You know you’re a Bills fan when you can’t seem to be happy when the Bills win. Last week I was downright angry after the Bills beat Minnesota, and this week I’m just apathetic to the team’s victory. I’m not quite sure why I’m just not happy – it doesn’t make much sense.

If you had told me at the end of the preseason that the Bills would be hitting their week 9 bye sitting at 5-3 with a very solid defense, a capable quarterback capable of keeping Sammy Watkins on course for Rookie of the Year consideration and a winning record on the road I wouldn’t have believed it – and I would have been overjoyed.

I try not to get too hopeful about the Bills – I know better than that – the higher you go, the harder you fall and that fall always seems to come. The preseason was a disaster – the team looked as if it could be heading for a new low. Fast forward 8 weeks and the team is rallying around a quarterback who wasn’t even on the roster at the end of the preseason. More importantly, they are winning with Kyle Orton.

So how can I be so unenthused about the Bills the day after a 20 point win, on the road, against a divisional opponent – am I crazy? I might actually be crazy, but I’m not the only one – I hear people like me on Buffalo sports radio and I read what they are saying on the Internet.

Before Sunday’s game against the New York Jets I had the game down as a turning point in the Bills’ season. They had come up on the wrong side of the last turning point, an opportunity to defeat a beatable New England squad at home on a day filled with huge emotion. I figured if the Bills couldn’t win against a 1-6 divisional opponent then they had no business thinking or talking about playoffs.

The Vegas odds-makers were similarly unimpressed with Buffalo, making them the first winning team to be an underdog to a 1-6 team in the known history of sports betting. Think about that a bit – they actually looked at the Bills at 4-3 and at the Jets at 1-6 and felt the teams were equal so they gave the Jets the standard home team 3 point favorite line. Sure the Bills were without their starting running backs, but even with them the team only had the 19th best rush offense in the league – it’s not as if they lost players that represented their entire offense.

From the get go the game was a disaster for the Jets. In the first 10:20 of the game the Jets had the ball 4 times, amassed 7 yards of offense and turned the ball over 3 times. Geno Smith was shown the bench and it was time for Michael Vick. The Bills scored on their opening drive (their first opening drive score all season) and tacked on a second touchdown after Smith’s third interception.

The Bills built a 17-point lead with six minutes to go in the first half, but gave up 10 points in the last 1:50 to nurse a 7-point lead at halftime. Yes, despite 4 takeaways in the first half and half of their drive starting from mid-field or better the Bills were only a touchdown up on Gang Green.

Going into halftime I thought to myself that this was precisely the type of game that proves Bills fans hate themselves. We’ve seen it too many times before – squander every opportunity to win a game served up by your opponent and find a way to lose. It seemed like one of those games where the Jets could take control in the second half and soundly beat the only team to play in New York. Indeed, Buffalo has a knack of finding a way to lose, and the thought of being defeated by a team who coughed up the ball four times in just the first half was enough to make you want to hurt yourself.

Buffalo should have been up by a lot more by halftime. As a matter of fact, the game should have really been over after the first 30 minutes, but it wasn’t and it was because the Bills did not look very good at times.

I didn’t really think the Bills would miss Fred Jackson and C.J. Spiller as much as they did, but the run game was downright awful. To be fair, going into the game the Jets had the 8th ranked rush defense but the dead last rated pass defense. Orton isn’t exactly Peyton Manning, but with things the way they were on Sunday it was tough to watch Bryce Brown and Boobie Dixon continue to take handoffs and run smack into the pile for a maximum gain of 2 yards. Why was that so often the play call, especially on early downs? Why no passes against the worst pass defense in the league, just to keep the chains moving? The ultra-conservative play calling of Nathaniel Hackett was maddening – it was like the second coming of Joe Pendry.

The Bills rushed 14 times for 32 yards in the first half while also giving up 114 yards on the ground. The Bills were 1 for 6 on third down and gave up over 200 yards of offense in the half. They also had 4 penalties for 31 yards. On paper it wasn’t too hard to see a big Jets comeback in the second half – that would be painful.

Luckily for the Bills the Jets continued their giving ways, coughing up the ball twice more in the second half. The Bills tacked on another 19 points in the second half while holding the Jets to a single late touchdown when the game was all but over. It could have been an ugly second half, and statistically it wasn’t great, but the Bills got the win.

That the Bills looked so offensively flat and unable to put away the Jets early really took a lot of the joy out of the win for me (there goes my blood pressure again). I couldn’t help but think that a real playoff team should have had the Jets running for the bus by halftime, but that didn’t happen. It’s a win, but it just wasn’t a really satisfying win – odd for a Bills fan to be so picky about wins. Call me paranoid, but it’s hard to enjoy a win thinking that any number of other teams likely would have come back and won that game. It’s also hard to think that professional football handicappers didn’t see the Bills as any better than the Jets.

OK, so here we are at the bye week - a time to rest up a bit and get healthier. Hopefully the Bills will get Jackson back soon – having a bye now helps. It would also be great to get Marquise Goodwin and Marcus Easley back and get Kyle Williams some time to refresh. The extra time to plan the next few games will also be helpful. Mistakes were made on Sunday, but they were made at the right time and didn’t kill the Bills. I doubt we’ll see Watkins doing much more celebrating shy of the end zone, nor do I see Dan Carpenter missing further extra points – learn from these experiences.

And so I sit, daring to be hopeful about the second half of the Bills’ season. Watkins looks fantastic – he’s certainly in line for top rookie honors. Orton continues his solid play – he’s not turning the ball over and some of his throws are really nice – exactly where they need to be. I’d like to see the Bills open things up a little more for Orton to see more of what he can do. The offensive line played better this week – I can’t even imagine how much better it can be next year if the Bills bring in some better guards. And last but not least, the defense continues to shine. Best thing about the defense is that it is working as a team – it’s not as if 1 or 2 players are carrying the load – to a man everyone looks to be doing their job fairly well – some even look great.

I’m trying not to be too hopeful for the second half of the season – we’ve been here before and always managed to tank things. Maybe that’s the real gift of the current Buffalo Bills – the ability to win games while preventing you from getting too starry-eyed – they always find a way to keep you grounded.