It was his first opportunity this preseason to prove himself a capable NFL starter for the Buffalo Bills in their open quarterback competition. After watching the entire preseason opener in Washington last week, Thursday night was Brian Brohm's chance to turn heads.
When his time on the field was over the quarterback had some measure of satisfaction with the performance of the offense when he was out there, but ever the perfectionist he wanted more.
"Overall I think it went pretty well," Brohm said. "There are obviously some things we can work on, but I think overall I felt good about what happened when I was out there. We moved the ball well, but we definitely need to put some points on the board."
Brohm entered the game with just under six minutes remaining in the second quarter with the score tied at 21 apiece. On his first play from scrimmage he took a sack for a loss of five yards. Though immediately facing a long down and distance situation, Brohm and the second unit overcame it as a 14-yard catch by Donald Jones on 3rd-and-15 ultimately saw another 15 yards added to the play after Jones fumbled and the ball got kicked down the field in a couple of mad dashes for the ball.
Later in the drive Brohm converted a 3rd-and-8 with a nine-yard pass play to Naaman Roosevelt to keep the chains moving, with yet another third down pass play for 26 yards down the near sideline to Chad Jackson to set up first-and-goal. It was his best looking pass of the game.
"It was an option, a quarterback draw or a fade," Brohm said. "They brought another defender in the box and I ended up throwing the fade to Chad. He made a great catch. He had one-on-one coverage out there and he was able to pull it down. I just had to give him a chance to make a play and he made it."
After a two-yard gain by Chad Simpson on first-and-goal from the Colts' seven-yard line, the drive stalled. Brohm couldn't connect with Simpson on the far sideline near the end zone on second down and just missed Jackson in the front right corner of the end zone on third down. Rian Lindell came on to kick a 24-yard field goal just before the half expired to put Buffalo up 24-21 at the break.
"When I was in there I felt like first off we had too many negative plays, there were some penalties and negative runs and we were getting behind so to speak in the down and distance," Brohm said. "But there were a few times where we overcame that and were able to convert some third downs and some second and longs and get ourselves into manageable situations."
"I think Brohm did okay," said head coach Chan Gailey. "Again I'll have to watch the film on that, but I think he did fine. He missed on a couple of things that he normally doesn't miss. But on the whole I thought he did a good job. He took a couple of shots too and kept standing in there."
Brohm finished 14-21 passing on the day for 125 yards and a passer rating of 82.4.
Gailey was asked if he would consider starting Brohm in a preseason game. Buffalo's head coach left the door open.
"Would we (consider it)? Oh sure," said Gailey. "We'd consider using any of them that we've got. Yeah I'll consider it."
With Trent Edwards performing well in the victory over Indianapolis it's not believed the depth chart will change this weekend when the team resumes practice at St. John Fisher. But Brohm welcomes any added opportunities the coaching staff is willing to provide him moving forward.
"I think we all want to be in there starting, but I'm just going to take it day by day and try to get better every single day and whatever the coaches decide and whatever situations they want to put us in that's what we're going to do," Brohm said. "For me I think it was good first action out there for me, but I want to get in the end zone and score touchdowns. I felt like we were able to move the ball and get yards, but the object of the game is to points on the board and I needed to put more points on the board when I was in there."
