Correlation Station

by Ryan

During the Panthers/Giants game NBC had a graphic that showed how Jake Delhomme performed throughout the Panthers season. The announcers seemed mildly surprised to find out that Jake played very well in the Panthers wins and struggled during their brief losing streak. The crazy thing is that I've seen this graphic at least a half dozen times this year, and every time the announcers seem to find this a complete coincidence.

I mean, really? You're telling me that the idea of quarterback play correlating directly with a team's win percentage has never occurred to you before? That's borderline amazing, because even the most casual of football fans understand how important a quarterback is. Most good teams start with a good quarterback, and every elite team has a great one.

Is it any wonder, then, that the Buffalo Bills are a completely different team when their quarterback is Trent Edwards? Of course the proper implementation of a solid run game and some timely defense is a part of it, but the fact of the matter is that the Bills look and feel like a completely different football team when he's at the helm.



If there was anything we can take from the last two games this year it would be that Trent Edwards isn't completely broken. What we saw in the second half today was Trent Edwards pre-Arizona, and that's exactly what we wanted. It wasn't perfect, but a 17/25 193, 1TD line looks downright stellar after the last few weeks of Losman.

This wasn't the most fantastic of victories, and its only real significance will involve draft picks, but you have to be satisfied by the effort. Denver did a lot of things wrong today but they didn't drive the Bills down the field, and they sure didn't lay an egg in the numbers department. Looking at the boxscore it's almost amazingly one sided, yet it was the Bills getting that final touchdown to keep the champagne on ice at Mile High.

There isn't much to play for these days but the usual cliches of pride and maybe contract incentives, but the Bills took care of business against a "playoff bound" team. I have no idea if it means anything, and maybe they go out next week and get killed in order to keep that 7-9 streak going strong. Still, it was nice to see Trent looking like a promising quarterback once again.

This season may be a complete failure, but hey, there's always the next one.