I think they call this feeling "happiness"

General contentment with your team's performance really inhibits the writing process. (I know, poor me!) After Sunday's game against the Chargers, I am feeling pretty good about the Bills' chances this season. I've decided our walloping at the hands of that ancient quarterback and his Cardinals two weeks ago is entirely attributable to the fact that Trent Edwards got killed on the third play. But he has been reborn and redeemed the city of Buffalo through his unflashy precision and calm stoner demeanor. This team is just kind of...nice and unobjectionable. What the hell am I supposed to say about them?

I am sort of digging the no-name vibe on defense--Kawika Mitchell and Marcus Stroud have been playing really well, but so have Paul Posluszny, Ryan Denney and Copeland Bryan. Who? Exactly. Two of those dudes are second-stringers to the first-string no-name players that got hurt. At some point during the game Sunday, one of the announcers speculated that the Chargers may have been taken by surprise slightly because rather than preparing to play the Bills they got distracted by PACKING to travel to London. This is a little ego-bruising but I've decided that it works to the Bills' advantage if opposing teams find picking out clothes more challenging than the prospect of playing against us. Especially when the Bills play at home: we lull them into a false sense of security by not having any name players and then they get to our house and we cut the power and just generally confuse the shit out of them. By the end of the game, you could have knocked Philip Rivers over with a feather: Kawika Mitchell basically did, and the ball came out, too.

This approach of enveloping your opponents in a disorienting mist is probably not going to work as well in the upcoming divisional stretch of the Bills' schedule. Luckily, we play in the AFC East. I refuse to be intimidated by the Patriots' victory last night because they were playing against a team with no defense and 83 turnovers, and seriously, if we can't beat the Dolphins and the Jets...well, I'll have a lot more to write about on this blog. (Okay, I'm actually terrified of the Patriots because Bill Belichick has chunks of guys like Dick Jauron in his stool, but this fear is irrational and I'm counting on this being the year Belichick crashes to earth.) It really feels like tempting fate to even think this kind of optimism, but whatever. Neurotic second-guessing has gotten Bills fans nowhere; the time has come for some triumphalism.