Broncos 15, Bills 14

Well, that sure sucked! Expecting one's team to go 5-11 doesn't make it any more fun when one of the eleven predicted losses turns out to have been as winnable as this game was. For what it's worth, I saw from the Bills today pretty much what I expected to see today: some promising stuff, and some other stuff that made me wish for December.

Anyway, here are my reactions to various stuff, categorized into three areas depending on how I feel about them.

Woo-hoo!

:: Marshawn Lynch. This was the first time I saw this guy in action, since I didn't watch anything in the postseason. I didn't realize how large he was, and he looks like he's going to be a really good one as he gets better and more experienced. On his touchdown run, he literally pushed a Denver defender into the end zone in front of him.

:: Roscoe Parrish. Great kickoff return, obviously.

:: Paul Posluszny. I liked him a lot. Now, if someone else on the defense would make plays.

Meh.

:: JP Losman. Look, I didn't think he looked bad in the game. Nothing he did seemed really cover-my-eyes awful, like he once did last year. But he didn't seem to step forward at all, did he? Losman's at a stage in his career when he should be able to make more plays than he did yesterday. He didn't step it up. I don't think Losman made any mistakes that cost the Bills the game, but he didn't take control, either. I don't think he took a step backward -- but I didn't see any evidence of a step forward. At this point I think he should be showing some of those "intangibles", now that his raw mechanics seem to be OK.

:: Bills defense. We knew it was going to be a bad defense, and it played like it. Sure, they only gave up 15 points, but it seemed like every time Denver needed to make a big conversion, they either made it or gained enough yardage to turn a long yardage situation into a short yardage situation on the very next down.

:: Offensive line. I was, on balance, favorably impressed by this unit. But we're talking, roughly, fifty-three percent impressed versus forty-seven percent shaking my head in dismay. I like to think the unit will get better as the year goes on and the chemistry develops. They weren't getting blown off the line by the Denver defenders, and a few times they actually seemed to exert some will over the Broncos. But they weren't consistent.

D'oh!

:: Injuries. Holy crap. Coy Wire, Ko Simpson, and Kevin Everett: all hurt today, with Everett's sounding potentially career-threatening. (Not like Everett's had much of a career, but still.) The Bills are already weak at all the positions at which guys got hurt today.

:: Tight ends. It was maddening to me that Jay Cutler always had this big, strong target roaming the middle of the field to grab his dump-off passes (Javon Walker -- not technically a TE, but still), and Losman didn't. Robert Royal? He provided a catch. So did Everett before he got hurt on a special teams play. Two catches. None of Losman's receivers could get open in the middle, and the Broncos did a great job in taking downfield away. Ugh.

:: Peerless Price. One catch. Drawing a lot of salary that could otherwise have gone to a better receiver or a tight end or a defensive lineman or someone who could make a contribution.

:: Dumb mistakes by players. Josh Scobey either missed or ignored a signaled fair catch, and leveled the Denver player who was going to catch a punt. The resulting penalty and re-kick resulted in a net change of nineteen yards of field position.

:: Playcalling. I really hope it comes out who was responsible for trying a deep pass play when there's 2:30 left in the game and you're holding a two-point lead. What a horrible, horrible idea that was; it's only defensible in that goofy NFL-speak way where "You're a genius if it works and a goat if it doesn't." But if that play had simply been a run up the middle for no gain, it would have run fifteen or twenty seconds off the clock that were left on the clock otherwise by the incompletion. If everything else had been exactly the same from that point, the Broncos' rally for the winning FG would have run out of time well short of FG range. As it played out from that point, the Bills didn't even have to convert the third down.

Worse, that call sends a horrible message, doesn't it? If that came from the coaching staff, it seems to indicate a total lack of confidence in the defense. Granted, the D had not played very well all day, but they'd kept Denver to a low score. Calling for the home-run at that point basically says, "There's no way our young guys on D can preserve the two-point win once the other guys get the ball back." It could have been, "OK, youngsters, win the game for us." Instead, it was "God, we need more points." Bad, bad, bad move.

Next up: the Bills visit the Pittsburg Stealers. They should be able to bounce back against...oh crap, it's the Pittsburgh Steelers. Ach, I have a bad feeling about this.