Bills-Jaguars: Buffalo Is Gaining Confidence After 2-0 Start

Good Teams Weather the Storms

The Buffalo Bills of previous years would have been out as soon as the "tide turned." Once this shift in momentum happened, the Bills usually would begin to accept the inevitable. And when they did, it would usually play out that way. They would lose.

But not today. Not these Bills.

Donte Whitner declared to the world that these Bills would be in the playoffs. It's their time to win. He believes it, and he plays that way. The great thing is, his confidence is apparently infectious.

The Bills never felt they were out of it, and you could see that, every time the offense took the field again, they played with confidence. They converted third downs. In fact, six out of 11. The defense did their part as well. Though the Jags had a good gameplan, the defense only allowed them to convert on two of 11 third-down attempts.

Players like Ashton Youboty made several key plays. Youboty had a sack and some big open-field tackles to thwart Jacksonville drives. Kyle Williams had a big sack of Garrard to do the same. LB Paul Posluszny was all over the field, making big tackles.

And offensively, RB Fred Jackson did not have much production on the ground, but he had seven catches for 83 yards. Big yards. Lee Evans included four grabs for 77 yards. Including a super huge catch late in the fourth quarter.

And what can you say about Edwards? 20-25 for 239 yards. He finished with only one TD pass, but for the second straight week, he didn't throw a pick. His passes were accurate and had lots of zip on them today. And beyond the physical play, he really does have the poise, presence, and...Whatever you want to call it. He is confident, efficient, and productive.

Defining Moment

The entire game was played very well by the Bills, minus some over-pursuit by the defense, which sometimes led to shoddy tackling. The Bills played well in all phases of the game, just as in Week One. But there was one moment that proved to me that this team is going to be different than previous versions of the Buffalo Bills.

Down 16-10 with under five minutes to go in the fourth quarter of a game on the road, played in near 100-degree heat, the Bills have the ball and are driving. They get one first down. Then convert a third down to get another. Finally they are faced with a critical 3rd-and-6 from Jacksonville's 44-yard line. It's too far for a FG, and the Bills need points. They need to convert this to keep the drive going.

Edwards drops back and surveys the field. The pocket is beginning to collapse around him, but he stands in, finds his target, and launches a perfect pass to the left sideline, where his speedy receiver Lee Evans has beaten his man.

Evans hauls in the catch for 37 yards and a first down at the Jags' seven-yard line. On the next play, Edwards throws a perfect pass to the back corner of the end zone to rookie James Hardy, who was drafted to do precisely that.

Bills lead 17-16, and with one drive—really, one play—took back all the momentum the Jags had built from the end of the second quarter up until then.

Confident for a Reason

This Bills team is not just cocky or delusional. They know they have a good team, and they are confident they can take the field and beat anyone they play. And so far, they are doing it, sitting at 2-0 on the year.

As I stated above, these are two pretty good teams. Sunday's victory was on the road against not only a playoff team from the previous year, but one who is expected to go pretty far into the playoffs this year. The other win was a blowout of another perennial playoff team, the Seahawks.

There is still a lot of youth on this team. Youth means inexperience, and likely, fluctuation of results. Usually a young team will lose games they are supposed to and win games they might not be "supposed" to win.

Perhaps these two wins are the latter? From what I have seen, I would say they are actually the evidence that what Marv Levy began building three years ago might actually be starting to blossom.

Could this be the year we see the fruit of Marv's labor? Could this be the year Jauron gets a legitimate winning team and season? Many questions are still abuzz after just two games, but as this short season has so far gone, the Bills continue to build confidence in their team.

The next three games are against Oakland, St. Louis, and Arizona. The Cardinals look a bit tougher than in recent years, but all of those games are "winnable," and if they keep believing they can do it, we may have ourselves an undefeated team going into the bye week Oct. 12!

There is much to do to get there, but this young Bills team seems both excited to, and capable of, doing just that.

Bring on the Raiders!

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