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The Buffalo Bills have been statistically dominated over the past two weeks, giving up more than two yards for every one that they’ve gained.

They’ve also emerged with a pair of unlikely road wins and will try to ride some of that momentum into tomorrow’s home encounter with the Houston Texans (4-3), Buffalo’s final home game before its bye in Week 9 of the NFL season.

Though the Bills are hardly out of the playoff race at 3-4, it would be fair to suggest things haven’t unfolded at all as they had hoped. An off-season spent focused on making the offence more productive has produced an attack that ranks 27th at running the ball, 29th at throwing it, and 27th overall, just behind the St. Louis Rams and Detroit Lions.

Quarterback Trent Edwards was shaky through the first five weeks before being concussed early in Week 6 against the New York Jets, giving way to backup Ryan Fitzpatrick who will start his second consecutive game for Buffalo this week.

And though Fitzpatrick has led the Bills to a pair of wins over the Jets and Carolina Panthers, there’s been little about his performance to make Bills fans think the 26-year-old Harvard grad is Buffalo’s future at quarterback.

“[The past two games] have not been pretty at times obviously, but we made the plays that had to be made to win the games,” Bills offensive co-ordinator Alex Van Pelt said. “The defence has done a great job keeping us in it for the last three weeks and that is huge for us. We still have to execute better. We are leaving a lot out there on the table right now. As we get going, hopefully we will have one of those games where everything comes together for us consistently on offence.”

Though he’s completed just 44.7 per cent of his passes, Fitzpatrick has done a few things better than Edwards did during the first five games of the season.

While Edwards’s tendency to throw bad interceptions was killing the Bills, Fitzpatrick has thrown just one in 47 pass attempts. He’s also done a better job getting the ball to high-priced receivers Lee Evans and Terrell Owens.

In seven quarters of play, Fitzpatrick has delivered one-third of Evans’s receptions so far this season and two of his three touchdown passes. He’s also hit Owens for five of the 18 catches he has so far this season and shown a greater willingness to throw in his direction.

“If you were to ask any of us at this point where we thought [Owens] would be with his numbers, nobody would have guess he would be where he is now,” Fitzpatrick said. “But it is going to be a constant point of emphasis for us to get him the ball. All I can say is I am going to try to get the ball to the play makers, which are Lee and Terrell. Those are the guys I am going to try to get the ball to.”

The timing of Edwards’s return is uncertain, though the Bills say they are being cautious wit his second head injury in just over a year.

The Bills were 4-0 last season when Edwards was concussed by a hit from Arizona Cardinals safety Adrian Wilson. Though Edwards has dismissed that the concussion has had any long-term affects on his play, his drop-off in performance during the latter part of last season was unmistakable. Buffalo went 2-7 with Edwards as its starter late last season, and was 1-4 this fall before Fitzpatrick took over.

Stirring the debate in Buffalo is the fact head coach Dick Jauron, whose own job may be on the line this season, has refused to say Edwards will get the starting role again once he’s healthy enough to return.

All of which raises the question: If Edwards isn’t the quarterback of the present in his third NFL season, can he really be Buffalo’s quarterback of the future?