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After the Miami Dolphins blew out the Buffalo Bills, 35-8, earlier in the season, some of the Miami players accused the Bills of “laying down”. The Bills got their chance to respond to those accusations this Sunday, but that response was to lay another egg, as they played an uninspired game marred by turnovers, penalties and blown assignments on defense. The mistake-filled effort led to the Bills’ seventh consecutive defeat in what has turned out to be an extremely disappointing season. The final score was a respectable 30-23, as the Bills made a late charge to make it look closer than it really was. Buffalo’s defense didn’t play a bad game, but gave up 3 touchdowns on big plays that appeared to include major breakdowns. The first was a Matt Moore to Anthony Fasano pass on a play that found the Dolphins’ big tight end wide open as Bills’ safeties George Wilson and Bryan Scott looked at each other bewildered. The second was a Moore to Brandon Marshall bomb that burned veteran Drayton Florence, who in recent weeks looks like he is playing his way out of the team’s 2012 plans. The final one was a 76 yard run by Reggie Bush, who had 200+ yards on the ground for the game. Still, the defense wasn’t the major culprit this time. Buffalo’s offense was terrible, ruining drives with costly penalties all day long and turning the ball over with 3 Ryan Fitzpatrick interceptions. The special teams made their weekly negative contribution also, giving up long punt returns all day long and getting a missed chip shot field goal attempt by Dave Rayner.

Rather than dwell on the many negatives the Bills provided again in this game, it may be better to just list the few bright spots from the game. They include, on offense, the play of C.J. Spiller, who had the best game of his young career, and the play of both Stevie Johnson and David Nelson. They both are consistent in what they provide to the attack each week, and on a team that sorely lacks depth, it’s critical that the Bills sign Johnson to a long-term contract if they want to show their fan base that they’re serious about building a winning organization. On defense, the play of 3 rookies – Aaron Williams, Kelvin Sheppard and Marcel Dareus – was encouraging. Williams led the team with 6 tackles and had a forced fumble, while Dareus got a sack, which has been an extreme rarity with this defense this season. Another plus was the kickoff return effort by another rookie, Justin Rogers. He averaged 33 yards per return on 4 returns, with his best being a 54 yarder.

Last week’s selections produced 11 correct picks out of the 16 games, pushing the season record to 131 correct picks and 77 incorrect. Here are my week 15 choices:

Jacksonville at Atlanta – this is an obvious mismatch pitting a down-and-out team that has already fired their coach against a team fighting for a playoff spot, played in the hungry team’s home stadium. This should be a lop-sided Falcon win.

Dallas at Tampa Bay – the Buccaneers have been a major disappointment this year, but you would hope they could muster up a good performance at home and play spoiler against a Cowboy team that has struggled to finish games. They haven’t shown the ability to muster up much of anything, so I say Dallas wins a game they absolutely need to win.

Miami at Buffalo – the Fish come to town having just fired their head coach, which means they’ll either be more motivated, or more disorganized. They beat the Bills soundly in Miami, but I believe Buffalo is not the type of team to mail in the rest of the season. They’ll rise up at home and break their 6 game losing streak by beating Miami.

Seattle at Chicago – this should be a low scoring game, and Seattle is on a roll, while the Bears have lost all their offensive weapons. The Seahawks win.

Carolina at Houston – the Texans wrapped up the first division title in their history last week, and I see this as a trap game for them. They’ll take the Panthers lightly and Cam Newton will lead a surprise upset win for Carolina.

Tennessee at Indianapolis – next season, and the expected return of Peyton Manning, can’t come soon enough for the Colts. They’ll stay winless as the Titans win to stay in the playoff race.

Green Bay at Kansas City – you have to wonder how the Packers can stay motivated for games like this, other than trying to stay unbeaten. It won’t be a total blowout, but the Pack wins again.

New Orleans at Minnesota – the Saints can only lose this game if they beat themselves, and they won’t. Drew Brees carves up a weak Viking defense and leads a New Orleans win.

Washington at New York Giants – the Redskins played New England tough last week, and division games are always struggles, but I have to believe the Giants, now in the driver’s seat in the NFC East race, will pull out a win here.

Cincinnati at St. Louis – the Bengals still have playoff hopes, even though they’ve lost ground playing a brutal schedule recently. They will ride a great effort by their defense to a hard-fought road win over the Rams.

Detroit at Oakland – the loser of this game takes a big hit to their playoff hopes. I’ll say that the proud Raiders rebound from being embarrassed in Green Bay last week and beat the Lions at home.

Cleveland at Arizona – the Browns have no chance of winning in the tough environment in Arizona. The Cardinals continue the roll they’re on with a big win.

New England at Denver – the Broncos are at home and have a much better defense than the Patriots, but this game boils down to Tom Brady vs. Tim Tebow. The magic ends here as there’s no way New England allows themselves to become the latest Tebow victim. The Pats rise to the occasion on defense and win.

New York Jets at Philadelphia – Michael Vick is back in the lineup and that makes the Eagles a different team. Although they’re out of the playoffs, the Eagles, under Andy Reid, will be prepared to play hard, especially at home in front of their critical fans. I’ll take Philly to win and throw a wrench into the Jets’ playoff hopes.

Baltimore at San Diego – the Ravens have had some major hiccups against bad teams this year, but still control their own fate in the AFC North race. Baltimore wins here to knock the Chargers out of playoff contention.

Pittsburgh at San Francisco – the defenses will control this game. Because they have much more experience under the Monday Night spotlight, I’ll take the Steelers to outlast the young 49ers.

Well, if the slogan for the Buffalo Bills during their 5-2 start to the season was “UNBILLIEVABLE” then the new slogan for the second half of the year is “IN SHAMBILLS”. That’s where they are at this point in all 3 phases of the game. It’s like beating a dead horse, but once again the offense couldn’t get anything done, the defense allowed long scoring drives and the special teams made a negative play to help contribute to a loss, which this week was a demoralizing 37-10 blowout delivered by the San Diego Chargers. Just like in the Miami game a few weeks ago, the Bills ran into a lowly team that found its’ groove just in time to crush them. After a season full of poor play and turnovers, suddenly Phillip Rivers was nearly perfect, carving up the Buffalo defense all day. One play during the game summed up my biggest beef with the team’s defense all year long, and the TV analyst, Solomon Wilcots, described the replay perfectly afterwards. On the play, the Chargers ran a 2-man route, sending only 2 receivers out on patterns and leaving everybody else in to block. The Bills blitzed on the play, but still had 5 players back in coverage. The Bills’ blitz, of course, got zero pressure on Rivers, but amazingly, in the secondary, the replay showed that Rivers had his choice of either receiver, as both were wide open. So 5 players in coverage and not one of them is actually covering either receiver. The result of the play, predictably, was a big gain for a first down. But the scheme being played was maddening. I believe the problem is over-coaching. The players are caught in a robotic scheme that drains their natural athletic ability and turns them into chess pieces that react late to everything, rather than allowing them to trust their instincts and go make plays. The reason coaches play this way is because they don’t trust the players, who, if left to their own instincts, will wind up falling for play-action fakes and making themselves and the coaches look foolish, resulting in big plays. So the Bills’ defense doesn’t give up a lot of huge plays, but instead wind up losing games by giving up long, time-consuming touchdown drives. I’ve repeated this point often – at some point during games, a defense has to contest something, show SOME aggressiveness.

The Bills, as a whole, have shown a lack of fortitude also. When the defense did come up with a big play – Bryan Scott’s fumble recovery TD that basically was a Christmas gift from Rivers – then hold the Chargers to a 3-and-out and give fans hope that they’re still in the game, the special teams allow a fake punt to work for a first down. Again, predictably, the defense doesn’t stiffen, it gives up another long touchdown drive. Ryan Fitzpatrick immediately follows up with a terrible pick-six interception, and the game is over. It’s really unfortunate that the Bills couldn’t have played the whole season with all of the players they started the year so promisingly with. Having depth on the 53-man roster is becoming a key to any NFL team’s success these days, and the Bills now know how badly they are lacking in that department. The final 3 games, starting this week with a home rematch against the Dolphins, is a three game head start on next year’s exhibition season. Players will be getting their chances to make an impression on the coaches for jobs for next year, and some will be playing their way off the roster.