Bills at a loss after letting one get away
The Buffalo Bills lost a close one Sunday that wasn't really a close one at all.
Yes, they might have won if Rian Lindell had not missed two field goals. And they still had a chance to execute a two-minute drive for a tying score at the end of the game.
But the Bills' performance in their 10-3 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday at Ralph Wilson Stadium was so far removed from even remotely resembling playoff-caliber football that it left players speechless and shaking their heads.
"I don't know, man. I don't know. It's crazy," center Duke Preston said.
"I just don't know," said Roscoe Parrish, trying to explain.
J.P. Losman, who relieved the injured Trent Edwards at quarterback in the second half, offered the best synopsis:
"You can't make these mistakes, especially this late in the season, especially when we need as many games as we want," Losman said. "We didn't deserve to win anyway. Regardless of if we went down and tied it and took it to overtime. You can't have that many mistakes, penalties, drops, whatever the situations were."
The Bills outgained the Niners, 350-195. Bills running back Marshawn Lynch rushed for 134 yards on 16 carries. Niners star back Frank Gore was held to 66 yards and the Niners averaged 2.1 yards a carry.
Yet the Bills still lost because:
-- Their mistake-prone offense squandered four trips inside the Niners' 20-yard line.
-- They got another shaky performance from Edwards, who hit just 10 of 21 passes before leaving the game with a strained groin muscle. (Losman was 11 of 17 and could not get in the end zone, either.)
-- Lindell doinked kicks off the left upright on field-goal tries of 20 and 40 yards.
-- Numerous questionable coaching decisions by Dick Jauron and his staff went wrong. The Bills didn't manage time well, either, wasting four timeouts.
"It seemed like we did just about everything that usually needs to be done to win a football game and we didn't win," defensive tackle Kyle Williams said. "It's embarrassing. ... There's no other way to put it. It's depressing. We feel like we have a good enough team and we're not getting it done."
The Bills (6-6) fell into last place in the AFC East by losing for the sixth time in eight games. Buffalo is two games behind the New York Jets (8-4) and one behind New England and Miami (both 7-5) with four to play.
The big coaching decisions were these:
-- In the second quarter, the Bills marched 84 yards in 15 plays to get to the Niners' 2, but rather than run Lynch, they threw incomplete passes on second and third downs. They settled for a field-goal try, which Lindell missed. Edwards had tight end Derek Fine open in the back of the end zone on second down, but Niners defensive tackle Kentwan Balmer tipped the ball at the line. On third down, Edwards apparently called out of a run to a rollout to the right, but the Niners dropped into coverage, and Edwards had to throw it away.
"Third down was a called run, and if they bring pressure, which they did, it was a chance for me to roll to the right and try to hit a flat to Josh [Reed] and Lee [Evans], working in the back of the end zone," Edwards said. "They showed blitz, then they didn't really show us the blitz we thought we were going to get. They dropped back into coverage and that was the reason we had to throw the ball away."
-- Early in the fourth quarter, the Bills drove 75 yards to the Niners' 6. But on third-and-1, Fred Jackson was stuffed for a 1-yard loss. On fourth down, with 10:05 left, Jauron opted to go for it rather than kick a field goal. The Niners rushed seven men, and Losman was hurried into an incompletion.
-- With 5:56 left, the Bills faced third-and-4 from the Niners' 19. The offense looked confused before the snap, and Losman was sacked for a 3-yard loss. Facing a fourth-and-7 from the 22 with 5:32 left, Jauron opted not to go for it and tried a field goal, even though the Bills still needed a touchdown to win. A couple of assistant coaches on the sidelines seemed to want to go for it. Lindell missed the kick.
Losman on the third-down play: "We had a little confusion there for whatever reason, lining up later, but they did a good job covering. What they did today was different forms of two-man. They were playing man coverage, but with guys [safeties] behind them. ... You try to win inside with your inside routes one on one. If not, they propose great running lanes for a quarterback. Two-man is a great time for a quarterback to take off and pick up 5 or 6 yards. They did a great job of closing those lanes."
Jauron on the decision to kick: "A fourth-and-5, fourth-and-6, that's not a high-percentage down. ... I just felt like we could kick the field goal, and on our next possession we could score and win the thing in regulation."
The Bills got the ball back with 1:47 left at their own 19 and turned the ball over on four plays.
San Francisco's 195 offensive yards were the fewest given up by a Buffalo defense in 59 games and almost four years, since the 2005 season opener.
Niners quarterback Shaun Hill hit 14 of 23 passes for 161 yards and was sacked three times.
Edwards looked uncharacteristically off target on three or four of his first-half throws. A first-down incompletion at the ankles of tight end Derek Schouman was a glaring example. He suggested his sore groin, which was bothering him from the early part of the game, was a factor. Edwards figures to be very questionable for Sunday's game against Miami.
"It is a combination of a lot of different things," Edwards said of the misfires. "It is the conditions, dealing with my groin and having to deal with that. Again, we need to fight through these things and get better."
Get better. The Bills need to find a way to do that if they're going to win any of their remaining four games.
"It's tough," Losman said. "As much as you want to think of one game at a time, you are thinking playoffs at this point in time. You're thinking the games you have left you have to win, period. Maybe we can lose one, but we needed this one."
