Bills Finish First Half of Season by Playing for 30 Minutes

Coming into the Week Eight contest, we laid out the keys for the Buffalo Bills match up against the Houston Texans. We were hoping that some of the injured starters could return to play; namely Jonathan Scott, Bryan Scott, or Donte Whitner. None of the three did.

The Bills hardest job was to slow down one of the best passing attacks in the NFL led by QB Matt Schaub. The Bills would have to focus on containing the big three targets that Schaub has been clicking with, specifically:

1) Top WR Andre Johnson

2) Top TE Owen Daniels

3) RB Steve Slaton

The Bills defense would have to find a way to continue to create turnovers to give their struggling offense a short field to work with, if they were to win. In addition, the Bills offense would have to stay on the field longer, be less predictable in their play calling, and generate more yards on first and second downs.

On a national level, nobody, but nobody was talking about Ryan Moats, or the other receivers on the Texans team outside of the big three weapons, or how dominant the Texans' defense could be.

In a sport that is often referred to as a copycat league, is it any wonder that there are copycat writers covering it?

So, how well did the Bills do in their key assignments? 

1) Andre Johnson: Caught six passes for 63 yards. Longest catch was for seventeen yards. No touchdowns. Check mark to the Bills

2) Owen Daniels: One catch for twenty-two yards. Left with a sprained knee in the first quarter not to return. Check mark to the Bills

3) Steve Slaton: One rush for one yard. One pass catch for seven yards and a fumble. At least some things you can count on.

Steve Slaton is a fumbling highlight reel in the making if there ever was one, and he coughed the ball up on one of the only two times he touched it.

Slaton never returned to the game as Head Coach Gary Kubiak probably figured he couldn't rely, or trust him. Smart move coach. Again, check mark to the Bills, or is that a check mark we should award to Houston? 

The Bills created turnovers three of the first four times that Houston had the ball. Rookie extraordinaire safety Jairus Byrd continued his amazing streak by collecting two more interceptions in the first quarter.

Byrd made a believer of Schaub early on. The press clippings were true, this kid is a bonafide ball hawk.

Paul Posluszny punched the ball out of Slaton's hand, and Marcus Stroud recovered the fumble. Three turnovers created—another check mark for the Bills.

Due to the turnovers, the Bills were able to capitalize on the shorter field once in the form of a Terrell Owens end-around reverse from twenty-nine yards out that gave the Bills a much needed touchdown. Lee Evans threw a great block to help spring T.O. along the sidelines.

With the Bills up 7-0, Houston started to realize that you can move the ball pretty consistently against the Bills defense if you just keep it on the ground. It dawned on them that it is much harder for Jairus Byrd to intercept a handoff.

So, for the rest of the half, Houston acted like a MMA fighter with a ground and pound attack. They dominated the time of possession, ran off a bunch of plays that winded the Bills depleted defense, and whittled away at the lead with field goals. The Bills lead was now down to 7-6 with 2:20 left in the half.

The Bills Fred Jackson returns the kick off seventy one yards, taking it down to the Houston 34. The kick off return was greatly aided by faking a reverse to Justin Jenkins, as the fake seemed to freeze several Texans right in their tracks, and Freddy just sprinted right past them.

The Bills managed to drive the ball down to the Texans' five yard line, and on third down Fitzpatrick had an open Terrell Owens in the far corner of the end zone. His pass had too much loft, and the extra time allowed Jacques Reeves to recover, and made a great play by stripping Terrell Owens away from a sure touchdown catch.

The Bills settled for a short field goal and a halftime lead of 10-6.

Had Fitzpatrick thrown the pass with more zip it seemed like a pretty simple touchdown for the taking. Had the Bills gone up 14-6, might that have fired them up, or did they suffer a mental letdown by settling for the field goal? We will never know.

The Bills had completed their first half goals to a satisfactory level. The defense had done their usual job of bend but don't break, and had created three turnovers.

They had prevented the high powered Texans' offense from scoring a first half touchdown. Based on all of the objectives and goals we laid out, I would say the Bills won the first half of the game.

NFL games are 60 minutes long, however. The Bills seemed to be in pretty decent shape. What we didn't know was that the new injuries that the Bills sustained in the first half would mean the undermanned Bills were very thin coming in to the second half. Any more injuries would be catastrophic. 

Aaron Schobel, who sacked Schwab in the first half, hurt his groin and didn't return to the game. Starting tackle Jamon Meredith, who was subbing in for injured tackle Brad Butler, was hurt in the first quarter, and did not return either.

Keith Ellison, the only healthy Bills linebacker all season, eventually left in the third quarter, and did not return. Heck, even Jairus Byrd left due to an injury in the fourth quarter, but the game was already decided by then.

I wish I knew what the halftime speeches were like in each locker room. Oh, to be a fly on the wall...I am pretty sure nothing that Dick Jauron did conjured up Knute Rockne, because the Bills came out in the second half as flat as a pancake.

Freddy Jackson returned the second half opening kickoff for thirty-seven yards, and things seemed to be off to a decent start. Having great field position for their opening drive, the Bills could now go to any option of their playbook. 

Instead, they proceeded to go three and out on their opening drive. Nothing unusual about that, as the Bills offense leads the NFL in number of three-and-out drives. Par for the course.

Brian Moorman punts and Justin Jenkins is camped out waiting for Jacoby Jones to fair catch the punt around the 10 yard line. Except Jenkins relaxes, takes his eye off the ball, and is then helpless to do a thing as Jones steps aside and lets the ball bounce in to the end zone for a touchback.

That was the one and only chance the Bills had for the entire game to pin the Texans deep within their own five yard line, and we let it slip away. It was a little thing then, but things continued to go downhill from there.

Houston counters with a long drive and field goal, cutting the lead to 10-9. On the next drive, the Bills again go three-and-out, this time with Marshawn Lynch dropping a screen pass with open field ahead. The Bills offense does not have the luxury of missing opportunities like that. 

Lynch had to make that catch to keep the defense off of the field and he failed. He also committed a holding penalty on the same drive. Dreadful.

Houston takes advantage of Ellison's and Schobel's injuries, and drives down the field, and scores on a rushing touchdown by Ryan Moats to take their first lead of the day. Bills defense was now exhausted, and you could put a fork in them.

During this drive, Ryan Denney was in now for Schobel, and was left unblocked on the end with nobody between him and Schaub for a potential sack. Denney falls down on his own without being blocked. Got up and ran, then fell down again. Sigh...

Houston converts the two point try after the touchdown to go up 17-10, and the game was pretty much over right there.

Bills went three-and-out again on the next drive, but they did try a reverse out of the punt formation, which went nowhere. With a short field, Houston sealed the deal with another Moats rushing touchdown.

Before the dust had settled, Moats set a team record with the first three touchdown rushing performance in the Houston Texans' short team history.

Moats had a career high in carries and in yardage (23 rushes for 126 yards, which is averaging 5.5 yards per carry). Guess this doesn't help the stats of the worst rushing defense in the NFL, does it?

What did we learn from this game?

The Bills quest to come in to the bye week with a .500 record at 4-4 was squashed, and my guess is that the days of Ryan Fitzpatrick as starting QB for the Bills ended as well.

Fitzpatrick didn't scramble much today, and had two passes intercepted of his own. One time he and T.O. were in different zip codes on one play, and the other pick came in garbage time when Houston was playing prevent defense.

Houston's defense leads the NFL in forcing three-and-out drives, (36 percent of the time), and that number went up today. Six times the Bills went three and out, three times in each half.

Houston has a dominating defense, and the Bills young offensive line was not effective enough against them to create long sustained drives.

The Bills offense did exhibit a little more creativity, as they ran the Wildcat formation on two straight plays with the ball being snapped to Freddy Jackson. They ran the reverse to T.O for the touchdown. That was it for the creativity.

T.O. was in motion and was acting as a reverse decoy on quite a few plays. Guess that pulling defenders with him is more effective than asking him to block them.

Lee Evans was seemingly absent from the game plan, as he finally caught a longer pass for 24 yards in the waning minutes while Houston was in prevent defense mode. Evans was supposed to be the wide receiver that Fitzpatrick had developed all this chemistry with, but he was mysteriously left out of the game plan.

The Bills had some convertible third down opportunities, but just couldn't make it happen. They also threw passes too often that were short of the first down marker, and to Houston's credit they were able to tackle the receiver right away to force punts.

Matt Schaub, for all his problems in the first quarter, wound up hitting 10 different receivers during the game. He spread the ball around really well, as at least eight receivers had a minimum of two catches each.

Maybe the benching of Slaton and the injury to Daniels wound up hurting the Bills more than it hurt Houston. It forced Schaub's hand in to utilizing the rest of his offense. The Bills didn't seem to have any idea where Schaub was going to go with the ball next.

Once Schobel left, the Bills did not have any steady pressure on Schaub, and that allowed him to have all kinds of time to find the open receiver.

Texans had five receivers that caught a pass for at least 18 yards, or more. That diversity is pretty tough to contain, especially when you are missing so many starters.

The end result was that the thin Bills' defense was exploited to the tune of 439 yards overall, compared to 204 yards gained by the Bills. Houston held the ball for an advantage of more than 18 minutes, which is more than one full quarter of football.

So where do the Bills go from here?

Send the injured guys to some exotic remote island for at least a week to recover. Bring in more doctors, nurses, strength and conditioning coaches that know what they are doing. 

My apologies to the Bills strength coaches, but nine of the 11 starters on defense injured, come on? Something in the stretching exercises, weight workout regimen, or the Bills training diet is not working out very well.

I am not looking forward to hearing the news on the Jamon Meredith injury front.

Hopefully, Schobel's groin injury is minor, but if Denney is in there as a starter for an extended time then we are in trouble. It has already been documented that if Chambers is starting at tackle we are in trouble, so hopefully Jonathan Scott will be healed in two weeks.

I am assuming that Trent Edwards will be handed the reigns at QB in Week 10 when the Bills travel to Tennessee. The second half schedule is not the toughest, and the Bills host all three AFC East rivals at home.

But, how banged up is the defense? If my memory is correct, Marcus Stroud and Chris Kelsay are the only defense starters that escaped the first half without being injured. 

Key To The City Watch

With the Bills hopes for the playoffs dwindling, but not mathematically eliminated, we will have to devise other fun things to follow. T.O.'s touchdown on the reverse doubled his season total. So he now needs to average just one TD in the final eight games, if he wishes to retain his key to the city of Buffalo.

Final Observations

Noticed the promo commercial being run for the movie that is based on the true story of Baltimore Raven's starting tackle Michael Oher. You know, the best remaining tackle that was still there on the draft board when the Bills turn was up at No. 11.

Oher continues to play well and seems to destroy people in his path. Then the game came back on and there on the screen was Aaron Maybin, the Bills selection with that No. 11 pick, trying to make one arm tackle after another.

I counted at least five, or six tackles that Maybin was in position to make, only to see the ball carrier run through him like he was butter. Clearly Maybin lacks the strength at this point in his career to be very effective.

I also saw him stop running on a play where he assumed the ball carrier would go down, but he didn't. Maybin could have stopped him if he hustled, and for a first round draft pick that is inexcusable.

Over time, he will fill out and get stronger, and may still become a good player. But what did the Bills expect since he was only a sophomore coming out early?

Finally, let's end the column on something upbeat. How unreal is this streak of Jairus Byrd? It has been exactly 50 years since the NFL has had someone intercept two passes in at least three straight games.

Byrd has tied the record set by the San Francisco 49'ers Dave Baker in 1960. Guess that is fitting for the Bills' 50th anniversary season that Byrd would tie a NFL record that was 50 years old. His competition for the NFL Rookie of the Year was on the field as well today in the form of LB Brian Cushing.

Feel free to share any of your thoughts, or comments about the game.