JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Half an hour after the game, Kyle Williams hobbled out of the visiting trainers' room, his ailing left shoulder wrapped in ice. His right knee was enveloped in bandages and ice, too. A couple more damaged parts, and the Bills defensive tackle would have looked like a mummy, or maybe the Michelin Man.

Williams was a fitting symbol for a brave, battered and beaten Bills team that had fought

its heart out only to lose in the end to the Jaguars, 18-15. Lacking a more creative question,

all I could ask him was, "How are you feeling?"

"I'll live," Williams said, managing a smile. "I'll live. It's all right. I didn't hurt [the

knee] any further, put it that way. Which is good."

Yeah, he'll survive. Williams, who had missed two games and most of a third with the bad

knee, dragged himself out there Sunday and played a magnificent game against the Jags. Rookie

guard Eric Wood, who was being wheeled down the hallway to an ambulance with a horrific broken

leg while Williams was getting taped, will make it, too.

The team, now 3-7 and reeling from a third straight loss, will find a way to move on. Bills

fans, conditioned by nearly a decade of these narrow, excruciating losses, will lift

themselves out of their beds today and carry on with their daily lives.

But boy, this could have been a nice win for a beleaguered squad and its loyal, discouraged

followers. The Bills, stung by the firing of Dick Jauron, had a chance to win for Perry Fewell

in his first game as interim coach. Fewell had told his players beforehand that they weren't

playing for him, or for Jauron. Play for each other, he told them, and for yourselves.

"We're playing for everybody in this room," said defensive end Chris Kelsay. "We're playing

for our fans. We're playing for Ralph [Wilson]. But it just wasn't good enough, and it's

getting old."

That it is. Kelsay has been here since 2003. He has been through more of these losses than

he cares to recall. Kelsay was there in Mike Mularkey's first game, when the Bills blew a lead

in the final seconds to this same Jacksonville team. He was there in New England when they

blew a lead in Jauron's first game.

So this makes three straight head coaching debuts where the Bills had a lead in the fourth

quarter and lost. Overall, it's their fifth consecutive defeat in a head coach's debut. Marv

Levy was the last one to prevail in his first game, in the 10th game of the 1986 season.

You come to expect it after a while, but it's no less painful. Despite what Fewell said,

the players desperately wanted to hand him a game ball. As implausible as it seems, one

victory might snowball into a run and something permanent for Fewell. I don't have any

examples off the top of my head, but stranger things have happened.

"We don't want to get caught up in any moral victories," said receiver Josh Reed, "but

Perry felt we went out there and played the way he wanted us to play. We all went out there

and played emotional, man."

The defense was especially determined. Fewell is their guy, after all, their defensive

coordinator. Whatever the reason, the defense turned in one of its most inspired performances

of the season. Williams and Spencer Johnson, getting more time in the tackle rotation with

Marcus Stroud injured, were terrific. Paul Posluszny had one of his finest games as a Bill.

No Stroud. No Keith Ellison or Kawika Mitchell. No Terrence McGee. Jairus Byrd was hobbled.

Still, the NFL's worst-ranked run defense had one of its best days, holding Maurice Jones-Drew

to just 66 yards on 25 carries. Jones-Drew, one of the league's best at breaking long runs,

didn't have a carry of more than 10 yards.

Jerry Sullivan's postgame analysis

The Bills compensated for their depleted manpower with some different fronts defensively.

At times, they used three linemen with Aaron Schobel lining up as a linebacker. Ryan Denney, a

defensive end, played tackle on occasion.

"But when it mattered, we didn't get off the field, and we didn't make the plays," Williams

said. "I do feel we played tough against the run, but it's all for naught if you don't win.

It's hard. I mean, it feels like this has been the case all year, real disappointing.

"You'll never hear me say, "We were close, but we played pretty good.' A win is a win and a

loss is a loss. We didn't get it done."

That's the most disheartening thing. Teams often give an emotional effort in the first game

after a coach is fired. Players want to show the world they're not the same guys who cost the

guy his job. They see a chance for a fresh start, an opportunity to go 1-0 and separate

themselves, even momentarily, from past failures.

"That was our mentality," Kelsay said. "It's a seven-game season, let's just worry about

this first one. But we came up short."

Fewell tried to put his stamp on the Bills from the outset, when he won the toss and chose

to receive — ditching his predecessor's obsession with deferring. Fewell was a

refreshing presence in the postgame interview room, answering questions frankly and with an

engaging wit.

But a team doesn't transform its essential character because of a coaching change. The

Bills have been playing close games and losing them in the critical moments for years. They

have turned the heart-rending loss into an art form. The fall didn't happen overnight, and it

won't go away until major changes are made.

It'll take more than passion and purpose, more than bandages and ice, to put this damaged

franchise back together again.