Bills/Bears Paradoxical Preview: van der Waals Forces Meet Port-A-Potty

As you likely remember from chemistry class, the phrase "van der Waals forces" refers to the sum of attractive and repulsive forces between molecules. van der Waals forces are considered weak.



As you likely remember from stadium parking lots and construction sites, a "Port-A-Potty" is a toilet in a plastic enclosure that is easily transported from one place to another. Port-A-Potties are considered movable.



With these key definitions in place, we can now turn to Sunday's Bills/Bears game. This matchup is a perfect storm of ugliness. The Bills are what I thought they would be - clueless on offense, terrible against the run, and sneaky bad against the pass - which is to say, I thought they would be an atrocious team and I was right.

Just like last year, the Bills are miserable against the run. The Bills allow a league-worst 188.7 rushing yards per game, 30 more than second-worst Denver (who gave up 328 yards in one game). The record for most rushing yards allowed in a 16 game season is 3228 by ... wait for it ... the 1978 Bills. The 2010 Bills are 210 yards off the pace to break their own record, but they have plenty of games left to make up the deficit.

The Bills have allowed the third-fewest total passing yards in the league, but this is totally misleading. They are tied with Dallas for fewest passing attempts against on the year; their turnstyle-esque front seven is too tempting to OC's so they run at it all day. Thus the Bills gave up few passing yards simply because no one bother to pass against them. A close look shows that the Bills allowed the third-most passing TD (15), have the highest percentage of passs attempts result in TD (7.8%), and have the fewest INT (1). Only 0.5% of the passes attempted against them resulted in a pick. The second-worst is 1.7%, a 3-fold increase. They have the highest adjusted passing yards per pass attempt in the league. They have a 49.1% DVOA against the pass, which is the worst in the league according to Football Outsiders.

So they they don't just suck against the run.

And like last year, the Bills are a balanced squad with almost equally meager prowess on offense, ranking a mere 27th in passing. The bright spot? They rank 15th in rushing, and thus are in the top half of the league! They are, however, mathematically 20 yards below the league average. Even the bright spots are dingy in Buffalo.

The Bills face the Bears this week in Orchard Park. Chicago has a stout run defense, allowing only 89.3 yards per game, so Fred Jackson and CJ Spiller have their work cut out for them (Spiller actually has no work cut out for him, he only gets 7 offensive touches per game (unlike Ines Sainz now that she avoids locker rooms), but I'll save that for another rant later this season - look Dave, foreshadowing!). Factor in Chicago's middle-of-the-pack passing defense and the Bears should be able to muffle the Buffalo offense.

The fun stuff will happen when Chicago has the ball. Chicago has the #29 overall offense. Buffalo has the #30 overall defense. Perhaps we will find out the answer to an ancient paradox. But in reverse.



Buffalo would make great goats as they give 110%: opponents have a collective 110.0 passer rating against the Bills. But the Bears have a collective 69.6 (sick) rating (thanks mostly to MLFG Todd Collins). Jay Cutler has a decent 84.4 rating, but he's thrown only 7 TD to 7 INT. The Bears have allowed 31 sacks through 7 games, worst in the league and 8 more than the second-worst Skins have allowed through 8 games. Buffalo has 11 sacks on the year, tied for 5th fewest. Chicago also has the 26th ranked rushing offense in terms of yards per game.

I have no idea what will come out of this morass of pigskin and horseshit. The Chicago offense is a force of van der Waalsian proportions. The Buffalo defense is so movable that Hemingway would call it a feast; I'll call it a Port-A-Potty.

I foresee a final score of 35-21 in favor of Chicago, with all three Buffalo TD scored on fumble returns.