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With a quarter of the 16-game season now in the books in the NFL it’s time to give the Buffalo Bills their grades for the first portion of the season. With an 0-4 won-lost record and having given up 34, 38 and 38 points in their last 3 games, the overall grade is easy. It’s a well-deserved F. Here are the position-by-position grades for the team, including the front office and coaching staff:

Front Office

Drafting C.J. Spiller was a positive but last year’s draft hasn’t produced any other productive players. Nose tackle Torell Troup has seen a little playing time but the Bills’ run defense has been so bad that you can’t say he’s contributed much. Alex Carrington made the final roster and finally was active on game day against the Jets but hasn’t shown anything. This team needs pass rush help so badly that if Carrington doesn’t show something by season’s end he may have to be considered a bust, since he’ll certainly get opportunities. Injuries derailed Marcus Easley, Ed Wang and now Arthur Moats so the draft grade has to be incomplete. Undrafted free agent David Nelson was a good find, but GM Buddy Nix gets negative grades for one move – signing Chris Kelsay to an extension – and one move he didn’t make – resigning Terrell Owens. Kelsay was an average player at defensive end before this season, and since his switch to linebacker not only looks lost and confused but looks like he’s playing wearing cement football spikes. Signing him is a head-scratcher, unless the coaches see something that the average fan doesn’t. Let’s face it, Kelsay is way beyond the point where you’d resign him based on “potential”. The front office probably decided they didn’t want the distraction of having T.O. around again, but he behaved last year, was a good teammate and certainly was a productive receiver. He could have been signed relatively cheaply, so not bringing him back really cheated the fans, and looks like a cheap move.

Coaching

When your team is 0-4 and looks lost and disorganized, your grade has to be an F. Changing what was at least a competitive defense to a 3-4 scheme has been a total failure so far, and obviously the wrong choice at quarterback was made at the start of the season, so another negative checkmark goes in the coaches’ column for that. The use of all 3 backs in the running game could be viewed as a positive, but the fact that Fred Jackson has wound up being under-utilized as a weapon negates that.

Quarterback

Trent Edwards gets an F for his 2 games played, and obviously he flunked right out of school. We’ll give Ryan Fitzpatrick an incomplete so far, based on not enough playing time yet. Fitzpatrick is a competent backup at the very least, but most likely before the season is over we’ll see Brian Brohm, and possibly even Levi Brown, get their shots.

Running Back

C.J. Spiller gets a B+ but even his contributions have been spotty, mostly coming on kick returns. Fred Jackson was a much more productive player last year but for some reason this coaching staff has fallen in love with Marshawn Lynch, and Jackson hasn’t had much chance to shine. It seems to me that the new coaches are making the same mistake with Lynch that they made with Trent Edwards. Like Edwards, Lynch was beaten out last year by a hungrier, more productive player but apparently won the starting job back. They’ll learn the hard way, like they did with Edwards, that for every positive play Lynch makes he’ll make 2 that go for losses, or as in the Jets’ debacle, result in costly turnovers. What is frustrating to fans is that they already know, because they’ve seen it last year, what the new coaches are taking half the season to find out – that some of these guys wound up on the bench last year for good reason. Overall, the running backs get a B+, since the running game actually works well when the defense can get off the field and give the offense a chance to play ball control instead of continually having to play from behind.

Receivers

This group was failing until Fitzpatrick took over at QB. Then suddenly in New England last week, Lee Evans, Roscoe Parrish, Stevie Johnson, Jonathan Stupar and David Nelson started making plays. There were a ton of drops in the Jets’ game, however, so this group gets a C-, mostly because of inconsistency. Johnson and Nelson deserve mention, though, since they looked like players who were going to contribute zero at the start of the season, then blossomed once Fitzpatrick took over.

Offensive Line

This unit is far from the best in the NFL, but certainly Fitzpatrick’s presence has made them look better. They deserve at least a C, with veteran Cornell Green pulling that grade down from a B- with his inconsistent play. The front office has signed 2 offensive linemen off the street since the season started so you know they are still looking for missing pieces, but I think this is a unit that at least at this point is headed in the right direction with good, young players and is a building block for the team.

Special Teams

One of the strengths of the team, especially the return game with Spiller and Parrish. The kicking game is solid with Brian Moorman and Rian Lindell, and the kick coverage has been good as well, even in the Jets’ game. In fact, the Bills’ kick coverage units were the most physical part of Buffalo’s game on Sunday. I wonder if Cory McIntyre can play linebacker? This unit gets a B+.

Defensive Line

The only physical player among the Bills’ front seven is nose tackle Kyle Williams, but the run defense has been so pathetic that even he can’t get a good grade. Rookie Torell Troup is too inexperienced to grade too harshly, but certainly he’s no instant sensation. The same goes for rookie DE Alex Carrington. Three veteran defensive ends, Marcus Stroud, Spencer Johnson and free agent Dwan Edwards, have all underachieved, as this team can’t stop the run and generates no pressure at all on opposing quarterbacks. I’ll give them a D, sparing them a failing grade only because the poor linebacker play has made them look worse than they are.

Linebacker

This group gets not only an F, but an oversized F in red pencil. They are the worst linebacking unit in the NFL and are mostly responsible for dragging down the performance of the whole defense. In a 3-4 scheme the linemen are supposed to tie up blockers, freeing up the linebackers to pursue the ball and make plays. There are NO playmakers on this linebacking corps. On the inside, the best player is probably Paul Posluszny, but he is an average player, probably couldn’t crack the starting lineup with most teams and certainly hasn’t thrived in the new scheme. Andra Davis was signed after being cut by another team, so he is a stop-gap player. Keith Ellison is a hard worker who contributes on special teams but is not really a starter. His grade for effort, however, would probably be the highest among the linebackers. The outside backers are all players trying, not very successfully, to make the transition from defensive end. I already critiqued Kelsay earlier, so there’s no sense piling on. Chris Ellis and Aaron Maybin, so far, are borderline busts. The move to OLB should have been great for both of them, allowing them to utilize their quickness to give the team a couple of great outside pass rushing threats. The fact that the team was moving rookie Arthur Moats, before he was hurt on Sunday, to outside LB to try to generate some pass rush is an indictment of Ellis’ and Maybin’s continued failure. The other outside backer on the roster, Reggie Torbor, is, like Davis, a stop-gap player. You know this unit is bad when 2 of the 4 starters are veterans who were released by other teams.

Defensive Back

The Bills have no interceptions so far this season, and the secondary has been burned to a crisp in consecutive weeks by Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and Mark Sanchez,  so these guys should probably get a failing grade. I’ll give them a D-, only because the lack of pass rush and poor linebacker play has put them in some bad positions. It’s impossible to cover Randy Moss all day when Tom Brady is getting hit less than he does in his practice sessions. That being said, this unit is loaded with underachievers, top 10 draft picks like Donte Whitner and Leodis McKelvin, who should be playmakers but aren’t. I’ll give Terrence McGee and Ashton Youboty passes here. They are decent players who keep getting hurt, mainly because they wind up having to make the tackles that the linebackers should be making. Jairus Byrd WAS a playmaker last year, but again, in the new scheme, he’s been invisible. Veterans George Wilson and Bryan Scott are in the same boat as Fred Jackson. They are hard workers and special teams contributors who earned their way onto the field last year, but now are seeing their playing time reduced as the coaches use the high draft choice guys who are mediocrities. This unit, on paper, is a strength of the team. They just haven’t shown it yet in the 3-4 scheme.

The New York Jets’ 38-14 win over Buffalo on Sunday cemented 2 things – that the Jets indeed have to be taken seriously as a Super Bowl contender, and that the Bills may be the worst team in the NFL right now. Buffalo’s offense didn’t get much done but the defense they were up against is among the NFL’s best. The expectation in a game like that is that your defense will slow down the Jets’ running game and can possibly bait young QB Mark Sanchez into some turnovers. Instead, for the second week in a row the Bills’ defense was non-existent. Jet running backs, led by LaDainian Tomlinson, ran through gaping holes all day long. The pass rush never got near Sanchez and Jet receivers were wide open all day. The Bills went into the game with 2 goals on defense – stopping the run, since the Jets had gouged them badly twice last year, and making sure Sanchez’s favorite target, tight end Dustin Keller, was accounted for and didn’t beat them. The Jets wound up with 273 yards rushing and Keller scored 2 touchdowns, including one in which he was completely unaccounted for in the end zone. The Jets manhandled Buffalo physically, and that is one of the Bills’ biggest problems right now. Their defense is a sieve and besides looking totally disorganized and lost in playing their new 3-4 scheme, there are no physical players, other than maybe nose tackle Kyle Williams, on the unit. In reviewing last week’s loss to New England I mentioned that the team’s high draft picks that should be major playmakers by now, Donte Whitner, Leodis McKelvin, Aaron Maybin, etc. are turning out to be mediocities rather than impact players. McKelvin was schooled by Sanchez and Braylon Edwards on a double move on Edwards’ touchdown in the 2nd quarter and again, like Whitner and Maybin, makes 3 negative plays in each game for every positive play. Granted, the offense didn’t help much, and Marshawn Lynch’s fumble pretty much sealed the deal for the Jets, but even had Ryan Fitzpatrick and Company equalled their 30 point showing last week, it still wouldn’t have been enough. Lynch, by the way, fits the same category as the first round defensive players. He’s a disappointment overall who makes 3 negative plays for every positive one. Defensive coordinator George Edwards should be under fire today after his unit’s performance for the last 2 1/2 games. Sure, the unit is learning the new scheme and needs to adjust, but the last 3 games weren’t an adjustment period, they were a total failure. It may be time to give some of the soft, over-rated veterans on the unit the Trent Edwards treatment – starting lineup one week, waiver wire the next. Coach Chan Gailey needs to find out if there are any younger players – on the roster, the practice squad or on other team’s practice squads – who have a little desire to play the game.

Meanwhile, on Sunday night in New York, the Giants defense, coordinated by Perry Fewell, who directed the Bills defense last year when it was the strength of the team, sacked the Bears’ Jay Cutler 9 times in the first half, knocking him out of the game with a head injury, and crushed the Bears 17-3. It’s starting to look more and more like Gailey and George Edwards should have followed the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” rule with the Bills’ defense.