Monday, September 13, 2004

Oh-and-one.

I don't have a lot to say about yesterday's Bills game (which they lost, 13-10, to the Jaguars). I saw some things that were encouraging, and some things that made me think, "Uh-oh". On the encouraging side, they ran the ball 36 times, which certainly shows commitment; also, Drew Bledsoe's decision making process was better than I remember. The "uh-oh" factors included the defense's inability to keep a team from scoring when they were down by four with two minutes to go and starting a drive on their own 20, the fact that they relied heavily on the blitz, and that the defensive line didn't generate much pressure (neither of the Bills' two sacks came from the D-line).

Losing on the last play of the game sucked, of course, because that always sucks. What also sucks is the NFL's insistence that if you score a touchdown to take the lead as time expires, so the other team has no chance at all to win, you still have to attempt the extra point. This is stupid. The Jags snapped the ball, time ran out, the play ended with the touchdown with 0:00 on the clock. That should have been the game, with the Jags winning, 12-10. Requiring an extra point is just stupid. So that's all from the Bills game.

The rest of the NFL was fun to behold -- especially the beginning of a slow sweat build-up under Dave Wannstedt's collar. Heh, heh, heh. I don't get too wrapped up in Week One, because really, it's Week One. Some teams look bad that are really good, some teams look bad that are really good, and the Bills look like the Bills. On to Week Two (Bills visit Oakland).

UPDATE: Readers familiar with my football diatribes from seasons past will remember that I like to make Buffalo News columnist Jerry Sullivan my own personal whipping boy, because he usually says something pretty dumb. So it is to my immense surprise that I pretty much agree with his entire take on yesterday's game: the game was encouraging, but there was still a lot of "Huh-whuh?!" stuff there.

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