Don’t look now, but the Buffalo Bills are contending for a playoff spot. How are they doing it? Nobody really knows. The Bills are clearly a flawed team. They are in fact so flawed that embattled coach Dick Jauron fired offensive coordinator Turk Schonert during the pre-season, and it didn’t exactly fix the offensive woes.

The Bills brought in Terrell Owens over the off-season, in a move regarded as either insane, or insanely sly. Detractors of the move pointed to Owens’ long history complaining about even the league’s best quarterbacks of not being worthy of his service. Certainly pairing Owens with an unproven commodity like Trent Edwards was a disaster in the making. Those in favor of the move saw only the raw talent Owens brought to a receiver corps that badly needed a complimentary player to Lee Evans, the young receiver who is no longer young, and has yet to find his full potential. The odd thing is both sides were wrong.

Owens has been the model teammate; he has yet to throw anyone under the bus despite the fact that there are a few Bills who probably deserve it. Buffalo sits at 25^th in the league in total offense and 28^th in passing offense. Trent Edwards has thrown more interceptions than touchdowns, and Owens long streak of games with at least one catch ended not long into the season. Still, even when reporters try and get Owens to throw his teammates under the bus, Terrell has refused.

Conversely, his talent hasn’t aided the team at all. Owens has been a non factor all season, catching no more than four passes in any one game, has just one touchdown catch, and has topped out at 60 receiving yards in any one game. Meanwhile Lee Evans has 21 catches for over 300 yards, and leads the team in three touchdowns.

Offense hasn’t been the only problem for the Bills. Buffalo currently ranks 24^th in the NFL in total defense, while that defense has shaped up lately they have allowed over 25 points four times already this year. All in all, the team should be sitting solidly in the cellar of the AFC East. Instead after two straight wins, the Bills are just two games back of New England, and looking like a team that might actually make some noise in the divisional playoff race.

The poisonous aftertaste of a 1-4 start to the year is quietly being washed away thanks to an overtime 16-13 win over the division rival New York Jets two weeks ago, and most recently a 20-9 victory over the Carolina Panthers. Is it a coincidence that the Bills mini winning streak has come since Trent Edwards have been out and Ryan Fitzpatrick has come in? Perhaps, but while Fitzpatrick hasn’t had overwhelming success, an argument can be made that his managing of the offense has been more efficient than that of Edwards.

It doesn’t help that in Edwards’ last three complete games; he threw five interceptions and just one touchdown. While Fitzpatrick has struggled to complete even 50 percent of his passes, he has stopped the bleeding in the turnover department and allowed the Bills to play within themselves. They are not a flashy offense, they won’t put many in the pro bowl, but there is enough talent there to make some noise.

It gets better for the Bills. After a winnable game against the (4-3) Houston Texans, four of their next five games will be against teams that are currently just .500 or below. Run the table, or come close, and suddenly a team that looked dead in the water just weeks ago, becomes someone the rest of the league has to pay attention to.

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