I have been on a personal crusade against "Overreaction Sunday" that has been dominating the NFL landscape this year. For example, after week one, Mark Sanchez and Tony Romo did not just have good games, they were ELITE. I will assume very few people would say that about either one at the moment. The NFL is a week to week league. Good or bad, there is usually not a great deal of carry over in the way NFL teams play, especially in the early part of the season. The Bills better hope that is not the case because what we saw in the 4th quarter against New England sent up some pretty serious red flags that Chan Gailey needs to drag back into his pocket pretty quickly
What we saw in the first half against the Jets and the second half against New England was a team that does not have the ability to stop the flurries from turning into a snowball and creating an avalanche. Can we all assume we thought the Bills were good enough to compete with and beat the bad teams like Cleveland and Kansas City? But in the real barometer games Chan Gailey's team had a difficult time dealing with any adversity That is why the coach called out his team for lacking mental toughness. I am not giving Gailey a pass on that because creating an atmosphere and an environment with the franchise in dealing with tough times in a game or a season is the job of the coach and he has failed at that so far. In the preseason, when the Steelers put two quick scores on the Bills, Chan stunned me in the halftime interview by saying his team got rattled. He saw that element missing from his team in August and he hasn't been able to change that so far this year
My concern for this team is that they do not appear to have a player that can say "I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore" Darryl Talley is on Twitter in Florida, not wearing number 56 on the field. I worry that the roster does not have anyone who can shake up his teammates, either during the bad times in a game or leading up to the next one. Talley actually came on the Bills Brothers radio show I do for John Ditullio and talked about how he'd deal with players responding like the Bills did Sunday. It would not be pretty. The rah rah stuff only has so much impact on an NFL team, but an injection of an angry personality during the tough times would seem to be missing. I think guys like Nick Barnett, George Wilson and Kyle Williams could do that for their teammates, but they have not shown it to this point.
What I want to see Sunday in San Francisco is a Bills team that can play with some anger and embarrassment. I want to see Mario Williams stop making excuses about double teams and injured wrists and just make some plays. I want to see the offensive line open up some holes for the running backs so that we see less Ryan Fitzpatrick than more in the offense (and that is a good thing) I want to see a team respond to the challenge of their head coach and not fold up like a cheap suit when things go badly. And they will go badly, at least at times in San Francisco
I am not getting carried away. I am not picking the Bills to win the game on Sunday. They could have beaten New England on Sunday and I will still pick this 49ers team to beat the Bills. But I want this to be a real game on Sunday and I want the 49ers to have to play well to beat the Bills. I am against "overreaction" but another week of the Bills being the bug instead of the winshield will start to become the trend and will define this team
Prediction:
Bills 10
49ers 20
I actually think the Bills will catch the 49ers a little flat this week. They went East for two weeks and are coming off a blowout of the Jets. The Niners have a key game with the Giants next week. This is a big time trap game for them. That gives the Bills an opportunity to compete Let's see if they take advantage
