ORCHARD PARK — If the Bills were the Republican party and Sunday’s game against New Orleans an overseas conflict, Jon Stewart would start tonight’s episode of “The Daily Show” with a three-minute loop of different team members repeating the three words “take a shot.”

To say the Bills have found a talking point in the short phrase is not to give it enough credit. Seemed like a full sentence couldn’t be uttered in the Bills locker room after Sunday’s pitiful 27-7 loss against the New Orleans Saints without mention of the proverbial “shot.”

“We took a shot, we had the shot, and we didn’t convert on it,” Lee Evans said. “The way they were playing us, they were trying to put a lot of pressure on us.

“When they do that, you’ve got to make them pay.”

Therein lies the problem, though, with an offensive philosophy that’s plagued the Bills since Buffalo hired Dick Jauron as coach. Even before. When you have less-than-adequate offensive personnel, as the Bills did not so long ago, the game becomes a chess match. To get your average running game going, you need to throw deep and drive the safeties off. If the corners lay off on the outside, it’s a healthy portion of the underneath stuff you’ve got to gobble up.

Take your shot. Hope it works. Then be happy with whatever the defense gives you.

But this isn’t Kelly Holcomb, and that’s not Anthony Thomas. We’re talking about a Hall of Famer at one wideout, a guy who’d have three Pro Bowls if he’d played anywhere else a running back who’s proving he’s as good or better than the Pro Bowler he’s filling in for.

The Bills have quality pieces. It’s their turn to dictate, rather than be dictated to.

This was the breakthrough year the Bills have been gearing up for. They took their shot in the offseason by reeling in Terrell Owens when everyone said he wouldn’t be a good fit. They let Jason Peters go because they thought they could find diamonds in the draft to help rebuild the sieve they called an offensive line.

The shot was taken.

Until gametime.

Like when Buffalo trailed by 10 points late in the fourth quarter, and Jauron sent the punt team out. Despite 70-something-thousand pleas, Jauron decided to play safe, rather than put some pressure on the defense. After he summed it up succinctly:

“We’re not going to give them the game, they’ve got to earn the game. That’s not to say we might not have made it, but it’s not a good gamble,” Jauron said.

Coach, at that point, they’d already earned it. You needed to steal it from them.

Buffalo threw deep to Owens but missed, and otherwise Trent Edwards looked afraid to make decisions, more like the guy who finished last year than the one who looked so in command against Tampa Bay.

The team’s philosophy manifested itself in Edwards near game’s end, when the Bills faced a fourth and 23 from deep in their own territory. With playmakers Evans and Owens on either side, Edwards dumped the ball off to Freddy Jackson.

Loss of down. Game over.

Alex Van Pelt took the rap, insisting he needs to do a better job getting the ball to Owens and Evans.

“I’ve got to find ways to get that done, no question,” he said.

Better take a shot.

Contact sports editor Tim Schmitt at 282-2311, ext. 2266.