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Bills QB Drew Bledsoe fails to make a tackle on Raiders' cornerback Phillip Buchanon after he intercepts a Bledsoe pass. Buchanon converted the pick into a long touchdown in the fourth quarter. |
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[AP Photo/Kevin Rivoli] |
This game was touted as a potential offensive shootout between two of the most explosive offensives in the league. It exceeded all expectations. For the first 3 quarters of the game, it resembled a basketball game as both teams took the ball up and down the field to score touchdowns. Rich Gannon, the league's leading passer, went 23-of-38 for 357 yards and two scores. He also ran the ball in for a touchdown from a yard out.
While the Raiders were all over Bledsoe, pressuring him the entire game, the Bills could hardly get a sniff of Gannon. He was sacked once for only 4 yards. Outside of that, Gannon had all day to find the open receiver. Any defense that gives a quarterback that kind of time, will be eaten alive. That's what Gannon did.
His favorite receiver was Jerry Porter, who had 7 receptions for 117 yards and one score. The famed Jerry Rice and Tim Brown had four receptions apiece. The surprise element in this game was running back Charlie Garner, who rushed for 94 yards and a combined total of 177 yards. He spurt around right end for a 36-yard gallop to paydirt and took a screen pass 69 yards up the middle for another touchdown.
Bledsoe knew that he would have to keep his pace of putting a lot of numbers on the board. He succeeded in matching the Raiders powerful offense score for score until the 4th quarter when his protection caved in and he started looking pretty average. Bledsoe, who threw for 417 yards while completing 32 out of 53 for two scores, had his head handed to him in the final quarter.
While Bledsoe had pretty decent protection in the first half, he got sacked a total of 5 times by the time the game was over. When he wasn't sacked, Bledsoe was rushed into making huge mistakes. Probably the key play of the game was when Bledsoe was flushed out of the pocket on consecutive plays and he rolled to his right, throwing in the direction of Peerless Price with rookie cornerback Phillip Buchanon covering him. The first time, the ball hist Buchanon's hands and fell incomplete. The very next play, Bledsoe threw his direction again, and this time Buchanon picked it off. The only player who could have stopped Buchanon was Bledsoe, and Buchanon shed his tackle and sped down the left sidelines untouched. That broke the game open as the Raiders took a 42-31 lead. They would never look back.
"The first time it happened, I dropped the ball, and I was like, 'Dang, that was the play,''' said Buchanon. "Then something told me, 'Don't worry about it.'''
After breaking Jim Kelly's franchise record of 172 attempts without a pick, Bledsoe started to come apart at the seems 3 passes later when Troy James got between a Bledsoe pass and Eric Moulds. It was James again who picked off Bledsoe's third pass when the Bills were in the red zone.
Bledsoe was hot in the first half, throwing 2-yard touchdown strikes to Price and Dave Moore after engineering impressive drives. He started off the second half with another long drive which was ended when he failed to connect with a short pass to Moulds and the Bills had to kick a 30 yard field goal. The two other Bills touchdowns were a nifty draw play to Larry Centers who turned to break a tackle and he ran in from 5 yards out, and 2-yard run by Travis Henry.
The Bills defense once again allowed an embarrassing amount of yardage. The Raiders piled up 495 yards against a Bills defense that looked like Swiss cheese. This year, the Bills D is surrendering an average of 358 yards and 36 points a game. Even Bledsoe can't keep up with the opposition scoring at that rate.
Bills defensive coordinator knows that he is under the gun to get the Bills defensive woes corrected immediately before any more damage is done.
"I look at myself first,'' Gray said. "The Raiders are a good team, but so is everybody else on offense if you let them throw the ball downfield.''
On Garner's touchdown runs, the Bills just couldn't keep up with his speed. Also the Bills defenders had a case of sloppy tackling all day. That has to be corrected promptly.
The Bills also have to find a way to create more turnovers. They have yet to record an interception after 5 games. While the Raiders converted two of Bledsoe's 3 picks into touchdowns, the Bills D didn't come up with the ball once.
On third down, the Raiders converted 7 out of 13 and the lack of pressure on Gannon allowed him to pick apart the Bills secondary, scoring 21 unanswered points in the final quarter.
The Raiders exposed quite a few of the Bills weaknesses. First, they found the best way to contain Bledsoe is to put constant pressure on him and force him out of his safety zone, the pocket. Once scrambling, Bledsoe isn't anywhere as effective as he is in his zone.
The Bills D has so many holes that calling it Swiss Cheese is too complimentary. Gray has his work cut out for him in filling the gaps and getting the team to play disciplined ball. If teams keep scoring 30 or more points on his defense, the Bills have no chance of making the playoffs this year.
The Bills defense knows they let the offense down again.
"Our offense scored enough points, but we gave them too many big plays,'' admitted linebacker London Fletcher. "I'm sure our offense does feel a lot of pressure, especially the way we've played this season.''
Gray must be anticipating the heat that will likely come from the Buffalo media over his team’s horrific effort against the Raiders, giving up 495 yards and 49 points. The Bills are on pace to allow 576 points this season, smashing the 1981 Baltimore Colts record of 533 points
"As a coordinator, I take it on my shoulders because we didn't show up," admitted Gray. "They hit us on some plays and we didn't do a good job defending."
With the huge scores being run up on Gray’s defense, Bledsoe is under the assumption that he has to produce a TD every time he steps out on the field.
“It shouldn't be that way," put in Gray. "I mean, we've got an offense damn near like the Rams. They can score 40 points if we let 'em. But you can't be San Diego of the old days, when they've got Dan Fouts and they score 40 points and the other team scores 41. You can't live like that."
Gray is going to be doing plenty of soul-searching this week.
"I start with Jerry first," said Gray. "You look at Jerry and ask, "What are we doing? Are we putting too much in?' I don't think so. But you've got to go back and evaluate yourself. You've got a game plan and you've got to execute it."
Bledsoe, meanwhile, put the loss on his shoulders.
"Yes, we have big-play potential, but we have to eliminate some of the mistakes that's allowing the other teams to score points off us,'' insisted Bledsoe. "It was just a poor play on my part.''
Bledsoe then focused on how to get his team thinking about next week's game.
"You need to have a short memory in this league no matter what happens," he said. "Weather you win or lose you have to be able to come back and go to work next week. We are disappointed by the game, and we will watch the film and make the corrections and then move on. That is what you have to do in this league."
Price is loving the powerful Bills DB-Gun offense.
"I think it speaks volumes of our talent and Drew's confidence in us to make plays," said Price. "Sometimes we were covered and he threw it up. It's great to have a quarterback to have confidence in you like that. They're supposed to be a good secondary, and I feel that Eric and I are one of the best 1-2 punches in the league."
Bills head coach Gregg Williams said the obvious in his post game remarks.
"We didn't match the Raiders play for play in the second half," said Williams. "They had a couple big plays that we didn't overcome and we couldn't match them. The guys played hard all the time and hopefully we can learn some things from this."
Raiders receiver Porter hinted that people haven't seen everything yet from their powerful offense.
"We still haven't showed you everything,'' said Porter. ``There's a lot of things that we haven't had a chance to get to because of situations. ... You haven't seen half of it yet.''
Copyright © 2002 Bills Thunder & Rick Anderson, all rights reserved.
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