ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- The New England Patriots aren't the team to beat in the AFC East. The Buffalo Bills are, and I know because I just watched San Diego against each of those two the past two weeks.
First, the Bolts crushed New England. Seven days later they looked helpless against Buffalo.
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| Kawika Mitchell, who won a Super Bowl last season with the Giants, says the Bills are 'moving in the right direction.' (AP) |
The eight-year drought is the longest in franchise history, but it's about to end -- and Sunday's 23-14 dissection of San Diego tells us why. Buffalo is sound in virtually every area -- shutting down LaDainian Tomlinson, blanking the Bolts' pass rush, forcing two key turnovers down the stretch and rolling out the best quarterback in years here.
That would be Trent Edwards, and it's not enough that the second-year pro completed all but five of 30 passes against San Diego. He did it two weeks after suffering a concussion in the Bills' only loss, a 41-17 waxing by Arizona.
Edwards is smart, accurate and not willing to take unnecessary chances. His longest completion against the Chargers was 22 yards, but he kept hitting pass after pass -- 18 of his first 20, to be exact -- and befuddling a defense that looks more and more like a liability for San Diego.
"Trent is playing as well or better than any quarterback in this league right now," said safety Donte Whitner, "as far as getting the ball out, not turning the ball over and being efficient with what he's doing.
"I'm very confident in Trent. In the past it was tough because you didn't know exactly what you were going to get from the offense. You didn't know if you were going to get points, so you almost had to play perfect on the defense side of the ball. And once you try to play perfect, you make mistakes.
"So with Trent out there I don't have any worries at all. I sit on the bench, drink a little water, a little Gatorade and I glance over at the scoreboard. We need him out there. I felt like if we had him for the entire game against Arizona we might be sitting here talking about a 6-0 football team instead of 5-1. I really believe that."
When that message was relayed to Edwards he seemed surprised.
"He really said that?" he asked. "That means a lot. You know what it is: The defense isn't putting us in bad spots. In the Arizona game we were down three or four touchdowns, and that's definitely a bad spot for the offense.
"But when Kawika Mitchell and Donte Whitner are making plays for us and keep the offense in the flow of the game, and you're not getting bad field position, (opponents are) not running down the field and scoring on every possession, it helps the offense know that if we do go three-and-out here our defense can stop them, we'll get the ball back and score on the next drive.
"So we're not pressing, and we're not forcing things that don't need to be forced. But that has a lot to do with the way our defense is playing."
What makes Buffalo's latest victory so impressive is how it was achieved. The Bills opened without starting center Melvin Fowler; their best pass rusher, defensive end Aaron Schobel; and their top cornerback, Terrence McGee. Then they subtracted right guard Brad Butler for part of the first half and most of the second.
Still, they prevailed in what Edwards accurately described as "a statement game," putting an exclamation point on it by holding off the league's top scoring offense and its No. 1-rated quarterback.
"It means a lot to our team," said Mitchell, who made a game-saving interception with six minutes left. "We're moving in the right direction."
And it is Edwards who is leading them. A year ago, Buffalo made the switch when starter J.P. Losman was hurt, and the Bills won five of Edwards' nine starts. There was nothing that really caught your eye, except that he didn't make foolish mistakes.
So the Bills made a commitment to him in the offseason, and you can see why: Buffalo has the second-best record in football, behind only unbeaten Tennessee.
"This is a big win for us," said coach Dick Jauron, "because they (the Chargers) are a team that, quite frankly, everybody thought was going to come in here and beat us pretty soundly. So it was really important for us to play our best -- or as close to our best as we could for our own purposes, just to see how we stack up."
The circumstances were as extraordinary as Edwards' performance. Much of the first half was played without electricity because of tangled power lines outside the stadium. So officials controlled the clock on the field, and quarterbacks took their signals from the sidelines instead of through audio receivers in their helmets.
Both Edwards and San Diego's Philip Rivers had to look to officials for help with the play clock, and it didn't always work. Each was assessed one delay-of-game penalty. At one point, Edwards wore two wristbands -- one with plays on it for a two-minute drill; the other with plays for the rest of the game -- and confused the calls.
"We sat in the dark before the game and at halftime," said Edwards, "and it got pretty hot in there. We're not used to that type of environment. We could've gone out there and laid an egg, but we didn't. We stepped up, made plays when we needed to and we are not sitting here talking about how the electricity wasn't working and that caused us to lose the football game.
"I might've mixed up one or two calls, but besides that we ran the offense efficiently and didn't use that as an excuse. We were able to battle through."
And that's what you like about these Bills. They battle through everything and almost everyone. Critics charged that they hadn't beaten an opponent of consequence, but I don't know where that comes from. They destroyed Seattle in the season opener. Then they knocked off Jacksonville ... in Jacksonville, no less. Now they beat the Chargers.
All were playoff teams a year ago, with San Diego in the conference championship game. That tells me plenty about this year's Buffalo Bills and what to expect from now on.
"I think we're headed in a great direction," said Whitner. "I'm not going to say where. I think we're headed in the right direction. There are going to be good things to come this year and, hopefully, years to come."
