Bills @ Chicago Bears
Frustration. A Bills fan can give you a 14 year definition for the word frustration. When the Bills were slated to travel to Chicago to start the season, many people instantly had the Bills (0-1) in their minds. However, the Bills went to Chicago, ran the ball down their throats and managed to stay in the game until overtime had to settle it. Newly acquired cornerback, Corey Graham, had two huge plays down the stretch to give Buffalo a shot. After stopping the Bears offense, Buffalo ran the ball down the field behind a huge Fred Jackson stiff arm to Chris Conte to set up the game winning field goal. Buffalo rushed for 193 yards, with Boobie Dixon contributing 60 yards on five rushes and even QB EJ Manuel contributing a rushing touchdown. That game became upset of the week in the NFL. |
| Fred Jackson OT run |
Buffalo vs. Miami Dolphins
After shocking the football world, on the following Monday night, rumors started to break about the Bills ownership. Years of speculation of the Bills moving to another state or even country, had started to come to rest. Terry Pegula, the owner of the Buffalo Sabres looked to be the winning bidder for the team. On Tuesday, September 9th, 2014, it was announced that he indeed won the bid for the team and final ownership was pending league approval. It may also be nice to note here that just fives day prior, former Bills QB Jim Kelly was announced cancer free after rigorous chemotherapy treatments proved to be successful. You couldn't write a better script for the team from Buffalo leading into their season opener against divisional rivals, the Miami Dolphins.
With all the momentum behind them, Buffalo did not disappoint, defeating the Dolphins by a final score of 29-10. Ryan Tannehill continued his struggles against the Bills by dropping to 1-4 in his career against his divisional opponent. The running game was not as prevalent as it was in week 1, but the offense was lead by their #4 overall pick Sammy Watkins. His breakout performance stat line of 8 receptions for 117 yards and a touchdown had Bills fans amped up. Now while the two first round picks traded to get Watkins may never be completely justified, you can't doubt the amount of talent he brings to the receiving corps. Doug Marrone's decision to make starting running back CJ Spiller a threat in the return game panned out for them in this game. After a Miami field goal, Spiller took a kickoff 102 yards for a touchdown in the second half. Again Corey Graham was big in this game. One play in particular, he was beat by one of the fastest receivers in the league, Mike Wallace. He recovered on the play to deflect the pass and stop Miami from a big play that easily would have lead to a touchdown.
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| Rookie Sammy Watkins dives for his first professional touchdown. |
FINAL SCORE: BUF 29 MIA 10
Buffalo vs. San Diego Chargers
This is where that frustration word comes into the 2014-15 season for the Bills. Riding high on the 2-0 start, the San Diego Chargers came into town and outplayed the Bills with ease. Leodis McKelvin was burned in coverage by Malcolm Floyd, Stephon Gilmore missed a couple tackles and Nickell Robey was benched for his coverage woes as well. One big question at the end of the game was the lack of Corey Graham in the secondary. He didn't play much after being a big part of the first two games. The Chargers didn't establish much of a run game with Donald Brown and Brandon Oliver. Donald Brown had 62 yards on 31 carries. Ryan Mathews was hurt prior to the game and Danny Woodhead suffered a broken leg at the beginning of the game in Orchard Park. Phillip Rivers showed why he's one of the elite quarterbacks in the NFL and carved up the Bills defense anyways. The biggest problems in this game for the Bills was their amount of penalties (11 penalties for 110 yards) and the lack of offense. The Bills have been known the last couple of years to have one of the best rushing attacks in all of football. There's no reason CJ Spiller and Fred Jackson should have only combined for 16 carries in this game…but they did. EJ Manuel was 23 for 39 for 238 yards in the game. His leading receiver? Fred Jackson with 8 catches out of the backfield. The Bills were not very aggressive at all the entire game and it was tough to watch most of the time. EJ was taking very long on reads and missing open targets…something we've heard before. Not to mention almost killing Marquise Goodwin by throwing behind him on a simple drag route toward the end of the game. I could see the defender (Eric Weddle) coming from the 300 level at Ralph Wilson. It's hard to believe EJ didn't see him sneaking up. Receivers are supposed to have trust that their QB won't lead them into a waiting defender. This situation didn't help Goodwin's confidence as I heard the loud CRACK from my seat. All around, it was a painful game to watch.
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| Eric Weddle hit on Marquise Goodwin |
FINAL SCORE: SD 22 BUF 10
Buffalo @ Houston Texans
I thought the Chargers game was the most frustrated I've been in a long time with a Bills loss. It wasn't a normal loss to me. We played extremely conservative the whole game and never seemed to be aggressive at any point on offense. That didn't have anything on the most recent game against the Texans. Houston has one of the worst rush defenses in the NFL this year. There was every indication that the Bills would be able to run against them, especially with their number one overall pick Jadeveon Clowney being out. I am dumbfounded by the fact that they played to the strengths of one of the best defensive players in the league in JJ Watt. The Bills first three plays were passing plays leading to a three and out. Now, the Bills have been criticized for starting too many series with a simple running play up the middle. It has become a predictable strategy to opposing defenses. However, when you have one of the best running back duos in the league and happen to be facing one of the worst rush defenses, it's not an ideal time to abandon the run. EJ Manuel had 25 attempts at halftime. The passing game was ugly all day with receivers dropping passes (rookie Sammy Watkins had two drops) and EJ being very inaccurate to open targets. The ugliest play came on an attempted pass to Fred Jackson in the flat on a 3rd and 2. JJ Watt, who had been causing havoc all game, stepped in front of the pass and returned a pick six 80 yards. The man is a freak of nature on defense, but the Bills decided not to run away from him all game, letting the ineffective EJ Manuel to keep dropping back and ultimately paying for it in the end. The Bills defense has been great all year against the run and they only let up 37 yards on the ground to the Texans. The only big mishap by the defense was Corey Graham getting burned for the first time this year on a play down the sideline to DeAndre Hopkins. Other than that, the offense let down a big time defensive effort.
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| JJ Watt pick six |
FINAL SCORE: HOU 23 BUF 17
Kyle Orton
The funny thing is I wanted to get the thoughts off my chest about the first quarter of the Bills' regular season and then the bomb was dropped earlier this afternoon. Doug Marrone announced that EJ Manuel is benched and that Kyle Orton will be the starter against the Lions this upcoming week. No one wants to admit that their first round pick didn't pan out, but EJ has not shown much improvement in the accuracy department since becoming a Buffalo Bill. My opinion? Kyle Orton is definitely the best option to win right now as long as he has the playbook down. I'm assuming he knows it well enough if Doug Marrone decided he's starting. Kyle Orton has a career record of 35-34, so he's had a nice amount of experience starting and has proved to be an effective quarterback at times. The most important thing is that he is the more accurate option. With the amount of talent the offense has, the biggest concern is getting the ball to their playmakers. Manuel had trouble doing so and I believe Orton is the better option right now. I also think EJ Manuel can grow from this. He wasn't supposed to be the starter in his first year. He was supposed to see reps behind Kevin Kolb, who suffered a career ending concussion in the preseason. Manuel was raw coming out of the draft and his accuracy issues have been exposed. As long as he can improve at his position behind Kyle Orton, he might see starting time again down the line. The Bills seemed to play well at times behind backup Thad Lewis last season. Kyle Orton is a much more proven option and I'm hoping to see some big plays from here on out.
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| Bills starting QB Kyle Orton |
