Is it possible to coach your way out of the Hall of Fame?
If it is, Joe Gibbs sealed the deal on his expulsion from Canton shortly after 4 p.m. Sunday, when he punctuated Washington's understandably ragged performance against Buffalo with one of the great brain-freezes in the annals of the National Football League -- maybe all of sports.
With a single fingernail connecting the Redskins to a two-point lead and eight seconds remaining, Gibbs showed that he does, contrary to criticism since his return to the Washington sideline after a decade-long retirement, pay attention to league-wide trends. He employed perhaps the most irritating innovation in the modern game, the last-possible-second field-goal freeze, nullifying Rian Lindell's apparently game-winning 51-yard field goal.
The man who marshaled Washington to three Super Bowl championships in 10 seasons, capped by a 37-24 thumping of the Bills in Super Bowl XXVI was so pleased with his cleverness, he tried it again as Lindell lined up for another swing of the leg.
As he certainly should have known, calling consecutive time-outs without an intervening snap of the ball in order to freeze the kicker is illegal. Quite illegal, as it turns out.
Gibbs' advanced game of gotcha qualified not as a mere 5-yard delay-of-game violation, but as unsportsmanlike conduct felony, moving Lindell 15 years closer to the goalposts and into a range from which the Buffalo kicker has not missed all year. He didn't this time, either.
And just like that, the Bills regained the .500 level with four games remaining, a place from which a playoff berth remains not all that distant.
Until the final 16:09 of game time, during which Lindell nailed four of his five field goals, it was easy to forget Buffalo was even involved in the contest.
The omnipresence of Sean Taylor's death trivialized the game itself. The process started six days earlier, when news broke that the fourth-year safety had been shot in his home during a botched robbery.
When the 24-year-old died early Tuesday, all the other storylines -- two sub-.500 pretenders trying to stay alive for another week, the return of Trent Edwards as Buffalo's quarterback, the first meeting between Redskins defensive coordinator and the franchise that axed him after three seasons as head coach -- went poof.
What little discussion there was about the game in both cities, as well as the national sporting press, centered on whether Washington's grief would fuel catharsis or collapse.
Some of both, as it turned out, and in that order.
The Redskins started in dominant fashion. Their first two drives lasted 14 and 13 plays respectively, with quarterback Jason Campbell converting four of the first six third downs he faced.
In keeping with Buffalo's season-long defensive philosophy of bend as far as humanly possible without breaking, the two failed third downs occurred inside the Bills' 10-yard line, limiting Washington to a pair of field goals.
In between, Buffalo's offense under Edwards operated much as it did with J.P. Losman taking the snaps, keeping the ball for little more than a minute of game time before booting it back to the Redskins.
The Bills did manage one big play on their initial possession. It's just that Fred Jackson's 22-yard sweep around left end was enabled by Washington's rather gimmicky decision to honor Taylor by leaving his position vacant for the game's first defensive play, which could have backfired much worse if Edwards had thrown deep into the opening that it produced.
The gesture was one of a series of references to Taylor's death, which eventually became too numerous to count. BillStuff, taking in another game from the comforts of home due to the encroaching winter onslaught, gave up at 25 early in the fourth quarter.
By that point, it was becoming impossible to keep an accurate count of the signs held by grieving fans, tight shots on the No. 21 patches and stickers worn by both teams and the awkward cliches mouthed by the CBS broadcast team of Ian Eagle and Solomon Wilcots while also following a steadily tightening game.
After that first brief possession, the Bills started moving better behind Jackson's grinding running and Edwards' steady, well-spread passes. Not that the increased efficiency showed up on the scoreboard.
Angelo Crowell's end-zone sack of Campbell, who broke with a young-quarterback's tradition by getting more jittery as the game went on, and Shaun Suisham's third field goal made it 9-2 at halftime.
After taking the second-half kickoff, Edwards hit Lee Evans deep down the left (did that seem weirdly familiar-looking to anyone else?) to set up Lindell's field goal, which cut the deficit to four points.
Despite the amount of time remaining, another long Washington drive -- this one leading to an actual touchdown, which came on a 3-yard run by Clinton Portis -- looked like the breaking point for two reasons.
For one, Buffalo scoring a touchdown seemed as unlikely as Eagle and Wilcots lasting from one commercial break to the next without referencing Taylor's demise or saying something like "gap integrity has been a problem for Buffalo," which is a D-list announcer's way of saying, "See? I can talk like a coach!"
And a week earlier in Jacksonville, an opponent's touchdown after a series of field goals turned another artificially close game into a blowout over the Bills.
After Buffalo fell behind by 11, then went three-and-out for the first time all day, a funny thing happened. Instead of wearing down, the defense started making plays. Defensive Larry Triplett stripped Campbell on third down, forcing a fumble that Crowell recovered to set up one field goal. Then he made a remarkably athletic diving catch of a pass deflected by Terrence McGee to put the Bills in position for another.
Three plays after another Redskins punt, Jackson turned a third-down flip from Edwards into a 54-yard gain. That led to Lindell's fourth field goal, a continuation of the most incremental comeback in memory. Now trailing 16-14, the Bills needed only another field goal. Or another safety. Or a couple of rouges. (For those unfamiliar with the Canadian Football League's quaint scoring rules and the xenophobic humor they encourage, trust me -- that last line was pretty funny).
Among the elements of this game that will be forgotten by most, due to the circumstances under which it was played, as well as Gibbs' "I did what?" moment, was how the Bills got into position for that last field goal. Having unleashed a couple of Losman-esque misfires and failed to match his mercifully deposed predecessor's touchdown-per-week production rate, Edwards showed why the job is his for the rest of the season, so long as he can walk and move both arms.
Given less than a minute to move his team the 45 yards required to reach reasonable field-goal range and asked to do so without the benefit of a timeout, having burnt one himself late in the third quarter, Edwards hit three straight passes for, you've got it, 45 yards.
The last, a 30-yard strike down the middle to Josh Reed, and a subsequent spike brought the kicking team out with eight seconds to spare.
From there, it was all Lindell.
And Gibbs, of course.
BILLS MVP: On offense, it's impossible to pick between Edwards (22-of-36 for 257 yards on the first interception-free day of his pro career), Jackson (151 yards from scrimmage in his first NFL start) and Reed (a game-high five catches, the last probably the biggest of his erratic six seasons in Buffalo).
Defensively, the contributions made by Crowell (nine tackles, a sack, a quarterback hurry and a fumble recovery) and Triplett (an interception, tipped pass, hurry and three tackles) were equally indistinguishable. Middle linebacker John DiGiorgio, whose 10 tackles helped limit Portis to 50 yards on 25 carries, was pretty good too.
So as a compromise, and because it was the best day of his career, we'll go with Lindell. He made all six of his kicks, the last two in the rain, on grass, with the game on the line. Even if only the last one counted.
THE OTHER GUYS' MVP: No player had a bigger impact on the Redskins than the one who was not there.
Two of the players closest to the late safety, Portis and Fred Smoot, played in a fury of grief. Both pointed toward the sky after making plays, with the former pulling up his jersey to show a T-shirt emblazoned with a tribute to Taylor. It was somehow appropriate that the Redskins honored Taylor, a player known largely for his highlight-reel hits and fine-inducing cheap shots, which were often one and the same, before and during a game marked by trash talk and self-destructive penalties.
In the final moments, though, Buffalo was the team playing inspired football, physically and mentally tearing a season-preserving win away from the home team. The Redskins can be forgiven for, at the end of an unbearably long week, they simply had nothing left.
STAT OF THE WEEK: During an average seven-day period in 2006, 327 people were murdered in the United States, according to FBI statistics.
CREDIT WHERE DUE: Having flogged Dick Jauron and offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild rather enthusiastically over the last couple seasons, both deserve an extra helping of credit, as does the rest of the Buffalo coaching staff. Coming off consecutive humiliations against New England and in Jacksonville and heading into an emotional buzz saw at what amounted to a memorial service attended by 85,000 people, Buffalo's coaches elicited the team's grittiest effort of the season. Maybe of the century (BS is having a special on hyperbole this week, folks).
Armed with a rookie quarterback and a running back had carried the ball nine times in his NFL career before Sunday, Fairchild devised a game plan that helped Buffalo keep the ball for more than 26 of the game's final 45 minutes, following an opening quarter during which the Redskins held it for all but 1:29.
After getting pushed around on three long scoring drives in the first half, Buffalo's defense allowed just 98 yards in the second, displaying its best sustained pass rush of the season in the process.
As a result, the Bills are 6-6, only one game out of the final AFC playoff berth as they return home to face the winless Dolphins next week, thanks to Cleveland's 27-21 loss in Arizona.
WING REPORT: BS's neighborhood pizza-and-wing joint appears to have changed hands, since the menus that once read "Lomato's" now announce "Mustachio's."
The wing quality, though, remains the same. At least. The new management turned out a triple order split between mediums, Cajuns and garlic parmesans that couldn't have been much better. Each provided the proper flavor without overwhelming on wings that were meaty, but not "too big," whatever that means. Most critically, the cook understood the meaning of the phrase "extra crispy."
Not many places earn a solid A on the inaugural testing, but the truth is the truth.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Dec. 4 2007 |