitter, where Buffalo's highest single-game point total in four years and Kyle Orton's second four-touchdown passing performance ever provide the intellectual foundation for arguing that offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett should be fired immediately.

One caller to WGR 550 on Monday afternoon went a step farther, making the case that the Bills should fire head coach Doug Marrone, apparently to ensure that defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz -- who managed to compile a 29-52 overall record in Detroit despite having Calvin Johnson, Matthew Stafford and Ndamukong Suh at his disposal -- is not snatched up for the top job somewhere else.

Or something.

Again, these are strange times, so it's understandable if everyone is a little off-kilter at the moment.

So let's just make fun of the Jets for a while.

It seems worth asking, given his previous trouble keeping his schedule straight: Geno Smith did know there was a game Sunday, right?

The next quarterback selected after E.J. Manuel in the 2013 NFL Draft looked like someone whom the Jets kidnapped and forced into a uniform and onto the field. On his first throw of the day, Smith misfired on a quick slant to Eric Decker. It may have been his best play of the day.

Two of Smith's three interceptions were badly overthrown. On the other, he either somehow did not see Preston Brown between him and his presumed target, tight end Jeff Cumberland, or convinced himself that the Buffalo linebacker would fall down, or perhaps mysteriously disappear, before the ball arrived.

Smith's 10-minute cameo, during which he completed two of his eight passes to his teammates and three to the Bills, produced a 0.0 quarterback rating, guaranteeing him at least a share of an NFL standard that can never be taken away from him.

It says quite a bit about the Jets that Smith's meltdown was not the most embarrassing thing to happen to them on Sunday. That would be the kickoff immediately following Dan Carpenter's second field goal, which put Buffalo ahead 27-17 with 6:29 gone in the third quarter.

It would be easy to rip the Jets for trying a gimmick that relied completely on T.J. Graham making himself invisible, but let's be fair -- he did pull it off quite regularly during his time in Buffalo.

The humiliation did not end Sunday. John Izdik, New York's general manager, went on and on about something or other for 19 minutes during a Monday press conference, delivering a State of the Jets Address that inspired Dom Cosentino of nj.com to put together a list of shorter speeches, including the first inaugural addresses delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, as well as the Gettysburg Address.

Before he took questions at his midseason State of the Jets press conference on Monday, general manager John Idzik spoke. And spoke and spoke and spoke. For all anyone knows, he still might be talking to somebody, somewhere.

Izdik's ramblings inspired a far less conciliatory monologue from noted radio ranter Mike Francesca, who appears ready to bite someone at several points during his seven-minute tirade.

OK. That felt more familiar. So back to the Bills.

What does actively participating in the Jets' self-immolation really mean for Buffalo?

Quite a bit, starting with the standings.

The Bills have gotten to 5-3 on three previous occasions during their post-playoff era, but were already backsliding by the time they reached that modest achievement in 2008 and '11.

Trent Edwards and the '08 Bills reached 5-3 with a 26-17 home loss to the Jets, their second of four in a row and eight of their last 10. Getting ripped 27-11 at home, also by the Jets, launched Ryan Fitzpatrick and friends on a seven-game skid that wiped out any good that had been accomplished during a hot start to the '11 season.

You have to go back to Drew Bledsoe's first season in Buffalo, when the Bills topped Detroit 24-17 to win their third straight and pull within a half-game of New England for the division lead, to find a campaign that offered this much cause for optimism at the halfway point.

Of course, the good feelings of 2002 ended the following week in New England, where the Brady-Belichick Patriots delivered the first of what would become annual reality checks for the Bills, who ultimately reversed their first-half record to finish 8-8.

These Bills face their first serious test of the season's second half when they return from this weekend's bye to host Kansas City. The Chiefs have won four of five, including a 41-14 walloping of the Patriots and a 23-20 win at San Diego to get to 4-3.

After that, Buffalo travels to Miami (also presently 4-3) for a Thursday nighter before hosting the Jets  (1-7) and Browns (4-3) to close out November.

December is even tougher, with road games at Denver (6-1) and New England (6-2) bookending visits from Green Bay (4-3) and Oakland (0-7).

Pasting the Jets so thoroughly sends Buffalo into that run of six decent-or-better foes in eight weeks with a boost in a few key areas:

--- Orton's performance -- 23.8 yards per completion, four touchdowns (he should really be credited with 4.95 touchdown throws, as he was in no way responsible for the timing of Sammy Watkins' pre-goal-line celebration) and a 142.8 quarterback rating -- eliminates any doubt that Doug Marrone made the right move by swapping him for Manuel a month ago. At least for the moment.

His turnovers against Detroit and Minnesota made the late dramatics necessary, and they pretty well squelched any chance the Bills had to take control against New England.

In New Jersey, though, Orton made the required throws and, just as significantly, made it through the afternoon without throwing or fumbling the ball away.

Getting sacked 17 times in four starts is a problem, one attributable to both offensive line woes and Orton's complete lack of mobility.

--- Orton's feet are not going to suddenly get quicker, but his protection almost has to get better. Offensive lines, no matter how untalented, usually get better given both continuity and time. Kraig Urbik's return to the starting front and the extra week off should help there, if there is something to Marrone's background in that area.

Any improvement up front would help the short-handed ground game. I'm not sure what anyone was expecting from a pair of career backups in their first game replacing the injured C.J. Spiller and Fred Jackson, but hammering away at the Jets showed the coaching staff's confidence in both the Boobie Dixon/Bryce Brown combo and their blocking.

Given how well the defense has played all season, save the second half against New England and third downs against San Diego, a persistent, if not terribly productive, running attack may be all Buffalo needs.

--- Six turnovers and four sacks would have been a good month's work for some of the Jauron/Gailey defenses, Putting a floundering opponent away after letting the battered Lions and pitiful Vikings hang around is another step forward,which should help when Buffalo starts facing actual NFL offenses again.

Looking at the rest of the schedule, it is no stretch to imagine the Bills finding a way to lose all of them, or continuing to improve and winning every one (OK, beating the Broncos and Patriots on the road might be a little bit of a stretch).

A 3-1 November is a realistic hope and would send Buffalo into the season's final month with more than a mathematical chance at finally ending a postseason drought approaching a decade-and-a-half.

Now that would really be weird.

Futility, From Flutie To Fitzpatrick (And Beyond)

Welcome to New Jersey, where the Bills face the Jets on Sunday. And where even remotely promising Buffalo football seasons go to die.

Road wins in the National Football League rarely come easily. For the Bills, they have been impossible to attain against the New York Jets since before the playoffs became a source of nostalgia.

The Meadowlands Stadium big-game futility began not with Ryan Fitzpatrick and Chan Gailey or J.P. Losman and Dick Jauron or even Rob Johnson and Gregggggg Williams, but Doug Flutie and Wade Phillips.

The Bills arrived in East Rutherford in early November of 1998 on a five-game winning streak, with four of them coming after Flutie replaced an injured Johnson in Indianapolis. Each team came in with a 5-3 record and a great comeback story at quarterback, as Vinny Testaverde had replaced Glenn Foley after New York's 0-2 start.

There was absolutely no magic from Flutie or anyone else in a Bills uniform that day. Testaverde shredded Buffalo's secondary, throwing for three touchdowns in a 34-12 whomping. Flutie turned in his worst game to date for the Bills, finishing 12-of-30 for 154 yards and two interceptions, one of which came 19 seconds before halftime and set up a New York field goal, the other leaving the Jets with less than a half a field to cover to score the game's final points.

Reverse the result (or New York's 17-10 win in Orchard Park the following month) and the '98 Bills open the postseason at home as AFC East champions, instead of traveling to Miami to lose to Jimmy Johnson and Dan Marino in a wild-card game.

A year later, Buffalo was 7-3 when the annual New Jersey trip came around, and the Jets were stumbling along at 4-6 with Ray Lucas subbing for Testaverde, who was lost for the season on Opening Day.

Flutie was badly outplayed by Lucas, who would start all of 15 games in seven season with the Jets and Dolphins. The decisive play in New York's 17-7 win came early in the second quarter, three snaps after Lucas connected with Dedric Ward for a 7-0 lead.

Facing third-and-8 from his own 5-yard line, Flutie failed to pick up a blind-side rush, got sacked in the end zone by Ray Mickens and fumbled, with Eric Ogbogu falling on the loose ball for a 14-0 New York advantage.

(Note: Less than two months later, Flutie diehards would cite Johnson's inability to avoid a safety in an identical situation as proof that their man should have started the playoff game in Tennessee. Even though their man had not only failed to escape the Jets rush, but failed to hold on to the ball under the same circumstances. But that's probably another column altogether.)

And those were the good times. Buffalo still reached the playoffs in '98 and '99. The Bills and Jets have played 14 times in New Jersey since Flutie's end-zone fumble, with Buffalo winning just four. And all of those proved meaningless for Buffalo.

The first was one of Alex Van Pelt's three wins as a Bills starter, a 14-9 thriller that improved Buffalo's 2001 record to 3-12.

After going 0-for-Drew Bledsoe-and-Kelly Holcomb against the Jets on the road, the '06 Bills and J.P. Losman pulled to 6-7 with a 31-13 win that kept their faint playoff hopes alive, only to drop their last two for a 7-9 finish that would become the standard under first-year coach Jauron.

They did it again a year later, sort of. Losman replaced Edwards with the score tied at a field goal each in the fourth quarter, with one of his three completions going for 85 yards to Lee Evans to seal a 13-3 win. The Bills, of course, finished 7-9 again.

Losman more than made up for it the following season, in perhaps the most heinous loss in the rivalry's history.

Having completely dissipated a 4-0 start under Trent Edwards, the 5-7 Bills somehow took the lead when Losman completed four straight to set up Fred Jackson's 11-yard touchdown run with 5:39 left. After Buffalo's defense forced Brett Favre and the Jets to go three-and-out, Losman faced a second-and-5 from his own 27 with 2:06 remaining.

Marshawn Lynch had already run for 127 yards, Jackson for another 31. So someone thought it would be a good idea for Losman to pass, and he decided the best option was to scramble back toward his own goal line. There, he was stripped of the ball by Abram Elam, with Shaun Ellis scooping up the loose ball and trotting in for the winning touchdown.

You guessed it -- the Bills went on to finish 7-9, as was their wont under Jauron.

Buffalo's most recent New Jersey victory came a year later, in another game most witnesses would like to forget. Steve Christie's field goal with 2:49 left in overtime, set up by Mark Sanchez's fifth interception of the day, gave the Bills a 16-13 edge on a day when they allowed New York to run for 318 yards, 210 of them by Thomas Jones, and Fitzpatrick replaced a concussed Trent Edwards at quarterback.

Fitz, E.J. Manuel and the legendary Brian Brohm all played their part in Buffalo's four Meadowlands losses since, though few quarterbacks deserve more credit for defeat than Fitzpatrick in the '12 season opener.

So now Kyle Orton gets his chance. Once again, the Bills need a win, this time to reach the season's midway point at 5-3 and as part of a reasonable playoff discussion.

Yes, the Jets are 1-6. They have also lost five of those games to teams that currently have winning records, and four of them by a single score or less. Most recently, they lost by two on the road to New England, and will have had 10 days to rest and prepare when they take the field Sunday.

New York's strength is centered in the middle of its defensive line, which happens to match up quite well with the disaster area which is Buffalo's offensive interior.

Geno Smith played well in New England, but would figure to be fresh meat for Buffalo's pass rush. But then, the Bills allowed Teddy Bridgewater to keep the Vikings ahead until the game's final snap last Sunday.

At this point, predicting what these Bills will do based on their recent performances, or those of their opponents, is futile. Almost as much so as playing a game that matters in New Jersey.

Bills Overcome Themselves, Outlast Vikings

Too bad somebody had to win.

Yes, Buffalo did finally lull Minnesota into a 17-16 final on Sunday, keeping them in second place in the AFC East for at least one more week.

And, yes, for the second time in three starts since replacing E.J. Manuel, Kyle Orton directed the Bills to the decisive points in the final seconds.

But, geez. If ever a tie would have been the just and proper outcome of a football game, this was it. I've seen or heard just about every Bills game since 1975, and I can't remember one in which they played worse for longer, and still won.

Even the final Buffalo possession -- it feels wrong to call a series involving two sacks and two offensive penalties a "drive" -- looked like something patched together at the end of an exhibition game.

Somehow, thanks to Orton catching the Vikings in disarray on fourth-and-20, along with redemptive efforts by Scott Carpenter and Chris Hogan, as well as the emerging brilliance of Sammy Watkins, the Bills managed to cover the 105 yards they required of themselves.

Before the last three minutes, Buffalo's biggest offensive play ended with C.J. Spiller writhing in agony, his collarbone broken and his season, along with his Bills career, likely over.

Before the last three minutes, facing a defense ranked in the NFL's bottom half against both the run and pass, the Bills could not keep the ball for more than six plays at a time, with four possessions ending in turnovers.

Before the last three minutes, Orton had completed 23 of 31 passes, but for just 183 yards -- a highly non-threatening 7.9 yards per completion. Even with those 105 yards at the end, the Bills averaged 5.2 per pass play when factoring in sack yardage. For the season, the Jets rank last in that category -- at 5.8 per attempt

Before the last three minutes, disarray along Buffalo's offensive line -- compounded by the absence of Fred Jackson, lost with a groin injury three series before Spiller went down -- led to four sacks of Orton.

(Note: It does not help that the 10-year veteran shows a faint awareness of the pass rush and no ability to escape it when he does notice. I'm trying to think of a less-mobile Buffalo quarterback. Jim Kelly in his final season? Vince Ferragamo?)

On the scoreboard and in the standings, of course, those final 180 seconds of game time are all that really matter. As for the rest of the schedule, the Bills have plenty of problems to fix in order to keep the next 10 weeks from looking remarkably like the last 14 years.

As Doug Marrone said of his team's mistakes during an appropriately glum post-game press conference, "The list goes on and on."

--- Buffalo's run defense, the league's stingiest entering the day, gave up 158 yards -- more than double its previous average. Even more troubling, Minnesota's Jerick McKinnon gained more than half his game-high 103 yards after bouncing off the first Bills defender to hit him.

--- Even the least-talented offensive lines tend to get better over time, with improving unit cohesiveness compensating for a lack of individual dominance. Not so with Buffalo. Besides collapsing repeatedly around Orton, the Bills did not exactly shred Minnesota on the ground. Otherwise-banished wide receiver Mike Williams delivered the key block on Spiller's 53-yard run. Buffalo's runners managed all of 65 yards on 18 attempts. Not to belabor the point, but this was against the Vikings.

--- The Bills committed four turnovers and permitted six sacks in total, the first time they have won despite hitting those milestones since a 37-35 win against Indianapolis in 1997. (OK, now I recall a game in which they played as badly as they did Sunday and still won. The Todd Collins-era Bills fell behind 26-0 at home to the pre-Manning Colts, then staged perhaps the least-riveting comeback in NFL history.)

--- So other than blocking and tackling, protecting the football and avoiding penalties (getting nabbed with 12 men on the field is never recommended, but doing so on fourth-and-1 is an especially bad look), the Bills looked terrific.

Of course, there were enough positives to produce one more point than a team whose quarterback looked to be about 12 years old while wearing a purple toque during second-half sideline shots.

The passing-game plan finally centered around Watkins, whose nine-catch, 122-yard, both-Buffalo-touchdowns performance showed why general manager Doug Whaley was willing to spend two first-round picks to land him. Watkins' break-out day helped create space on the final drive for Scott Chandler, whose grab on fourth-and-20 atoned for a drop on the previous play, and Hogan, who made up for his first-quarter fumble with the catch that made Watkins' game-winner possible.

The defensive line was again the best unit put on the field by either team, with three of the four starters recording sacks, led by two from Marcell Dareus and 1.5 by Jerry Hughes. The biggest came early in the fourth quarter, when each got to rookie Teddy Bridgewater on consecutive plays after the Vikings had earned a first down at Buffalo's 7-yard line, limiting Minnesota to a field goal that kept it a one-score game.

Orton's late-game antics (again, "heroics" seems way too strong a word here) have Buffalo at 4-3 heading into Sunday's trip to to play the 1-6 Jets.

The Bills have attained such mediocrity four times during their 14-year playoff-free skid, getting to 4-3 or better at this point during the 2002, '03, '08 and '11 seasons. Having conjured visions of potential postseason runs, those four teams promptly disintegrated, going a combined 6-28 from their respective high-water marks.

This edition looks perfectly capable of doing the same, even with the second of six straight games against teams possessing worse records ahead Sunday in New Jersey. Winning by scoring 17 points, which Buffalo has managed twice in three weeks, is not a sustainable route to success in today's NFL (last season's four conference finalists won a total of two games while posting 17 or fewer).

Of course, it is also possible that succeeding despite themselves for the second time in three weeks will imbue Orton -- who has now been in Buffalo for nearly two months and will be making his fourth start in New Jersey -- and the rest of the Bills with improved self-esteem, and that Watkins' emergence as a game-changing force will offset the loss of Jackson and Spiller, while the defense and special teams continue to do their parts.

In the historically unlikely event all of that happens, it may even start to look and feel like they deserve their victories.