The Blame Game

One of my pep-peeves as a sports fan has always been that players play, and coaches coach. So this one goes out to all the Buffalo Bills fans calling for Dick Jauron's head; it's not Dick Jauron, its your players, I'm sorry but they're just not that good! Ask your owner...

"We haven't got the talent," Wilson said to ESPN's AFC East consultant Tim
Graham. "We didn't play well. The coaches, they can't go out and kick the
ball. They can't go out and tackle. What else is there to be involved?"

So when the day comes that Dick Jauron runs the ball 13 times for 31 yards in a do-or-die game for your team then you can blame him. Until then blame your saviour-Marshawn Lynch, anybody you have put at quarterback, and a defense that just can't ever seem to get off the field. The truth is the Bills were tremendously hyped when they beat poor teams, and when they began to face some respectable competition, they folded over just like... well the Bills. After a 5-1 start, the lowly Bills are on-pace to be right in the position they are every year, below .500 and out of the playoffs.

The Bills were everybody's flavor of the month back in September, but lesson-learned everyone, including ESPN who poured gasoline on the lit match when they predicted a AFC championship for this team. Teams are forced to prove themselves in divisional games; divisional opponents know the ins and outs of each others teams very well and force each other to show their true colors. The Bills have shown their true colors, they are 0-4 in the divisional and if there was a color that signified that, I would have to guess it would be a putrid puke brown.

All the premature excitement about second-year players Trent Edwards and Marshawn Lynch has been enough to make me sick. And after the 5-1 start I will admit, I was starting to think I was going to have to come around for Edwards, but boy am I glad I stuck to my guns on this one. Edwards groin injury was the best thing that could have happened for him, if you ask me. Edwards may be able to keep a flicker of confidence going into next year now, that is unless he meets any more defenses who expose him for the overmatched new J.P. Losman on the Bills roster. For the amount of dissent, and don't get me wrong, well deserve dissent, that Bills fans give Losman, I don't understand why they continue to give Edwards the benefit of the doubt.

Edwards has been terrible in big games this year and has looked increasingly terrible as the elements have become more of a factor in western New York. Edwards entire career has been consistently inconsistent. He has 17 touchdowns and 18 interceptions in his career, and those stats are patented by great days against last years 1-15 Miami Dolphins and this years 3-10 Kansas City Chiefs. So Bills fans, does Edwards performance in this year's Browns game remind you at all of his struggles in last years Giants game? It should, big-game, at home, 3 interceptions and a loss, sounds remarkably similar. So Bills fans, when you guys continue to follow Edwards wherever he takes you, hopefully for your sake your organization is scouting this years array of quarterbacks entering the draft.

And now on to Marshawn Lynch. Disregarding the fact that he looks like the predator, he certainly doesn't run like one. Marshawn Lynch very well may be the most overrated runningback in the NFL. And the fact that this fan base refers to him as beast mode is a joke. If flopping around on the ground like a dead fish after you are down makes you beastly, well I guess I'm a beast too. How many times have the Buffalo Bills training staff thought he was having seizures on routine two-yard dive plays?

Anyways Marshawn Lynch is averaging a pedestrian, I mean very pedestrian 3.9 yards per carry and similar to this team has struggled against good competition. If it weren't for 100-yard performances against the juggernaut defenses found in Cleveland and San Francisco, ironically both losing efforts, his numbers would be a lot worse. Lynch has compiled a total of 154 yards rushing in four divisional games, all losses, and has been far from consistent on the ground. Last Sunday, Lynch on several occasions dropped passes and was stuffed early and often on first down forcing the Bills to pass the ball a lot. But hey, he will gain 1,000 yards this year (well maybe, he only accounted for a total of 62 yards against the Jets and the Patriots the first time) so regardless of what he averages per carry, he'll get the credit he certainly does not deserve.

Alright I digressed a little. Moral of the story Bills fans, blame your players that you love so much, not your coach. Since Marv Levy who have you liked? You don't have a Super Bowl team, an AFC championship team or even a wild-card team, so stop expecting one.

End rant