Bills stuck somewhere between good and bad
by MATT KRUEGER Reporter

Buffalo Bills running back Marshawn Lynch broke the 1,000-yard barrier Sunday, becoming the fourth rookie running back to do so in franchise history, but it wasn't enough to take down the visiting New York Giants in a 38-21 loss.

Probably the best way to describe the Buffalo Bills this season is they're a good bad team. Or they could be a bad good team, depending on how you want to look at it.

It's clear Buffalo is a middle of-the-pack team that can beat up on the weak and fall to the mighty. All of the Bills' wins this year came against teams with losing records. All of the Buffalo's losses came from squads with winning records, except the Week One defeat to Denver.

That track record should tell the Bills exactly where they stand in the NFL.

"I guess it does, it kind of has to tell you where we are right and what we can do," safety Jim Leonard said after Sunday's 38-21 loss to the playoff-bound New York Giants in the final home game of the season. "We need to get better. We need to beat some of them teams to get to where we want to get. We had some tough losses, but you have to give those teams a lot of credit."

Buffalo's seven wins this year came at the expense of the New York Jets (3-12), Baltimore (4-11), Cincinnati (6-9), Miami (1-14) and Washington (8-7). All of them had losing records when they faced the Bills. The eight losses came from Denver (6-8), Pittsburgh

10-5), New England (15-0), Jacksonville (11-4), Dallas (13-2), Cleveland (9-6) and the New York Giants (10-5). All of them had winning records when they played Buffalo.

The highlight of the season was easily the four-game winning streak in October and November. But the downside was dreadful with two horrific losses to New England and last-second defeats to Denver and Dallas. Had the Bills been a little better, or more poised, it could have beaten both Denver and Dallas and possibly qualified for the playoffs, because good teams win close games.

Buffalo exposed itself Sunday with the loss to the Giants. After taking a 14-0 lead in the first quarter, the Bills looked more like the New England Patriots. Quarterback Trent Edwards engineered two textbook scoring drives, completing six of seven passes, including a pair of touchdown tosses to Michael Gaines and Lee Evans. The defense, led by linebackers John DiGiorgio (11 tackles) and Angelo Crowell (nine tackles), forced the Giants to go three-and-out in their two first-quarter possessions.

But as soon as the weather turned bad with freezing rain, snow and swirling winds, the Bills could no longer function. New York capitalized on huge mistakes from Buffalo's special teams. Punter Brian Moorman fumbled a bad snap to set up New York's first touchdown drive, and safety Donte Whitner ran into punter Jeff Feagles allow the Giants to keep the ball and score their second touchdown to tie the game at 14-14.

New York also scored a pair of touchdowns in the fourth quarter on interception returns. The first pass was intended for Lee Evans, and the second one was aimed at Josh Reed.

"Personally, I think this (loss) is one of the toughest ones to deal with, because in some of those situations it was tough to make plays for the quarterback," said Evans, who finished with three receptions for 43 yards. "That's what made it tough for us."

"They came in with a winning record, so if we won, it would have shown where we are," cornerback Terrence McGee added. "But we lost."

The good news about Buffalo's tendency is that this week's finale is against the 7-8 Philadelphia Eagles. If Buffalo holds form, it will finish the season at 8-8.