Year: 2007

At 5-4 the Buffalo Bills are doing better in 2007 than they have in a long time. Despite complaints about the coaching staff, a rash of injuries and a miserably ineffective offense, somehow this team has a winning record and the second longest winning streak in the league. And I didn’t even mention the quarterback controversy! Unfortunately, in week 11, the Bills face the one team with a longer winning streak, the 9-0 New England Patriots. It’s difficult to say how the Bills will respond as there is literally no history to look at. The Bills have never faced a 9-0 opponent.

However, they have played the New England Patriots plenty and lately it hasn’t been pretty. The Bills have lost 13 of the last 14 and 8 straight. Earlier this season the Patriots beat them 37-7 in Foxboro. In fact, the Patriots have just about walked all over every opponent they faced. Only the defending Super Bowl champion Indianapolis colts put up a serious fight, but caved in the end. But this is the NFL and anything can happen. Its unlikely, but the Bills could win. They would need everything to go perfectly their way for it to happen, but it could happen. There’s a reason only one team has ever gone undefeated. Whenever a team is good enough to make a serious run for it, some usually underwhelming opponent upsets them. Often it’s the Dolphins themselves, defending the undefeated title despite having a miserable season. This week it’s the Bills who have a shot in front of a national audience.

It will be serious prime time football at Ralph Wilson Stadium and the crowd will be rocking, that’s for sure. This isn’t Monday night, everybody has the day off with nothing to do but tailgate all day. Its going to be a wild scene. Buffalo fans know how to show up for prime time and they demonstrated that earlier this year on Monday Night Football. Sunday night football seems to be getting bigger than Monday Night as ESPN has horribly mishandled the coverage and taken all of the life out of the coverage while NBC has brought in the best commentators and made it about football. The Sunday night games have been generally better match-ups as well which makes one wonder how the league feels about ESPN’s work with Monday night.

The Bills have elected to continue with J.P. Losman despite his unimpressive performance against the winless Dolphins last week. I think this was the right decision under the circumstances. Edwards is coming off an injury, has almost no experience as it is and really hasn’t been that spectacular when he was in. He definitely shows potential, but putting him in at this point sends a pretty strong message that the team is giving up on the playoffs. Edwards will not benefit from getting destroyed by blitzes for the rest of the season. He crumpled under pressure against the Jets. Aside from all that however, Dick Jauron made the right decision for one primary reason. His job is to keep the team focused and confident. The team is coming off a win where they did not play well. By leaving Losman in place, he is able to take advantage of the positive momentum of the win. If he benches Losman, he loses that. The players have been rallying behind Losman in a way that they didn’t when Edwards was in. More so in the Bengals game, but it showed in the 4^th quarter against the Dolphins as well.

Losman has really taken an unjust amount of blame for the poor performance of the offense in Miami. The offensive mess was a team effort. Losman threw a perfect pass to the sideline on third down and Josh Reed catches it but steps out of bounds under no pressure. Michael Gaines drops a sure touchdown pass that was perfectly positioned. Marshawn Lynch loses 4 yards on 3^rd and 1. And for all the criticism of Losman, did anyone notice that Buffalo’s receivers couldn’t get open against a pathetic group of Miami backups? It’s not Losman’s fault. Dick Jauron realizes that all he does by putting Edwards in right now is guarantee that Losman is out of Buffalo and probably Lee Evans with him. Edwards was less effective than Losman when he was in. He’s a rookie so that’s to be expected, but there really isn’t a strong argument to put him in when you look at the numbers.

NAME CMP ATT YDS CMP% YDS/A TD INT SACK YDS RAT

J.P. Losman 69 109 820 63.3 7.52 2 3 9 73 80.8

Trent Edwards 80 121 790 66.1 6.53 1 5 9 71 69.9

Edwards has only had one game where he had a high percentage of completions (against the Jets the first time). For some reason everyone seems to think that that has continued, but it hasn’t. Losman has completed roughly the same percentage and gets an extra yard out of each completion on average. Losman has 2 TDs to Edwards’ 1 but both of these are embarrassingly low numbers. Edwards has thrown more interceptions.

So either the Bills have two lousy quarterbacks or something else is wrong with this offense. I happen to think that both Losman and Edwards are quality quarterbacks. Losman has more ability but is not as quick a study as Edwards. They actually compliment each other nicely. They also get along, which is a bonus these days. So where is the real problem with this offense? Its in the receiving.

I don’t think its necessarily that the Bills don’t have enough talent. Certainly it would be nice to have a more reliable 2^nd receiver, but between Lee Evans, Josh Reed and Roscoe Parrish the Bills ought to be able to get more going than this. This is the point where I am going to point my finger at Tyke Tolbert, the Bills receivers’ coach for the last four seasons. Tyke must be a real swell guy to survive the coaching changes and the players apparently like him, but he clearly does not know how to get his players to play. Lee Evans has been slow to get involved in the offense in every season Tolbert has coached him. Light a fire under your star! Are you kidding? What kind of coach tolerates this? Robert Royal doesn’t get his foot in last season on an easy touchdown, now Josh Reed steps out of bounds on an easy out pattern? What exactly IS Tyke teaching his players? Certainly not how to get open against the worst defense in the NFL! The Bills don’t get the most out of their wide receivers and it seems pretty obvious to me why. How did this guy survive the coaching change? He sucked under Mularkey as well.

I’m also on the bandwagon with all the people who think that Steve Fairchild needs to go. He has made some of the least inventive game plans ever. His ability to make adjustments during the game are non-existent and at half time marginal at best. The whole team is being held back by this idiot. It has all been said before. I like Dick Jauron though, he is a defensive minded coach and shouldn’t be blamed for the offensive problems as much as Fairchild who was hired to mastermind the offense. Oops.

I think the Bills were caught looking in a big way down in Miami but were fortunate enough to pull off the victory. That was actually a big step for J.P. Losman pulling off a strong 4^th quarter after a miserable start and actually taking the game from Miami. That win is carrying a lot more momentum for the players than it is for the fans. Nevertheless the Buffalo fans will be in full bloom Sunday night. All odds are against it happening but can’t you just smell upset? Here’s a few crazy reasons to billieve:

1.The Patriots are coming off a BYE but the Bills were clearly thinking about the Patriots last week, so both teams have had two weeks to prepare for this game.

2.Dwayne Wright averaged 6 yards per carry on 6 carries in the first meeting with the Patriots. So even if Marshawn Lynch doesn’t play (it looks like he won’t) the Bills may still be effective on the ground. Hey Mel Kiper thinks that draft pick was as good as the Patriots drafting Brady in the 6^th round. Mel’s full of crap, but still.

3. Tom Brady says he’s never played a night game in Buffalo before…

4. The 12^th Man.

5. Come on the Bills are just due to upset the Patriots, its been so long. Why not now?

Sometimes the ball bounces your way. Bills 27 Patriots 13. Lots of weirdness and special teams plays make it happen for this tight Bills team.

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As of now, J.P. Losman has been handed the reigns while rookie quarterback Trent Edwards recovers from a wrist injury. There is a lot of rumor fueling the quarterback situation in Buffalo. One of those rumors is that Ralph Wilson is the one who said Edwards is to be the starter. If that’s the case, it is entirely possible that Dick Jauron is actually in favor of Losman. A lot of people have been over-reacting to a few comments made by players saying that they don’t know who made the decision at quarterback, indicating somebody in the offices upstairs made the call. I hate to burst the bubble of the Jauron haters, but this is the way a perfectly managed football team is managed. It is ideal for the personnel decisions to be made behind closed doors in such a way that the coach can say, “My job is to coach you guys, their job is to make personnel decisions.” It doesn’t make the coach’s job easier if a player like Lee Evans is holding him responsible for benching his best friend.

The reality is that J.P. Losman threw for over 3000 yards last season and was ranked 11th in the NFL. To say he is completely unproven or incapable of scoring multiple touchdowns or managing the offense is not only a mis-statement, its naive. Losman has done all of these things in the past for the Buffalo Bills. In the two games he played in full this season he faced the best pass defenses in the league and struggled under an ultra-conservative game plan, meant to try to keep the defense (riddled with injuries) off the field. None of this worked out, but all the blame shouldn’t be put on Losman. In reality, Edwards has been even more ineffective at the end of the day. He looks good completing lots of short passes but ultimately hasn’t been scoring or executing plays that gain more than 9.9 yards.

So Losman is handed a start because of Edwards injury. I seriously doubt that Jauron will hold back Losman in an attempt to prove Edwards is his guy, this again is ridiculous. Any suggestion that any football team is hoping for a player to not be successful, or only playing for next year is just stupid. Every team plays to win, every week. Period. Any suggestion otherwise is just silly. Likewise, the suggestions made by the fans and media that the Bills WANT to move out of Buffalo is moronic. Its true that the Buffalo market isn’t the strongest, but if the team really wanted to move, they would just do it. There’s no reason whatsoever to go through any steps leading up to it. If the Buffalo Bills wanted to move to Toronto, they would just move. Toronto has expressed the interest etc. Reality once again shows that the Buffalo Bills make every effort to make the team more viable in its current market. Regardless of what fans may think, the Bills actually sell an awful lot more tickets than many teams in the league, however they have a very large stadium considering the population of the Buffalo area. (Indianapolis seats 30,000 less people than the Ralph) I mention all this because some have actually been foolish enough to suggest that the Bills are favoring Edwards for financial reasons. This is just idiotic at best. There is no way that is the case. Edwards came into favor because he looks more calm in the pocket. Looks can be deceiving however since the results of his play are not impressive.

But back to Losman, who may very well be starting for the next two weeks as Edwards hasn’t even been able to practice and may not even be active this week with an injury to his throwing wrist. Losman finally has the opportunity to play in a game with a functional offense against a defense that isn’t tops in the league. This is the type of game where Losman is likely to hook up with Lee Evans for several big plays. Since the Bills now have a functional offensive line, Bills fans will also be surprised when Losman hits his tight ends throughout the game. Losman has been criticized for not throwing to his tight ends enough. Realistically however, you can expect Losman to throw to a tight end who is not running a pattern. Losman hit Robert Royal regualrly late in the season in 2006 when the team was able to release a tight end into the pattern. Prior to that it almost never happened so it wasn’t like Losman was missing open tight ends, they just weren’t in the picture. Losman’s first pass last week when he came in late in the Jets game went to TE Derek Schouman for a decent gain.

One of the things Losman must do in the Bengals game is prove to his team and the fans that he can hit receivers for the short gain as well as he can throw the deep ball. Everyone knows that Losman can throw deep strikes to Lee Evans as well as, if not better than, anyone in the league. The big but has been in the short game. Losman often has games where he just doesn’t seem to have a good feel for the “touch” on the ball in the short game. Marshawn Lynch should make this less of a factor. The Bengals soft defense should make for a fun day for Marshawn Lynch. Losman should be in a lot fewer obvious passing downs.

To put numbers on it, in order to make a strong statement that he should be the starter, Losman needs to have a 300 yard plus performance, but that performance must not be built solely on 3-4 big completions from Lee Evans. 300 yards made up from several deep bombs will keep the controversy brewing. 300 yards spread around the field to running backs, tight ends and wide outs with the deep bomb mixed in once or twice will start to win him support. That alone won’t get him his starting job back.

Losman also needs to score. Not just field goals but touchdowns. Multiple touchdowns is something Edwards has not been able to produce. If Losman can score 3 touchdowns and add a few field goal drives, it will be hard to bench him. The Bills have not been able to score all season. I don’t think they necessarily have to even be passing touchdowns. If Lynch runs for two and Losman throws for one, I think Losman gets the job. There are other factors that would also make a strong statement.

The Bills so far this season have been horrible on third downs, converting around 25% regardless of which quarterback is in. If Losman can bring that up to about 50% or better it goes a long way. Edwards has been touted for his accuracy and high completion percentage, but actually is only 66% to Losman’s 64%. If Losman can complete a high percentage of his passes (70+%) it will also work very well in his favor. First downs have been hard coming as well so the more the better. Time of possession is always good, but not critical to Losman’s future. Losman is a quick strike type of passer.

The most important thing for Losman is that he avoid that “Happy Feet” look that he has been known to get in the pocket. It often results in a big loss sack when he shoudl just throw the ball away. Edwards has been praised for his poise (So Poised he was like a statue against the Jets and paid the price), there fore Losman needs to permanently ditch the “happy feet” look. For all the poise, Edwards hasn’t put up better numbers than Losman, so if Losman can look good while he plays it will help set a lot of minds at ease. Based on his interviews this week, he seems pretty calm.

Losman will be under tremendous pressure to play well both for his career (whether he remains in Buffalo or not his performance on Sunday will effect his salary next year) and for the team. If the Bills lose this one the odds drop significantly for the team making the playoffs. This team was 2 seconds away from being 5-2 so they feel they are underrated. That takes the pressure off, but it also means that if they want to contend they have to beat 2-5 teams. If they beat Cincinnati and Miami, lose to New England, they are 5-5 with six games remaining. Those six teams are Jacksonville, Washington, Miami, Cleveland, NY Giants and Philadelphia. At this point the Bills could easily beat Miami and Philadelphia but the other four games will be tough. Jacksonville and Washington are on the road, the Giants are hot, and Cleveland is playing better than Buffalo at this point in the season. The Bills would have to win two of those to have a shot at a Wild Card. If the Bills lose to the Bengals they would need 3. It becomes far fetched at that point but not impossible.

The Buffalo Bills once again find themselves in the middle of a quarterback controversy. This time around it is J.P. Losman, a veteran of Buffalo quarterback controversies, and rookie Trent Edwards, a… rookie. The coaching staff has been doing a lot of tap dancing as it seems obvious that they are itching to start their recent draft pick, yet owe Losman some respect after the way he finished last season. There doesn’t seem to be any question that the organization has decided to go to Edwards as their future star quarterback. But is he really better than Losman at this point? And is it in his best interest to learn as he goes on the field with an already unsettled and awkward offense? After all, this offense was built around Losman. Wasn’t it? Edwards was a pleasant surprise on draft day. A player the coaches couldn’t pass up on but they didn’t really expect to have a shot at him. How the Bills handle the current situation will say a lot about where the team is headed.

Trent Edwards has shown a lot of poise and composure in the pocket. For the most part he has managed a clean offense, but the team has struggled mightily at times under his leadership. Edwards has thrown 1 extremely bad interception in each of his appearances this season. All were at critical points in the game. Sure they are rookie mistakes, but why suffer through the rookie learning process if you have an experienced veteran on your squad?

Edwards has a questionable injury just like Losman did. It makes for a great excuse to make a non-committal move to start Losman again against a soft Cincinnati defense. Losman ought to have a lot of success. If he doesn’t and the Bills struggle, Jauron can easily start Edwards next week agaisnt the lowly Dolphins. But in the more likely event that Losman helps the team score more than one touchdown and Marshawn Lynch ends up with 100+ yards as a result, Losman should keep the starting job. Not only will Edwards benefit from watching the more experienced quarterback, but Losman will be raising his value. If the Bills decide to trade Losman, he will have a lot more value if he is coming off a successful campaign. There’s also a possibility that the Bills could hold onto both quarterbacks, particularly if Losman re-emerges as the starter.

The thing that makes this situation different from many quarterback controversies is the fact that Losman and Edwards have each other’s back. Both quarterbacks have said how they want eachother to be successful. They could co-exist. Edwards lacks the arm strength to challenge any NFL defenses. If he wants to be a starter he needs to show that he can get the ball down field. That’s when his interceptions have come. Edwards is better off working on that in the off season than struggling on the field and letting his team down. The top players on the offense, particularly Evans, feel that Losman gives them a better chance. But Edwards could be the Reich to Losman’s Kelly.

The Bottom line is, Losman has done a better job with the football this season despite how Edwards “appears” on the field. Despite facing far more menacing defenses than the ones Edwards faced, Losman is ahead of Edwards in almost every significant category.

Losman: 33 of 52 for 368 yards (63.5% completion) 1 touchdown, 1 interception, average completion 11.15, average per attempt 7.07 , passer rating 82.9

Edwards: 80 of 121 for 790 yards (66.1% completion) 1 touchdown, 5 interceptions, average completion 9.875, average per attempt 6.5, passer rating 69.9

The numbers speak for themselves. Despite having more opportunity to play and facing softer defenses, Edwards is producing, on average, half a yard less per passing play and nearly 1.5 yards per completion. 5 interceptions to 1 touchdown is a bad ratio. The Bills have an easy excuse to switch back to Losman and they are using it.

Losman gets to face the second worst defense in the league at home. The Bengals are ranked 28th at passing defense and 24th at rushing defense. Marshawn Lynch will finally get his 100 and Losman will throw for three touchdowns in a breakout game. The game will still be close because Cincinnati’s tough offense will bring the Bills young defense a dose of reality. In the end, the Bills find a way to beat the Bengals as they have often in the past. Bills 31 Bengals 27

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It seems crazy to talk about the playoffs when your team is at 1-4 but fans of the Buffalo Bills should keep their hopes alive. While the odds are not in favor of such a turn around, it has happened before. Bills fans need only look at 2001 when the 1-4 New England Patriots made it all the way to the Super Bowl with a similar gaggle of unknown players. (Sure many of those players are now big names but they were far from it at the time, Tom Brady who is Tom Brady? Bledsoe was the starter) Perhaps you remember the Patriots daunting Tight End combination of Arther Love, Rod Rutledge and Jermaine Wiggins? Or was it their fearsome group of Wide Receivers in Troy Brown, Charles Johnson, Fred Coleman and David Patten? Or maybe it was their powerful group of runningbacks in Antowaine Smith, J.R. Redman and Kevin Faulk? The Patriots dinked and dunked their way to the Lombardi Trophy with screen passes and run after the catch. So much so that the following year Brady was criticized for not being able to throw the long ball (he proved those critics wrong!). After Bledsoe was knocked out with an injury, Brady played well enough to take the starting job. He wasn’t statistically amazing, but he just looked better under center. So much more confident that the Patriots left him in when Bledsoe came back from injury. Sound familiar?

Bills fans in their never ending quest to prove it can’t happen to them, will point out that Dick Jauron is no Bill Belichick and that the Patriots had a lot more defensive talent. Defensively, the Patriots had a lot of over the hill players and diamonds in the rough, but one could make the argument that they were in better shape than the Bills are this season. As for Belichick (in 2001) he was not the proven commander that he is today. Prior to that season Belichick’s record as a head coach was 41-55. Including only one winning season in Cleveland when the Browns went 11-5 (without that season he was 30-50). Browns fans drove him out of town claiming his winning season was a fluke and that his 5-11, 6-10, 7-9 and 7-9 seasons better described his ability to coach. He spent four seasons as an assistant to the Patriots and then the Jets before New England decided to give him a second chance as a head coach. He rewarded them with a 5-11 season in 2000 before breaking out in 2001 once Brady became the starter (coincidence, I think not). This coaching history sounds eerily familiar to the History of Jauron.

This is all merely coincidental and Jauron probably isn’t the coach that Belichick is, but fans shouldn’t be so quick to assume that he isn’t. Brady proved that a solid, accurate quarterback who maintains his composure can make his head coach look a genius. Trent Edwards may be a rookie but Bills fans have to admit that he has many of the traits that Brady had in his first season as a starter.

1. Pocket Poise
2. Accuracy
3. Quick Release
4. Great Short Passing Game

Edwards hasn’t shown an overwhelming ability to throw the deep ball but neither did Brady that first season. I’d bet money that this is why Lee Evans has been endorsing Losman. Evans knows that had Losman been throwing the ball in the New England match-up, Evans would have had an easy TD catch in the corner instead of the ball getting intercepted when it fell a little short of the target. But aside from the deep ball, Edwards has shown this far, that he has a greater ability in just about every other area of the quarterback position than Losman. Most importantly he has the ability to stay calm and collected under pressure. Losman just loses his composure to easily. Everyone thought the Patriots were crazy to let Bledsoe go after their first Super Bowl win, but no one is questioning the move now. Losman will find success to a modest degree somewhere in the NFL but unless Edwards gets injured against the Ravens or simply implodes to a degree that says “this guy isn’t ready”, Losman will be warming the bench for the rest of this season and will be traded afterwards. (Note: for those of you who think the Bills would be better off trading Losman now, you are totally wrong. Losman and Edwards are friends and resentment is low similar to the Bledsoe/Brady situation. Losman has said he will help Edwards be successful if Edwards gets the nod. This is not a Johnson/Flutie situation. Also, trying to unload Losman midseason sends a message that Losman has no value to the team which means the Bills will get very little for him. Losman’s contract runs through 2008 so the team can trade him in the off-season and not sacrifice their QB depth for the rest of 2007. The Bills are better off blaming the benching on a nagging knee injury and letting Edwards prove he is the starter in the mean time so that Losman didn’t lose the job as much as Edwards took it away. This preserves Losman’s trade value while dumping him now will land the Bills next to nothing. Losman was a first rounder, trading him now for a late round pick will go down as a colossal management blunder)

In 2006 the Bills came off the Bye week with a much improved offense. The Bills are praying for a similar result after the 2007 Bye. The offensive coaching has been pretty awful to date and fans are calling for the head of Fairchild (justifiably so). Had the Bills offense been able to score just 1 touchdown against Dallas, the Bills would have won and the killer finish wouldn’t have been a possibility. There were several plays that stand out as bad calls by the coaching staff but overall offensive execution was poor despite good pass protection and decent run blocking. The Bills need to find consistency on offense to help keep their defense off the field. At the end of the game the Bills were at a disadvantage because on those final critical drives, the defense had crossed that 50 play threshold where statistically the odds shift in favor of the offense. See the 4^th quarter of the Dallas – New England game for more evidence of this. The Bills Offense put the defense and special teams in a position to lose. In a game where the defense forces 6 turnovers and scores two touchdowns and the special teams converts a fake punt, drops the ball inside the 5 and scores a 102 yard kickoff return TD, the problem is not the defense or special teams. The Offense scored 3 points and was unable to get a first down when that is all that was needed to kill the clock and win. They were unable to protect the ball when the game was in their hands and they gave up what should have been a dominant upset win.

Regardless of everything else, the Bills have bumbled their way through the worst of their 2007 schedule. So far the teams the Bills have faced have a combined record of 18-6. Three of their opponents are leading their divisions at this point. Every team but the Jets was undefeated when the Bills faced them (ok Denver was 0-0). Moving forward, the Bills have 11 games against teams with a combined record of 28-34. The Bills face 4 opponents with 1 win or less. Lets give the Bills a little credit in that they lost two of their games by 1 point and the other two to division leaders (the Pats have crushed every opponent as badly as they crushed the Bills and the Bills had their starting QB and MLB knocked out of that game). When the Bills played a weak team they easily handled them (Jets). Its not out of the question that the Bills can win two against the winless Dolphins another against the feeble Jets and 1 against the hapless Bengals (who the Bills seem to beat even when they are a dominant team). That puts the bills at 5-4. Barring a miracle, the Patriots will win again which puts the Bills at 5-5. That leaves 6 teams Cleveland, Philadelphia, NY Giants, Jacksonville, Washington and Baltimore. Is it totally out of the question that the Bills can win 4 out of 6 of these games? The Eagles are pretty awful as is Washington, Bills 7-5. Jacksonville is inconsistent but seems to always pull off a close win against the Bills, Bills 7-6. Cleveland is not a good team, but have been able to score a lot of points at times. The Bills have struggled to score so this looks like a loss unless the offense comes to life, Bills 7-7. NY Giants are good at times but don’t have much of a running attack and Eli Manning is prone to throwing interceptions. Considering the Bills are currently tied for 2^nd in the league in interceptions with 9, this should work in the Bills favor, Bills 8-7. Which leaves this week’s match-up with the Ravens as a must win game.

The 12^th man should be huge this week as there is not exactly a lot of love for Willis McGahee after the Bills ex-runningback openly trashed on the city of Buffalo after his departure last spring. McGahee even stooped so low as to complain about the quality of women and to suggest the team relocate to Toronto. While the Bills could benefit from some additional fan support from their Canadian neighbors, shipping the team over there is not the answer and certainly not a suggestion the people of Buffalo want to hear about. McGahee will be pumped up to prove to Buffalo that they shouldn’t have traded him. The problem for McGahee is that the Bills made the right move trading him and he will be hard pressed to prove otherwise. Like in past seasons with Buffalo, McGahee has started the season reasonably strong but has only found the end zone once and has one fumble. While he is currently ranked 4^th, his team has not had a bye yet while many teams have so a better measure is his yards per game, which is 87.5, good enough for 9^th. Marshawn Lynch is currently 14^th for yards per game, but has 3 touchdowns and no fumbles. Lynch has also shown a “never-give-up” attitude on every play that McGahee has never shown. McGahee is happier in Baltimore where he fits in well with a team full of complacent and lazy thugs. Brian Billick actually said in a press conference that it will be difficult to keep his players focused this week in practice because they are looking forward to the Bye week. Talk about looking beyond an opponent. Most Ravens players and fans seem to think they already have a win against Buffalo. This is a dangerous attitude that will lead to an embarrassing defeat on Sunday. The Ravens are 4 and 2 but they have faced a lineup of terrible teams (Jets, Rams, 49ers, Cardinals, Browns and Bengals). In case you were wondering that’s a combined opponents’ record of 10-24. Oh yeah, and they were beaten by the Bengals and Browns. That’s right the Bengals ONLY win was against the Ravens. The Ravens are a mediocre team with their starting QB on the bench and they are having trouble focusing on the Bills. This will be a fun one for Bills fans. The Bills offense will look sharp after two weeks of work and the defense will play well bolstered by some players returning from injury. Special Teams will be typically excellent. Bills 31 Ravens 6.

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