"ARE YOU READY TO PLAY SOME FOOTBALL?"




















That's what my friend Ruben e-mailed earlier this week. Pretty sure he meant, "Are you ready for some football?" but he's not exactly what you'd call a stickler with quotes or sayings. A couple of years back he labeled the Miami Dolphins his "black-sheep" candidate. He meant dark-horse candidate, but, you know. Whatever. As he would explain, "You say tomato, I do my thing." (He means, "You say tuh-MAY-toe, I say tuh-MAH-toe.")

Anyways, a pretty great way to start the season, I'd say. At the risk of overreacting to a Week 1 victory -- in a home game against the Houston Texans -- J.P. Losman looked freakin awesome in his first start, Willis McGahee was a force on the ground after having a slow first half, and our defense absolutely destroyed the Texans offense, forcing 5 turnovers, recording 5 sacks, and nearly reducing David Carr to tears on the sidelines.

Even our uniforms looked tight. (See above)

Of course, after enduring an entire season of Drew Bledsoe last year, Bills fans would've been ecstatic if Losman had merely finished the game with no turnovers, less than 5 sacks, and no closeup shots of him shaking his head after a 3-and-out. I can't describe how great it was to see a Bills quarterback scramble out of the pocket and be able to make tacklers miss. Hell, it was great to see a Bills quarterback move his feet.

To put it into perspective, Losman rushed for 31 yards today. Bledsoe's season total last season was 37 yards. Hallelujah. It's a new era in Buffalo.

Couple of things Losman needs to work on, IMHO:
1) Better accuracy with intermediate-to-deep passes. There were maybe 5 or 6 instances where either Moulds or Evans had a step on a defender on a 20- to 25-yard route, but Losman overthrew them pretty badly. Those are plays that can change games if they're executed; they can be the difference between a 1st down and a punt.

2) Better performance in the red zone. Losman did a great job driving us inside the 20 to begin with, but our first four trips resulted in field goals. That might be okay against the Texans, but it'll be a backbreaker against teams like the Patriots, Falcons, and Chiefs.

In terms of decisions, I can think of only two glaring mistakes he made today: On one play, he locked onto his primary target, Moulds, and threw a quick pass even though a linebacker was standing right next to Moulds. Luckily, the linebacker had cement hands and dropped the interception. On another play, he eluded a sack and scrambled out of the pocket and then blindly flung up a deep pass to Evans, who was being covered by two defensive backs. Again, Losman got lucky, and Evans was able to bat the ball down and keep the defenders from getting the interception.

Overall, though, it was an impressive debut. I have to admit, I had my doubts -- OK, I was pretty sure today was going to be a disaster -- but Losman exceeded my expectations at least 10 times over. I'm excited.