Date with Destiny? How about a date with reality, first?

The Buffalo Bills traveled out west yesterday, venturing into the wonderment that is McAfee Coliseum to take on the lowly Oakland Raiders, a team that's been in disarray ever since it lost Super Bowl XXXVII in a blowout, and a team that apparently can't sell out a smallish stadium even after adding the game's most electrifying, if maddening, offensive player.

And the Bills laid a giant turd on the turf at McAfee, emitting a stench that was whiffed as far east as Strykersville, NY. (Yeah, probably farther.) The Bills managed to lose 24-17. Oh, wait -- did I say, 24-17? That was the score when I turned the game off early in the fourth quarter. My bad. The final score was actually 38-17.

If only Jim Mora were the Bills' coach, because then he would have been able to utter the simple truth in his post-game press conference: "We suck. We're a diddly-poo offense." And so on.

The strange thing is that Kelly Holcomb once again didn't play badly. He completed something like 18 of 25 for around 150 yards and two TDs, with no interceptions. Not bad; in fact, that's pretty much what the Bills wanted out of Holcomb. Manage the game, don't throw a whole lot, don't make mistakes that cost the Bills the game. Check, check, and check. Holcomb didn't do a single thing that led to the Bills losing this game.

That was taken care of by the defense, the offensive line, and the coaching staff.

:: The defense was riddled by the Raiders' running game; the D once again failed to generate any pressure without blitzing; the D gave up third-down conversion after third-down conversion. The defensive unit that was supposed to carry this team to the playoffs, in a season-long performance that some on the team said would echo that of the 1985 Bears and the 2000 Ravens, surrendered over four hundred yards of total offensive to a 2-4 team.

:: The offensive line once again failed to provide any kind of sufficient protection for Kelly Holcomb. Holcomb was only sacked three times, but he was hurried all day and never had a chance to make a downfield throw. The Bills attempted zero passes of greater than twenty yards. Good thing we've got all those great receivers here. Eric Moulds can bitch all he wants, as far as I'm concerned.

:: The coaching staff always seems to have a perfect game plan drawn up -- for the Bills' first drive of the game. This was no exception, as the Bills marched all the way for a touchdown using the game's first eight minutes. And then they looked completely discombobulated, as though they couldn't figure out which end was up. They ran short outs on long yardage downs; they called for a screen pass when they faced third-and-twenty (McGahee picked up fifteen); they called for blitz after blitz after blitz. And in the most talked-about coaching misfire of the day, the Bills faced fourth-and-goal from the Raiders' 1-yard line. They decided to go for the score, which I can respect, given the team's identity as a powerhouse running smash-mouth team. Here comes the snap, the handoff to Willis McGahee...well, no, here's the handoff to the lead blocker, fullback Daimon Shelton. Who hasn't had a carry in over five years of NFL play. He got stuffed.

The facts are clear, from where I sit: the Bills are simply not a playoff-caliber team, and this lunacy of putting in Kelly Holcomb for the "spark" that would get them over the playoff hump needs to end. Holcomb hasn't played badly at all, and it's a shame that this is the position in which he finds himself, but he was not put in for the right reasons, and the only logical thing now is for the Bills to concede that the team has too many holes to make the playoffs, pull Holcomb out, and let J.P. Losman get back to learning the damn game so that maybe he's ready next time the Bills manage to field a team that could make the playoffs. If Losman's the future, then we need to let him have his screw-ups and we need to let him learn from them. And if that means, right now, letting the Bills lose games partly because of Losman's errors rather than letting the Bills lose games despite Holcomb's lack of errors, I'd go with the former.

Here's where I stand, boiled down to the essentials: the Bills have me agreeing with Jerry Sullivan. And that makes me crazy.

Other football and sporting notations:

:: As always, I'm rooting for the Steelers in the AFC North, but it's really cool to see the Bengals being competitive again, especially with the Ravens heading downward and the Browns being, well, the Browns.

:: Looks like the NFC North is ripe for the Vikings' taking!

:: OK, maybe I'm a little more down on the Bills than I should be. After all, they're just 3-4, as are the San Diego Chargers. But does anybody think that the Bills are equal, talent-wise, to the Chargers? I sure don't. There's always some team that posts a mystifyingly poor record; I think the Chargers are it for this year.

Baseball:

:: I'm rooting for the White Sox, because I love Chicago dearly (even though the Cubs just make me laugh), and I have some -- but not nearly enough -- good memories of the Windy City. Plus, they do it right, and I just think Ozzie Guillen is cool.

:: When fate intrudes: I tuned in for the very end of Game Two last night. Lidge, the Astros' closer who gave up that monster walk-off shot in Game Five of the NLCS, is facing down some White Sox hitter who didn't homer all year until the ALCS. The announcers have an exchange that goes something like this:

PLAY-BY-PLAY GUY: So, does Lidge still have that taste in his mouth from that homer in the NLCS?

COLOR COMMENTATOR: No, this is the World Series. That taste is long gone by now.

Not five seconds later, the White Sox hitter takes Lidge's next pitch into the right-field stands. Walk-off homer, game over. Sox up, two games to none. Ouch. Then, a minute or two later,

COLOR COMMENTATOR: Well, I guess Lidge might have that taste again now.

Ya think?

:: Channel surfing during a commercial break, and I found figure skating on. The Winter Olympics are coming up! Go Michelle Kwan! (Although I'm not sure how realistic that is.)

OK, that's it for this week. I may not blog at all about football next Monday, given that Sunday night the Bills have a nationally televised road game against the New England Stupid Patriots. Those always end well for the Bills. Kind of like a nationally-televised colonoscopy.