The bad team lost in pedestrian fashion to the good team. (Naturally.) The good team was favoured by 11 points at home and won by 12. (As expected.) The stereotypical bad team had to settle for field goals, faded at the end of the game, and lost the turnover battle. (Of course.) The stereotypical good team controlled the clock, recorded more pass and run yardage, and converted more first downs. (As anticipated.) The next day the sun rose.
The home fans got to cheer and were home in time for dinner. They didn't fight in the parking lot and no snow was in their weather forecast.
Sure, it was close for a while in a meh sort of way, but the beat writers could have written 90% of their game story before kickoff if they wanted. [Ed. note: They do that anyway. They probably had a couple paragraphs down on Wednesday afternoon already about Houston spoiling Mario Williams's return blah blah blah Ryan Fitzpatrick still struggling with accuracy blah blah blah uninspired play-calling blah blah blah failure to convert on third down blah blah blah breakdowns in the secondary blah blah blah moral victory against an elite team blah blah blah taking stock at the halfway point of the season blah blah blah playoff hopes fading fast blah blah blah next game is against archrival etc etc etc. God I hate writers.]. When Buffalo "stormed back" with those two field goals to be within one going into halftime it was the most forgettable and then quickly forgotten of rebuttals.
Even the Texans seemed to have a strong sense of ennui about the whole thing, like they were only there because of contractual obligations and not because they had any intrinsic desire to defeat the Buffalo Bills at a game of American football. The Texans didn't put more into that game than was really necessary and they knew what was necessary was not very much. If you don't beat yourself when playing the Bills then you don't have much to worry about and we got to enjoy a game plan built around that concept. It was a statement game for the Texans if a yawn counts as a statement. Or maybe it was a trap game for the Texans but someone on the Bills sideline forgot to actually set the damned trap. Probably Chan Gailey since he couldn't play the "Nobody Believes In Us!" card if his meager life depended on it.
Next week the Bills are on the road again as double-digit underdogs. Let's hope they can at least lose in an entertaining fashion.
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