BILLS ARE POSTER TEAM FOR DEFENSIVE FUTILITY

“What are those; chocolate candies?,” asked confused Bills players. “No,” said the coach, “It’s the thing the other team carries when they are running over you.”

The Jills spend more time in the end zone than the Bills. But fans say the Bills are just in the wrong league and that they could beat almost any high school team in the area.

The Buffalo Bills may have one of the worst defenses in NFL history, and that’s not much of a stretch considering their record-setting defensive futility in their last two games against the Pats and 49ers.

The numbers make the case: the Bills allowed a franchise-record 621 yards in their 45-3 loss to San Francisco, topping their awful performance the week before when they yielded 580 yards against the Pats in a crushing 52-28 defeat.

Since they were briefly ahead of the Patriots 21-7 in that loss, they have been outscored 90-10 by the Pats and the 49ers.

The onslaught against the helpless Bills’ defense is the worst in 62 years. You have to go back to the 1950 New York Yanks to find a team that has yielded at least 580 yards in consecutive games in the same season.

"I have no answers and no excuses," said Bills coach Chan Gailey, who obviously doesn’t have any players or defensive schemes, either. The franchise is a wreck, a disaster by any standard. The Bills were 10-22 the last two years and are 2-3 this year after going 0-4 in the preseason. Some loyalists were predicting a 10 win season and an end to the playoff drought, but they were obviously blinded by their loyalty to the reality of this franchise.

The Bills are among the most consistently losing franchises in league history, and except for that blip in the early 90’s, tarnished by the four Super Bowl losses, the team’s brain trust has come up with nothing but losers, some of them pretty expensive losers.

The legacy is marked by bad drafts, bum quarterbacks, and terrible coaching. The $100 million off-season signing of defensive end Mario Williams who had two tackles against the 49ers, is another nail in the legacy coffin. To say the Bills have hit rock bottom, as their ailing owner turns 94, seems like an understatement.

There’s no lease deal for next season and no commitment from the Bills to stay in Western New York beyond Wilson’s ownership. All that combined with the blowout losses on the field must have even the most loyal fans wondering how it could possibly get any worse.

Well, it might get worse, at least on the field. The Bills take on 4-1 Arizona on Sunday and it is hard to see the overwhelmed coaching staff come up with anything that will work, not when you have a turnover-happy offense and pretty much a no-show defense. Yes, it could get worse and there’s not much chance it will get any better. The franchise has once again found its level.