From Deseret News archives:

Bills special teams spark 34-10 win over Seattle

Published: Sunday, Sept. 7, 2008 7:32 p.m. MDT
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — Brian Moorman couldn't wait until the final stats sheet was delivered to the Buffalo Bills' locker room. The punter wanted to see, firsthand, what it looked like to have a perfect passer rating.

"I want to frame it," said Moorman, who threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to defensive end Ryan Denney on a fake field goal to register the NFL-best 158.3 rating.

Perfect, might also come close to describing how everyone else — offense, defense and special teams — played in helping Buffalo open the regular season with a dominating 34-10 win over the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.

"How about that?" Moorman said. "It's nice to come out of the gate with a decisive win. Hopefully, we made a statement today."

It's early, no doubt. But if the Bills' objective is to end an eight-year playoff drought this season, they got off to a very promising start in blowing out the four-time defending NFC West champions.

It was a victory that began and ended with Buffalo's special teams. Roscoe Parrish returned a punt 63 yards for a touchdown to put the Bills up 14-0 in the second quarter. Then there was kicker Rian Lindell, who recovered a fumble on a kickoff that set up Trent Edwards' 30-yard touchdown pass to Robert Royal — 20 seconds after Denney scored.

Story continues below
Moorman became the first Bills punter to throw a touchdown pass, and first NFL punter to do so since Pittsburgh's Josh Miller on Dec. 28, 2003. He caught the Seahawks completely flat-footed in finding the 6-foot-7 Denney wide open in the left flats.

"That's a good question," Denney said, of how he eluded the Seahawks after making sure to check in with the official. "I was thinking the whole time they were going to see me over there. ... Just a great play and it worked like we wanted it to."

The Seahawks, by comparison, looked completely unprepared.

"We got kicked around pretty good today," said Mike Holmgren, who opened his final season as the Seahawks' head coach. "It's one of those games we're going to learn a painful lesson. But we'll be better next week."

They couldn't have played much worse.

Matt Hasselbeck was rusty after missing most of the preseason with a back injury. He completed only one of his first eight attempts, and finished 17-of-41 for 190 yards, with a touchdown to Nate Burleson and an interception.

Then again, Hasselbeck didn't get much help from a banged-up receiving corps that was minus two starters — Deion Branch (knee) and Bobby Engram (shoulder) — and then lost Burleson, who left in the third quarter with a left knee injury.

Comments

You can be the first to comment on this story.

Image
Associated Press

Buffalo Bills' Roscoe Parrish, left, returns a punt for a touchdown against the Seattle Seahawks.

previousnext

Latest comments

Quality wins, bad losses for Utes

Illinois lost to Bradley too... that Lost to BYU. Now that was a quality win!

Wasatch will be a tough team for anyone this year. Carbon looks good this...

No fractures on Emery's foot

If Jackson Emery goes down, the Cougars are doomed. He is their defensive...

McCoy to resign from Utah Senate

Does anyone else find it odd that Equality Utah's Will Carlson resigns a week...

at that matters... wins. Didn't BYU win Saturday? Yeah baby!

I've been running since Saturday night and no Ute has caught me yet. Can I...

No fractures on Emery's foot

Thank you. That means I am a successful poster. Maybe the most successful...

Understanding translation process

If you read the JS Translation of (John 1:1) it makes no sense. One hint he...

Jazz win 6th in 7 games

Its not memos fault that he's not a good defender, defense is so basic, he's...

BYU says Hall incident resolved

To the 7:00 commentator, If you say you "hate everything" about BYU than...

Advertisements