Archives for September 2013

‘The Bills defense has struggled against the run in 2 of 3 games this year, and perhaps that’s generous. Bilal Powell’s career high for yards rushing was 78 heading into this contest. He had bettered that by the third quarter en route to 149 for the game.’

‘The new age Bills? They Looked like the same old Bills for most of this game. They laid an egg on the road like they have so many times over the last 13 years.’

‘Buffalo had three chances legitimate chances to tie the game in the fourth quarter after the home standing Jets re-took the lead with 9:23 left on a long touchdown pass, but with 2:44 left and the ball on their own 28, the Bills inconsistent offense on this Sunday kept them from pulling even a second time in the game as they fell 27-20 to New York at MetLife Stadium.’

‘”Everyone is going after our secondary, and we just have to do a good job,” said head coach Doug Marrone. “We were trying to change things up for (Geno Smith) coverage-wise…to try to keep the quarterback thinking, but when we bring the pressure and they block them all up, they go one-on-one. We just didn’t make those plays.”‘

‘(I give) credit to the Jets. They did a good job. They came out early, they got a couple of big third downs on us, made some big plays. We were able to move the ball at times early on, but they scored touchdowns and we kicked field goals. That got us behind a little bit. We were behind a little bit in third-down percentage early on. I thought that we came back, defense started to play well, we were able to get the game to 20-20. And at the end of the day, we weren’t able to make that play to get us over the hump and they did. And they wound up winning. Credit to them. They went out there and won that game.’

‘The biggest thing was converting on third downs, we struggled there. Obviously with the all out pressures that gave us some headaches and things. They did everything we thought they would do as far was what we practiced during the week-the game plan going into it. I thought we were well prepared for what they were going to throw at us. It was just a matter of executing.’

‘It definitely had something to do with it. We have to score touchdowns whenever we get the opportunity. Scoring field goals is not going to cut it and it came back to bite us in the butt today. As an offensive unit, we can’t settle for that. We’re definitely going to put a lot of pressure on ourselves because of that.’

‘That’s not an obscene ranking, but the Bills have shown a propensity for getting flagged often and at crucial times, and 17 accepted penalties every two weeks would approach the Bills’ record for a season.’

‘Bills fans would love to see Manuel separate himself from his immediate predecessor, Ryan Fitzpatrick, who was routinely stifled by Rex Ryan’s aggressive, man-to-man pass defense. Fitz completed 50.2 percent of his throws and averaged 174 yards passing in seven games against the Jets.’

‘Bills 20, Jets 18.’

‘Bills 16, Jets 10.’

‘”I’m not really focused on facing Geno,” said Manuel during a news conference earlier in the week. “He’s not on defense, so we’re just looking forward to the next game and trying to get another win.”‘

‘”Having competed against him in college and then working him out and spending some time with him, I had a great appreciation … what was asked of him, what he did and what he had to do,” Marrone said of Smith. “When I look at him now, I see a player that’s developing. I’ve said before, we made a decision to go with EJ , we thought that was best for our organization. But I thought there were quarterbacks out there that will win in this league. Geno is developing and doing a nice job there.”‘

‘ “I’d be a liar if I stood here and said this game didn’t mean more to me or I didn’t want to win it,” Pettine admitted. “Coaches in the NFL were born with a hyper competitive gene and you want to win at everything. I want to beat him on Sunday.”‘

‘”It looks like somebody borrowed our playbook,” Ryan said of watching film on Buffalo. “But you know what, that’s my defense, that’s his defense and certainly we were together for a long time. Mike’s somebody that I’m extremely proud of.”‘