JP Losman is sacked.

AV correspondent Dave Staba reports on Sunday’s loss from the cheap seats at Ralph Wilson Stadium:

Trent Edwards rolled to his right.

And he rolled to his right.

And then he rolled some more.

Finally, a moment before he would have run completely off the field, Buffalo’s quarterback flung the ball towards his intended receiver, who was evidently sitting in a third-row seat near the southerly corner at the tunnel end of Ralph Wilson Stadium.

No one wearing a Bills uniform was in the vicinity of Edwards’ throw, which he released midway through the second quarter, with his team trailing San Francisco 7-0. The National Football League’s play-by-play insists the intended receiver was Josh Reed, whom it places in the “front right corner of end zone.”

As the official account of the game is understandably commentary-free, it does not mention that Reed would have needed to be roughly 19 feet tall to have gotten a hand close to Edwards’ fling.

Taken in isolation, the third-down play was unremarkable. With no open receiver or clear running lane, Edwards did the sensible thing. Following the incompletion, Buffalo was in position for a kick no more daunting than a routine extra point. Neither the quarterback nor the coaches who called the play could have known that the generally reliable Rian Lindell was about to become far less so, bonking the sure thing off the left upright.

The truly galling part about the incompletion, one of 11 issued by Edwards before a worsening groin injury forced to him to pack it in for the day at halftime, was that it was immediately preceded by another one. With the Bills all of six feet away from tying a game they absolutely had to prevent a steadily unraveling season from complete disintegration.

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Marshawn Lynch

Amid the anguished finger-pointing, plaintive wailing and resigned head-shaking sweeping the region following the Buffalo Bills’ third straight defeat, Season Ticket would like to apportion a minute sliver of credit.

Quarterback Trent Edwards, by most quantitative and qualitative standards, failed miserably at New England on Sunday (not coincidentally, this was also his third consecutive regressive outing).

He did not throw accurately or effectively, throwing two grotesque interceptions and failing to complete a pass that produced a gain longer than 15 yards. Though sacked only twice, he seemed perpetually rushed and never quite certain about the nature of the of defensive contraption Patriots arch-villain Bill Belichick had conjured to stymie Buffalo’s offense. And he could not get the Bills into the end zone at Gillette Stadium until long after it had ceased to matter.

Edwards did, however, nail the post-game press scrum at his locker.

Unlike some of his predecessors at the position over the past decade, Edwards did not subtly shift blame toward his coaches, blockers, receivers, or running backs—though there was clearly plenty to go around, given the painful deficiencies in every phase of the game and on the sideline during New England’s 20-10 win. Nor did he sniff haughtily in the direction of his interrogators, clumsily try to deflect criticism with non-sequiturs or stare blankly as if posing for a Hall-of-Fame bust (not to bring back bad memories of Doug Flutie, Rob Johnson, J.P. Losman or Drew Bledsoe, respectively, or anything).

Instead, he acknowledged both that criticism comes with the job and that he needs to get better at his.

“I think a little bit of everything, honestly,” Edwards said when asked where he needs to improve. “Underneath throws, deep throws, footwork, pocket presence, turnovers—everything. I think all that needs to be looked into and I need to fix it soon.”

Contrast that with the words of Jamal Lewis, running back of Cleveland, Buffalo’s next opponent, following the Browns’ collapse against Denver last Thursday.

“This is the NFL, you can’t call it quits until the game is over,” Lewis said after the Browns blew a third-quarter lead and lost 34-30 at home against the Broncos. “But it looks to me like some people called it quits before that.”

In case none of his teammates had been adequately insulted, Lewis continued.

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From high in the silver-lined clouds whereon he lives, Dave Staba reports on Sunday’s loss by the Buffalo Bills to the Miami Dolphins:

The fourth quarter of Buffalo’s annual visit to South Florida on Sunday could, in theory, have gone worse for the Bills.

The cart used to wheel the injured off the field could have slipped into gear and careened, driver-less, down Buffalo’s sideline, dissembling the knees of Trent Edwards, Marshawn Lynch, Lee Evans, Brian Moorman, Donte Whitner, and Kawika Mitchell.

The National Football League could have lifted its Michael Vick-induced ban on the playing of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” on stadium public-address systems every time the home team registers the mildest of achievements, which, given Buffalo’s self-immolation over the final 15 minutes of a 25-16 deflation, would have led to near-constant loop and countless royalties for the Baha Men.

(If you don’t think this would be so catastrophic, that’s because you weren’t at a football stadium in the fall of 2000, particularly Dolphins Stadium for Miami’s 22-13 win over Buffalo that October. Whoever was running the audio portion of the game presentation hit the button after each of Miami’s five scores, all six sacks of Rob Johnson, and whenever else the mood struck. I was keeping count in the press box and the tally reached 17 before I had to give up and start writing early in the fourth quarter. Go ahead. Try to get it out of your head now. You’re welcome.)

Or they could have been playing a better opponent, in which case the final score could easily have been 40-16.

It started off well enough, with the Bills trailing by but a single point and the ball at Miami’s 47-yard line. If anything, Buffalo seemed poised for the sort of triumphant rally that produced three of their first five wins.

Then Edwards, who had been nearly perfect in the first five fourth quarters in which he had appeared previously this year, dropped back to pass.

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Trent Edwards after the brain-bruising hit by the Cardinals' Adrian Wilson.

AV football correspondent Dave Staba send in this dispatch on Sunday’s undertelevised blowout:

Someone really should have blocked Adrian Wilson.

And probably ought to have covered Larry Fitzgerald.

Wilson, the Arizona safety, delivered the biggest play in the 41-17 curb-stomping the Bills absorbed at the at the hands of the Cardinals on Sunday, romping uninvited, yet unhampered, into Buffalo’s backfield and driving Trent Edwards’ head into the retractable natural grass playing surface at University of Phoenix Stadium. The resulting impact ended the quarterback’s day and quite possibly altered the course of the rest of his team’s season.

The defensive breakdown that led to the game’s first points was not physically painful to anyone, but barely easier to watch. (If, of course, you weren’t staring at your television, wondering how the owners of Channel 4 could possibly be so monumentally self-defeating as to deny untold thousands of viewers throughout Buffalo of the programming so many of them care the most about.)

Moments after J.P. Losman replaced Edwards and swiftly bounced the ball off of Marshawn Lynch and into the grateful hands of Phoenix’s Antonio Smith, a very lonely looking Fitzgerald caught a flip from Kurt Warner that could have been launched underhanded, or blindly backwards over the quarterback’s head, so open was the target.

How, exactly, an ill-intentioned defender and an all-star receiver are each left unaccounted for by a heretofore undefeated team in the first five minutes of a game present the first two questions concerning Buffalo’s unraveling.

Yet those breakdowns, and how quickly Edwards’ head clears, are only the first of the issues to ponder as the Bills spend the next two weeks—thanks to the bye week that keeps them inactive until San Diego visits on Oct. 19—wondering whether they’re as good as they played during the season’s first four weeks, or as lousy as they looked Sunday.

1. What’s with Jason Peters? His holdout should no longer be a factor, since he’s been back in uniform and practicing for as long as he would have been from the opening summer session at St. John Fisher to the season opener, had he reported on time.

2. How does a defense make it through an entire game without sacking Kurt Warner? Even at his best and youngest, the most famous grocery clerk ever has been quite easy to catch, having absorbed 222 sacks in 98 career appearances before Sunday yet the Bills rarely got near the 37-year-old, aside from Kawika Mitchell’s chin-splitting shot in the second quarter.

3. Speaking of which, how long will fans and media types kvetch over the legal and moral implications of the hit that ended, at best, Edwards’ afternoon?

I’ve heard several people argue that Wilson “left his feet” before the hit, but this ain’t hockey, folks. Unlike Mitchell, he did not lead with his helmet, the National Football League’s ultimate sin when it comes to attempted quarterback decapitation.

If Wilson gets fined, Mitchell should be sending part of his game check to the league office, too.

4. What could the people who run LIN-TV possibly be thinking? By withholding the most highly rated program on any given Sunday throughout the Buffalo area, the company that owns Channel 4 has managed to make Time-Warner into a sympathetic multibillion-dollar conglomerate.

Well, almost.

Plenty of people are blaming Time-Warner for the partial Bills blackout, even though LIN-TV is attempting to charge those same viewers for a signal they have always been able to get for free. Some are switching to a satellite provider, but there are those of us who like to watch television when it rains or snows, too.

Dave Staba has covered the Bills since 1990. He welcomes e-mail at dstaba13@aol.com. A full report on Sunday’s game will appear in the October 2 issue of Artvoice.

DANIEL J. HIGGINS, father of congressman Brian Higgins passed away Sunday in Harris Hill Long Term Care Facility, Clarence, after a long illness. He was 77. The Buffalo News quoted Rep. Brian Higgins saying that his father, a former Buffalo South District Common Council member, was his mentor and “a consummate gentleman who led by the eloquence of example. He was just a wonderful father, a wonderful husband and a wonderful example for our family and the entire community,”

BRIAN HIGGINS was also in news asking that federal officials reconsider their axing of the cable stay bridge designed by Christian Menn. Higgins, who initially positioned himself as let’s-just-move-on, now believes the Menn design has been too hastily abandoned.

CITY HONORS PRINCIPAL William Kresse, who recently penned a document critical of unethical interference at his school, and was recently under attack by high-ranking Buffalo Public School officials he named, received a show of support from his teaching staff. The Buffalo News reported today that City Honors teachers released a lengthy statement of support for Kresse. “As teachers at City Honors School, we feel a response in support of our principal, Dr. William Kresse, is necessary,” the teachers said.

THREE TEENS CHARGED IN HAZING INCIDENT. Three varsity and junior varsity baseball players from Wilson High were arrested and charged for a hazing incident that took place on a bus two weeks ago. The teens, all over 16, are charged with aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child. That sounds disturbing. There were multiple victims, all younger than 16. The team is suspended indefinitely.

BUFFALO BILLS DRAFT SELECTIONS – DAY 2
3RD (72) – Chris Ellis / DE / Virginia Tech
4TH (114) – Reggie Corner / CB / Akron
4TH (132) – Derek Fine / TE / Kansas
5TH (147) – Alvin Bowen / LB / Iowa State
6TH (179) – Xavier Omon / RB / N.W. Missouri State
7TH (219) – Demetrius Bell / OT / Northwestern State
7TH (224) – Steve Johnson / WR / Kentucky
7TH (251) – Kenard Cox / CB / Pittsburgh

DENNIS DONOHUE JURY should be in place today. So far 11 of the 12 jurors have now been selected in the Donohue trial. Donohue is charged in the 1993 strangulation of Joan Giambra. He is also the suspect/former boyfriend of Lynn Dejac, who was recently freed for the murder of her own daughter. Several alternate jurors must also be selected. Opening statements should begin tomorrow morning.

THE DOWNTOWN BUS TERMINAL is going to get a $19 million overhaul, according to NFTA officials. Apparently there have been two or three other plans to rehab the old terminal, but because there was always a question of whether the terminal would remain there those plans were shelved. Former Erie County Executive Joel Giambra wanted the terminal gone so he could expand Erie Community College’s city campus. Giambra’s pan failed to gain traction. For years, assemblyman Sam Hoyt had floated the idea of an inter-modal transportation site at the old Aud or somewhere downtown, that too failed to get any traction. NFTA head Lawrence Meckler told the Buffalo News, “Now we know we’re going to be here for the foreseeable future, and we can to take steps to make this a great building, an asset to downtown.”