When Jerry Sullivan was relieved of his duties as a featured sports columnist for the Buffalo News a couple of years ago, he was widely considered to be the opposite of a "homer" sports journalist. Always seeming to find a dark cloud in any story, despite the silver lining of eternal optimism shared by fans of the Buffalo Bills, Sullivan was the subject of a petition which gained enough momentum for the western New York daily to move on from him, saying that he was just too negative for their readers. In a larger market, Sullivan's "glass half empty" approach to covering losing teams (remember the Bills missed the playoffs from 1999 to 2017) would have been considered appropriate in my view. But enough fans in Buffalo had read enough of his doom and gloom columns - even if they were pretty much accurate most of the time.
A couple of days before the Bills fell to the Eagles last Sunday, Sullivan shared with his Twitter followers another of his dire tidbits which was sure to rile up those (like me) who are still interested in what he has to say about the Bills. Sullivan dug up the fact that since 2000, including last week's game against the Eagles, the Bills have had 17 chances to record their sixth win in a season before the 11th game (in other words, to get to a record of 6-4 or better). Over the course of those 17 games, the Bills were a perfect 0-17. In the 2011 season, the Bills started 5-1 (as they did this year) and went 0-5 in trying to get to 6 wins before game 11. Many Buffalo sports fans will see this data point as typical Sullivan - trying to find the most depressing angle from which to evaluate the team and anticipate more Bills losses. Maybe he's disappointed this morning that the team finally broke the streak of 0-17 yesterday against Washington but I'm sure that he will find another equally dire trend to infuriate his readers as the Bills take their 6-2 record to Cleveland next week. Either way, I'll be reading what he has to say. This is the best start to a season for the Bills since their last Superbowl year in 1993 but Sullivan probably won't mention that.
I heard something that Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said the other day: with so many close games every week in the NFL, most games come down to which team is able to step up and execute in the last 10 minutes of the 4th quarter. The Bills allowed Washington, a team which had already fired its head coach earlier this season and was starting a rookie third-string quarterback yesterday, to hang around within one score in a 17-9 game. Then, as those critical final minutes began ticking down, the team stepped up on both sides of the ball and put the game out of reach. The defence stiffened and a Tre'davious White sack pinned Washington inside their five yard line, having to punt from their endzone. Josh Allen then led the team to the game-sealing touchdown - a two yard run by Devin Singletary.
Speaking of Singletary, the Bills rookie running back, only now appearing to be fully recovered from his early season hamstring injury, had a big day with 140 total yards. He had 20 carries for 95 yards on the ground and took a screen pass 49 yards for the game's biggest offensive play. As the featured running back yesterday, Singletary took the time to find running lanes and looked elusive and deceptively quick. On the other hand, Frank Gore, the highly respected veteran, seemed like he was banging his head against a brick wall with multiple unsuccessful straight ahead attempts in short yardage situations. He has been quite effective for the Bills this year but not yesterday. I predict that the combination of the two backs with very different styles will continue to work well with at least one of them finding running room each week. Adrian Peterson looked like the hardest player in the league to tackle in the first half yesterday as he repeatedly shed defenders who should have been able to bring him to the ground and was able to pile up 101 yards before the break but ended the game with only 7 more in the second half.
Going into yesterday, Washington had not played a game in Orchard Park since 2003. The 2011 game, won by the Bills 23-0, was played before a subdued crowd at the Rogers Centre in Toronto (I know it was subdued because I was there). The team from Washington is scheduled to play in Buffalo next in 2027.
Up next for the Bills is a short drive along the south shore of Lake Erie to visit their cousins, the Cleveland Browns. The Browns are coming off a loss at Denver yesterday and are now at 2-6 - quite disappointing for a team which was hoping to contend with Baker Mayfield in his second year and the signing of Odell Beckham Jr for him to throw to. I expect a large contingent of Bills Nation to make the drive to Cleveland for a chance to see the Bills improve to 7-2.
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