Bills Steamroll Chiefs 41-7

Okay…no one expected this.

The Buffalo Bills opened their season in the most impressive way possible Sunday, blowing out Kansas City 41-7  in a truly dominant performance. The Ryan Fitzpatrick era at quarterback began with a bang, as Fitz completed 17 of 25 passes for 208 yards and 4 TD. New TE Scott Chandler was the big star of the day, hauling in five catches for 63 yards and two touchdowns. RB Fred Jackson was also fantastic, carrying the ball 20 times for 112 yards.

This one was all Bills from the very beginning. On the opening kickoff, Corey McIntyre forced a Chiefs fumble that was scooped up by rookie Kelvin Sheppard. The Bills immediately took advantage. After a few nice Fred Jackson runs, Fitzpatrick hit Chandler for a four-yard touchdown – and the rout was on.

Later in the quarter, Fitz connected for a 27-yard touchdown to Stevie Johnson to make the score 14-0. The Bills then got two field goals from Rian Lindell to push the lead to 20-0.

Just before halftime, the Chiefs got on the board with a touchdown catch by Jamaal Charles. The Chiefs had actually put together a nice looking drive before the score, so you could just feel every Bills fan getting a bit nervous at that point with the score 20-7.

We shouldn’t have worried. The Bills totally controlled the second half. After an early Bills drive ended with Fitz getting sacked by Tamba Hali, the Bills defense held again. Buffalo took a 27-7 lead on Chandler’s second TD of the day (which came after successive Bills penalties turned 3rd-and-goal from the 1-yard line to 3rd-and-goal from the 11).

From there, the game officially moved into “blowout mode,” as Buffalo marched down the field for another touchdown drive, capped by Donald Jones catching a four-yard touchdown to push the score to 34-7.

The Bills capped the scoring with a nine-yard touchdown run by C.J. Spiller. It was Spiller’s first career rushing TD.

Really, not much to say about this one. The Bills completely dominated in every way:

– Rushing yards? The Bills had a 165-108 advantage. The run defense wasn’t spectacular, but it was good enough.

– Passing yards? Bills 201, Chiefs 105. Matt Cassel was not good today.

– Turnovers? Bills had just one to Kansas City’s three. And Buffalo’s turnover was a meaningless interception thrown by Brad Smith.

There you have it folks…our Bills might be a team to contend with in 2011. Let the unrealistic expectations begin to build.