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Give the 1-6 Buffalo Bills this much credit -- they're certainly diversified.
When Buffalo visited Indianapolis in the second week of the season, the Bills defense made the Colts look like the offensive equivalent of the St. Louis Rams, surrendering 42 points and 555 yards.
For most of Indy's 30-14 win Sunday at Ralph Wilson Stadium, Buffalo's offense made the Colts seem like a reincarnation of the 1985 Chicago Bears.
Facing a defense that had yielded the most points in the National Football League coming in, Buffalo staggered for 232 total yards and couldn't score a meaningful touchdown. Worse yet, 104 of those yards came in the final nine minutes, after the Colts had taken a 27-7 lead and began pondering their dining options upon getting back to Indianapolis.
By the time Rob Johnson threw a 27-yard touchdown pass to Jay Riemersma with 3:39 remaining, more than half the announced crowd of 63,786 (just the third non-sellout in Buffalo's last 21 home games) had decided to beat traffic and the darkening skies and make for the parking lot.
"I feel bad for our fans, too," Johnson said. "It's tough for them to keep coming out and cheering. We played terrible. That was awful. It's very frustrating."
Particularly in light of the apparent progress made by Buffalo's attack in the win in Jacksonville and crushing loss in San Diego.
With Indianapolis moving out of the AFC East after the season, the game marked the end of the twice-a-year rivalry between the franchises, which dates to 1970. In this case, familiarity bred punts and turnovers.
"Today, I think we played an opponent who knows us better than those other teams did," Johnson said. "Your weaknesses tend to get exploited when you play teams that know you."
The Bills certainly presented enough flaws to be explored:
Trailing by more than 10 points for more than half the game, Buffalo offensive coordinator Mike Sheppard called 41 pass plays. Colts defenders notched six sacks, forced Johnson to scramble twice, hurried his throws 13 times (putting him on the ground on eight of them) and knocked down three.
In other words, Buffalo's offensive line did its job 17 times in 41 tries. Now, .414 would be a great batting average. In football, however, that's an equation that virtually guarantees defeat.
The Bills' tackle situation was particularly horrid. Injuries to John Fina and Jonas Jennings forced Buffalo to start Marques Sullivan on the left side and Jon Carman on the right. Neither had played in an NFL game before this season. It showed.
Each was directly responsible for two sacks. Johnson's first fumble came after Colts defensive end Chad Bratzke beat Sullivan, while Brad Scioli provided balance by turning the corner on Carman and stripping Buffalo's quarterback late in the second quarter.
Sullivan achieved the offensive linemen's version of the cycle -- giving up a sack, missing a block on Travis Henry's fourth-down run on the opening play of the fourth quarter, getting whistled for holding and, playing on the right side, leaving an opening for Scioli to knife through and swat down Jake Arians' 48-yard field goal early in the third quarter.
His numbers -- 17-of-33 for 177 yards and the touchdown -- weren't horrible. But given the late-game statistical inflation, courtesy of Indy's prevent defense, and his two first-half fumbles, it's no great stretch to say that a week after his best game as a professional, Johnson turned in his worst.
The first fumble led to the Colts' first touchdown, giving Indy just 44 yards to cover before Peyton Manning lofted a 15-yard touchdown pass to Marcus Pollard.
The second, with 3:49 left in the first half, set up Mike Vanderjagt's 34-yard field goal, giving the Colts a 17-7 lead. The Bills never got any closer.
Just a week ago, the Bills looked like they could keep getting better over the season's second half. But after Sunday's debacle, the rest of the schedule has the ominous look of nine more chances to keep finding new ways to lose.