Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

Well, now that the first Sunday in November is done, all I have to say is: Can I have October back? Anyhow, some sports notes:

:: I'll take Reality Checks for $500, Alex!!

That resounding thud heard yesterday resonating through the Lower Great Lakes region was the Buffalo Bills in their first meeting of the year with the defending Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots. (I could barely force my fingers to type those last six words....) A lot of Bills fans were set for a possible "changing of the guard" type of victory yesterday: the Bills were 5-3, they were on a three-game winning streak, their defense had performed well in those three games, they were at home with their new star quarterback facing the team that dumped him last year for the first time, the Patriots were reeling, they had lost four in a row, yada yada yada. Insert the voice of Chris Berman here: "That's why they play the games."

On Friday I predicted a Pats victory in yesterday's game, because I figured they needed it more and they were still, position for position, more talented than the Bills. Plus, while I've made no secret that I don't regard Bill Belichick as the next incarnation of George Halas, I do think that he is a more experienced and more wily coach than Gregg Williams, so he was more likely to have his team ready for what they were to face than Williams. Nevertheless, I predicted the game to be a squeaker. Instead, the Pats jumped out quickly and in the end turned it into a blow-out. Ugh.

What did not surprise me about yesterday's loss was the fact that the Bills' defense got riddled. Their recent success came against young teams starting inexperienced quarterbacks (Houston/Carr, Miami/Lucas (in place of regular starter Jay Fielder), Detroit/Harrington), so they were able to use a combination of blitzes and shifting coverages and misdirections to gain the upper hand in those games. That strategy didn't figure to work against a more experienced, battle-ready opponent like the Pats, and it didn't work at all. The Pats knew what the Bills would try on defense, so they came in with a game-plan full of screens and dump-offs and junk plays, almost all of which worked. At one point, those plays were being so effective that the color guy on CBS, Phil Simms, actually said something like "I guarantee that in the next three plays the Patriots will run a screen pass"....which they went on to do. Add to that some generally bad tackling by the Bills and their characteristic pass rush (which produced the staggering total of one sack of Tom Brady), and you pretty much have a defensive melt-down. So, the Bills' only real hope was to turn this sucker into a shoot-out.

And that's where the actual surprise of yesterday's game happened. The Bills were in the Red Zone at least five times that I can remember, and they came away with exactly seven points. That's it. They moved the ball well; Drew Bledsoe threw for three hundred yards, with his only interception coming midway through the fourth quarter when the game's outcome was no longer in doubt; Travis Henry averaged 4.8 yards per carry, although the running game fell by the wayside as the Bills fell behind; Peerless Price had nine catches, et cetera. But they couldn't score, which is the first time we've seen the Bills have that particular problem all year. It didn't help, of course, that kicker Mike Hollis missed all three of his field goal attempts, but the Bills' inability to get the ball in the end zone yesterday was shocking.

This game, then, really exposed the status of the Buffalo Bills: they are a good team in the making, but they are at least a year away and they are in need of some serious defensive upgrading before they can be considered any kind of real contender. Next week the Bills are off, and then after that they start the tough part of their schedule: in their last seven games, they have to play road games at Kansas City, the Jets, New England, and Green Bay. Of course, they won't lose the rest of their games: they close the season against the Bengals.

:: The AFC East race is, as usual, tightening up. The Dolphins appear to be starting their annual swoon (although this year's edition is a bit more cruel, resulting from injury to Jay Fiedler). The Patriots are at .500 and a game behind the Bills, but their remaining schedule is not as hard as Buffalo's. Look out.

:: The Raiders' defensive players are probably the most exhausted people in the United States today. Between the 49ers' final drive in the fourth quarter (which ended in a missed field goal as time expired) and their game-winning drive in overtime (after they won the coin toss and received the kickoff), the Raiders' defense was on the field for thirty-five consecutive plays. Wow.

:: My picks for the Super Bowl both won yesterday, and both are leading their respective divisions. The Steelers came back to beat the Browns and are now a solid 5-3, threatening to pull away from the rest of the AFC North. They also appear safe as far as home-field advantage goes: they won't have it, which bodes well for them to get to the Super Bowl. The Eagles also won at Chicago (well, at Champaign against Chicago). Home-field advantage is actually important in the NFC, and the Eagles are in a log-jam at the top of the conference. But they're solidly in front of their division, with a two-game lead on their nearest competitors.

:: In two of the Cowboys' last three games, it's turned out that scoring consisting of three field goals was enough to beat them. Considering that the Bills' Mike Hollis missed three field goals yesterday, I guess it's a good thing that the 'Boys aren't on the Bills' 2002 schedule. (In Hollis's defense, one of those kicks was a fifty-yarder, and another involved an odd snap so that the ball wasn't planted very well by the time his foot contacted pigskin.)

:: The most oft-repeated words in Cincinnati yesterday: "Thank God for expansion!"

:: If you're going to wear green jerseys for a game, at least pick a nice, dark shade of green. Say, hunter green, like the Philly Eagles. Bright green, grass-green, just doesn't work. Just ask Notre Dame. (Oh, and thanks, Boston College! You've saved us all!)

:: New York City is bidding to host both a Super Bowl and the 2012 Summer Olympics. I seriously doubt they'll get a Super Bowl, since the NFL is loath to hold the game in a northern city unless that city has a domed stadium. There have been thirty-six (or, in NFL parlance, XXXVI) Super Bowls, only two of which have taken place in northern cities (XVI in Detroit, and XXVI in Minneapolis). As far as NYC's Olympic bid is concerned, I don't know what cities around the world are in the running, but I wonder where they'd build an Olympic Stadium and an Olympic Village. (I'm genuinely curious here. I don't know NYC's geography very well at all.) Perhaps, if NYC wins the bid, this could be how Steinbrenner finally gets his new stadium -- if NYC does what Atlanta did after its Olympics and converts the Olympic Stadium into the new ballpark. Of course, that's assuming that Steinbrenner is willing to wait until after another ten years have passed before he gets his mits on a new park.

:: NBA weirdness: Karl Malone was held scoreless yesterday by the Sonics. He's played for eighteen years and is a lock for the Hall of Fame, and yet he was shut out for probably the first time in his life yesterday. I don't pay a lot of attention to the NBA -- well, to basketball in general -- but Malone being held scoreless is worthy of a visit by Agents Mulder and Scully.