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ORCHARD PARK -- It could have been worse.
But not much.
The Gregg Williams-Tom Donahoe epoch in Buffalo Bills history opened with a splat Sunday, as the New Orleans Saints ran the painfully young Bills (and much of the crowd of 71,447) out of Ralph Wilson Stadium with 24 straight second-half points.
Not that there weren't a couple bright spots.
Travis Henry delivered as advertised until a a brilliant catch by New Orleans wide receiver Albert Connell and a pair of Rob Johnson misfires deep in Buffalo territory put the Bills in catch-up mode.
Buffalo's overhauled defense completely stymied the Saints for the first 30 minutes, even after middle linebacker Sam Cowart went down with an ominous Achilles tendon injury midway through the first quarter. Cowart's replacement, Kenyetta Walker, delivered a drive-snuffing hit on New Orleans running back Ricky Williams of game-turning proportions.
And kicker Jake Arians, a member of the Bills' active roster for less than 24 hours, made good on his first two field goal attempts in the National Football League to give Buffalo a 6-0 lead going into halftime.
But the Bills took the field with more than 60 percent of their roster consisting of first- and-second-year players. It showed.
Gregg Williams harps on the importance of coming out strong in the third quarter. But his players emerged from the locker room as if they'd spent intermission devouring a heavy meal -- a nice piece of steak, a hearty portion of pasta and a few glasses of red wine, with a slice of chocolate mousse pie to fill in the cracks.
The running game that worked so well in the first half vanished. The defense that dominated the first 30 minutes played with the cohesion of a unit ahead, or behind, by 20 points.
And Johnson, who had worked himself into something resembling a rhythm after a slow start, locked in on Saints safety Sammy Knight, who produced two of his team record-tying three interceptions in a three-and-a-half minute span of the third quarter.
The last two interceptions led to 10 of the 17 decisive points the Saints posted during the first 12:10 of the third quarter.
Say what you want about Johnson's abilities and game judgment, but at least he's honest.
"I threw two picks back-to-back -- that's demoralizing," Johnson said. "That will demoralize a team right there. I thought our defense played well. They were just on the field too much in the second half."
The Bills didn't create many breaks for themselves on Sunday. The Saints, particularly quarterback Aaron Brooks, bounced the ball off the Ralph Wilson Stadium floor like it was a basketball game, but Buffalo didn't recover any of the four fumbles.
Before Johnson started playing catch with Knight, he directed the Bills deep into New Orleans' end of the field twice. On second-and-5 from the Saints' 12, Johnson wandered left on an apparent broken play before diving for a 1-yard loss. On third down, he got buried for a 5-yard loss by New Orleans defensive end Joe Johnson and Buffalo settled for Arians' first field goal.
The Bills' next drive was their best of the game. With Henry running for 28 yards on five carries, Buffalo landed at the New Orleans 1-yard line, with four downs to cover 36 inches.
Henry had run off left tackle for 14 yards to put the Bills in point-blank range, so they sent him there again. This time, the left side of the line (composed of the only two veterans up front, John Fina and Ruben Brown) collapsed, allowing nose tackle Norman Hand to knife in and drop Henry for a 3-yard loss.
After a pair of mirror-image plays -- Johnson rolls right, holds the ball, rolls some more, and throws incomplete -- it was again three points for Buffalo, instead of seven.
After halftime, New Orleans obliterated all the Bills' offensive work over the first two quarters with Connell's twisting, falling catch of Aaron Brooks' 46-yard bomb.
"The thing with the first half was that we didn't get any points out of it," Johnson said. "We only got six points and we dominated it pretty good. Then they go down and get kind of a Hail-Mary touchdown and they're ahead. It's not really that demoralizing when you're only down six points."
While Johnson's frankness may be refreshing, it's not nearly as important as his continued sackability (he got dumped five times in 32 pass plays Sunday) and newfound willingness to force the ball.
A quarterback who gets sacked so frequently doesn't exactly help Buffalo's cause, but a loss of yardage isn't nearly as damaging as losing the ball. Johnson did both on Sunday, with self-evident results.
Not that the blame falls solely on him. With rookie Jonas Jennings starting at right tackle the barely more-experienced Corey Hulsey next to him at guard and career backup Bill Conaty anchoring the front wall at center, the occasional missed assignment was to be expected. But the biggest breakdowns came on the left side. Not only did Fina and Brown get overpowered on that first-and-goal play, but four of the five sacks came through their side.
Even more disturbing with 15 games remaining was what happened after Johnson's second interception. Buffalo started playing with desperation, rather than confidence, on both sides of the ball.
Midway through the fourth quarter, the score remained 17-6, not an insurmountable deficit. But rather than force a momentum-shifting turnover, the Bills set Ricky Williams free. The Saints running back, held largely in check to that point, ripped off runs of 16, 15 and 21 yards on a drive he capped by catching a swing pass from Brooks and trotting untouched into the end zone for the final score.
Buffalo's performance in the fourth quarter was so lifeless, the fans were too bored to even boo before heading for the exits.
"I talked to my defensive teammates and said, 'That's not us, that's not us, that's not us, that's not the Buffalo Bills. I don't care if we're down. You get paid to play, you play hard,'" said Phil Hansen, the lone remaining link to Buffalo's Super Bowl teams of the early 1990s. "I thought we let down a little bit. It's never been the Bills position that you give up. There's always hope and you always play hard."
A visit to Pro Player Stadium, Johnson's personal house of horrors, is less than a week away. After that, the Buffalo calls on the Indianapolis Colts, who lit up the Jets for 38 points on Sunday in New Jersey.
Losing to a non-conference foe like New Orleans is far from fatal in and of itself. But even if Cowart's injury proves less serious than initially feared, the rest of the Bills, the young and the not-so-young alike, had better heed Hansen's words.
Otherwise, things will just continue to get worse.