FOXBORO -- It was all balloons, rainbows and little white unicorns for the Bills back in early September.
Their 31-0 season-opening win over the Patriots signaled that the good times were back in Buffalo. The whole season was going to feel like the first minute of recess on a warm April Day.
But soon they stopped dotting their I's with little smiley faces. The clouds rolled in, the skies opened and Buffalo's high hopes went down the drain.
"I'm on record that day saying, 'We're not as good as everybody thinks we are,' " head coach Gregg Williams pointed out yesterday. "We played well that particular day. We capitalized on some of the breaks in the ball game. They turned the ball over uncharacteristically and we capitalized. But I said at the time after that ball game and the second game that a lot of people believe we're a lot better than we are right now."
He was right.
It's been raining since September for the 6-9 Bills, but Williams still looks for a break in the clouds.
Yesterday, he fulfilled his coach's duty and took part in a conference call with the New England media. Chances are, he won't be doing another one of these calls for a while. He and offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride are tied to adjoining stakes waiting for the match to be struck. They will likely take the fall for the Bills' graveyard spiral.
Even so, Williams spent a surprising amount of time on what's good with the Bills coming off their 20-3 loss to Miami.
"We've been solid in a lot of areas," said Williams. "We improved this defense tremendously. This was a year we set aside to build the defense up and I've been proud of that staff on that side of the ball and the players coming together. And special-teams wise we have a chance to be ranked near the top of the NFL in both coverage units if we finish strong."
But statistical rankings don't save jobs or cash playoff checks and the truth is, offensively, the Bills have been abominable.
Drew Bledsoe is in the midst of, quite likely, his worst season following a Pro Bowl campaign in 2002. He's 262 of 442 for 2,777 yards, 11 touchdowns and 11 interceptions and he's been sacked 46 times. He's also fumbled 14 times and lost 9 and is a big part of the reason the Bills are minus-13 in turnover differential. The offensive line has done a poor job protecting the immobile Bledsoe, but he often asks a lot of a line by progressing through his reads at a glacial pace. It hasn't helped that the team was forced to trade wide receiver Peerless Price in the offseason or that wide receiver Eric Moulds has been hurt, but this offense -- so explosive in 2002 -- should have been better than this.
So what's the matter with Bledsoe?
"He's pressed too hard," said Williams. "At times he's tried to do too much. But all good players, all top players think, 'I'm gonna put the team on my back and I'm gonna overcome everything and win it for my team.' Especially at the quarterback position there's a tendency to do that. We see that with [Tennessee's Steve] McNair and [the Colts'] Peyton [Manning] and some of those guys. Drew's done that before and I'm sure at times he's tried to do a little bit too much. But there's been some breakdowns around him or we haven't protected him very well or there have been some communication errors where it looks like he makes an inaccurate throw that's not always his fault."
With all the talk of special-teams rankings and the absolution of Bledsoe, it started to seem like Williams was putting a buff and shine on a dog of a season. He denied that.
"All of us, from the players, staff and ownership we all [are disappointed]," he insisted. "Every year you start off wanting to be in the playoffs and that was our focus this year. But we weren't that good. We are what we are record-wise and now we have to do the things we have to do to make the strides to make sure it doesn't happen again."
It seems unlikely Williams will be there when those strides are made.
