back to Niagara Falls Reporter archive
A friend had the town handyman over to look at what passed for his garage -- a decaying, leaning shack.
After spending some time surveying the termite-eaten timbers and leaking plywood, he took off his hat, put it back on and offered his expert assessment on how to stabilize the structure. Still looking up at the creaking structure, he hesitated, trying to find a nice, succinct way to put it.
"You need more ... wood."
After analyzing the Buffalo Bills' first four games, the inescapable conclusion is that they simply lack the raw materials to contend, even in the National Football League's present watered-down state.
Problem is, there's not much the Bills can do at this point to beef up a roster that's been outscored 128-71 over the course of four one-sided losses. All they can do is keep trying to get better. Or at least prevent things from getting worse.
And it could be worse. Buffalo could well be 0-5 right now, but for the postponement of the game at Miami scheduled for Sept. 16.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. The hiring of Tom Donahoe as team president and general manager and Gregg Williams as head coach spurred offseason enthusiasm within the organization and throughout the team's fan base. Though the release of Doug Flutie tempered the optimism for some fans, the consensus held that, after the December collapse that marked the end of the John Butler-Wade Phillips era, almost anything would be an improvement.
Well, maybe not.
Granted, Donahoe arrived with orders from Ralph Wilson to rectify a nasty salary-cap situation, so resigning Marcellus Wiley and Sam Rogers would have been difficult, if not impossible. And as we all know, Williams doesn't like fat guys, so that was the end for Ted Washington. But releasing veteran linebacker John Holocek and strong safety Henry Jones did nothing to help that problem, since each had agreed to a more cap-friendly deal since Donahoe's arrival.
You could make an argument for each deal at the time. Holocek is too slow to play outside in a 4-3 alignment and Sam Cowart was poised to become an All-Pro middle linebacker. For all Jones' good qualities, delivering mouthpiece-jarring hits wasn't one of them, and Williams' defensive system requires a strong safety who plays more like a linebacker.
But when Cowart went down for the season with an Achilles injury on opening day, the Bills were left with an inexperienced second-year linebacker (Kenyetta Wright) and a rookie (Brandon Spoon) to fill the most important single spot in Williams' beloved scheme.
And even if Jones bounced off the occasional running back, it's hard to imagine him being worse than Hill. On one series in last week's loss to the Jets, Hill got juked off his feet by New York's Curtis Martin, let Martin run through a high tackle and dropped an interception.
The selection and installation of right tackle Jonas Jennings stands as the new regime's largest victory so far. But with no other significant additions, combined with the jettisoning of veterans Marcus Spriggs, Jamie Nails and Robert Hicks, Buffalo entered the season dangerously thin on its offensive front. Bad made the trip to worse when Jerry Ostroski went down in the preseason and hasn't gotten any better since.
The offensive line hit bottom against Pittsburgh, with Jennings and John Fina in street clothes and Kris Farris making his first career start. When the ex-Steeler broke his foot, the Bills were left with Marques Sullivan and Jon Carman (the fourth and fifth tackles on their depth chart) trying to anchor the ends of the line.
Shortcomings on the offensive line tend to be more glaring, with quarterbacks and running backs getting swarmed behind the line. But Buffalo's weakness up front on defense has been no less damaging. The Bills replaced Wiley and Washington with a pair of smallish rookie defensive tackles, Tyrone Robertson and Ron Edwards, as well as Bryce Fisher and Leif Larsen, two holdover projects from the Phillips administration.
So far, no good. The Bills' once-stout run defense has been shredded for more than 100 yards by three backs in four games. Ricky Williams of New Orleans would have surely been the fourth if the Saints hadn't ignored him in the first half.
Worse yet, Buffalo has worn down as games progressed three times in four outings. And the only relatively stingy fourth quarter barely counts, since the Jets stopped just short of taking a knee while waiting for the final 15 minutes to expire.
And if anybody sees Eric Flowers around, please phone One Bills Drive.
They've been looking for him since the first play of the season, when he sacked New Orleans' Aaron Brooks.
It's very tough for even the best cornerbacks to stay locked in coverage when there's rarely any sort of pressure on the quarterback.
On the other side of the ball, Rob Johnson serves as the lightning rod for Buffalo's problems, especially for those who still long for Flutie. And maybe the Bills would be a little better if he was around to at least partially mask the offensive line's inadequacies.
Like 1-3.
You can point to Johnson's two interceptions in the third quarter against the Saints as a direct cause of that loss, but blaming him for the defense's embarrassing performance in the other three losses is pointless.
Johnson hasn't, but he's not the only one.
Peerless Price continues to specialize in only making catches when the Bills trail by at least two touchdowns (we won't even get into his shameful surrender on Dewayne Washington's touchdown against Pittsburgh).
Eric Moulds and Jay Riemersma complained about not getting the ball enough. They got, and dropped, the desired throws against New York.
And while going with Henry as the No. 1 back was one of the coaching staff's better moves, his fumble against Pittsburgh (and Price's half-hearted chase) gave the Steelers all the points they needed.
Larry Centers has provided Buffalo's quarterbacks with the safety blanket they lacked last year as a receiver out of the backfield. But when your last-ditch option catches 12 passes, as Centers did against New York, you've got big problems.
Trying to blitz Peyton Manning and cover Marvin Harrison man-to-man didn't come close to working. Neither has "stopping the run with numbers," Williams' prescribed method for not getting ground into the turf every week.
In fact, none of Buffalo's strategic maneuvers have succeeded for very long. The Saints adjusted to the Bills' 46 defense at halftime of the first game, and no one else has needed to bother altering much since. The vaunted West Coast offense has neither provided Johnson with more time nor helped control the ball, its two primary goals.
When Donahoe and Williams decided to go with a roster and coaching staff largely lacking NFL experience, they had to know this was going to be a long season. Talking about playoff berths and improving on last year's defense probably wasn't the smartest public-relations move, either.
With such goals fading into memory, Donahoe and Williams have to adjust to more basic aims.
They have 12 games, starting with Thursday's journey to Jacksonville, to figure out which wood is worth building with, or at least salvageable, and how much more they'll have to add for in the offseason.