Naughty Nurse: Buffalo Bills chronically ill

Our Russian mail-order Naughty Nurse checks the statistical vital signs of each NFL team after each season. She breaks out her pigskin probe and uses her soothing, healing hands to take the temperature, and maybe a few liberties, with all our patients. See each team’s overview here. 

By Kerry J. Byrne
Cold, Hard Football Facts great Buffalo wing hunter
 
Pity the poor fans of the Buffalo Bills. The organization has two modes: it either sucks from the outset or it tantalizes fans with a brief whiff of success, only to pull the rug out from under them to maximize pain – whether it’s losing four straight Super Bowls, benching their beloved QB before the team’s last playoff game more than a decade ago, or racing out of the gates in 2011 only to crumble like blue cheese later in the season.
 
So sad.
 
The 2011 storyline: Another good start spoiled. Buffalo harbored early Super Bowl dreams after a 3-0 start that included a landmark Week 3 win over the Patriots – the team’s first win over their AFC East masters since 2003. Buffalo was also 5-2, and fresh off a rock-solid 23-0 shutout win of the Redskins, heading into November. The wheels then spun off the Buffalo wagon in dramatically ugly fashion, with seven straight losses to ruin such a promising start.
 
The Vital Signs
Coach (record): Chan Gailey (10-22 with Buffalo; 28-36 overall)
2011 record: 6-10 (23.2 PPG – 27.1 PPG)
Record against the spread: 6-9-1
Record vs. Quality Opponents: 1-4 (23.2 – 30.6)
Record last five seasons: 30-50 (.375)
Best Quality Stat in 2010: Scoreability (11th)
Worst Quality Stat in 2010: Bendability (30th)
 

ALL QUALITY STATS

Overall	QS	SCOR	BEND	RPYPA	DRPYPA	QBR	DQBR	OPR	DPR	PRD	OHI	DHI	REL
25	21	11	30	15	26	17	26	21	26	24	13	22	22

 Overall =Overall position in Quality Stats Power Rankings; QS= Quality Standings; SCOR = Scorability; Bend = Bendability; RPYPA = Real Passing Yards Per Attempt; DRPYPA = Defensive Real Passing; QBR = Real Quarterback Rating; DQBR = Defensive Real Quarterback Rating; OPR = Offensive Passer Rating; DPR = Defensive Passer Rating; PRD = Passer Rating Differential; OHI = Offensive Hog Index; DHI = Defensive Hog Index; REL = Relativity Index.
 
Statistical curiosity of 2011: Few teams in recent football history were so startlingly inconsistent. Besides the hot start and cold finish, Buffalo was ruthlessly dominant in victory and completely overmatched in defeat. The Bills outscored their opponents nearly 2-to-1 in victory (34.5-18.3) and were crushed nearly 2-to-1 in defeat (16.5-32.3).
 
Best game of 2011: 34-31 win vs. New England (Week 3). The Bills produced several more dominating performances last season than this win over the Patriots – including a 23-0 win over the Redskins, Buffalo's first shutout since the 2006 season. But no game provided a bigger psychological boost than the late September win over the AFC East power Patriots.
 
New England had beaten the Bills an incredible 15 straight games, dating back to the 2003 season. And it looked like more of the same in this contest, as the Patriots raced out to a 21-0 second-quarter lead. But Buffalo dug deep and took a 31-24 lead in the fourth-quarter when Drayton Florence returned an INT 27 yards for a score. Rian Lindell booted the game-winning 28-yard field goal with no time on the clock. It looked like the unbeaten (3-0) Bills had finally turned a huge corner after years of misery.
 
Worst game of 2011: 44-7 loss at Dallas (Week 10). Buffalo’s promising 5-2 season took a turn for the worse fwith a 27-11 loss to the Jets in Week 9. But it was the humiliating 37-point loss a week later in Dallas that proved in no uncertain terms that the hot start was all a mirage. The Bills were dominated early – giving up three TD passes to fall behind 21-0 – but made up for it by getting dominated late, too. Dallas scored the final 23 points.
 
Everything the Bills did wrong in 2011 was on display in the Big D. They couldn’t play pass defense, allowing Tony Romo to complete 23 of 26 passes (88.5%), one of the most accurate days in NFL history, for 270 yards, 10.4 YPA, 3 TD, 0 INT and a 148.4 passer rating. The Bills couldn’t pass the ball on offense, as Ryan Fitzpatrick turned 31 attempts into just 146 yards (4.7 YPA) with 3 INT and a 46.6 passer rating. The Bills lost the turnover battle, 4-0. And they were hugely inefficient when it came time to keeping the other team out of the end zone: Dallas needed just 9.8 Yards Per Point Scored.
 
It was the biggest margin of defeat during a season in which the Bills lost four games by three touchdowns or more.
 
Strength: Offensive line/ground game. Buffalo fielded a pretty stout offensive front in 2011: No. 13 on our Offensive Hog Index, thanks largely to a productive ground game that produced 4.9 yards per attempt (5th). Neither Fred Jackson (934 yards) nor C.J. Spiller (561) topped 1,000 yards. But who cares? Each averaged more than 5.0 YPA, giving Buffalo a very dangerous-two pronged attack.  
 
Blame the play-calling for failing to lead with the strength: Jackson and Spiller ran the ball just 277 times between the two of them and the team totaled just 391 rushing attempts (77 by the quarterbacks) while attempting 578 passes. Keep in mind that Jackson fractured his leg and was placed on IR late in the year. But in either case, more attempts with the vibrant ground game would have aided a passing attack that declined as the season progressed.
 
Weakness: Pass defense. Defensive efficiency. The Bills simply could not stop opposing quarterbacks. The Cold, Hard Football Facts were consistently ugly: No. 26 in Defensive Real Passing YPA (6.93), in Defensive QB Rating (84.0) and in Defensive Passer Rating (90.4). You can’t win the NFL when you can’t stop the pass – and only the league’s lowliest outfits were worse at stopping the pass than Your Buffalo Bills.
 
The Bills also ranked No. 30 in Bendability, surrendering a miniscule 13.68 Yards Per Point Allowed. Only the Bucs and Vikes were worse. And, despite the success of first-round rookie DT Marcell Dareus, Buffalo was No. 22 on our Defensive Hog Index and No. 27 stopping the run (4.76 YPA).
 
General off-season strategy/overview: The Bills clearly need defensive help and made one of the biggest splashes of 2012 free agency by signing former Houston defensive end Mario Williams to a ridiculous six-year contract with $50 million in guaranteed money. It was the kind of bad move you often see made by desperate teams. Even if Williams proves to be the second coming of Reggie White, it’s hard to justify that kind of money – plus, there’s never been any indication that Williams (average 9 sacks per year) is remotely on the level of a Reggie White. Hell, just last season, the Texans actually improved on defense when they lost Williams to injury.
 
Buffalo also signed defensive end Mark Anderson away from New England, where he produced an unexpectedly solid season in 2011 (10.0 sacks). So at least the team knows that its troubles lay in getting after the quarterback and playing better pass defense.
 
The team still needs more resources on that side of the ball and must chase playmaking defenders in the draft. The offense was good enough to win games last year (14th in scoring), though wildly inconsistent. The defense was consistently bad, even when the team was winning shootouts early in the season.
 
Totally premature 2012 diagnosis: The past decade has been a dark period for the Bills organization and there’s little reason to feel very good about the future. The team has made efforts to improve its defense, but still has a long way to go. There’s little reason to believe Ryan Fitzpatrick is the proverbial “quarterback of the future” but he’s not so bad that the team is in any rush to replace him, either. So the team is  kind of stagnant at the most important position in sports.

Then there's the coaching situation. The great organizations have great leadership at the top. And coach Chan Gailey is what he is at this point, a guy who's coached four NFL season and enjoyed a winning record in only one of them: leading the 1998 Cowboys, with a Triplets intact, to a 10-6 record. So the resume is thin.

Meanwhile, the Patriots still loom there at the top of the division and the Bills were largely uncompetitive in the AFC East, losing all five divisional games after beating New England in Week 3 – while getting outscored 169-87 in those five games against the Jets, Dolphins and Patriots. A 9-7 season would be progress in 2012, and doable, but probably not enough to earn a playoff spot, either.
 
You know our motto when it comes to Buffalo: Wade Phillips never should have benched Dough Flutie. Bills history over the past 12 years or so might have been quite a bit different otherwise.

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Read more: Bills, Buffalo Bills, C.J. Spiller, Chan Gailey, Doug Flutie, fred jackson, Kerry Byrne, Kerry J. Byrne, Marcell Dareus, Mario Williams, NFL, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Wade Phillips