ORCHARD PARK — Lee Evans was in no mood to talk Monday night after the Bills lost in stomach-churning fashion to the Cleveland Browns.

And after enduring just the second game in his NFL career where he did not catch a pass, no one could blame him.

Evans did speak Tuesday on his weekly radio show in Buffalo, and he met with the media Wednesday — as he almost always does — and shared some of the aggravation he was feeling after playing a game in which he was barely visible.

“It was a tough game,” said Evans, who by some observations was thrown to no more than three times in the game.

“It was a frustrating game. I think we did some good things to try to get back on track and there are a lot of positives to draw from, but it was a rough time after the game and I thought it was best that I didn’t address the media with it.”

Evans is going through perhaps the roughest stretch of his career as he has only six catches for 63 yards in the last three weeks.

The Bills have been unable to get him the ball now that teams are rushing only three or four men and dropping everyone else into coverage. He sees constant double-teaming, and with no other receivers able to take some of the burden off him, he has become a ghost in the offense.

“They’re basically dropping a lot of people deep,” Evans said. “And it’s hard to get open when they drop so many people deep and you really don’t have a lot of underneath routes to hold people there. That’s basically what it has been.”

Quarterback Trent Edwards has come under criticism because there were plays when Evans said he was open, but the young quarterback either didn’t see him or decided to check down to running back Marshawn Lynch who finished with 10 catches.

“They threw a couple of looks at Trent that kind of threw him off a little bit with some confusing looks,” said Evans, who said he is not upset with Edwards and is not blaming him for the offense’s recent stagnation.

“But you have to still be able to make plays in those situations because you’re not going to be able to prepare for everything a defense does or wants to do or throws at you during a football game. I think there’s lessons to be learned from that.”

To which Edwards agreed. He did not back away from the fact that it is his responsibility to get the ball to Buffalo’s playmakers, and Evans is certainly No. 1 on that list.

“It’s very discouraging,” Edwards said. “Just the fact that he’s our best offensive playmaker. We need to get him the ball. For our offense to go, he needs to go. In order for him to go, we need to throw him the ball.”

Part of the problem was that Edwards appeared to get gun-shy about throwing downfield after he was intercepted three times in the first quarter. That would explain offensive coordinator Turk Schonert’s assertion that throwing the ball to Evans was certainly part of the game plan.

“It wasn’t that we didn’t try,“ said Schonert. “He was open three or four times down the field and Trent went elsewhere with the ball. Believe me, I try to get him the ball. He’s our money guy.

“One got tipped. Trent, like I said, misread a couple and didn’t get it to him. We’re always going to try to get him the football. He didn’t disappear. He was there and played hard. I dialed up his number a half a dozen times, but it was just one of those nights where he didn’t get it.”

Evans believes he will start getting the ball more if the Bills continue to rush the way they did against Cleveland.

That was one of the positives that came out of the disappointing Cleveland game, the fact that the Bills were finally able to run the ball (season-high 186 yards) and they scored some points.

“I think it’s hard for a defense to line up and play deep zone all game long because when they do that, you’re able to run the football effectively,” he said.

“I think that’s what you saw later in that football game. That’s the answer, being able to run the football effectively and then when you run them out of that (deep coverage), then you get opportunities. But it came so late in the football game that we really didn’t have too many opportunities, and I think that’s the difference.”

Edwards’ confidence is now a hot button topic in western New York, but Evans is not worried about the second-year pro, and he won’t be lobbying the coaching staff to put in his old bombs-away buddy, J.P. Losman, when the Bills travel to Kansas City this weekend.

“I’m not concerned about Trent,” Evans said. “I think he has a very good mentality. I think he comes out here to work and he’s positive moving forward.

”I’m not concerned about his mindset.”