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ORCHARD PARK -- There was absolutely no way, by any objective measure, that the Buffalo Bills should have, could have, lost to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday.
And yet they did.
Buffalo outran, outpassed and, until it really mattered, outdefended the playoff-contending Dolphins.
The Bills shut down Lamar Smith, holding Miami's feature back to 37 yards on 17 carries. Travis Henry, meanwhile, spearheaded Buffalo's most consistent running attack of the season, gouging out 97 yards on 19 carries.
Eric Moulds demonstrated why the Bills gave him the most lucrative contract in franchise history, running over Miami cornerback Patrick Surtain and turning a three-yard pass into an 80-yard touchdown, then somehow hauling in an arching Alex Van Pelt throw with one hand to produce a 54-yard score.
Van Pelt threw for 309 yards, his second straight 300-yard game, and three touchdowns. Buffalo's defense minimized Van Pelt's one egregious mistake, a throw directly into the stomach of Dolphins safety Brock Marion, by limiting Miami to a field goal on the subsequent drive. That was the second of six straight times that the Bills sent Miami off the field without a first down.
But at the end, all those numbers were rendered meaningless by the ones on the scoreboard -- Miami 34, Buffalo 27.
Somewhere on the way to their best all-around performance of a heinous season, the Bills didn't just collapse.
They disintegrated.
The defense, which didn't allow a gain of more than seven yards during the run of three-and-out series, surrendered 12 of at least eight over the final 17:49.
Twice in the final 4:09, Miami wide receiver Chris Chambers beat Buffalo cornerback Ken Irvin for touchdowns, including the winning score with 1:11 remaining. Chambers is Miami's fastest receiver, while Irvin rates as Buffalo's slowest corner.
"Kenny's a right corner," said Bills coach Gregg Williams, trying to explain why he and defensive coordinator Jerry Gray refused to switch out of the obvious mismatch after Chambers' first touchdown. "We had other matchup things that we were knowing about. We also know that Chambers is the go (route) guy. We've known that all week long."
Oh.
It's nice to know Williams, Gray and everybody else in the stadium knew that Fiedler would look for Chambers in that situation, and that Buffalo's acclaimed staff of teachers even knew the route he would run. It's just too bad they didn't do anything about it. Like maybe put one of their first-round cornerbacks, Antoine Winfield or Nate Clements, on Chambers. Or provide some deep help.
Of course, Miami never would have been in position to persecute Irvin had Buffalo's defense made a play on fourth-and-14 earlier in the fourth. But the Bills let Dedric Ward get free over the middle for 16 yards. On the next play, Fiedler and Chambers made it a three-point game. Williams pointed out that Gray had done "a good job with that particular coverage."
Except that it didn't work.
By feebly going three-and-out during the midst of Miami's onslaught, the Buffalo offense did nothing to help the defense.
You can chalk that up to inexperience. Until Sunday, the Bills hadn't had a fourth-quarter lead to protect all season.
Jake Arians and Brian Moorman, who helped San Diego pull out a 27-24 win a month ago, teamed up again. The soon-to-be-unemployed Arians missed an extra point after Henry's eight-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter, keeping Miami within 10 points. Moorman followed up by putting the ball out of bounds at the Dolphins' 11-yard line. That would have been admirable had he been punting, but on a kickoff, it put Miami at the 40.
Williams and president/general manager Tom Donahoe deserve some heat here, too. By replacing Steve Christie and Chris Mohr with two functional rookies, the Bills hierarchy said that kickers and punters are an afterthought.
In case they haven't noticed, they were wrong.
It wasn't a waiver-wire bargain that finished the Bills, but their No. 1 pick in April's draft. At least Nate Clements' fumbled kickoff return with 1:11 left spared Buffalo the indignity of its first overtime loss of the year.
That's about the only way these Bills haven't been beaten. Their futility has reached historic proportions -- the last time Buffalo's record was this bad this late in the season was 1984. The franchise had never, in 41 seasons, made it through September, October and November without winning a home game. Until now.
Things don't look much better for the season's final six weeks. Four of those games are on the road and five are against teams with winning records and legitimate playoff hopes. A 1-15 record and the No. 2 pick in the draft (behind expansion Houston) is not only possible, but increasingly probable.
"Playing ball, you've got to take your lumps sometimes," said left tackle Jerry Ostroski. "Unfortunately, we're taking ours this year."
And on days like Sunday, they're mostly self-inflicted.