The Buffalo Bills ended their 2014 season on a winning note on Sunday, defeating the New England Patriots 17-9 in a meaningless game as far as playoff possibilities was concerned. The Bills were already mathematically eliminated, while the Patriots already had home field advantage throughout the playoffs sewn up. In an unlikely scenario, since Pats’ coach Bill Belichick goes for the jugular no matter the situation, New England played Tom Brady for only about a half before turning the game over to rookie backup Jimmy Garoppolo. Also, receiver Julian Edelman and tight end Rob Gronkowski, a Bills’ killer, were inactive for the game, along with starting offensive linemen Dan Connolly and Sebastian Vollmer, while several players played only sparingly. Bills’ coach Doug Marrone declared it was important to win the game anyway, and played veteran QB Kyle Orton for that reason, rather than giving EJ Manuel another shot to play. Orton, if not spectacular, has at least been consistent in his performances. In typical fashion, he led the Bills on impressive touchdown drives early in both the first and second quarter, and didn’t do much the rest of the way. He also coughed up a fumble while being sacked, squandering good field position. Buffalo’s defense, minus inactive starters Marcell Dareus and Stephon Gilmore, played another outstanding game, even though Garoppolo wasn’t exactly a Brady clone. They came up with four sacks, with Pro Bowler Mario Williams getting one, along with 1.5 for Jarius Wynn, subbing for Dareus, 1 by Stefan Charles and another half sack for Manny Lawson. Brady and Garoppolo combined for a meager 144 net passing yards. Although the game had no bearing on the playoffs, it did accomplish a few positive things for the Buffalo franchise. It allowed them to finish with their first winning record (9-7) in a decade, got them their first win ever in Gillette Stadium, and broke New England’s 35-game home winning streak against AFC East opponents. For the sake of continuity and for accomplishing the slight improvement in wins (+3), Marrone probably should keep his job, but like the rest of the organization, he has a lot of room for improvement, which I’ll get into in more detail in part 1 of the Bills’ season review later this week.
Archive for the ‘Football’ Category
NFL – Throwback Thursday: Miracle at The Meadowlands
The seventeenth and last week of the 2014 NFL schedule includes a contest between the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants, so the final Throwback Thursday feature of the season will be a look at an unforgettable game played between these two teams on November 19, 1978 that forever became known in NFL lore as “The Miracle at The Meadowlands”. Both teams were mired in mediocrity that season, and the game wasn’t very artistic, but Giant quarterback Joe Pisarcik, who wasn’t exactly a darling of the Big Apple media (he was sarcastically dubbed “Off-Broadway Joe”), did enough to put his team in position to secure a win with a pair of touchdown passes early in the game. The Giants held a 17-12 lead and had possession at the two minute warning, thanks to an interception by Odis McKinney. New York ran a couple of plays with fullback Larry Csonka, including one that gained 11 yards and a first down. With the Eagles out of timeouts, all the G-Men now had to do was kneel down and run out the clock. Pisarcik did just that on first down, but Philly linebacker Bill Bergey burst through the line and hit the New York center Jim Clack, knocking him into the Giant signal caller. It was a desperate attempt to force a fumble that failed. However, in an era before the automatic “victory formation” kneel downs of today, Giant offensive coordinator Bob Gibson sent in a standard running play, with Pisarcik to hand the ball off to Csonka, the same play that had just been successful. Gibson’s explanation afterward was that he didn’t want to expose his quarterback to further injury, so in a way Bergey’s charge worked. Also, in that era many coaches considered the kneel down to be dishonorable.
When the play was sent in, New York’s offensive huddle was in shock. Csonka begged Pisarcik not to give him the ball, and the rest of the players exhorted him to change the play and kneel down again. Pisarcik had gotten a lot of heat for audibling out of a play the week before, and being an inexperienced second year man, he demurred to the offensive coordinator. The play turned out to be disastrous, and forever took it’s place in NFL history. The Giants had wasted a lot of time in the huddle arguing over the call, and the play clock was running down when they lined up so Clack snapped it before his QB was ready. Pisarcik bobbled the snap but hung on to the ball, but his handoff glanced off of Csonka’s hip and wound up on the ground. Eagle defensive coordinator Marion Campbell called for an all out 11 man blitz on the play, and Herman Edwards broke into the backfield, scooped up the ball and ran it into the end zone to lock up the improbable win for Philly. The play was costly for the Giant organization. Pisarcik needed a police escort to get to his car after the game, and Gibson was fired the next morning. The stigma of that call was so bad that he never worked in football at any level again. Head coach John McVay and personnel director Andy Robustelli finished the season but were let go afterwards. Ironically, a couple of years later Pisarcik was traded to the Eagles for a draft pick.
Eagle DB Herman Edwards completes the “Miracle at The Meadowlands” deciding play
NFL – Bills’ Game Review
The streak of consecutive non-playoff seasons will reach 15 this year for the Buffalo Bills, as they lost a must-win game on Sunday to the lowly Oakland Raiders, 26-24. It was a strange game in that, after starting off with a drive that ended with a 42 yard touchdown pass from Kyle Orton to Sammy Watkins, the Bills went completely flat in all phases and played nothing at all like a team fighting to qualify for the postseason. After shutting down a pair of future Hall of Fame quarterbacks in Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers the past 2 games, Buffalo’s supposed dominant defense got schooled by the Raiders’ rookie QB, Derek Carr. Oakland’s running game, ranked at the bottom of the entire NFL, gouged the Bills for 140 yards that included some long runs through gaping holes, especially after Pro Bowl defensive tackle Marcell Dareus left the game with a knee injury. The deciding play of the game came in the fourth quarter, when Oakland faced a 3rd and 22 situation and Buffalo proceeded to give up a 50 yard completion from Carr to Kenbrell Thompkins, a New England Patriot castoff, who burned Corey Graham on the play. The Bills didn’t force any turnovers, despite facing a rookie QB and a team that has been mistake-prone all year and had won only two games going into Sunday’s contest. The Bills’ front four did little to disrupt Carr or the Oakland rushing attack, and Mario Williams and Jerry Hughes were non-factors. It was just a completely discouraging game to watch considering the Bills were supposed to be inspired to battle for a playoff spot.
The Bills’ special teams did nothing, and the offense, except for the opening touchdown and a couple of late desperation drives, looked mostly lost. They ran for only 13 total yards in the game, on 13 attempts. While the Bills’ defense was allowing Carr to have his way, Orton was continuing his maddening habit of turning the ball over, as he had 2 more interceptions. Overall, Buffalo’s effort was mind-boggling, considering how they shocked the NFL world by defeating Green Bay the previous week. On this day, they never looked ready to play while the Raiders, playing out the string of a sorry season, were by far the more inspired team. In another amazing statistic highlighting the Buffalo franchise’s historic troubles, the loss means the Bills haven’t won in Oakland since 1966.
So the Bills are now reduced to playing for pride at New England next week to end the season, although the Patriots may have a lot at stake, with the possibility of gaining home-field advantage throughout the playoffs with a win. It would be great to see EJ Manuel play in that game, but I don’t see that happening, since the league will expect the Bills’ coaches to go all out to make the game competitive with playoff seedings at stake. My take on the game is this: Between the Bills’ mostly inconsistent play all year and the Patriots’ need for the victory, it could be one of the most epic run-for-the-bus efforts in Buffalo history.
NFL – Throwback Thursday: The Blunder Bowl
The Dallas Cowboys and Indianapolis Colts clash in the NFL’s week 16 schedule, and for this week’s Throwback Thursday feature, we’ll encore a post that we published during Super Bowl week in 2011. It was Super Bowl V, a mistake-filled game played on January 17, 1971, between the Cowboys and Colts (who were based in Baltimore at the time):
Super Bowl V may have been the strangest of all of the 44 NFL title games played since the Super Bowl began. It was played following the 1970 season, the first year the NFL and AFL merged into one league with 2 conferences, after Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Baltimore were transferred from the old NFL into the American Conference of the new NFL. After the AFL had established itself as the NFL’s equal with 2 consecutive stunning Super Bowl wins, by the Jets and Chiefs, suddenly the game wound up with 2 old NFL teams playing each other, which took some of the competitiveness out of the game which existed when the young AFL was trying to make a name for itself in earlier years. Both teams entered this game with issues – the Cowboys had gained a reputation for being a good team that “couldn’t win the big one” after failing in the playoffs every year since the early ’60s. The Colts returned to the game where they had suffered the “embarrassment” of being upset by the upstart AFL Jets 2 years earlier, only this time were representing that upstart league as AFC champions. Nonetheless, both teams entered the contest needing to win badly to erase a losing stigma, despite being successful, winning franchises.
The game was an artistic mess, and it looked as if neither team was going to be able to erase that losing stigma, or if either was even capable. The game, which became known as the “Blunder Bowl”, featured 11 combined turnovers, including 7 by the winning team (a record that still stands today), 14 total penalties and a boatload of punts. The Cowboys finished with 113 passing yards, the Colts had 69 yards rushing. All 3 quarterbacks who played in the game, John Unitas and Earl Morrall for Baltimore and Craig Morton for Dallas, completed less than 50% of their pass attempts. A rookie kicker, Jim O’Brien, won the game by kicking a field goal with 5 seconds left, but only after Cowboy RB Dan Reeves let a pass slip through his hands that LB Mike Curtis intercepted, to set it up. Baltimore’s Don McCafferty became the first rookie head coach to win a Super Bowl, but obviously his coaching genius wasn’t much of a factor in the win. For the first and only time in Super Bowl history, a player from the losing team – linebacker Chuck Howley of the Cowboys (pictured below) – was named the game’s MVP. Howley refused to accept the award, saying it was meaningless to him after his team lost. So the Colts, ultimately, erased the stigma of being embarrassed by the Jets in Super Bowl III, but, instead of winning back the glory for the old guard NFL, their win gave the upstart AFL, now the AFC, a 3-2 lead in title games between the leagues. The Cowboys’ story finally got a happy ending also, as they returned to the Super Bowl the next season and soundly defeated Don Shula’s young up-and-coming Miami Dolphin squad in Super Bowl VI to finally give Tom Landry his long-awaited championship. One thing this game accomplished – it firmly established the fact that the old battleground days of the NFL and AFL were over, and that the NFL was now just one big happy family. From this point, the game grew immensely in the 1970s and beyond into the monster it is today.
Dallas Cowboy LB Chuck Howley
NFL – Bills’ Game Review
If the Buffalo Bills wind up missing the NFL playoffs for the fifteenth consecutive season, it won’t be due to the efforts of their defense. Coordinator Jim Schwartz’s unit put forward their best effort of the season, in a year that has included consistent, if not always dominant, efforts, in being the main reason for a 21-13 upset win over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. As with every one of their eight wins on the year, it was a great “team” win by the Bills, but the win wouldn’t have happened without the shutdown performance of the defense. On offense, the Bills were their usual pedestrian selves behind Kyle Orton. They did just enough with the running game, as Fred Jackson, Anthony Dixon and Bryce Brown made contributions, and completed a minimal amount of passes, just enough to account for four Dan Carpenter field goals. The special teams had a terrific day, with Carpenter’s field goals, a blocked field goal, some terrific kick return coverage highlighted by Marcus Easley, and a 75 yard punt return touchdown by Marcus Thigpen being among their accomplishments. It was the defense that owned the day, however. After allowing Eddie Lacey to run for 73 yards in the first half, they tightened up and limited him to only 24 in the second. They held Aaron Rodgers, whose trademark is accuracy, to 17 completions in 42 attempts for a paltry 185 yards. It was the second week in a row the Bills’ defense held a future Hall of Fame quarterback in check. Although Buffalo’s vaunted pass rush only had a single sack (it was a strip/sack by Mario Williams that caused a safety and basically ended the game), they kept Rodgers feeling uncomfortable in the pocket most of the day. It was a very un-Rodgers like performance, but credit the defensive effort by the Bills for causing it. Unheralded newcomer Bacarri Rambo, signed less than a month ago and pressed into the lineup due to injuries to safeties Da’Norris Searcy and Duke Williams, picked off a pair of Rodgers passes, and the secondary in general had it’s best day of the year covering receivers – maybe the best in many years in fact.
One thought from the game: Critics of general manager Doug Whaley have to give the guy his due. The Bills still have a fighting chance at a playoff spot because players he plucked off the waiver wire within the last month – Thigpen, Rambo and tight end MarQuies Grey, have stepped in and made significant plays to help the team pick up much-needed wins. Buffalo now finishes up the regular season with road games at Oakland and New England, and must win out and get help from a number of sources to qualify for the post-season. Chances are they won’t make it, but coach Doug Marrone and his staff, especially Schwartz, deserve credit for giving the fans some meaningful late-season games for the first time in a decade.
NFL – Throwback Thursday: The Bounty Bowl
Two long-time NFC East rivals, the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles, will square off this week on the league schedule in a game that will likely decide the division championship. The Throwback Thursday post for the week will feature a game played between these two franchises on Thanksgiving Day in 1989, at the beginning of the Jimmy Johnson era of Dallas football, that would become known as the “Bounty Bowl”. It was Johnson’s first year as Cowboy coach after taking over for the legendary Tom Landry, and the team was enduring a horrific season that would find them finishing with a 1-15 record. The Eagles were coached by Buddy Ryan, considered a defensive “genius” who had earned the Philly head coaching job with his great work as defensive coordinator in the mid-1980s with the Chicago Bears. His Eagle team was a defensive powerhouse, and a heavy favorite to defeat Dallas on this day. The game pretty much followed the script, as the Eagles harassed Dallas’ rookie quarterback, Troy Aikman, all day and crushed the Cowboys 27-0. It was what supposedly happened during the game, however, that had Johnson fuming afterwards. Dallas’ coach accused Ryan of putting up bounties of up to $200 on two Cowboy players – Aikman and placekicker Luis Zendejas, who had been with Philly earlier in the season, was cut, and signed with Dallas. At his post-game press conference, Johnson said this: “I have absolutely no respect for the way they played the game. I would’ve said something to Buddy, but he wouldn’t stand on the field long enough. He put his big, fat rear end into the dressing room.”
For his part, Ryan denied the accusations, saying that his players had no intention of hurting anyone, and even claiming it was in the Eagles’ best interest to keep Zendejas in the game, since he was in a slump. He also joked about Johnson’s comments, saying: “I resent that. I’ve been on a diet. I lost a couple pounds, and I thought I was looking good.” The facts show that Eagle players took numerous cheap shots at both Aikman and Zendejas during the game, and the Mexican-born kicker said afterwards that during his time in Philadelphia, Ryan had paid an unnamed player $100 for each of two hits on an opposing punter. The game caused such a fury that when the two teams played later that year in Philadelphia, the contest was dubbed “Bounty Bowl II” by the media, with CBS Sports doing a pre-game opening that featured wanted posters of the involved players showing bounty amounts. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue attended the second game, and although no incidents occurred on the field, Johnson, some of the referees and television announcers Verne Lundquist and Terry Bradshaw were pelted with snowballs, ice and beer. Even Eagles’ player Jerome Brown was hit with a snowball while standing on the sideline, attempting to get the fans to stop throwing things. Eventually, Johnson got the last laugh, as he built the Cowboys into a dynasty that won a pair of Super Bowls in the early 1990s, while Ryan never reached that level of success as a head coach in stops at Philadelphia and later with the Arizona Cardinals.
Jimmy Johnson complains to the officials as Luis Zendejas (6) is helped by trainers after enduring a hard hit
NFL – Bills’ Game Review
The Buffalo Bills’ 24-17 loss to Denver on Sunday afternoon was a heartbreaking one, as the team fought hard but couldn’t make the plays to pull off an upset over a superior opponent. Their defense put on a valiant effort – they intercepted Peyton Manning twice and snapped the future Hall of Famer’s streak of games throwing at least one touchdown pass at 51. Their vaunted pass rush failed to sack Manning, but they certainly contained him enough to have won the game, had the offense been able to produce something beyond the two late touchdown drives that made the final score close. As in most of their losses this year, the Bills made too many mistakes, didn’t make enough plays and got just enough questionable officiating calls to keep them from winning. In addition to the pair of picks they got from Manning, the Bills also got a turnover on a fumble recovery near the end of the first half, but they had three turnovers of their own to offset the three their defense came up with. As for the officiating, both of Buffalo’s interceptions, by Corey Graham and Stephon Gilmore, featured long returns which were nullified by questionable penalties. In addition, there was a terrible pass interference call against Nickell Robey that kept a Denver drive alive. Not to beat a dead horse, but Buffalo will continue to be disrespected by the league officials until they fight their way out of the losing stigma they have attached to them. The Bronco defense, of course, deserves credit for playing a terrific game in holding the Bills’ offense in check. Their effort, and a strong rushing attack, led the defending AFC champs to victory on a day when Manning was sub-par.
Among the positives for Buffalo to take from the losing effort – they controlled the clock, outgained the Broncos and never quit, as Orton led them on the two late touchdown drives to keep the score close after they fell into a 24-3 hole. Sammy Watkins re-emerged as a potent passing attack weapon, with 7 catches for 127 yards. The loss left the Bills with a 7-6 record, but their playoff hopes, although slim, remain intact as Miami, Cleveland, San Diego and Kansas City all lost. They’ll continue the late-season gauntlet the NFL schedule-makers stuck them with next week when they play their final home game of 2014 against Green Bay.
NFL – Throwback Thursday: Back To The Future
The Washington Redskins and St. Louis Rams meet on this week’s NFL schedule, and that matchup harkens back to a meeting between these 2 franchises that was played way back on December 11, 1949, a game that will be today’s Throwback Thursday feature. It was played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, as the Rams were located in L.A. back then, and even though it took place 65 years ago, it could be considered a look into the future of the sport. The final score was one-sided, as the Rams, an offensive powerhouse of that era, won handily 53-27, but it was a game that, if you scanned the final statistics, looked like a game that could’ve been played today. The two teams combined for 725 yards passing and 962 total yards, unheard of totals for the time. The Redskins were quarterbacked by the player who basically invented the forward pass in the pro game, Hall of Famer “Slingin” Sammy Baugh, while the Rams’ QB situation was a two-headed monster, as a pair of future Hall of Famers, Norm Van Brocklin and Bob Waterfield, shared playing time at the position. Van Brocklin threw 4 touchdown passes, and Waterfield added 2 more. Another future Hall of Famer, split end Tom Fears, caught a pair of scoring throws, but on this day, his less-heralded teammate, Bob Shaw, caught 4 touchdown throws. Baugh was valiant in a losing cause for Washington, completing 29 of 48 passes for 308 yards, and was responsible for all 4 of his team’s touchdowns, throwing 3 TD passes and scoring on a one yard run. Unfortunately, he also was responsible for “slinging” 2 of his team’s 4 interceptions on the day, which most quarterbacks who are put in a position of having to try to bring their team from behind can relate to, as the ‘Skins trailed 53-14 at one point in the fourth quarter. Baugh’s backup, Harry Gilmer (who would one day coach the Detroit Lions in the 1960s), threw the other two. Washington had a total of six turnovers in the game, and in another similarity to today’s game, the two clubs combined for a total of 20 penalty calls. For the Rams, Waterfield hit on 14 of 22 throws for 253 yards and his 2 scores, while Van Brocklin, amazingly, got his 4 TD throws on only 6 completions (on 10 attempts for 152 yards). In another rarity for what is known as the “three yards and a cloud of dust” era, Shaw and Fears both had over 100 yards receiving. The Rams would go on to advance to the NFL Championship game in 1949, but their offensive powerhouse would meet a fearsome opponent the day of the title game – Mother Nature. The game was played in a driving rainstorm at the L.A. Coliseum, which turned the field into a mud pit, slowing down the Ram attack to the point where they were shut out by the Philadelphia Eagles, 14-0.
Slingin’ Sammy Baugh looks downfield for a receiver
NFL – Bills’ Game Review
In a tight AFC playoff race that finds 12 of the 16 teams with .500 records or better, the Buffalo Bills kept themselves in the hunt in that race with a 26-10 win over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday at Ralph Wilson Stadium. Their chances of actually qualifying are razor thin, but they kept themselves alive with the win. The victory was a lot like most of the Bills’ triumphs this season – the defense played a great game, and the offense did just enough to secure the win. The Browns held a slim 3-0 lead at halftime, as both teams’ first half offensive performances were pretty listless. Buffalo’s defense played another solid game, with 2 sacks, 2 interceptions and a strip, fumble recovery and return for a touchdown by Jerry Hughes. The offense finally came alive in the second half, as QB Kyle Orton led the team on an 8 play, 84 yard scoring drive that included a key fourth down conversion that saw Orton scramble to buy time, then complete a long pass to Robert Woods to set up the touchdown, which came on a short toss to Chris Hogan. Like their earlier home win over Miami, the Bills then settled for field goals on their fourth quarter drives, with Dan Carpenter hitting four of them. At that point, the Bills were controlling the action and seemed comfortable taking the conservative route and adding to their lead. Orton threw for modest yardage, the running game added a decent 106 yards, including the yardage needed to control the clock in the final quarter, and the defensive effort helped minimize the damage of two Orton interceptions. Buffalo has four games remaining in the regular season, three of them against arguably the three best teams in the NFL – Denver, Green Bay and New England. Depending on how the rest of the AFC contenders do, the Bills will probably need to beat 2 of them and win the game they’re expected to – against the Oakland Raiders. To have any chance for success, the defense will have to play even more “lights out”, since they’ll be facing Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady. The offense will have to raise its’ game, as most likely it will take more than field goals to topple the offensive juggernauts of the Broncos, Packers and Patriots.
NFL – Throwback Thursday: Birth of The K-Gun Offense
The game from this week’s NFL schedule that we’ll feature in this week’s Throwback Thursday post is a contest between the Cleveland Browns and Buffalo Bills. The game was played in January of 1990 and was an AFC divisional playoff game. It featured a classic shootout between two of that era’s top quarterbacks, Buffalo’s Jim Kelly and the Browns’ Bernie Kosar. The backdrop to the game was this: the Browns had lost a pair of heartbreaking games to John Elway and the Denver Broncos in the playoffs in previous seasons, and Buffalo, coming off an appearance in the AFC championship game the prior year, had regressed in the 1989 season. They ended the regular season with a couple of losses that almost cost them a playoff berth altogether, and those losses caused some infighting in a very competitive Bills’ locker room that earned the team the nickname “The Bickering Bills”.
The game itself was exciting and included some memorable plays, including a 90 yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Cleveland’s Eric Metcalf and a pass to Buffalo’s Don Beebe in which he was flipped by a Cleveland defender and landed squarely on his head. After falling behind late in the game, Buffalo’s coaches made the decision to go to a fast-paced no-huddle offense to save time, and it turned out to be highly successful. Kelly led his team on a couple of late scoring drives to bring the Bills to within four points at 34-30, hitting Thurman Thomas with a short scoring toss. Unfortunately, Scott Norwood slipped on the icy turf on the extra point attempt and kicked the ball into the backs of his offensive linemen, keeping the score at 34-30 and forcing the Bills to go for a touchdown rather than a tying field goal later on. After that drive, the Bills defense held Kosar to a three-and -out, and after the Browns punted, Kelly proceeded to lead his club downfield with a quick passing attack featuring short throws to his backs, mainly Thomas. The drive included a pair of fourth down conversions, and reached the Cleveland 11 yard line with 14 seconds left. Then came a controversial play in which Kelly found a wide open Ronnie Harmon in the corner of the end zone, and tossed him a pass that he got both hands on, but promptly dropped. There was controversy among fans and in the locker room afterwards about the play, with Harmon claiming the pass was overthrown but fans and some teammates accusing Harmon of having “alligator arms” and not going all out to make the catch. On the next play, Kelly tried to hit Thomas in the end zone but the ball was intercepted by Cleveland linebacker Clay Matthews, father of the current Packer legend.
Despite the loss, some good came out of the game for Buffalo. On the plane ride back home, the coaches, after seeing the success of the fast-paced offensive attack guided by Kelly, decided to make it their base offense the following season, and it was the impetus for the team’s four consecutive trips to the Super Bowl in the early 1990s. Named the “K-Gun” (supposedly after tight end Keith McKeller), it played a major role in making Hall of Famers out of players like Kelly, Thomas, Andre Reed and James Lofton.
Did Bills’ RB Ronnie Harmon have “Alligator Arms” on this potential game-winning pass?