NFL Preview: Buffalo Bills

by Bstone, Brahsome

I don’t even really know why, but I’m high on the Bills this season. Well, I know why, but I don’t know that they’re good reasons. Has J.P Losman really proved that he’s a fully capable NFL starter? Possibly. Do I have a tremendous man-crush on Lee Evans? Most assuredly. Do I think that Marshawn Lynch is going to cruise to the 2007 NFL Rookie of the Year award? You bet your sweet hot celebrity ass I do. Look, the Bills can’t win their division. No way, no how what with the Patriots being so f’ing stacked and all. But the Jets are overrated after last year and the Dolphins are horrible. Buffalo takes their bye in Week 6. Shouldn’t they beat a pair of overrated Cowboys and Jets teams? Yes, they should. And why can’t they piss one out at Pittsburgh or at home against Denver in the opener? They’re probably going to lose two to New England, one to Cincy and one to Baltimore guaranteed. Well, look. Going over the entire schedule isn’t really necessary. Let’s just point out that they go Washington, Miami, Cleveland, Giants, Philly to close out the season. 9-7 could get them the Wild Card and should be good enough for second in the division.

Going Deep
The 2003 draft looked pretty good for the Bills last year. J.P. Losman and Lee Evans hooked up for a score of deep bombs, even if a lot of them were with Buffalo down significant points already. Evans ended up with 1,292 receiving yards on the season, a big chunk of which came when he exploded for 265 yards on 11 catches and two TDs at Houston in November (yeah, he was on my effing bench in fantasy, and yean, I won’t ever draft Chris effing Chambers again. Grr.) and while he went scoreless for the first four weeks of the season, he also closed out with a TD in four straight games to close out the season and seven scores in the last two months of the season. He’s a deep threat who can torch big cornerbacks, but both he and Losman are going to need one of Roscoe Parrish or Josh Reed to finally step up and produce if the Bills want to win, and Evans wants to repeat his success from 2006. Losman completed 62 percent of his passes for 3,000 some yards and 19 touchdowns—the 14 picks aren’t a great ratio maker though. Losman will need to wisen up on his decision making and learn to hang onto the ball more—13 fumbles last season—but it’s reasonable to expect some progression as he enters his second season as the full time starting quarterback. He will, of course, need some help from…

The Running Game
Gone is the whiny, Buffalo-hating and overrated Willis McGahee. After calling out the city that was willing to give him a second chance, the Bills shipped him off to Baltimore, where Willis got a questionable fat new contract. Then Buffalo swooped in and got Marshawn Lynch with their first round pick in the NFL draft. And maybe I’m high—er—maybe I’m higher on Lynch than a lot of other people, but I think he’s a stone cold lock for 1,500 total yards and a Rookie of the Year award. Of course, I also thought that the Braves were going to take back the East this year and the Panthers were Super Bowl bound in ’06, so you can do what you want with my fantasy information (although I generally recommend taking it). It can’t be ignored either, that’s he a significantly greater receiving threat out of the backfield than Willis, to the point that I believe he’ll be considered an elite back in terms of receptions and yardage. Which means that even the Buff-n-hoes are locked into an L and playing catch up, Marshawn is still going to get his; of course they won’t have to worry about catch up if some of the other units can do their j-o-b’s…

Defense and Special Teams
Time was, about two years ago, that the Bills were considered an elite defensive and special teams unit, at least in the fantasy realm. They scored a ton of points on that end and shut teams down in Losman and Evans’ rookie year. Since then, things have gone in the opposite direction of progression on both ends of the spectrum. This defense will be good…eventually. But first, the younger Buffalo players have to fill the holes that the departures of London Baker-Fletcher, Nate Clements and Takeo Spikes. Paul Posluzsny will be filling in at one linebacking spot, but even though the Bills claim he was the highest rated player on their entire draft board (really?), perhaps they’ll need more than that to keep the level of LB play where it was before. Angelo Crowell and Keith Ellison will be helping out as well, since the Penn State product can’t actually stop the run solo. Levy and the administration are high on this LB corps, but the immediate future might not be when they turn into the destructive unit some believe they may be. The time is now though, for Terrence McGee, who will take over as the number one cornerback on the roster with Clements gone. There’s a large group of decent defensive lineman—I’ll take homer pick John McCargo to break out this year and Aaron Schobel to lead the way—that will need to really improve against the run for the Bills to live up to some people’s (mine) lofty expectations.

So yeah, I’m taking them to make the playoffs as a Wild Card team behind the Pats—the Jets are overrated and Miami’s just not good. Now, it’s entirely possible that some of the…um…nine wins are a result of coming from behind, but Losman to Evans has worked before and It’ll work again.

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