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One thing that has been aggravating about the surprising start to the 2011 season for the Buffalo Bills is that every time they’ve lost in the first half of the year, the national media “experts” have smugly dismissed them as a “fraud” and although they have gotten a lot of positive attention, mostly there has been a feeling that they would level off and eventually return to their losing ways. After Sunday’s 44-7 dismantling of the Bills by the Dallas Cowboys, those smug experts may turn out to be right. In my recent mid-season assessment of the Bills, I mentioned that the team’s new franchise QB, Ryan Fitzpatrick, needed to eliminate turnovers if the Bills were going to continue to stay in the playoff hunt. He threw 3 in the rout against Dallas, and Fred Jackson added a fumble in what was easily the most dismal offensive performance this year by the Bills. Jackson did manage to gain over 100 yards on the ground again, but his yardage came mostly in garbage time when the game was already decided, which on Sunday was probably some time midway through the second quarter. As bad as the Bills’ offense played on Sunday, I still think they are a good enough unit to contend for a playoff spot this year. The problem is the team’s porous defense, which started to show some progress recently, especially in the shutout win over the Redskins in Toronto. But they were awful in Dallas, getting streamrolled by the Cowboy attack that showed them absolutely no respect. The Bills’ D made Tony Romo, an erratic mess in most games this year, look like the second coming of Joe Montana, as he led his team on touchdown drives on their first 4 possessions. Once again, the team got zero pressure on the quarterback, in this case a quarterback who has melted all year long when rattled even a little. Romo was laughing and having a great time on the sideline as early as the start of the second quarter, never appearing to have any trepidation of being involved in a tough game. I really believe the defense’s inability to stop or even slow down the Cowboys’ attack is the main reason the team got hammered. In fact, Jackson’s rushing yardage is a sign of what the team could’ve accomplished had the defense done anything to keep the game manageable. There were 2 plays in the game that told the story of how one-sided it was. First, there was Dez Bryant’s touchdown catch over Leodis McKelvin on the ‘Boys opening drive. It was a great play, and McKelvin had pretty good coverage, but it foretold how much of a “men against boys” contest this was going to be. The other play was a simple throw and catch for a first down by Romo to his tight end, Jason Witten, on a third down on one of the many Dallas scoring drives. On the play, three Bills defenders stood in a line just behind the defensive line, apparently covering their “zones”, while Witten just ran a couple yards past them, turned around and caught the ball for the first down. The 3 Bills’ defenders, all looking bewildered, then turned around and converged on Witten to make the tackle. I’m not any kind of football defensive scheme expert, but I have to believe in any scheme that one of those players needs to be responsible for actually covering the opponents’ biggest third down receiving weapon. My point is that the Bills’ defensive coaches are either doing a terrible job of putting the players in positions to succeed, or they need to put players on the field who actually understand the scheme and don’t turn the game into an easy practice session for the opposing offense. Despite the rout, technically the Bills are still very much in both the division title and playoff races. At 5-4, they are in much better position than more bally-hooed teams like the Eagles or the Chargers, but unless they somehow come up with some answers on defense, they’re in deep trouble. Their next opponent, the Miami Dolphins, have gotten up off the mat and won 2 games in a row. They are starting to believe in their injury replacement QB, Matt Moore. Unless the Bills fix something by next week, it’ll look like a Dan Marino highlight reel.