Buffalo Bills Week 7 Preview
After a week to re-group, the Bills look to rebound
The Bills come off of their bye-week no longer undefeated, but still in first place of the AFC East, and in tremendous position to complete their season goal of ending the eight-year play off drought that has plagued the franchise. In order to do this, Buffalo will have to rebound from suffering their first loss of the season, a blow-out in which they gave up 41-points to the league’s second highest scoring team, the Arizona Cardinals. Well, I hope they spent their off-weak studying film, working on new coverage schemes, and hittin’ up the tackling dummies, cause this week Buffalo will face-off against the first-ranked scoring team in the league, the San Diego Chargers.
If you’re a Bills fan who felt like through the first month of the season EVERYTHING just went your way, and broke in your direction, you’d be right. Un-like the Cards game, the bye-weak was no different. The timing was perfect. The week before, they traveled to the desert, with injuries all over their defense, including being down two solid players in their secondary, in a game where they would face off against one of the leagues most lethal pass games. They were missing one of their most dangerous offensive players, WR/punt returner Roscoe Parrish, who is among the teams leaders in touch-downs, and a threat to score on any given play. Add to all this, in the first quarter, they lost QB Trent Edwards for the game to a concussion. Edwards, probably more than anyone on the team has been the key to the Bills success. He has played better than anyone would have thought, with passer rating over 90, he’s only thrown two picks, and has lead the team on big drives with big throws on EVERY big possession they’ve had this entire season. The Bills have won 3 games on the back of 4th-quarter comebacks engineered by Edwards; he's been the best 4 th-quarter player in the league this season (in my opinion). His replacement in Arizona, J.P. Losman, committed three turnovers, and gave the Bills no chance to match the high-powered Cards offense.
At this point, what the Bills needed was rest, and what the Bills got was their bye-weak. After a week off, Edwards returned to practice, being cleared to play by the doctors after showing no lingering effects of the concussion. He will start. Roscoe Parrish, who was supposed to miss a month, will return after missing only two-games. He will start. Ko Simpson (definitely) and Terrence McGee (probably) both look good to return and add major help to a Bills secondary that will be tested against a good passing offense this week, after getting burned by a good passing offense last week. In fact, the only injured Bill who does not look good to play will be DE Aaron Schobel, who has started wearing a boot on his injured foot this week. However, Schobel hasn’t missed a game yet in his 8-year career, and has been playing through this injury for most of the season. In my opinion that foot injury with out question has a lot to do with the fact that the pro-bowler only has one sack so far this year, which just so happened to have come in week 1, before the injury occurred. I think he needs rest, and it might prove to be good for the cards if he does sit. But call it a hunch, I got a feeling we’ll see number 94 out there on Sunday giving it a shot. There is no question that Buffalo is far better equipped to play San Diego this week, than they were to play Zona in week 5. And while timing and circumstance is a plus for Buffalo, it will be a minus for the Chargers.
San Diego came into this year with high expectations. They started off slow to begin the season, but by now (especially coming off a blow-out win against New England) they finally look like they’ve found their stride. One thing that I absolutely feel could have a huge impact on this game however, is the fact that San Diego will travel to Buffalo, then immediately fly “across the pond” to England for the now annual NFL game in London. After the G-Men-Phins classic last year the Britts couldn’t help but begging for more FOOTBALL. Fact is that’s a lot of distractions. This team isn’t leaving for a game against Buffalo, they’re leaving for a two-week trip to another country. Every player on this roster has had to make all sorts of arrangements, deal with family situations, tons of exterior distractions. They’ve all already had to start to deal with the media blitz in America about going to England, while at the same time preparing for the media blitz they will face once in England about being there. Every player on the team has had to deal with something they’ve never have had to, and probably never will have to deal with again during an NFL prep week. Would it be shocking if maybe the Chargers overlook their stop in Buffalo while thinking about their trip to England? Would it be shocking if they haven’t focused on Buffalo as hard as Buffalo has focused on them? Dick Jauron, (2-0 after byes so far in his Bills career) has had two weeks to figure out how to rebound from their first loss and deal with the high-powered chargers, while the Chargers are coming off a win against the Pats (who they HATE by the way) on Sunday night, and have had five days of questions about the food England. How much of an impact if any, this will have on Sunday….we don’t know. What we do know is that the Bills are an incredibly tough and scrappy team, that in order to beat you will have to show up and give it a real good effort. You don’t show up in Orchard Hills and sleepwalk to a victory. Especially against this Bills team.
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On the field, it’s actually a pretty good match-up. The Bills are a defense-oriented team, the Chargers are an offensive-oriented team. The Bills can hold you to 10-points, the Chargers can put up 40. However, where San Diego’s offense steps away from Buffalos, is through the air. Both Buffalo and San Diego run the ball at about the same clip, each at about 98yds per game. They also both defend the run about the same, allowing 114yds/112yds respectively. What this tells me, is that the game will be won through the pass attack and pass defense. You can throw on San Diego, they allow over 250 pass yards a game. At the same time they can throw all over you, Rivers has already has 1480yds and 14 TD passes this year. Just as reference, Edwards has 950yds, and 4 TDs. It wouldn’t be typical Bills offense, but in order to keep up with the Chargers, they will have to move the ball better then they usually do through their pass-game. I’d expect the run games to balance each other out, Ladanian is obviously getting old, and the Bills have a great run D anyway. I think the game will come down to which single unit plays the best, the Bills pass-offense, the Bills pass-defense, the Chargers pass-offense, the Chargers pass-defense. Out of these 4, who ever has the best game will win. But in order to win, Buffalo will definitely have to play Bills football. Keep it close, and make a big play.
With a loss this weak, no one in Buffalo could really go nuts. But going from winning 4 in a row, to losing 2 in a row would be reason for concern. Also the difference between 4-2 and 5-1 is huge. Especially in a very tight AFC East. The Bills are up by one game on two team, and up by two games on the other. ANYONE can win this division. And guess what, Buffalo will be facing all of them over the next three weeks. They could set them selves up perfectly, and gain a little edge with a win this week, or they can put themselves solidly in the middle of the pack with a loss. Big game for Buffalo.
By Liam Whalen
ProFootball-fans.com Buffalo Bills Correspondent