Good news, bad news. Which do you want first? Well, I’ll go with the good. You play in a division with the Jets and the Dolphins. (you get to play four games against those two teams in one season). Bad news is you also play the defending AFC Champion New England Patriots twice as well. Meet the 2008 Buffalo Bills.
This marks QB Trent Edwards’ first full year as the starter and he showed a lot of promise last year. Problem is he doesn’t have a whole lot to work with and at times when watching this team last year, it was painfully obvious. He has a solid RB in Marshawn Lynch, if he’s not in jail by opening weekend. (Lynch meets the NFL team guide’s quota of being required to have at least one ”off-the-field” problem guys. Most teams have more. Ask the Bengals).
Edwards also has Lee Evans as his top wideout. Problem is he was hurt most of last season and only had a few good games. He didn’t even surpass the 1,000 yard plateau (he had 849) which is relatively easy these days during a 16 game season. Further problem is, Evans is still hurt and may not even be in training camp.
Fortunately for Edwards, his team has a decent defense and with the free agent addition of Kawika Mitchell at LB (from NY Giants) and the addition of monster DT Marcus Stroud (Jacksonville). The Bills management has brought these two in to mesh with a defense that put up acceptable numbers last year. Unfortunately, it’s hard to win with relatively no offense.
Taking a look at this year’s schedule, you can pretty much chalk up losses at Jacksonville, at home against San Diego, both games vs. New England and on the road at Denver. Seattle will also be a tough opener at home. That’s potentially six losses right off the bat without even mentioning the other 10 games. The Bills finished 7-9 last year. This year don’t expect them to win more than nine. My pick is 8-8 if they remain healthy.
July 9, 2008 at 11:41 pm |
Bills fan here. So, I read through your post , and some of what you said just isn’t very accurate.
First being Lee Evans. Yes, he was slightly injured during the season. But he didn’t miss anytime because of this, and that’s also not why he had an awful season. There just was no #2 receiver. That’s why we drafted James Hardy.
He went for shoulder surgery this off season and will be good to go by training camp. He even participated some in minicamp and OTA’s.
Second. We have a decent defense? Our defense was god awful. Been that way for a couple season’s now.
I can’t remember the last time a RB had no gain on a play.
Hopefully the addictions of Stroud and Mitchell as well as many of our players returning from injuries can fix that.
July 10, 2008 at 7:35 am |
In response (in my defense), as you mentioned I stated the Bills had a ‘decent’ defense last year. That said, when checking the numbers, their defense was 18th (out of 32) in scoring (22.1 pts/gm), which is middle of the road. Hence the term ‘decent.’
In all fairness to you, in terms of yards given up, the Bills were 31st in the league, giving up a massive 362.9 pts/gm. The Bills showed some resolve though despite being so poor in giving up yardage in order to keep some of the potential points off the board. So I’m going to give us a push on the issue of defense.
Secondly, Lee Evans was only “slightly injured?” Are you kidding me? Even if the team had no other receivers, period, this guy – when healthy – catches a min. of 80 yds and a TD every game. However, I thought it was rather obvious particularly in the infamous Browns 8, Bills 0 snow bowl game last season that Evans (despite having numerous opportunities to catch passes thrown directly to him, physically wasn’t able to go all out to catch them) was not healthy. It was actually painful for me to watch.
Maybe I just took it a little personally since Lee was on my FFL team.
In a side note, Evans had three 100 yd games, one 98 yd game and no other games with more than 51 yds. You’re right though, with the addition of James Hardy, the wide receiving unit may be a little more potent.
July 10, 2008 at 10:20 am |
I like to hear that mention of James Hardy – it’s down to him and Limas Sweed as my rookie WR fantasy pick…
I do love when a fan is so disagreeable that he disagrees when you call a player bad AND his disagrees when you call his defense decent. That’s why I love blogging.