T hose bright streaks falling from space—are those meteorites? No, never mind. Those are just us Bills fans falling back to earth.

Buffalo lost to the NY Jets, a team that was primed for a loss, by a score of 28-20 despite career highs by both J.P. Losman and Willis McGahee. But as we all know, numbers lie.

Losman has continued to mature as a quarterback by making good decisions with the ball, namely throwing it away when none of his receivers are open. On the day he had 22 completions in 38 attempts for 328 yards. Young J.P., though, still has a long way to go. Pocket awareness and keeping a firm hold on the football are his biggest weaknesses, exemplified by his two fumbles—one of which lead to at touchdown by the Jets.

The ball holding may not be entirely his fault, however. Lee Evans, despite putting up good numbers this past week, has not stepped up his game enough to be considered a legitimate number one receiver. Of course it will take him time to develop and learn how to avoid double coverage that he sees every week, but any team’s prime target needs to find a way to get open when it’s crunch time. Evans has been mostly invisible on third downs, where as if one looks around the league top receivers are counted on in these situations.

The biggest concern is, and will continue to be, the run defense. The Jets came into the game averaging a horrific 2.8 yards per carry. But when the game was on the line Buffalo couldn’t stop their less than stellar combo of Kevan Barlow and Leon Washington. This will continue to be the crux for the rest of the season because the team is without a blue chip defensive lineman. (See New England and Jacksonville for examples of what that type of player can do for a defense.)

This week the Bills are facing a surprising Minnesota Vikings team, led by veteran quarterback Brad Johnson, who gets the ball out of his hands as quickly as any QB in the league, and running back Chester Taylor. Taylor has yet to make himself a household name, playing as the primary back up to Jamal Lewis of the Ravens. This season as the Vikings starter he is averaging over four yards per carry, and is on pace for almost 1,500 yards rushing.

While Taylor is a talented back, the offensive line deserves much of the credit. Averaging over 320 lbs per man, the offensive like features former first round pick Bryan McKinney (who should sound familiar to Bills fans as he was skipped over by former GM Tom Donohoe in favor of super-flop Mike Williams), and major free agent acquisition Steve Hutchinson, formerly of the Seahawks.

Hopefully the Buffalo players and coaching staff have taken lessons from the first three weeks of the season and put them on display at the Ralph this Sunday.

Random thoughts:

- I’m not going to sell my Dick Jauron stock just yet. But some of the offensive calls have been questionable, as has the propensity for playing the cornerbacks off the line of scrimmage.
- Speaking of cornerbacks, where are they? Nate Clements, who is going to be a free agent again after this season, is costing himself millions.
- Hey, didn’t you used to be John McCargo?
- I like the call for the fake filed goal. The reason it didn’t work is because Brian Moorman threw a bad pass. But the idea of Jason Peters running with the ball is intriguing.
- Look out for Vikings backup RB Mewelde Moore. Two years ago the Bills tried to sign him, and this year he’s averaging 5.5 yards per touch. He just might have the speed to break a long run against our defense.
- The defense seems to tire out in the second half each game. Is that a problem with the coaches not making adjustments or the players being too small?
- The next three games are against other teams who also run the Tampa 2 defense.
- This game will be a big test because the Vikes are better than most had expected, but it can be won by stopping the run and getting a pass rush up the middle.

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