Published: October 06, 2008 12:33 am      

TIM SCHMITT: Injuries happen; defensive embarrassment shouldn’t

GLENDALE, Ariz. — You had to see this coming, right? The Anointed One never played a whole season in college — and that was in the wild and woolly Pac-10, where defense plays third fiddle to offense and coaches’ wardrobes.

So to think Trent Edwards would stay healthy all year, depriving J.P. Losman the chance to show his Grizzly Adams tribute, well, that was crazy talk.

Sure, Edwards has been smart about unloading the ball, and his team’s ground game has been slightly better than adequate, but with offensive line play that’s been spotty and his injury-prone past, thinking he’d be under center all season was a losing proposition.

Then Arizona’s Adrian Wilson tried to use Edwards as a tent spike, and Plan B officially went into effect, if only for a week.

Remember, the Bills hadn’t dealt Losman for two reasons — one, the offers they got made that baseball-player-for-some-maple-bats deal look sweet; and two, they’d then have him as an experienced backup.

For about a quarter, the move looked smart. Then, we remembered why Losman isn’t the starter.

But while Edwards’ injury and Losman’s resurfacing were bit parts of the story Sunday as the Bills fell from the ranks of the unbeaten, it wasn’t the story.

What happened to the discipline? What happened to the defense? Can anybody make a tackle on third down?

The Bills came into Sunday’s game with the fourth-best pass defense. We now know that number was grossly inflated by weak opponents.

Larry Fitzgerald is a man-child and Edgerrin James still has something left, but Steve Breaston? Early Doucet? Jerheme Urban? Mike Gandy?

If there’s anything to take from Sunday’s decimation, it’s that the overhauled defense we thought had been completely corrected still stands a long way from dominant.

The Bills didn’t have answers for the Cardinals offense and they didn’t have any for reporters in the locker room afterward.

“It was just one of those days,” Kawika Mitchell said.

Everyone has an off day, but logic dictates this was more than just a few bad bounces. After completing 33 passes, Warner said he was “starting to feel comfortable” throwing to Breaston, who was starting in place of an injured Anquan Boldin; and Doucet, who had never caught an NFL pass before he hung a six-spot on the Bills corners.

What would it have been like if he was really comfortable?

McGee’s absence was a big part of it. With him out of the lineup, the Bills had to push the remaining corners up a slot, and frankly, they looked in over their heads.

But the blame can’t lie there. Aaron Schobel was, for the most part, manhandled by a guy the Bills deemed expendable in Gandy, and Mitchell, Paul Posluszny and Keith Ellison all made little impact.

Maybe this is the motivation the Bills defense needs to put extra work in during the bye week. Maybe this was just a case of thinking about a week’s vacation before actually punching out.

Or maybe this is a sign that Buffalo’s defense isn’t nearly as good as we thought it could be.

It’s their turn to decide.

“They beat us up,” Posluszny said. “Putting that many points on the board, we can’t accept that.”

Contact sports editor Tim Schmitt at 282-2311, ext. 2266 or at tschmitt@gnnewspaper.com.