ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Days after the Bills were part of the worst weather game in franchise history, there was still plenty of talk about the snow, wind and lack of visibility in Buffalo’s 13-7 overtime victory against the Colts at New Era Field last Sunday.
Among the most affected were the coaching coordinators, forced to make decisions when it was difficult to ascertain yard lines and Indianapolis’ personnel, who were wearing white uniforms with blue numbers and trim.
Offensive coordinator Rick Dennison was in the coach’s box but, with the reduced visibility, wished he was on the field, where defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier was stationed.
“When the game first started, it wasn’t too bad,” Dennison said. “Sometime in the second quarter, it got really blurry. You couldn’t see any numbers of their team. We figured out who they were by the way they ran. By the time we got to that point, we understood who the defensive players were and knew they weren’t subbing. They were staying with their base defense and that reduced our calls even more. We were trying to make sure we didn’t put our guys in a tough situation.”
Halftime was a nightmare.
“We had to go through the concourse with all the fans,” Dennison said. “It was a rough deal, because the golf carts couldn’t go. Once you make a decision (on being in the booth), I don’t think you can change the sideline to quarterback (communication). I had to go back up no matter what. I missed the kickoff and the first play of the defense (in the third quarter) because we were kind of stuck going up there.”
He admitted, “The game-plan got diminished when we started. It was a little harder to do some of the things footing-wise, and execution-wise. We started with some motions (but) we even threw those out because of the timing.
“I’ve been in about three or four of those – snow, rain (games) … You always take something from (it). Obviously, the experience of adjusting on the move – we had to make some adjustments, not only just cutting plays down, but selection of plays as far as concepts. We were trying to get double teams, but it was hard for linemen to pull. We had to reduce that even more than we wanted.”
Dennison added of the options, “… whether we’re going wide or tight with our runs, what kind of passes can we call? Can wideouts break? We take that into consideration and use that for another bad-weather game.
“We actually take the positive of our players’ mindset. They didn’t care what we called, they were going to get it done. I want to thank whoever picked the red jerseys. It was a lot easier for me to see them up in the box (because) it was tough to see the white.”
Frazier had a different perspective from the sideline.
“What a day … I’ve been through a lot of cold-weather games in my career, both as a player (defensive back with the Bears) and coach, but that was pretty unique with the snow consistently coming down throughout the day,” he said
“Hats off to our fans, they were terrific; we’re fighting, scratching and clawing on every single snap trying to make a play (and) our fans were cheering us on and pushing us. It was a great atmosphere.”
Of course, in that sort of weather, Frazier doesn’t see an advantage no matter which unit is being coached.
“It wasn’t easy,” he said. “Everything you work on in practice, you can’t simulate what happened (Sunday), It’s tough on either side of the ball. You’re just trying to figure out a way to make a play, keep your footing, and stay square as long as you can. You know one slip here, or one false step could be the difference in the ballgame.”
Frazier also had advice for his players.
“It was a lot of talking amongst our players about how to change their strides, the movements, the importance of just staying where they needed to be and not getting out of their positions,” he said. “There was a lot of conversation on the sideline in being able to adjust to the situation (and) I thought the guys did a pretty good job of it.
“We get the weather forecast throughout the week … a person in charge of that, and he’s given us a report, even on Saturday. But nobody really talked about preparing for that type of snow throughout the ballgame. When we got out in pregame, you started realizing that some of the things we had talked about during the week, are going to kind of be out the window.”
But Frazier admitted, “ Fortunately for us, the way our players responded and the way they played, it almost seemed like they embraced the snow. Nobody complained … they enjoyed it. You saw the celebration after the game, they were out there doing all kinds of things to show their enjoyment.”
Of course, assessing their performance was way more difficult.
“We put on the tape, looking at it going ‘How’re you going to give a guy minus on this play … you can barely make out who it is?’” Frazier said. “Yet, you still want to grade them correctly, don’t want to give them any false positives. It was not an easy game to look at, grade, and determine whether guys should get a minus or a plus on a play. Sometimes, you could barely make out who was who.
“There’s some things that we can pull from that tape that should help us if we find ourselves in a similar game in the future, and we very well could (Sunday against Miami?). We talked about just jotting down some notes about what things we would do differently, how we would approach it going into the game if we knew that the situation was going to be like it was Sunday.”
But that might take awhile as the Bills hadn’t been in a home game with weather conditions that miserable in the franchise’s previous 57 years.
(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
