Category: Current Bills

Last week I posted an article on my blog at BuffaloBills.com stating five very good reasons to be optimistic about our offense. And I still believe all of those are true. I am very excited about the offense next year for those five (and MORE) reasons!

But what about the defense?

When you hear people talk about how the Bills are at best a long shot to make the playoffs in 2007, it mostly revolves around the loss of three key veteran players – all from the defensive side of the ball. Nate Clements, London Fletcher, and Takeo Spikes. Those three guys have had some serious impact for the Buffalo Bills over the past several years.

Fletcher has led the team in tackles (being named the 2006 Buffalo Bills Review Season MVP, and a closer runner up in 2007!) and was a leader in the locker room.

Spikes was another emotional team leader whom all the players respected and looked up to. His play on the field was mostly absent for 2006, even when he was dressed and playing. He wasn’t the same TKO.

Clements is probably a different story. He will be missed to be sure. But the fact that the Bills did not go out and get another CB of similar ability… makes you think they must be at least somewhat satisfied with who they have now.

All three of those guys contributed while they were here in big, big ways. They were great Buffalo Bills, and we cheered for all of them. But now they’re gone, and it’s someone else’s turn to step up. And if you really look at it, we’re losing a player who was mostly gone (Spikes), a player that didn’t fit the Bills’ defensive scheme (Fletcher), and an overpriced DB ($80Million?!??!) When you look at it that way, it doesn’t seem so bad.

Let’s take a look at a few things that we can really look forward to this season on defense.

A Great, Young Defensive Line
Well, the first DL you might think of on our team is not really so young… but he is great. Pro Bowl DE, Aaron Schobel, returns to anchor the right side of our line, as does his bookend Chris Kelsay. Rumblings of grumblings regarding the contract Kelsay signed this off-season were likely a bit overblown as Schobel was at the mini-camps, and doesn’t seem to have as much of a problem with his salary as everyone else does. Add to those guys Ryan Denney (similar player to Kelsay), a decent DE in Anthony Hargrove, and then a couple other guys for depth during training camp… and we’re pretty good at DE.

The biggest problem last year was stopping the run consistently. That usually is up to your big ol’ fat guys in the middle. Problem is, we don’t have too many of those. In comes Darwin Walker via trade with the Eagles. Or, does he? Walker (as you all know) has not reported to the Bills yet, and it’s looking like he never will. This was the one big move the Bills made to add depth to what most feel is a sorely lacking position, and so far it has not gone through.

Who does that leave them with? Well, a pretty good stable of guys, actually. Veteran Larry Triplett returns, along with youngsters Kyle Williams, a repaired John McCargo, and Tim Anderson. McCargo was a first-round choice last year, so if he’s healthy, we could expect some great play from him. The other guys seem to be good enough that the coaching staff is happy with them. They all fit the mold of the light-but-quick DL the Bills scheme calls for.

Question is, with mostly no additions to this group, what will allow them to improve on a very bad run-stopping defense last year? One more year of experience, a healthy McCargo, and being more comfortable/familiar with the scheme may help… but again, will it be enough?

Great youth and talent at LB
Bills fans rejoiced when their team moved up in the second round to get Paul Posluszny from Penn State. Many hoped he would be our first round choice, but after landing Marshawn Lynch with that pick, perhaps gave up hope. After the trade, most Bills fans were elated beyond words. Lynch & Poz are an exciting start to the 2007 Buffalo Bills draft! And from the film I have seen of him, including interviews on BuffaloBills.com, he seems like the real deal. He was definitely worth trading up.

Beyond “Poz”, the Bills have some great young depth at LB. Angelo Crowell returns along with Keith Ellison, both of whom played well as starters last season. Crowell now (by default) assumes the role of “leader” as he has the most experience of the group – going into his FIFTH season.

Add to those three (likely) starters Josh Stamer and John DiGiorgio, and a handful more for training camp, and there is some pretty raw talent in the linebacking corp for the Bills this coming season. The problem is they are SO green. We have no idea till they get out on the field whether that will help or not. Time will tell…

Great youth and talent at DB
But… I thought we lost our best DB? How can we still have “great youth and talent” at DB?

Remember last year’s draft? The Bills picked SS Donte Whiter with the 8th overall pick. Donte Whitner??!? And then they picked Ko Simpson and Ashton Youboty. THREE DBs in the TOP FOUR PICKS? That seemed insane. But after watching Whitner and Simpson play together as perhaps one of the better safety tandems in the league last year – one has to be at least slightly optimistic. And add to those two this year’s 6th round pick, John Wendling. Apparently quite the player himself.

But what about CB? With Nate gone… and McGee a bit suspect last year, aren’t Tom Brady and Randy Moss, Donte Stallworth, Ben Watson, Wes Welker, and even Kyle Brady going to eat us alive??? Maybe. But maybe not.

(SIDENOTE: Do you think if Tom connects with Kyle more than once this season they might start calling the Pats the “Brady Bunch”?) 🙂

If the Bills felt there was a hole at the CB spot for them, they sure didn’t try very hard to fill it. We brought in Jason Webster from Atlanta, who has starting experience, but is relatively unknown. I guess we’re expecting Ashton Youboty to step in and play well despite no NFL starts. Beyond that we have some depth returning from last season in Jabari Greer and Kiwaukee Thomas. Most of the other guys are complete unknowns.

This position (defensive backfield) seems to me to be the weakest spot on the D. (Perhaps rivaled by defensive tackle.) While our starting safeties seem great (and that rookie we drafted!) I can’t help but wonder who’s going to step up and take on the other team’s number one receiver. Who’s going to step up?

I’m not sure… but I am sure there are going to be a lot of guys trying!

There are certainly less reasons to be optimistic about the defense this year – at least, fewer proven reasons. This season is all about potential. Mostly on offense. Perhaps the team pulls it together and surprises everyone. Perhaps we make the playoffs on the backs of some very young, as yet unproven talent that will prove itself for the first time this season.

Perhaps.

Until we see them on the field, against other players in full pads and hitting full-on, we can only take our best guess. And if that’s what we’re doing, why would we not BILLieve? 🙂

(Published to BBR @ BuffaloBills.com.)

My first reaction on Saturday was SHOCK. Seriously. I had said on our pre-draft show last week that the only thing I was certain of is that we wouldn’t have any idea who the #1 pick was, or why in the world the Bills chose him. So, what happened? The Bills picked the #2 RB in the draft… which is what people thought they might do! The “experts” are never right about the Bills!!!

AND THEN…

The Bills Brain Trust wheeled and dealed (or is that dealt?) to get the second pick in the second round and we took “Poz” – ANOTHER player whom the Bills were “expected” to draft, and who has “name recognition”.

“Are these really my Bills??” I thought.

Indeed they are. Quite a draft for Tom, Dick & Marvy this weekend. We got the top two players we were targeting (Of course, Peterson and Willis would have been nice, too) and we got some quality, intelligent, hard-working, character guys. Just like we always do.

Character, you say? I thought Marshawn Lynch has some “character issues”? Well, apparently not. I know that’s the #1 thing for Marv at least, and I think Jauron as well. And if he says they looked into it and found nothing… then I think we can be sure that we don’t have another “Willis” on our hands.

Phew! 🙂

Now what about football? Can these guys play? Why in the world did we draft a QB??? And TWO RBs???

Let’s take a quick glance at the draftees. (click their photos for an awesome in-depth bio from BuffaloBills.com!)

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This guy sounds great. You could tell before the draft that the Big Guys were pretty high on Lynch. Comparing him to Marshall Faulk and LT? (Well, at least Faulk… I think Lynch might have mentioned LT…)

If Fairchild, who worked with Faulk in St. Louis, can get similar production out of Lynch, this will be a fantastic pick up for the Bills. He’s strong, quick, makes people miss, and he’s got great hands… Jauron spoke very highly of him.

No, I don’t think we’re going to miss Willis at all… 🙂

“Poz”, as he is referred to (for good reason, since I still have to check the spelling of his name every time I type it here…) was a GREAT acquisition by the Bills in round 2. I’d imagine that he was in their sights at pick #12, but Lynch was rated higher, so they grabbed him. When Poz kept slipping further down, Levy said they were trying to trade up even earlier than the second pick in round two.

He’s a heady, gutsy, hard-working, intelligent kid… compares to Shane Conland of his Alma Mater… and just seems like a great fit in Buffalo, and in our current defense. Fast, good tackler, all around great. He’s a fantastic pick-up for the Bills.

Just based on picks one and two in the 2007 draft, the Bills had a successful draft! But, let’s go on…

This pick surprised me in a couple ways. First, I had heard Edwards’ name as a “sleeper” pick for a team looking for a QB. He was rated pretty high as a “second tier” QB. But, then, I didn’t think the Bills were serious enough about getting a QB that they would spend a third round pick on him. What Jauron said was that he was so far above anyone else on the board at their pick they had to take him.

It’s a good pick. We do need a backup QB, and apparently, Edwards will compete with Nall for that position. If nothing else, we could have a really good backup that could benefit us in a trade (Matt Schaub?) later on. Good pick by the Bills!

I have to admit… after the first two picks, I was expecting the Bills draft to go a bit more along the “Yeah, I thought they might do that” route. But… this pick was another “Huh?” pick.

After landing Lynch, I figured the Bills would concentrate the rest of their picks on perhaps a CB or two. Maybe another LB for depth. But apparently, they felt they were better off getting some depth at RB in the draft. With pick #4, the Bills selected another West Coast player – RB Dwayne Wright. Both Wright and Lynch are excited to be together in the Buffalo Bills backfield, looking forward to being an effective 1-2 punch. Lynch likes what he has seen of Wright, and vice versa.

The Bills weren’t done bolstering their backfield, as we’ll see in round seven below…

Bills’ Blogger, wyORbilZfan posted an article today about John Wendling – who comes from her own back yard – that tells a lot about this pick. He’s smart, the essential Levy-esque quality – and he’s hard working… very talented. The Bills spoke very highly of not only his character and work ethic, but his athletic ability too. Apparently, he’s quite a find at round six.

This was our only DB pick in the draft. That was a bit of a surprise to me, and he’s not a corner, either. Levy said that means that the guys we have are going to have to step up and fill in. We’ll see if Youboty and Greer and Co. are up to the challenge…

Read wyO’s article for lots more about Wendling. Great stuff!

What is the deal with all these west coast guys?? 🙂 And, this was the third back taken by the Bills in this draft. Not to mention, he’s a fullback, which the Bills seemed to say they had no use for in their offensive scheme. So what gives?

Apparently, this guy is very much in the mould of our current TEs, Cieslak and Neufeld. They can play multiple positions. They can catch passes from the TE spot, or line up and block in the backfield. They can even carry the ball if needed, but that will not be their main focus by any means.

This guy seems to fit the bill for a Buffalo Bill draft choice. Good athlete, hard worker, very intelligent… definitely paid off for us in the later rounds last year (Keith Ellison, Terrance Pennington, et al). I imagine we’ll see the same thing from our late-rounders this year too.

Ah Who? This guy wins the “strange name” award hands down! Even with a guy who we have to call “Poz” in that list! Wow!

Turns out that Marv has some connections with CJ’s uncle (they worked together in the past, I believe Marv coached a team he was on in Canada. Marv said he was the Canadian Bruce Smith) and they happened to run into each other somewhere, and that may have helped this selection happen. Not saying this is a nepotism thing… just that Ah You might have been more on the radar with Marv knowing a bit aobut his genes. (He mentioned that in his press conference too.)

Ah You seems to be no different than all the Bills’ draft picks. Intelligent, hard-worker. There were some “character issues” … but Marv said (similarly to the Lynch situation) that when they looked into it, they found nothing.

There might be some question about his knees as he has had some injury trouble, but the Bills medical staff cleared him, and Marv seemed happy with that. A healthy Ah You adds depth to a pretty solid position for the Bills: DE.

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Overall, I love this draft. I think that’s a good thing. 🙂 I mean last year I wasn’t really thrilled with the draft the day after, but the Bills staff were, and so I learned to love it. And then when they started playing, how can you argue with EVERY pick making the team and most everyone having some contribution, including several starters?

This year, I think the biggest thing is those top two picks. I’m sure we’ll find some gems from the lower round picks, but you gotta love the way we landed two starters from the top two picks. Both Lynch and Poz should have an impact on the 2007 Buffalo Bills for sure.

There will likely be some more players added to the fold, but the 2007 Bills are pretty much assembled… now it’s time for the off-season workouts and mini camps and all that… and we’re only a few months away from Training Camp here in my back yard… I’m getting pretty excited!

I love the young group that Tom, Dick and Marvy have assembled, and can’t wait to see them on the field! No coaching or front office changes, no scheme changes… they can just go out and do what they did last year… better.

Look out NFL… here come the BUFFALO BILLS!

The NFL released the 2007 schedule today, and I grabbed it as soon as it was posted to BuffaloBills.com. (Nice job, website guys!) I, like many Bills fans, was quite eager to see when we were playing and where, and which games were on national television, etc.

What I saw was intriguing. It was very nice to see that indeed we will be playing on Monday night this season. An event from which the Bills have been omitted for six seasons. The game against Dallas is a home game, which is even more rare. We have not been on MNF at home since 1994!

A few things stand out. Our first three games are against recent Super Bowl champs. (Recent being used quite elastically there…) We open against Denver, then we have back to back road games against Pittsburgh and New England. Granted, these teams are not what they used to be (some might argue that NE, possibly Denver, are much improved through free agency). However, at first glance, the names strike at least a little fear in the hearts of Bills fans.

Following that apparently tough start, the Bills have a stretch of three straight home games. Those include the previously mentioned Monday Night affair, as well as the most anticipated home game of the 2007 season – the return of Willis McGahee to The Ralph. We also play the NY Jets in that stretch.

What I see at the start of the season is teams who have been tough in the past, who may or may not be that tough in 2007. Assuming LOTS of things (Bills finding another RB in the draft or trades, at least one more LB, maybe a WR, and the other teams playing at least similarly to how they did in 2006…) the Bills could pretty easily go 4-2 in the first six games. Going 2-1 to start, and then 2-1 in the three home game stretch.

Of course, all such predicting is somewhat ludicrous. We have no idea what this team, or any other team is going to look like in 2007. We’re just too far away from actual football!

It’s fun to predict, and I’d have to say at first glance, we start out 4-2, maybe lose to the Jets, and probably one or two more… maybe climb to 7-4 or even 8-4. But in the end, we have no way of knowing that. My gut feeling is that this year we will see another team around .500 (7-9 to maybe 10-6). But so much could change before we get there.

One interesting thing about this schedule was the positioning of two of the four NFC games at the very end of the schedule. Non-conference games are much less important in determining playoff teams. Division, then conference records matter much more. So, it just seemed odd that we would finish the season with games against the NY Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles. So, if the Bills are in the hunt, (you never know!) those games might not be that important?

Also, as we all know, in addition to facing Willis here in Buffalo, the Bills will also face former 2006 teammates in Washington on Dec 2nd, and then to end the season on Dec 30th.

And one final (good) thing about the schedule is that instead of 4 of our last 6 games being at The Ralph (where it was hard to sell out at such a time of year in 2006) this season the Bills will have 4 of their final 6 games on the road. We do get to play Miami at home in December, though. That’s always a good thing!

Overall, though the opponents seem daunting, I think it’s a fairly entertaining schedule. The Bills (assuming we fill in a bit more in the draft) will be competitive in every game on that list. Every one. We obviously won’t win every one, but there isn’t a team on there that they can’t hang with.

I can’t wait! Bring on Bills Football!!!!

Two posts in one day! Wow! Though, this one is more of a “flash back”…

When the Takeo talk ramped up recently, culminating in his trade to Philadelphia, I was reminded of an article I had posted here sometime mid-way through last season. I just pondered whether the Bills might consider trading him, while they could still get some value from him. Turns out I was right, and the Bills did deal Spikes.

As I was doing some “house keeping” on the ol’ blog here today, I went to check out that article, and it was interesting reading the comments from Bills fans then. Most people thought me to be quite insane to even suggest such a thing. But is that still the case? If you’ve the interest, or the time, take a look at my article from October 16th, 2006 (link disabled) and consider what the Bills ended up getting for him (and giving up? Holcomb was part of the deal, too!). Comments are certainly welcome.

I do believe it was a good move by the Bills, for the team. I am still a Takeo fan, and will be rooting him on (as well as Kelly Holcomb) in the City of Brotherly Love (though I am definitely not a big fan of the Eagles…)

Enjoy the blast from the past… but I can’t wait for the draft… and BUFFALO BILLS FOOTBALL! 🙂

(Guess I’m starting to get that “off-season itch”…) 🙂