On Any Given Sunday, a 20-Point Lead Might Not Be Enough

Remember how the Saints poured it on against the Colts last Sunday? It turns out they had good reason to run up the score.

Via ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Sunday night:

 

 

When Ravens erased a 24-3 deficit and won 30-27, it marked a record 5th time this season a team trailed by at least 20 and came back to win.Mon Oct 31 01:42:20 via WhoSayAdam Schefter
AdamSchefter

 

 

Yes, it’s the year of the comeback. (No, relax; he’s still retired.) But the days of taking a 10-point lead and sitting on the ball may be receding into the past, especially with quick-strike spread offenses running up point totals and a lack of training camp work showing up in porous defenses.

Here’s a look at the five games Schefter was referring to:

Week 3: Lions 26, Vikings 23 With an assist from the Vikings, who blew double-digit halftime leads in their first three games, the Lions continued their unbeaten start by wiping out a 20-0 halftime deficit. Calvin Johnson caught two touchdown passes and recorded his first 100-yard game. He hasn’t slowed down since. “This is my best win ever,” said Lions center Dominic Raiola, who was 0 for 10 in the Metrodome before the game.

Week 3: Buffalo 34, New England 31 A week after rallying from a 21-3 deficit to beat the Raiders, the Bills spotted the Patriots a 21-0 lead and then roared back again. The victory ended a 15-game losing streak against the Patriots and announced the Bills’ revival. “It’s the biggest win of my career,” linebacker Chris Kelsay said.

Week 4: 49ers 24, Eagles 23 A 23-3 lead on San Francisco has been plenty for at least a decade, it seems, but this year’s 49ers are a different team. The Eagles found that out as Alex Smith went 13 of 17 for 201 yards and 2 touchdowns in the second half, and Frank Gore bulled in for the winning score with three minutes left. “It’s unacceptable to give up a lead that size in the second half,” Eagles defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins said. Take it easy, Cullen; this year it’s not.

Week 4: Lions 34, Cowboys 30 Trailing by 24 points after a Jason Witten touchdown in the third quarter, the Lions stormed back for their second straight massive comeback by returning Tony Romo interceptions for touchdowns on consecutive drives in the third quarter. Matthew Stafford took care of the rest, throwing two touchdown passes to — who else? — Calvin Johnson. “It’s crazy how it happens,” Stafford said. “When it was 27-3, we knew we had to start making plays. Once we did, we started catching fire.”

Week 8: Ravens 30, Cardinals 27 Baltimore broke the league record for 20-point comebacks in a season by rallying from a 24-3 deficit against Arizona, but not before hearing it from the home fans. “I don’t go to a lot of football games, but I probably would have wanted to boo if I was in the stands, too,” Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco said. “We weren’t looking too good.” He and his teammates responded with the biggest comeback in Ravens history: a Billy Cundiff field goal before halftime, three short touchdown runs by Ray Rice and — after Arizona  tied it with a field goal — a 25-yard winner by Cundiff as time expired.

ESPN.com’s Greg Garber wrote about the surge of comebacks after Week 5, but at that point could only make an educated guess at what was behind it:

The leading candidates are evolving offenses — aided and abetted by league legislation over the years — and the lockout. We would be remiss not to mention the Vikings, who blew leads of 10, 17 and 20 points, and Dallas quarterback Tony Romo, who helped engineer the squandering of 14- and 24-point leads. History, it should be noted, could not have been achieved without them.

Maybe that was why the Giants let the Dolphins ride in the driver’s seat for so long on Sunday. Maybe Eli Manning and Co. knew they had it all the way.

Extra point: What do you think is behind all the comebacks? Given the consequences of failure, N.F.L. coaches are famously conservative, especially late in games. So what are so many doing so wrong this season?

For Bills Fans, Now More Than a Glimmer of Hope

Bills fans didn’t make off with the goal posts at Ralph Wilson Stadium on Sunday but after the stunning come-from-behind, 34-31 win over the Patriots, beleaguered Bills backers everywhere are feeling strangely optimistic about a team few believed in prior to the start of the season.

One fan texted the team’s flagship radio station that he “cried in his mother’s arms” after the win. Hundreds of Bills backers sang the team’s fight song–”Shout”–outside the Laughing Man bar in Washington, D.C., after the game to the bewilderment of passersby on the street. A high school friend who loves the Bills wrote on Facebook: “I feel like its 1987 and the Bills are at the dawn of the Kelly/Reed/Smith/Thomas/Talley era…and this team is on the verge of something great.”

My cousin colored her Facebook profile with a photo of a t-shirt emblazoned with Tom Brady’s face with a word that is not printable in a family newspaper’s website beneath it. A fan from Boone, N.C., posting on the Buffalo News’ site, compared the win to the 1980 U.S. Hockey team’s triumph over the Soviets at Lake Placid.

Perhaps the Bills didn’t help end the Cold War, but they did finally manage to slay Buffalo’s equivalent of an evil empire: Tom Brady and the Patriots. Brady seemed to represent everything that Bills’ fans hate–the kind of good-looking, wealthy, successful elite who looks down his nose at places like Buffalo. In truth, he’s never uttered a bad word about the city or its fans, but somehow we’re sure he looks down on us. But on Sunday, Bills’ fans could finally rejoice, as Brady was humbled to the tune of four interceptions and was reduced to standing idly on the sideline as Buffalo ran out the clock before banging home the winning kick with just three seconds left in the game.

Are Bills fans like me getting carried away? Of course we are. But let’s take stock of the situation. A team that started the season ranked #31 in ESPN’s power rankings, and #30 on Fox Sports’ list, is 3-0 and in sole possession of first place in the A.F.C East. No N.F.L. team has come back from deficits of 18 points or more to win two weeks in a row in at least 60 years. With 113 points scored, they lead the N.F.L. with an average of nearly 38 points per game.

Heady stuff for a fan base that has been more preoccupied with Ralph Wilson’s mortality and the nightmare of the team potentially leaving town than any realistic playoff dreams for the last decade. Realists have brought some us back down to earth with a reminder that in 2008 the team started out 4-0, but finished the season 7-9. A cautionary note to be sure, but a look at the teams the Bills beat to start that season reveals that that hopeful 4-0 start was essentially a mirage. Those Bills beat Seattle, Jacksonville, Oakland and St. Louis–four teams that went a combined 16-48 that year with none winning more than five games. The Bills’ first victim–the Chiefs–are obviously not a good team, but the Raiders and the Patriots look very much like playoff contenders.

It’s also worth noting that undefeated starts have also propelled the Bills deep into the playoffs in the past. The ’91 and ’92 teams, which made it to the Super Bowl, started 5-0 and 4-0. And in ’88, a Bills squad that had missed the playoffs six times in a row started 4-0 and finished 12-4, before losing to Icky Woods and the Bengals in the A.F.C. Championship game.

According to ESPN, 76 per cent of teams that start the season 3-0 make the playoffs and the Bills’ remaining schedule appears to be favorable. If they go 3-2 in their remaining division games, which should be realistic given the fact that the Dolphins appear to be weak, the Bills would probably need just a 4-4 split against their eight remaining non-division opponents to make the postseason. The Bills are favored to win at Cincinnati next week, and home games against Tennessee, Washington and Denver look like winnable games for Buffalo, at least at this rather giddy moment.

But of course, Bills fans know better than most that there’s still plenty of time for everything to fall apart. Western New York and the Buffalo diaspora are in love with this team and at the moment, no one wants to dwell on any of the Bills’ glaring weaknesses. After an 11-year playoff drought, who can blame us for seeing rainbows where others notice storm clouds off in the distance?

Sunday was a great day for the Rust Belt, with big wins for the Lions, Browns and the Bills. Perhaps 2011 will be the year when these cities finally become associated with something more positive than gloomy economic forecasts and lame jokes from people who live in more glamorous locales.

When Ryan Fitzpatrick’s second pass of the day deflected off of Bills’ wide receiver Donald Jones and right into the hands of Patriots’ cornerback Kyle Arrington early in the first quarter, it looked like it was going to be yet another day where the ball simply didn’t bounce the Bills’ way.

But soon thereafter, the team’s luck changed, and by the end of the game, even a call that went against them–the Fred Jackson touchdown that was overturned after video review with 1:43–worked in their favor. The football gods may or may or may not be ready to smile on the Bills as the season unfolds, but for the first time in years there is justifiable hope in Buffalo.

Leading Off: World Goes Mad, or at Least Football Does

If you went on vacation for a few weeks, left the country, put the iPhone on airplane mode and left it there, it would be easy to return and wonder if the sports world had gone completely off the rails. We know this from personal experience. But, as it turns out, it was not necessary to leave the country and turn off your smartphone to feel unmoored. In fact, you could have watched every second of the Lions and Bills starting the season 3-0, with a few glimpses over at the Browns going 2-1, while still trying to wrap your head around the Colts without Peyton Manning and still wonder what the heck is going on.

This is clear from the number of plugged-in football people who have been paying close attention and still reacted to Sunday’s developments by saying, “What the heck is going on?” This crowd is led by the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy, who absorbed the Patriots’ defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory against the Bills and decided the laws of the universe have been rewritten. O.K., sure, maybe there are subatomic particles that can travel faster than light and scientists can stumble on new planets orbiting more than one sun, but Tom Brady throwing four interceptions and the Bills taking over as the new Kings of Karma? This cannot happen. The Buffalo News’s Mike Harrington even says so. The Bills even had a touchdown overturned and it ended up helping them. And thus, perhaps the rustiest of the Rust Belt cities has a reason to go wild, writes Yahoo.com’s Les Carpenter.

Yes, as Dan Wetzel writes on Yahoo.com, it’s Bizarro World. In the case of the Lions, they gave some hints last season that this was possible, but as Don Banks writes on SI.com, the mind-blowing part is that both the Lions and Bills have developed resilience neither team could have imagined. SI.com’s Peter King throws the Browns into the mix and heralds a new day for the Terrible Trio.

The weirdness hardly stops there. Not only is the Eagles’ once seemingly indomitable ship taking on water, the lifeboats are getting pretty crowded for a team that’s 1-2 and was being called the Dream Team about eight seconds ago. A loss to the hated Giants and Michael Vick’s broken hand are only the edge of their problems, writes Clark Judge on CBSSports.com, and The Philadelphia Daily News’s Sam Donnellon even goes so far as to say Coach Andy Reid might soon be reaching for a pair of water wings. While ESPN.com’s Dan Graziano believes Vick missing a few weeks might actually help the Eagles get organized and stop relying so heavily on him, the Philadelphia Daily News’s John Smallwood is wondering if Vick’s playing style may be his undoing. Against the Giants, a calamitous 14 minute, 51 second stretch was the Eagles undoing, and the Giants were happy that for a change, they did not engineer that calamity, writes Ohm Youngmisuk on ESPN.com.

In other calamities with Philadelphia echoes, Donovan McNabb is now being hooted toward the sideline in his latest city (Minneapolis), with the Star-Tribune’s Jim Souhan rushing to the head of the pack calling for Christian Ponder to start at quarterback after the Vikings torpedoed themselves for a third straight game. In Baltimore, Ravens fans not only have a win over Pittsburgh to enjoy already this season, they watched rookie receiver Torrey Smith turn his first three N.F.L. catches into touchdowns. Not bad for a day’s work. The Panthers’ Jonathan Stewart might be saying the same thing about his amazing, 60-yard, waterskis-would-have-helped touchdown if it hadn’t been overturned on replay.

Yes, there were other sports with forehead-slapping developments going on over the weekend as well. The Red Sox elbowed into the picture in dramatic fashion, interrupting their epic collapse with a dramatic 14-inning victory over the Yankees, which pulled them at least momentarily back from the ledge, writes Jeff Passan on Yahoo.com. It might be only a momentary reprieve, writes Joe Lemire on SI.com, but they’ll take it. As Danny Knobler writes on CBSSports.com, they are desperately trying to rewrite their own story.

There was a golf story this weekend that did not involve Tiger Woods until Woods decided to hijack the news and hire a caddie away from Dustin Johnson. But if you could ignore that little tempest, you are likely trying to figure out just how Bill Haas managed to make off with the FedEx Cup jackpot. We’re not even sure Haas knows how.

If all that isn’t strange enough, it’s worth taking in one more sight: a fantastically low-budget ad featuring Diego Maradona and his Dubai driving license.

But, not it’s still not stranger than the Bills and Lions being 3-0.

Follow Leading Off on Twitter: twitter.com/zinsernyt

View From Buffalo on the Bills

Sometimes the most enjoyable movie reviews are when critics skewer flops. It can be the same with sportswriting. In the last few years, The Fifth Down has chronicled some of the Bills’ black days by highlighting excerpts from columns by Jerry Sullivan of The Buffalo News:

Sept. 15, 2009, on a big Patriots comeback in the Bills’ opener: This is becoming an annual rite, but I have to ask the question again, the same one I asked after the Dallas game two years ago, and the Cleveland game a year ago. How much more of this can a Bills fan take?

Jan. 19, 2010, on the Bills’ hiring of a coach: Really? Chan Gailey. It’s an uninspiring pick, and if my math is correct, about their eighth choice.

Oct. 4, 2010: OK, it’s only the quarter pole, but the Bills look like donkeys running with thoroughbreds.

Nov. 29, 2010, on Stevie Johnson’s reaction to a botched catch against the Steelers: Wow. I suspect the Creator has bigger concerns than a rising NFL star dropping a pass that costs his team a game.

So it’s only fair that we sample a Sullivan column after one of the biggest Bills victories in recent memory:

It was the first time the Patriots had ever lost a game after leading by 21 points in the Tom Brady era. It was the first time since 1950 — which is as far back as the NFL’s records go — that any team came from at least 18 points behind to win in successive games.

Oh, and the New England streak finally ended. Wave goodbye. Say so long to the Losman safety, the Bledsoe bootleg, the McKelvin fumble, the Holcomb sack, the bookend 31-0 loss, Dick Jauron fumbling with the challenge flag. All of it. Gone. Say it loud: One-game winning streak against the Pats.

Peter King wrote in his Monday Morning QB on SI.com:

I can remember only two Buffalo crowds as giddy and loud as Sunday’s — though I’m sure I’m missing some. The 2007 Monday night crazyfest with Dallas, won 25-24 by the Cowboys, is one, and the comeback from a 32-point deficit in the 1993 playoff game against Houston the other.

Extra point A great story, but is anyone willing to throw cold water on a hot team? When the season ends, will the Bills really be in the playoffs?

For a Bills Fan, a Glimmer of Hope

On Sunday, the Bills (2-0) will try to reverse a humiliating 15-game losing-streak against the mighty Patriots (2-0) at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park. Since beating the Pats, 16-13 in an overtime thriller on Nov. 5, 2000, the team has lost 20 of its last 21 games to their division foe in a stretch where the Patriots have taken home the Vince Lombardi trophy three times while the Bills have failed to make the playoffs even once.

Bill Clinton was president when this dark era in the Bills-Patriots rivalry began. You could still go through airport security with a pair of shoes on. I was 27 and single. I’m now 38, with two sons, ages 2 and 4. I’ve moved in and out of the country three times, and encountered numerous life changes since the Bills’ last win over the Patriots. But the one constant has been watching my team lose to the Patriots twice each year.

After 11 consecutive seasons without a playoff appearance, my expectations for the team this season were beyond modest. I hoped they’d go 0-16 and win the Andrew Luck lottery. But the Bills threw everyone a curve by burying the Chiefs in week one, and staging an impressive comeback from an 18-point halftime deficit against the Raiders in week two, to start the season 2-0 for the first time since 2008.

Suddenly, Bills fans are allowing themselves to think big. Could our hapless team possibly beat our longtime nemesis, the Patriots, on Sunday?

Bills fans are accustomed to losing.

Longest NFL series winning streaks all-time
Dolphins over Bills (1970-79)	20
49ers over Rams (1990-98)	17
Patriots over Bills (2003-present)	15
Dolphins over Colts (1980-87)	14
Chargers over Raiders (2003-2010)	13
Cowboys over Cardinals (1990-96)	13

A recent list on SB Nation of the top 25 worst moments in Bills history puts the Patriots losing streak at only moment #24. How can fans root for a team that has inflicted 23 “moments” even worse than an eight-year losing streak against a hated division rival?

My indoctrination into the sweet sorrow that is being a Bills fan came in the 1970s during another prolific losing streak. In those days, before the era of fantasy football and PlayStation, it wasn’t socially acceptable to simply root for individual players or pick a random team in another city to support. If you were born in Buffalo, you were stuck with the Bills.

The team went oh-for-the-70s (0-20) against the Dolphins before finally beating Don Shula and company 17-7 on Sept. 7, 1980. A streak that started in the Nixon years, during the Vietnam conflict, finally ended just weeks before the election of Ronald Reagan. As I grew up, the team got better and even went to the Super Bowl during each of my four years of college. But as everyone knows, they never brought the Vince Lombardi Trophy to Buffalo and fans are still scarred from all of the team’s well-documented losing streaks.

Like any masochistic sports fans, we try to make analyze and make sense of the losing. Perhaps in trying to quantify the team’s wretched failures we can bury their demons once and for all. Dissecting horrific losing streaks is not a pleasant exercise, but here goes.

As bad as the Bills oh-for-the-70’s against the Dolphins was, an argument can be made that the current streak of losing 20 of the last 21 to the Patriots is even worse. Both losing streaks featured some close losses–six losses in each steak were by 7 points or less. The Patriots won three Super Bowls during their streak against the Bills and the Dolphins won twice.

But the Patriots have blown the Bills out by 21 points or more eight times, whereas the Dolphins did the same on just four occasions. In the worst year of this stretch against the Patriots, 2007, the team was destroyed 56-10 and 38-7. While the losses against the Dolphins came just as predictably, there was no single year in which fans had to endure two blowout losses.

And during the streak against the Dolphins, Bills fans could also direct their ire, at least partially, against the schedule-makers. The latest the Dolphins were ever forced to play in snowy Buffalo was a Nov.18 contest in 1973. And in those 10 years, the first game of the series was played in Buffalo and the second in Miami eight times. Surely the Bills would have won at least once if the Dolphins had to play in Buffalo in December, right?

What excuses can Bills loyalists like myself conjure for our team’s current stretch of futility against the Patriots? We can complain about some bad luck in two overtime losses, and how the breaks just didn’t go our way in the four losses that were by just three points or less. But the cold, hard, disgusting fact is that the Bills have been awful and the Patriots have been very good.

Are the Bills going to turn the page on this dismal chapter in the team’s history on Sunday? As a nine-point underdog, few are betting on it. But if the team somehow pulls off the upset, don’t be surprised if Bills fans pour onto the field and take out years of frustration on the goalposts.

I was eight years old when the Bills beat the Dolphins for the first time in my life. My sons haven’t lived long enough to see a Bills win over the Patriots. I hope they won’t have to wait as long as I did to see the end of a disgraceful losing streak. But if the team loses again, Bills fans will know how to look on the bright side. At least we’ll be back in the Andrew Luck sweepstakes.

Are Bills That Good, and Chiefs That Bad?

This time last year, I wrote that an opening day loss wasn’t necessarily a harbinger of things to come. But Week 1 isn’t meaningless, and no team knows that better than the Chiefs. Last season, Kansas City pulled off the biggest upset in Week 1 and rode a hot start directly into a division championship.

This past weekend, no team exceeded expectations like the Buffalo Bills. The Bills were initially listed as 6.5-point underdogs to the Chiefs, although speculation about Matt Cassel’s injury drove the point spread down to 3.5 points by kickoff. But by either measure, a 34-point victory was nothing short of shocking. The Bills covered the point spread by either 40.5 or 37.5 points, depending on your perspective. The largest opening day “cover” in modern history came in 1997, when the  Jets shocked the Seattle Seahawks, 41-3. The Jets were coming off a 1-15 season and were 6.5-point underdogs in Bill Parcells’ first game with the team. The season ultimately ended with a 9-7 mark.

From 1978 to 2010, only seven teams (1) were an underdog in their season opener, (2) covered the point spread by at least 30 points, and (3) won 6 or fewer games in the prior season. Five of those seven teams ended up winning at least half of their games, and two (the ‘00 Eagles and ‘06 Ravens) made the playoffs. The Bills have a good chance to run their record to 2-0, as the schedule makers did Al Davis’s team no favors. Oakland has to make a cross-country trip on a short week and play in Buffalo with a 1 p.m. kickoff. A win over the Raiders win would set the stage for the biggest game in Buffalo in years, a Week 3 showdown against the Patriots. So what was the key to the Bills’ success?

They’re not going to make anyone forget Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin, but the Bills have a nice set of triplets. Ryan Fitzpatrick was flawless against the Chiefs and passed for four touchdowns; since the start of last season, Fitzpatrick and Tom Brady are the only quarterbacks with three games with four passing touchdowns or more.

Fred Jackson has been underrated by many the past few seasons, including by his own coaches. Jackson has a career 4.5 yards per carry average, and recorded the 8th 100-yard rushing game of his career on Sunday. Steve Johnson had a breakout season last year, his third in the league, gaining 82 catches for 1,073 yards and 10 touchdowns. Johnson had 66 yards and a score against the Chiefs.

But the Bills’ defense didn’t play second fiddle to the offense in Arrowhead Stadium. Kansas City’s first three drives ended with three punts and 20 total yards. Five more drives ended in punts, with all of them gaining 20 or fewer yards. The Bills intercepted Matt Cassel, stripped Jamaal Charles, and allowed just one touchdown.

Are the Chiefs horrible? Are the Bills great? Is neither team, to quote Denny Green, who we thought they were?

On the surface, the 2010 Chiefs were a much stronger team than the Bills. Kansas City won the A.F.C. West and had a 10-win season, while Buffalo stumbled to an 0-8 record and ended the season tied for the second-worst record in the league, at 4-12. But dig beneath the surface, and these two teams weren’t nearly so far apart.

Buffalo had the hardest schedule in the A.F.C. last season, while the Chiefs had the conference’s most forgiving slate of opponents. According to Pro-Football-Reference, the difference between the Bills’ and the Chiefs’ schedules was worth, on average, 7.5 points per week. Consider this: both franchises went winless in 2010 against teams with 10 or more wins (Buffalo, 0-9; K.C. 0-2, including playoffs). Each team won 75 percent of its games against teams with six or fewer wins (Buffalo 3-1; K.C. 4-2). Against teams with seven to nine wins, the Bills went 1-1 with Fitzpatrick at quarterback (1-2 over all), while the Chiefs went 4-3.

Here’s another reason to be optimistic about Buffalo. In 2010, the Bills had the worst turnover margin in football, a metric that — although long accepted in certain football statistical communities — is often misunderstood by football fans. Jason Lisk recently examined all of the teams with the worst turnover margin in the league for every season since 1990. On average, those teams won just 4.6 games, but the following season, the group averaged 7.9 wins. Turnovers play a huge part in explaining whether a team wins or loses, but is not a strong predictor of future performance. Teams with terrible turnover margins tend to lose a lot of games, but are also unlucky; as such, they are usually good picks to outperform public perception the next season.

Thanks to a brutal schedule and a horrific turnover margin, the Bills won only four games in 2010. As any Chiefs fan will tell you, it’s a new season. Buffalo’s offense looks more than capable, while the defense looked significantly improved. Buffalo wasn’t a trendy pick this off-season; bringing back Chan Gailey and Fitzpatrick looked more like a concession than a plan. But the Bills were a tough out last season — recall that Johnson dropped the potential game-winning touchdown in overtime against Pittsburgh last season — and with an easier schedule and more talent, they are capable of being the surprise team in 2011. It’s far too early to understand the playoff picture, but the A.F.C. West and A.F.C. South seem unlikely to send multiple teams to the playoffs. Edging out New England, Baltimore, Pittsburgh or the Jets may be too tall a task for the Bills, but don’t be surprised if Buffalo keeps at least one of those teams sweating until the final weekend.

As for the Chiefs? It’s been an ugly couple of months in Kansas City. First, Jonathan Baldwin and Thomas Jones made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Then Todd Haley and the fantasy football community continued to exchange fisticuffs. Kansas City went 0-4 in the preseason, and lost starting TE Tony Moeaki for the regular season in the process. In the opener, Kansas City’s promising young safety Eric Berry was lost for the year. The Chiefs defied expectations last year, in large part thanks to a soft schedule. I don’t like to overreact to Week 1, but the 2011 Chiefs seem more likely to resemble the 2009 squad than the division-winning champion version from last year.

Chase Stuart contributes to the Pro-Football-Reference.com blog and to Footballguys.com.

2011 Buffalo Bills Season Preview

Andy Benoit is previewing all 32 N.F.L. teams. The A.F.C. East is up next, starting with the Bills.

It’d be easy to declare the Buffalo Bills a broken franchise. They won  four games last season and haven’t reached the postseason since the Clinton administration. Their small Western New York market has spilled into Canada, but even that venture and Ralph Wilson Stadium’s healthy attendance figures aren’t enough to slow the rumors about the club’s possible relocation to Los Angeles.

But the Bills are not a broken franchise; owner Ralph Wilson’s staff has not brought all these hardships on itself. General manager Buddy Nix and Coach Chan Gailey have a plan. Is it a save-the-day/Cinderella story-in-the-making plan? Probably not. It’s more like a plan an independent film director would have, where limited resources put extra demands on creativity.

You don’t need to be first class in all categories to win in the N.F.L. A team can compete with a “gritty, scrappy, feisty” quarterback. A Super Bowl is not in the cards, but the team can still compete. And it can compete with a developing, perhaps even makeshift offensive line. And with green receivers and an even greener running back. It can also compete with a piecemealed linebacking corps – even when the powers that be are bent on morphing into a 3-4 defense.

Competing with any of these limitations is difficult, but doable. Now…competing with all of these limitations? Borderline impossible.

Alas, this is what the 2011 Buffalo Bills are trying to disprove. They’re an indie film studio fighting in the same division as Paramount and Disney and looking at the 2011 season as an opportunity to create “Slumdog Millionaire.”Much like how a study of indie film production can offer a more intimate understanding of general motion picture creation, a study of these Bills offers a deeper appreciation for the strategies of pro football. How does a team maximize its strengths while masking its many deficiencies?

As many limitations as there are, the wild card in all this is the chance of one key actor’s breakout performance.

Offense

The Bills genuinely believe in Ryan Fitzpatrick. Coach Chan Gailey openly regrets not naming him the starter ahead of Trent Edwards last preseason. The Bills had a chance to draft a prototypical N.F.L. quarterback – like Blaine Gabbert – but decided they’d rather have the seventh-year pro from Harvard.

Fitzpatrick can be politely described as a “survivor.” Ivy League background aside, he doesn’t seem to be a very cerebral signal-caller. His presnap recognition is average at best, and because he prefers to hold the ball a long time, defenses often try to force him into impetuous decisions. The tendency to  extend the play is a sandlot tactic that can compensate for so-so arm strength. Unable to sidearm the ball into tight windows through the gales at Ralph Wilson Stadium, Fitzpatrick has had to evolve into a scrambler to create passing lanes.

But this is a style he’ll have to outgrow if he’s to flourish this season in  Gailey’s new offense. With the help of second-year offensive coordinator Curtis Modkins, Gailey, a run-oriented traditionalist, is installing more spread formations to take better advantage of speed at wide receiver. Spread formations don’t allow for backs and tight ends to stay in and pass-protect. Given the pass-blocking mediocrity of offensive tackles Demetrius Bell and Erik Pears (and, with the blind side guardian Bell, “mediocrity” is putting it kindly), Fitzpatrick will have to acclimate to three-step drops and quick releases. A better fit for this system might be a more anticipatory thrower like backup Tyler Thigpen.

But Thigpen doesn’t have Fitzpatrick’s chemistry with Buffalo’s wideouts. Fourth-year pro Stevie Johnson enjoyed a 2010 breakout season in part because he has an innate feel for getting open when the play is extended. Sound mechanics and crafty route running make all the difference given that Johnson, like most former seventh-round picks, lacks elite athleticism. Drops can be an issue at times (the overtime blunder against the Steelers was not an isolated incident), but all in all, the Bills have a 25-year-old 1,000-yard receiver they can count on.

They also have a well-rounded veteran in Lee Evans who still might be their No. 1 target. His ability to stretch the field and move the chains underneath makes him a tough matchup. Problem is, Evans has always had a way of disappearing for long stretches.

Lining up inside in the spread formations will be the darting Roscoe Parrish and  David Nelson or Donald Jones, two undrafted second-year pros with decent size (Nelson is 6-5). The Bills’ current brain trust has been cool on Parrish, viewing him primarily as a return specialist, but he has the quickness to get open late in routes and be a creator, while Nelson and Jones, and free-agent pickup Buster Davis, do not.

An ability to create made C.J. Spiller a first-round pick in 2010. It’s early, but so far, the return on that investment has been unsatisfactory. Yes, Spiller can make any defender grasp air in space, but he’s equally adept at turning a would-be five-yard run into a two-yard gain. If he’s to become the featured ballcarrier ahead of Fred Jackson (who can respectfully be described as something of a poor man’s Fred Taylor), Spiller needs to dance less and become more willing to bang it up inside behind fullback Corey McIntyre.

It’s worth noting that poor athleticism along the offensive line has prohibited the Bills from taking full advantage of Spiller’s gifts. Yes, Eric Wood is a very good movement player (which is remarkable considering the gruesome broken leg he suffered late in his ’09 rookie season) who blossomed magnificently once he moved to center last year. (Don’t expect veteran Geoff Hangartner to get that job back anytime soon.) But Wood is a lone star in this sense. Left guard Andy Levitre gets out of his stance quickly and angles blocks well in the run game, but he’s not a dynamic puller.

More damning is that Buffalo’s meager pass-blocking offensive tackles  can’t get to the edges in the ground game. Demetrius Bell doesn’t seem to have a quick-twitch, while Erik Pears is stuck playing next to right guard Kraig Urbik, a well-sized but disappointing former third-round pick of the Steelers who will get just his third career start in Week 1. The Bills would undoubtedly like to see fourth-round rookie Chris Hairston develop into a starter at right tackle, but he’s a project at this point. These front five limitations create issues for executing the tosses and sweeps that are central with a player like Spiller.

Saving the best (or the most exciting) for last, the Bills have a new five-tool weapon in ex-Jet Brad Smith. The former quarterback at Missouri gets an opportunity to be a Wildcat specialist here. Don’t be surprised if Smith sees five or six shotgun snaps a game. The Bills tried to pull this stunt last season with Fred Jackson, but he didn’t present the pure speed or throwing threat that Smith does.

The Bills may also feature Smith in the slot in three-receiver sets, where he’d sub for base formation tight ends David Martin (a solid run-blocker) and Shawn Nelson (a superb athlete but non-contributor last season thanks to suspension, a groin injury and migraine problems).

Defense

General Manager Buddy Nix insists that the mission is to field a 3-4 defense. But watching the Bills run a 3-4 has been like watching an episode of “Survivor … if “Survivor” the same cast as “The Biggest Loser.”

A 3-4 defense requires an edge-rushing presence – something the Bills haven’t had since Aaron Schobel. Their futility here is not for lack of trying. They invested a first-round pick in Aaron Maybin three years ago, not realizing Maybin’s scant lower-body strength would translate into scant general strength at the pro level. Maybin plays hard,  much in the same way William Hung sang hard. He was a healthy scratch in several games last year and may have trouble keeping a roster spot.

The Bills also picked up three-time Pro Bowler Shawne Merriman last season. He was re-signed to a two-year deal in January. But injuries have derailed the 27-year-old; he’s missed 30 games the past three seasons and has posted just four total sacks. Unlike with Maybin, the Bills are counting on Merriman to start – and even set the tone – in 2011. Opposite him will be former defensive end Chris Kelsay, who’s an adequate run-defender but lacks the speed to make plays coming from space.

The inside linebacker position is nearly as tenuous, though at least there’s better depth. The Bills are banking on free-agent pickup Nick Barnett staying healthy. If he can, he’ll provide enough downhill punch to erase the memories of solid but unspectacular Paul Posluszny (now a Jaguar). If Barnett, who missed 12 games with a wrist injury last year and seven games with an ACL tear in ’08, can’t stay on the field, the Bills will call on either Andra Davis (a 3-4 veteran who himself missed 10 games last season with a torn labrum) or Kelvin Sheppard (a third-round rookie with good agility).

Starting next to Barnett will be quick but underwhelming veteran Reggie Torbor. Though before long, it could be Arthur Moats, the guy best known for drilling Brett Favre’s shoulder last December. It’s surprising that defensive coordinator George Edwards and new linebackers coach Dave Wannstedt would move Moats inside; he struggles to shed blocks and is one of the few Bills  with some quickness turning a corner.

But perhaps any personnel change inside is a good thing. After all, this is a defense that gave up over 200 yards rushing in eight different games last season. Much of the blame can be placed on Buffalo’s overmatched defensive ends. One of those ends, Dwan Edwards, is back, but the other, Marcus Stroud, was let go. Wanting to authoritatively right this wrong, the Bills drafted Marcell Dareus, the third overall pick. Obviously, anyone picked this high is expected to be a star in all fashions. The good news is, unlike many rookie 3-4 ends, Dareus actually played the five-technique at Alabama.

His presence should make opponents at least think twice about double-teaming tireless nose tackle Kyle Williams. Neutralizing Williams has been the key for opponents to run down Buffalo’s throat. At 306 pounds, Williams doesn’t have the girth to consistently tie up two gaps, which is why his game is predicated on penetration and lateral movement.

If the Bills need a banger, they can call on 314-pound Torell Troup, whom they spent a second-round pick on a year ago. However, he still needs to learn how to exert his size in N.F.L. trenches.

The Bills have adequate depth in addition to Troup. Alex Carrington (who could see reps at outside linebacker) will get a close look simply for being a 2010 third-round pick, while eighth-year end Spencer Johnson consistently plays hard and can operate on a three-or four-man line.

A respectable pass-rush would make life much easier on what’s actually a solid secondary. Cornerback Terence McGee has the quickness to consistently make a difference. No. 2 corner Drayton Florence is not a stopper but plays physical and can also cover the slot. It was surprising that the team gave Florence a three-year, $15 million contract this summer considering they drafted Texas cornerback Aaron Williams in the second round. Williams can ease into the pro game, as fourth-year pros Leodis McKelvin and Reggie Corner provide excellent cornerbacking depth. McKelvin is actually Buffalo’s most gifted defensive back but must make fewer mistakes if he’s to bring his playmaking prowess to the first unit.

At safety, Jairus Byrd is not quite the star his interception numbers suggest (like a waiter, he makes most of his living off tips). Snagging tipped interceptions still requires an opportunistic nature. And it’s worth noting that offenses don’t challenge this defense deep in Byrd’s centerfield realm very often.

Bryan Scott is more of a coverage-based linebacker than a true strong safety, which is why it wouldn’t be surprising to see the sure-tackling and respected leader George Wilson start in the strong safety slot. Wilson just signed a new three-year, $7.05 million contract, which is the type of deal a team gives a veteran when it’s hoping but not banking on a rookie (like, say, fourth-rounder Da’Norris Searcy?) to one day steal his job.

Special Teams

The Bills will always have strong special teams as long as Rian Lindell is the kicker and Brian Moorman is the punter. Buffalo’s coverage units have been trustworthy over the years, though they tailed off just a bit after the departure of special-teams guru Bobby April last season (Bruce DeHaven is the current special-teams coach). In the return game, take your pick amongst explosive weapons. C.J. Spiller, Roscoe Parris, Terence McGee and Leodis McKelvin are all options.

Bottom Line

If Ryan Fitzpatrick suddenly becomes a top-15 quarterback (like Jake Delhomme for the ’04 Panthers or Derek Anderson for the ’07 Browns), and one or two new forces show up in the defensive front seven, the Bills could suddenly be a breakout team. But all we have to go on is this club’s recent history. And that recent history says don’t count on it.

Andy Benoit is the founder of NFLTouchdown.com and covers the N.F.L. for CBSsports.com. He can be reached at andy.benoit@NFLtouchdown.com.