Sunday’s season finale for the Buffalo Bills in New England proved one thing – the team is perfectly capable of competing with the Patriots for one quarter of an NFL game. Beyond that, the difference in quality between the two organizations is wider than the Grand Canyon. It’s almost a good thing that the Bills blew a 21 point lead and not only lost, but were hammered 49-21 in the game, because now when the team’s staff does its’ post-season evaluation, it won’t be clouded by any false promise that the team finished strong with 2 consecutive wins and are somehow on the right track.
This season in the NFL, a lot of teams came back from big deficits to win games, including the Bills early in the year against the Raiders and these same Patriots. But for a team to blow a 21 point lead and wind up losing by 4 touchdowns, well, that team needs to pull out all of the weapons in its’ losing team arsenal to accomplish that, which is what Buffalo did on Sunday. Poor tackling, blown coverages, no pressure on the opposing QB, interceptions galore (including one returned for a score, of course), another ridiculous, selfish celebration by Stevie Johnson and loads of mistakes in every phase of the game did in the Bills. A side note on Johnson’s antics: Personally, I thought the “Happy New Year” message on his undershirt was funny and in no way “taunting” of the opponent, but he knew it was going to draw a flag and did it anyway. Kudos to Chan Gailey for punishing him by benching him for the rest of the game. It was the right move and tells me that he won’t allow anybody to put himself over the team’s interest.
The Bills have lots of things to fix if they’re going to turn things around in 2012, but the biggest thing is somehow finding a way to get this team to stop doing all the little things so terribly, most of all losing their composure during games. They need to find some veteran players who have experience playing in winning organizations, either through free agency or trades, and infuse them into their roster along with the promising young players. I plan on posting a season-ending “report card” on the team later this week detailing the problems in 2011 and possible fixes for 2012. Rather than write any more depressing comments on the loss to New England, I’ll wait until then to critique the team.