Week 17: Bills Stumble To End Of Season
Bills beaten soundly in glorified preseason game for the Jets.
by Steve Saslow
Here are our position by position grades:
Quarterback:
Brian Brohm was awful and didn't have a good feel for the speed of the game. He finished with three interceptions, one was returned for a touchdown. He also lost a fumble going 10 of 23 for just 106 yards.
Levi Brown replaced Brohm late in the game and completed 2 of 3 passes and an interception.
Grade F: The Brian Brohm era should be over in Buffalo.
Running Backs:
Fred Jackson came in needing 108 yards for his second straight 1,000 yard season. He didn't get close running the ball just 13 times for 35 yards.
C.J. Spiller finished his lost rookie season with three carries for five yards.
Quinton Ganther had one carry for negative six yards.
Grade F: 2.1 yards per carry, enough said.
Receivers:
Stevie Johnson dropped the first pass thrown his way but caught the next one for a first down. He promptly fumbled away his 2nd catch. He also didn't try hard enough to stop an interception that went for a score. With all this, he was the only one to do anything offensively with five catches for 72 yards.
Naaman Roosevelt had three catches for 30 yards but didn't have a good feel for the first down marker catching passes short of the first down.
Paul Hubbard had the first pass thrown his way go through his hands. He had one catch for eight yards in garbage time.
Jonathan Stupar caught a screen pass for seven yards.
Scott Chandler was thrown to deep once but couldn't catch the pass.
Grade F: What did you expect from the rag tag unit?
Offensive Line:
Demetrius Bell had a third down false start penalty.
Eric Wood started at center despite Geoff Hangartner being active. He recovered a Jackson fumble.
Erik Pears got the start at right tackle for Mansfield Wrotto. He was beaten for a QB hit that resulted in an interception.
Chad Rinehart started at right guard.
Andy Levitre had his weekly false start penalty in the 2nd quarter.
Grade F-: The main reason why the Bills only had six first downs. Brohm was under siege all day long.
Defensive Line:
Kyle Williams was very quiet with just two tackles.
Marcus Stroud seems out of place in the 3-4 defense, he had just two tackles.
Alex Carrington had one tackle.
Spencer Johnson was active with 8 tackles and he had a sack.
Torell Troup was fairly active with four tackles.
Grade F: Huge holes in the running game.
Linebackers:
Chris Kelsay was called for a roughing the passer penalty and had nine tackles, many down the field.
Paul Posluszny was beaten on a third down pass to McKnight and had 12 tackles.
Akin Ayodele led the team with 13 tackles.
Arthur Moats had 2 QB hits on Brunell and five tackles.
Grade D: Couldn't stop the third string running back of the Jets.
Secondary:
Drayton Florence was good in coverage.
Terrence McGee had a tackle but was decent in coverage.
Leodis McKelvin started for McGee and was totally faked out in the run game by Smith on the Jets first drive. He was then put on the bench for a while.
Jairus Byrd finally got an interception and returned it for a score. He was beaten for an 18 yard pass to Crotchery. He was late getting over on Edwards touchdown.
Donte Whitner had four tackles.
Grade D: Didn't give up too many yards but did give up two touchdown passes including the bomb.
Special Teams:
Brian Moorman was busy with six punts for a 49.3 yard average and 41.7 yard net. His best game of the year.
Rian Lindell hit his only kick, an extra point.
Leodis McKelvin had 1 kick return for 14 yards.
C.J. Spiller returned two punts for 44 yards but fair caught too many since he seems afraid of fumbling. He also returned four kicks for a 20.3 yard average.
Jehuu Caulcrick had 2 kick returns for 28 yards.
Leodis McKelvin had 1 kick return for 14 yards.
Coverage Units allowed a 25 yard punt return but held them down otherwise. Short kickoffs kept returns down to eight and seven yards on the two kickoffs.
Grade C: Average game for a very average unit.
Coaching:
Chan Gailey lost his team on this day. Offensively they did nothing.
George Edwards never had an answer all year against any running attack.
Bruce DeHaven his units were busy and didn't cost them the game.
Grade F: Pathetic finish to the season.
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