Losman has up and down game
by MATT KRUEGER Reporter

Buffalo quarterback J.P. Losman looks discouraged after getting sacked in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 28-20 loss to the New York Jets. Photo by Patrick McPartland

The 72,067 fans at Ralph Wilson Stadium Sunday saw the best and worst of J.P. Losman.

Individually, he played the best game in his three-year NFLcareer. But the Bills lost and looked like they were spinning their wheels at times.

The stats were eye-popping: 22 of 38 passing for 328 yards and a touchdown, three rushing attempts for 14 yards and a touchdown. Of course he also threw an interception and fumbled twice. Talk about your yin and yang.

"He played a pretty good football game," head coach Dick Jauron said. "The first fumble was a mistake. The ball should have come out of there fast. It just didn't get out of his hand fast enough. The other ones, the interception was probably an ill advised throw, with the way the wind was, but he'll learn those things."

From the very beginning, it looked like it would be Losman's day. After a slick 18-yard pass to Peerless Price on the sideline, Losman avoided the pressure to hook up with second-year man Roscoe Parrish on a 51-yard touchdown pass. It was just a short throw, but it was the correct read. Parrish (four catches for 104 yards) was wide open and blazed his way past the New York secondary.

The Jets went three and out to give the Bills the ball back on their own 37-yard line. Losman and down game

immediately went to Parrish again, this time on a 21-yard gain. But a 7-yard Willis McGahee run and two incomplete passes later, the Bills coaching staff tried a fake field goal, which blew up in their faces.

That play signaled the change in momentum of the game. On Buffalo's next possession, Losman fumbled away the ball on a sack by KerryRhodes.

Trailing 21-13 with time running out in the fourth quarter, the Bills needed a touchdown badly. And that's when Losman showed his guts. He led the team on a 10-play drive from its own 10-yard line for a touchdown. Losman was 4 of 7 passing for 63 yards on the drive and scampered for a his first rushing touchdown of his career to give the Bills a chance.

"That's just J.P.," said receiver Lee Evans, who led Buffalo with 107 receiving yards. "He stepped up big on that drive. He did a good job of guiding us as an offense. We just stood together and kept playing. No matter what the score was, everybody was still real positive in the huddle and we went down and got a big score just to give ourselves a chance."

Down 28-20, the Bills recovered an on-sides kick to give Losman

an opportunity to win the game. But he didn't look nearly as good on this drive. Rain started covering the field just before the Bills got the ball back, so Losman had to deal with wind and gripping a wet ball.

He tossed two passes way over the head of McGahee, before hitting Parrish for a 10-yard gain. But an incomplete pass to Josh Reed on fourth down ended any chance of a Bills comeback.

The loss was a missed opportunity for the team. A win would have given the Bills a 2-1 record in the AFC East. Instead they're 1-2 and looking up.

"Of course, you want to get things rolling but it's a long season," Losman said. "You have to get things going and when they get going you have to roll with it. You never know how it's going to go. There are no psychics. We have to learn from it and get ready for it again when there's still a chance to win this division and to make some noise, win some games."

Losman is 2-9 as a starter in his career and has an 86.2 passer rating through three games this year.

e-mail: mkrueger@beenews.com