Sunday’s NFL game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars wasn’t exactly a clash of the titans. It looked pretty much like what it was – a not-so-well played game between two of the league’s struggling teams. The Bills held on to grab a much-needed win, rookie QB EJ Manuel’s first road victory in his short career. Manuel started out the game looking like he did last week in Tampa, when Buffalo as a team laid an enormous egg. He misfired on his first four pass attempts, and threw a screen pass directly into the hands of Jaguar linebacker Geno Hayes. To his credit, Manuel recovered, and threw a pair of touchdown passes and ran for another to lead a 27-20 win. Offensively, the Bills’ game plan followed the script that has worked in all of their good efforts this year – Manuel was unspectacular but managed the game well enough, the running game did nothing spectacular either, but racked up 200 yards, with both Fred Jackson and C.J. Spiller contributing. Rookie receiver Robert Woods played his best game yet, catching 5 passes for 80+ yards and a touchdown. The defense came up with big plays. Aaron Williams was a sparkplug, with an early interception and a great hustle play when he ran down Denard Robinson and forced a fumble as the Jacksonville back was about to cross the goal line, causing a touchback to kill a drive. Five different defenders had sacks, including rookie corner Nickell Robey, who also forced and recovered a fumble. Stephon Gilmore played another decent game, and had a pick for the second straight week, this one squelching a potential game-tying drive in the closing minutes.
There were a lot of mistakes on both sides, turnovers and penalties, and fortunately for Buffalo the Jaguars made more. There were a lot of negative plays by the Bills that were masked by the jubilation of them actually winning a road game. Manuel’s early struggles were disheartening, and the offensive line was victimized by penalties for the second week in a row. Despite causing enough turnovers to pull out the win, the Bills’ defensive effort left a lot to be desired. The Jaguars were missing four offensive starters, yet they allowed another unknown backup, Jordan Todman, to rush for over 100 yards. His career total prior to Sunday was 30. They couldn’t get off the field on third and long situations again, and gave up too many big plays. And once again, they couldn’t seem to stand prosperity, allowing a 20-10 halftime lead to erode into a 20-20 tie before rallying for the win. But, in the end, they DID rally for the win, an important stepping stone for them. Coach Doug Marrone proclaimed afterward, “I’m extremely proud of this team.” And he should be. The bar hasn’t been set very high for this team as the season has progressed, but at least they are competing. The Bills, by virtue of Miami’s upset win over New England on Sunday, now find themselves thrust into the middle of both the AFC East and AFC playoff races, even though they are eliminated. They close out the season at home against the Dolphins and on the road at New England, so they’ll have a big say on the playoff chances of those two teams.