Published: October 11, 2009 10:40 pm      

TIM'S TAKE: Bills so bad, they botch halftime

ORCHARD PARK — Forget the fumbled punt that proved the game’s biggest play. Or an offensive line that hopped offsides as if bonuses depended on it. Even try to set aside the fact that with the wind in their back in the third quarter, they ran more than they passed.

How bad were the Bills on Sunday?

So bad they botched halftime.

Ralph Wilson Jr. was supposed to receive his Hall of Fame ring during a special ceremony. Or at least that’s what the Hall’s Web site insisted.

Instead, there was no ceremony. Nor a band. Nor a reason to do anything but drown your sorrows in suds during halftime of what might have been the ugliest football game the stadium has ever seen.

Wilson released a statement through the team’s PR department after the contest.

“The focus of today’s game should be about the team and the fans,” it read. “I think most of our fans know that I’ve been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.”

True enough. It offered one of the few chances fans had to cheer this season.

If the big numbers on the JumboTron kept track of false starts, the Bills could have sat their starters in the second half of Sunday’s snooze-fest against the equally inept Cleveland Browns.

Demetrius Bell had two. Not to be outdone, Jonathan Scott got flagged for his second midway through the third quarter. Andy Levitre got his with authority, lunging through the Browns defensive line. And his teammates followed by calling a timeout. Geoff Hangartner pulled the rare center-pulling-himself-offside trick.

Even the backups got to pad their penalty stats — Kirk Chambers jumped with the Bills on their own one-yard line, going into the wind in a tie ballgame. And Chambers added another later, pulling even with Scott and Bell.

But an awful string of offensive penalties only tells a bit part of Sunday’s storyline — one that harkened back to the 2-14 Greg Bell years.

To put this game into context, realize that facing a linebacking corps of Keith Ellison, Ashlee Parmer and Jon Corto, Cleveland quarterback Derek Anderson completed just two passes.

And his team won.

The two worst teams in the National Football League since 2000 proved they deserve the classification.

But to know how they got there, at least in the Bills case, is to analyze halftime. A team that can’t make bold decisions, that can’t realize when there’s a time to stay the course and another to come clean about your mistakes, continued to confound us. Some say the team knew about the ceremony. Others with the team said Sunday they didn’t realize it was supposed to happen.

Either way, it was yet another demonstration of incompetence.

The organization should have seen at last year’s conclusion that Dick Jauron wasn’t the right guy to lead this team. And it should have decided long before the preseason on an offensive coordinator.

And even Sunday’s biggest embarrassment — the false starts — have the front office’s thumb prints all over them. If the Bills would have come up with a better plan for the offensive line than a draft crapshoot, maybe a group of experienced linemen wouldn’t be making rookie mistakes.

Let Trent Edwards know how angry you are. Dick Jauron too. But at the end of the day, don’t let your frustration be misdirected.

They didn’t choose the Bills.

The Bills chose them.

Contact sports editor Tim Schmitt at 282-2311, ext. 2266.