I was hanging out in the booth at a fine local bar by my crib. Pretty much I was waiting for the Bills game to come on and bracing myself for another disappointing Sunday where Twitter entertains me more than the actual football product. To my right, I noticed a bunch of diehard Steelers fans. I know this has been repeated a few times by me and others, but I've always been envious of the Steelers. It is not just because they win, but how our cities are pretty similar in terms of fans and just hard working roots.
This group of Steelers fans did some kind of a group prayer, which was utterly corny. To paraphrase, it was something about praying for Big Ben and so on. I just started staring at the group. Kind of like I was in a comatose revolved around their channeling of Football Gods. It might have been a combination of my envy for them or just them believing in themselves. The leader of the group, some 300lbs. dude, started taking notice that I was staring at him like he had fake boobs.
Me: I'm sorry, I'm a Bills fan. I'm just envious of you.
Fat guy: Dude, we are 7-6 and we may not even make the playoffs.
Me: God. I wish I could be in your fricken position. WE HAVE NOTHING!
And that's about it. A Bills fan being envious of a 7-6 team while the 7-6 team's fan won't even entertain the notion of underachieving. Ah, what it was like to be spoiled as a Bills fan when I was younger. Sad.
To the rest of this hot crap:
—The Bills completely quit today. As bad as the Jauron teams were or even when they went 4-12 in 2010 under Gailey, the Bills would at least put up a decent fight when all was lost and the season boiled down to meaningless games. It was the only sad redeeming quality we would always hear. This was as bad as it gets on the effort side. The Bills quit on Gailey last year when the rug was pulled from underneath them after the Stevie Johnson drop against the Jets and their fall from a 5-2 record. It is happening again. The team is completely lost and the losing has gotten to them. They do not deal with adversity all that well. They are a mirror image of us. Just no hope and always expecting the roof to cave in. Seattle is a nice team, but they are only going to hang 50 on a pathetic team. The Cards and the Bills. It felt like Pete Carroll was at USC and he was taking out some 3rd rate college. That's what this game was in a nut shell. Junior varsity vs. the pros.
—So much for the Bills' defense being improved. We mentioned a few times on the site that it's really nice how they have made strides over the last month, but their competition hasn't been much in the offensive department. Against the top 15 scoring offenses in the league (Pats, Texans, 49ers and Hawks) the Bills have given up 37, 52, 21, 45 and 50 points. There you have it. When you play against shitty teams, the Bills' defense may be able to put a hurting on you. If you go against a high powered offense, they fold like a deck of cards. From top to bottom, the defense was a turd sandwich all the way around. Mario Williams looked as if he's never seen a bootleg. The linebackers were terrible. The secondary made Sidney Rice look like Jerry Rice. Whether you were a 100-million dollar player or some journeyman, you stunk today. I think it still goes back to the semantics of Wannstedt's defense. Guys were missing their assignments and didn't know what the hell they were doing. The Bills looked like they never saw the option read or whatever wishbone offense the Hawks ran. Just dated defensive systems by dated coaches.
—Bills have scored 8 TDs in five Toronto games. The Seahawks scored 6 touchdowns today.
—I don't care how bush league it is for Pete Carroll to go for a fake punt with the game pretty much finished. I don't feel bad for the Bills anymore. They deserve a lot of this. They are a terribly run organization that deserves all the mud slinging they can get. Hell, I wanted the Seahawks to score more points. I want this team to be embarrassed so they have no choice but to fire Gailey.
—Historical meaningless stat: Pete Carroll has a 6-3 record against the Bills.
—Memo to Buddy Nix: You were about 30 bounces away from losing by 10 points. Stop with the "What if?" scenarios that you did on Friday. You are what your record says you are. There is no middle ground.
—Did they really call a QB sneak on 1st and 10? Was Tashard Choice and CJ Spiller both winded?
—The Bills gave up 8.4 yards a rush. That's awful.
—The Toronto experiment will never work if the Bills play this way. Duh! Captain Obvious. I think if you are a 1st class organization with the star power of say a New England, it can work out there. Winning will do that. The Bills have a combined 19-30 record when going into these games. You can't sell a losing product to cities like Toronto. Now to sell football to a desperate city like Buffalo? Different story.
—I thought Stevie Johnson and CJ Spiller were the only guys to show up today. Stevie showed that he can make an elite play with a beautiful one handed catch on a crappy Ryan Fitzpatrick throw. Crazy, but we may as well call Stevie Mr. Canada. In his last three games there, he has 25 catches for 317 yards. Spiller did what he always does. He averaged over 6 yards a carry, he was "winded" on a few occasions, and then Gailey would elect to go empty backfield which would pretty much eliminated CJ as a threat. Awesome!
Final word: Sorry boys, but I'm mailing this one in. I don't even know if I can muster enough energy and passion to do game recaps the rest of the way. In the words of Mayor Griffin: Go home, buy a 6-pack and watch a good game of football.
Yeah, I wonder what time the Pats are playing?
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
