Bills at Saints

Going into last week’s game, most everyone around the league predicted it to be All Saints Day, commemorating all those Saintly players who attained a heavenly beatific vision for their play on Sundays. But early in the afternoon, led by a bewitching Bills defense, the Saints didn’t come marching in and right down the field, they came crashing down. And they looked downright scared.

But the Bills offense was even more bloodcurdling. Thad Lewis was scary the very first play of game when he was knocked in the ribs by a frightening hit—and immediately coughed up the ball and half a lung. But these creepy Bills were still not intimidated.

Bills put a huge shock into the Saints in the first half, repeatedly foreboding doom by forbidding the Saints entrance to the endzone and promised land. The Bills defense could be scary good with all its parts, but we were sorely missing Manny Lawson as his replacement Jerry Hughes was asked to do things that he could not, like cover WRs on pass patterns. And eventually it bit us bad.

So many turning points in the game prevented a nightmare for the Saints and turned into a nightmarish second half for the Bills. Nickel Robey dropped an INT by a hair and missed knocking down a TD or two by a dreadlock. Scott Chandler just missed an acrobatic TD by catching it and dropping it 14 times in one play. A couple untimely penalties put the Bills behind the eight-ball until the Saints had the game firmly in pocket.

The defense gave up five TD passes to Drew Brees as if he drew them up in the huddle, but it was the offense that dropped the ball. Thad became a scaredy-cat behind the frighteningly porous line and before you know it, the Saints had us spooked. The game eventually became an evil laugher in the 4th quarter although the final score was not indicative of the fear factor.

This Halloween also strikes fear into Bills nation as Thaddeus Maximus hasn’t practiced much, and the thought of Jeff Tuel or recently signed Matt Flynn behind center scares no one except us.

The Chiefs come to town undefeated, which normally would be horrifying. But they are winning with smoke and mirrors and are ripe for being scalped. Outside of Adam Carrington, the Bills defense should be the healthiest it has been all year, and with the hometown crowd looking for blood, this one could end up for the Chiefs like the battle of Wounded Knee.

Note that I’m trying to get all cheesy references to the Chiefs name as possible in before the NoFunLeague goes after them like they have the Redskins. The league is actually talking now about taking touchdowns away from players for taunting penalties, and continues to shoot itself in the foot like Plaxico Burress.

Speaking of wounded knees, EJ Manuel is back practicing this week, and his work with the second team offense has Bills fans excited to see him return to the field.

So at the halfway point of the season—the Witching Hour—your Bills have been one of the more mysterious teams in the entire league. The bugaboos have killed us. We continue to be cursed to the point where when anyone says “break a leg” it happens.

The ghosts of Bills’ pasts have come back to haunt us, especially on the injury front.
And yet it appears that some of our demons are being exorcised. We’ve seen some semblance of black magic from the quarterback position. The Bills are putting the scare on a lot of teams around the league, and this Sunday, the Chiefs are going to be chopped down. Come down to Busby’s and watch the Bills play scary good.

Pete Rosen