Episode VI: A New Hope for the Weary on Erie, Alternatively Titled "I Can't Believe We Have to Watch the Bills Play the Browns on Thursday Night"

Buffalo and Cleveland have lots in common: Lake Erie, high unemployment, snow. And of course, once-proud football teams that have been epically bad for over a decade.

As you have heard me whine too many times, the Bills haven't made the playoffs since 1999. From 2000 to 2012 they won 82 games and lost 126, averaging 6.3 wins and 9.7 losses. They've suffered four consecutive seasons with double-digit losses and have seven seasons with 10 or more losses over this time frame. But they have no seasons with double-digit wins and just one season above 0.500.

The Browns might actually be worse. I say might because they made the playoffs in 2002 (with a 9-7 record) and they have a season with double-digit wins (10-6 in 2007). But they only mustered 71 wins to 137 losses from 2000 to 2012, an average of 5.5 wins and 10.5 losses per season. That's atrocious -- they averaged double-digit losses for 13 years! They lost 10 or more games 10 times since 2000! They are currently on a streak of five consecutive seasons with 5 or fewer wins. Inspiring stuff. They were an expansion team in 1999 so they went 2-14. They didn't even exist from 1996 to 1998 so they had 0 wins over that span. And before that they had the best football coach of the past 25 years ... but they fired him and moved the team to Baltimore.

I therefore refer to fans of these teams in the 1999-2012 timeframe as The Weary On Erie.

The Bills and Browns have played 17 times since 1972:



As you can see, six of these games took place in 2004 or later. This is no coincidence; the NFL purposely schedules intra-conference games based on the previous year's standings. So the AFC division winners play each other, the second place teams play each other, the third place teams play each other, and the losers play each other. And as I've already explained, the Bills and Browns have done a lot of losing over the past 10+ years. In fact, they have each other as division losers 5 times in 6 years. The missing season was 2011 -- the 2010 Browns went 5-11 and finished ahead of the 4-12 Bengals.

Unsurprisingly, this series of futility is tied at 3-3 with a bunch of ugly scores. They pick up where they left off on Thursday night when the Bills make the trek out I-90 (aka the New York Thruway, aka the Ohio Purnpike, aka AMVETS Memorial Highway) to Cleveland in another divisional losers face-off. The Bills start rookie QB EJ Manuel and at times he looks like a rookie QB.



His stats aren't great:



But they're 2-2 with a win over the defending Super Bowl champions and a game winning drive against Carolina in the 4th quarter. Sure, he only completed 45% of his passes the last two weeks but he was facing two of the better defensive coaches in the league (Rex Ryan and John Harbaugh) so he deserves to be cut a little slack. So I'm once again cautiously optimistic that Buddy Nix got this pick right.

The Browns are also 2-2, riding Brian Hoyer's hot hand to a two game win streak. Although he isn't a rookie like Manuel, Hoyer has a few newbie-looking GIFs floating around on the internet too:

But I suspect that Browns fans, just like Bills fans, have hope that they've found their new franchise QB. Hence the title of this post, in honor of the 6th (VIth?) matchup between these teams in the past 7 years.

These teams have more in common than 2-2 records and questionmarks at QB. The Bills have a -5 point differential while the Browns are -6, with average margins of victory of -1.3 and -1.5 points respectively. Although the Bills have played much closer games (all decided by 7 points or less), it's safe to say that neither team relies on one particular side of the ball to carry them.

The Browns complete 56.8% of their passes, the Bills 56.9%. Accuracy ain't their thang. But uptempo offense is: both teams rank in the top 5 for plays run so far this year (Buffalo 288, Cleveland 280). Unfortunately, both teams rank in the bottom 8 for yards per play, so maybe they should focus on quality instead of quantity. And they're tied with 7 turnovers on offense, right around the league average of 6.9 (clicks).

There's more difference on defense. The Browns have allowed the 4th fewest yards while the Bills have given up the 5th most. The Browns have the stingiest yards-per-carry defense in the league (only 2.9!!) while the Bills are the 9th most generous (4.2 ypc but I'll take anything under 4.5 at this point). Similarly, the Browns allowed a league-leading 2 passing TD so far while the Bills gave up 8 (tied for 10th). The Browns also lead the lead in yards allowed per pass attempt (5.9) while the Bills are right around the league average (7.1). The Browns also lead the league in yards per completion (9.8) whle the Bills rank 29th (13.1). The Bills lead the league with 9 INT, and the Browns have but 3 picks. But they both rank in the top 8 in terms of opposing passer rating (70.0 for Buffalo, 73.5 for Cleveland).

Remarkably, both teams rank in the top 5 in defensive plays run (298 for the Bills, 279 for the Browns) so I guess we should expect to see a lot of action with little downtime on Thursday.

I don't believe in the Bills' running game even though they've racked up the 2nd most rushing yards per game, and I expect the Browns' defense to shut down Spiller and Jackson. Although I'm not sold on Brian Hoyer, I don't have a ton of faith in Buffalo's passing defense either. I can also see recently acquired Browns RB Willis McGahee running roughshod over his former team just to remind everyone that the Bills are bad at retaining talent. Like this guy who they got to replace McGahee, and who replaced with CJ Spiller:



Yeah, I'd trade this guy for a 4th round pick. Good value.

The Bills have players named EJ, CJ, and TJ, aka the Eedge, the Ceedge, and the Teedge. That's too many -dges for my taste, and the team with the most Teedges usually loses. So I'm picking Cleveland to win 16-13.

van der Waals Redux: Futility Bowl 2010

The Detroit Lions have lost 24 consecutive road games, tying the league record the Lions set in 2001-2003. Away from their home field, the Lions are as van der Waalsian a force as the league has ever seen. The Bills are still a movable object of Port-a-Johnian proportions.

The Lions play the Bills at Buffalo on Sunday.

I won't bother to bore you any further with statical metrics of these teams's collective futility. Simply put, Detroit cannot win on the road and Buffalo cannot win. I don't see how either team can win this game.

Fortunately, the cities of Buffalo and Detroit are prospering despite the recession, so their citizens have other things to buoy their spirits.

Final score: 5-5.

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.

T.J. Helping T.J.

For some odd reason, T.J. Whosyourdaddy felt the need this week to guarantee that his 0-8 Bengals will not go winless this year:

Bengals wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh told Adam Schefter of NFL Network that his team, currently 0-8, will not finish this season 0-16. “If the season ends and we don’t win a game,” Houshmandzadeh said, “I will walk from my house to the NFL Network studios.”

In fact, in what can only be describe as sadly comical, he guaranteed the Bungles would win TWO games this year. Well, honestly, the guy might be dead wrong, but I thought we'd at least take a look at Cincy's remaining slate to see if we can find those two imaginary wins for my boy T.J...

Week 9: Jags come to town
The Jags just lost at home to Cleveland. Shaun Rogers single-handedly destroyed Jacksonville all day long. They will be one pissed off bunch this weekend. 0-9 here they come.

Week 10: Bye
Insert whatever lame bye joke you want here. Or whatever weird ass photo someone emails you.

Week 11: Eagles come to town
Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say Jim Johnson will blitz the shit out of Ryan Fitzpatrick. I imagine that will lead to a 12-31, 179 yds, 2 INTs line for Mr. Harvard...and yet another loss for Houshmandzadeh's Heroes.

Week 12: At Pittsburgh
Thursday nighter vs. Steely McBeam, having played (and most likely been mauled by Philly) four days earlier. If I may steal a phrase from the gents over at Mr. Irrelevant, the countdown to epic fail continues.

Week 13: Ravens come to town
Hold the phone. Might we have something here? Home game against a division rival, most likley 0-10 at this point, playing for pride (I would hope). Perhaps Joe Flacco gives this one away. Perhaps. We might've just found Win #1.

Week 14: At Indianapolis
The Colts will be desperately trying to make the playoffs. The Bengals will be coming off their first win of the season, which sadly will make their millionaire asses complacent. Colts in a laugher.

Week 15: The Skins come to town
As much as I would enjoy saying the Bengals win this one, I simply don't see it. But if they did win, man oh man would I want to catch Czabe Monday morning...

Week 16: At Cleveland
I know what you're thinking, here it is, Win #2. Not so fast my friend. By this point Carson's brother has been installed as Cincy's QB and his game proves to be Leaf-esque. A pick 6 or two, some fumbles...in fact he almost gets Houshmandzadeh decapitated on one throw early in the game. Browns win, setting up this doozy...

Week 17: Hosting the Chieves...get the Futility Bowl t-shirts ready
Honestly, at this point, we could be watching 1-14 vs. 1-14. The Bengals should intentionally lose this game if that's the case. But they won't, and will muster enough offense to beat the hapless Chiefs, who for shits and giggles replace Herm at halftime with Ty to see if anyone notices. They don't. Jordan Palmer outduels Tyler Thigpen. Laughter and tears and vomiting follow.

So T.J., we did it man. I got you to 2-14 (though I still think you should tank and end up 1-15, but what do I know). Something to be proud of, I guess. And seriously, if Marvin Lewis doesn't get fired after this season, I demand a full investigation into what blackmail material he has on owner Mike Brown.