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BILLSTUFF: BUFFALO ROLLS TO INVISIBLE VICTORY

By David Staba

The Buffalo Bills beat the Arizona Cardinals 38-14 on Sunday at Ralph Wilson Stadium.

Really. Honest.

It's just that, unless you were one of the roughly 70,000 people that sat through the wind and rain, are a subscriber to the NFL Sunday Ticket located outside Western New York or live in the immediate vicinity of greater Phoenix -- about the only market in the country FOX forced this matchup upon -- it sure didn't seem that way.


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Maybe it was because the Cardinals played the role of invading enemy. Maybe it was the added distraction of Halloween preparations. But most of all, it was thanks to the National Football League's arcane blackout rule that Sunday was more like a bye week in Bills country.

Certainly, keeping two bad teams playing down to the lowest expectations off the air may have been a smart marketing move. Each team struggled to manage even 200 yards of total offense. Arizona's Josh McCown and Buffalo's Drew Bledsoe combined for a whopping total of 57 passing yards in the first half.

The argument has been made, in this space and elsewhere, that these Buffalo Bills play an unwatchable brand of football.

Well, on this Sunday, it was unlistenable as well.

In the past, when games were blacked out, BillStuff could always find an undisclosed location to view the blacked-out broadcast. With the NFL constantly upgrading its efforts to keep people within 75 miles of their home team's stadium from seeing what the rest of the country for free, though, those safe houses fell victim to advancing technology on Sunday.

At first, listening to the game seemed like a nice change of pace for the BS column. After all, growing up during the late 1970s and early '80s, entire seasons went by without a Bills home game being broadcast locally, and others when only Miami's annual visit sold out the stadium formerly known as Rich in time to beat the blackout.

Listening to the game at the kitchen table or the backseat of the family car, with imagination filling in what couldn't be seen, only built my fascination with the game. In your mind's eye, with Van Miller, Stan Barron and Jeff Kaye describing the action, Joe Ferguson looked like Roger Staubach, Terry Miller presented a reasonable replacement for O.J. Simpson and, later, Joe Dufek seemed a sound choice to lead the Bills into the late '80s.

Somehow, Sunday's slopfest never quite sparked the same sort of magic.

It didn't help that the first half alone included 14 penalties. One negated what seemed at the time to be a crucial Arizona fumble and Buffalo recovery. The rest conspired with the weather and the ineptitude of both teams to give the contest the feel of an exhibition game played on the last day of October.

Then there was the botched handoff from Bledsoe to Willis McGahee that turned into a 29-yard loss, putting Buffalo in an unenviable second-and-39 situation. While that circus of a play will certainly qualify for an NFL Films blooper compilation, that's not quite the sort of highlight film Tom Donahoe and Mike Mularkey hoped to qualify for when the season opened.

That said, 2-5 is an appreciably better place to be than 1-6, particularly if the sixth loss had been supplied by an Arizona team that looked, I should say sounded, as if it never wanted to get on the plane for the journey to Western New York.

After thrashing the Seattle Seahawks last week, the Cardinals looked like a team ready to embrace respectability.

Apparently not.

McCown never came close to solving the wind, connecting on only nine of 24 passes, with Arizona netting only 85 yards through the air.

Of course, that was four more yards than Bledsoe managed on 8-of-17 throwing, though he did toss touchdown throws to Eric Moulds and Tim Euhus.

How ugly did things get? Consider Arizona's "two-minute drill" at the end of the first half, which started at Buffalo's 47-yard line.

After a 9-yard run by Emmitt Smith, whom the Bills limited to 64 yards on 22 carries, the sequence went as follows: McCown scrambles for three yards, McCown sacked at the line of scrimmage by Nate Clements, false start on Arizona, McCown sacked for a 9-yard loss and separated from the ball by Jeff Posey -- a play wiped out by an illegal contact flag on cornerback Terrence McGee, McCown sacked for a 7-yard loss by Coy Wire, false start penalty on Arizona, a timeout taken by each team and, finally, a 64-yard field goal attempt by Neil Rackers that came up only about 15 yards short.

Don't know about you, but I nearly nodded off writing that.

In a further indication that the Cardinal would have rather been just about anyplace else, they surrendered not one, not two, but three long kick returns -- McGee's 87-yard kickoff runback after the Cardinals' first touchdown briefly threatened to make things interesting, or at least close, and 34- and 40-yard dashes with Arizona punts by Clements.

Both McGee and Clements have shown the potential for such heroics in the past, and even the best coverage teams experience the occasional breakdown. But when you give up three in one game, you're not really trying.

Even with all those reservations, the Bills do deserve credit, as well.

For one thing, they used McGahee like the workhorse they drafted him to be, giving him 30 carries. He produced 102 yards and Buffalo's first two rushing touchdowns of the season. While Mularkey said while announcing McGahee's promotion to the first team earlier in the week that he has two starters, he left the other one on the sideline all day, with Travis Henry getting but a single carry.

You have to wonder, though, what Henry might have done if the new coaching staff or their predecessors had ever shown the sort of commitment to him that McGahee received yesterday, or in Buffalo's other victory this year, against Miami. Barring injury, it looks like we'll never know.

Then there were the special teams. In addition to clearing lanes for McGee and Clements, the coverage units limited Arizona to an average of less than 12 yards per kickoff return, keying Buffalo's day-long edge in field position.

And while the Bills forced but one turnover -- a bit of an upset, considering the elements and the fact they were playing the Cardinals -- they gave up only 213 yards and never allowed Arizona back into it after McGee's touchdown.

For the eternal optimist, the win keeps a flicker of hope alive, if only barely. The New York Jets visit next week, with a trip to New England and Buffalo's only prime-time appearance of the season awaiting on Nov. 14.

If the Bills can somehow manage to knock off the best of the AFC East on back-to-back Sundays, the rest of the schedule will not only be televised, it may actually mean something.

BILLS MVP: McGahee continued to impress, despite the wind largely wiping out Buffalo's passing game and allowing the Cardinals to focus completely on stopping him. He's certainly making Donahoe's first-round gamble in April 2003 look pretty smart. You can make strong cases for Moorman and McGee, as well. But while special teams help win games, star running backs help win games and fill seats.

THE OTHER GUYS' MVP: Obafemi Ayanbadejo not only scored the only Arizona touchdown that mattered, he might have the best name in the NFL. Go ahead, say it three times fast.

STAT OF THE DAY: The Bills and Cardinals combined to go 10-for-32 on third down, leading to 17 punts and innumerable yawns.

WING REPORT: BS hangs its head in shame. The combination of the lack of a venue to watch the game, legally or otherwise, combined with a steady stream of grandparents visiting to see the youngest member of the BS team, Jackson Staba, in his puppy costume, prevented wing procurement. But the baked chicken Grandma Staba brought over was terrific.

BS FAN OF THE WEEK: Jackson's Grandpa Borowiec grew up on Buffalo's East Side and waxes nostalgic about the glory days of Lou Saban, Cookie Gilchrist and the old Rockpile. For him, like most of the faithful, even an ugly-sounding victory was better than another hideous loss.


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David Staba is the sports editor of the Niagara Falls Reporter. He welcomes e-mail at dstaba13@aol.com.

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Nov. 1 2004