Too Many Mocks Give Bills Green

I wish that "Green" meant money in the title, but it means receiver AJ Green (Not to be confused with the accusèd murderer of Mr. Boddy and undercover FBI agent of the Hasbro board game/Paramount Pictures' year of the Ox release, "Clue" (1985), Mr. John Green.

I think it's worth noting that in 2010, with relatively little expected of them, the unheralded Buffalo Bills receiving corps but up superb numbers. The only real disappointment was Lee Evans who we, the Bills faithful, hope will either bounce back next season in a big way, relinquish his designated #1 receiver role for a more complimentary role (what I think is most probable), or be traded for something OF VALUE (3rd round pick? maybe more?). Whether or not this is reflective of their individual talents, the ineptitude of defenses they faced, a hyperbolic perception based on low expectations (there's my psych background coming into play), Fitzpatrick's command behind center, or a mixture of these and any other factors is irrelevant. The Bills had a consistently productive receiving corps and will add one more play-maker to its ranks when 4th-rd pick, Easley, comes back from IR to compete in his sophomore season.

Yes, there will be an odd man out and many speculate that will be Evans. He has seen a drop in production over his past 2 seasons and suffered a tough injury near the end of 2010. However, he has a couple years left on his contract and I feel he is too talented, and too much a leader on this team to trade. He's experienced mixed success in an ever-changing offense and has never voiced a complaint, in that regard he is the antithesis of the enigmatic Eric Moulds, who departed when he had to compete for receptions with Evans. On a young team with young, talented receivers, I feel he's too valuable an asset to give up, at least at the moment. That is why it is my firm belief that AJ Green will not be a Bill come April.

Where were the 2010 Bills most inept? Running defense. While both Marcus Stroud and Dwan Edwards are veteran players, they did not make much of an impact in stopping the run, which is their main function in a 3-4 defense. Last year the Bills drafted Alex Carrington who looks like he could eventually take over for Dwan Edwards. Who's going to take over for Stroud, one of the oldest players, if not THE oldest player on our defense. If either Fairley or Bowers is on the board at #3, I can't see the Bills passing up the opportunity to get a stout defensive talent to fortify the league's worst run defense. One of those two players should be the Bills 1st round pick in 2011.

If they happen to be picked at 1 and 2, I think the Bills then have to go with another defensive position of need. I'm not college football expert so I am in no position to evaluate talent of college players. I just regurgitate what I read and hear. Knowing the Bills have signed Merriman to a contract and have Arthur Moats as a yet-to-be-consistent player but still a fine play maker thus far, I don't think they'll opt to go with a linebacker in the first round. We also Danny Batten coming off of IR this season so we'll get to see what he's made of. If they can't draft top 3 defensive line talent then I think they need to go with Peterson at CB. The impetus behind this is that there are a few playmakers in Buffalo's defensive backfield (SS Whitner and CB Florence, who each had solid seasons and I wouldn't mind seeing either/both of them back), who will be free agents and might go wherever the cash leads them, which may or may not be Buffalo. Whitner will not likely be in Buffalo in 2011 unless he and the front office can reach a compromise. Another factor to consider is that Buffalo's starting CB's, McGee and McKelvin, haven't been playing too well as of late. McGee is great when he isn't injured, so like 40% of the time, and McKelvin is black or white. He makes breathtaking plays, the variable is for which team he makes them. So Peterson is the obvious 3rd candidate for our 3rd pick.

I'll be listening for indications of which way the Bills are leaning before making a final prognostication on the Bills round 1 pick. I'm so far 1 for 1 in calling who the Bills pick on buffalobills.com, didn't win the contest, though I am happy that Spiller is a Bill and hopeful he'll have a good season in 2011. I don't care if I'm right or wrong, but I'm pulling for Bowers or Fairley, either of which I'd be thrilled about. If Luck wants to renege and declare for the draft, I'd be fine with that too. At least that way if we didn't get our DE of the future we'd have a franchise QB. Hey, I can dream.

RIP Cookie Gilchrist

Former Buffalo Bills fullback, Cookie Gilchrist, passed away Monday due to a hard-fought bout with cancer. He was 75 years old at the time of his death. He's most remembered by Bills fans as being the best running back of the club's AFL years and the man in our backfield in our '64 and '65 championship seasons. I never had the good fortune to see the man play but I do know he was the first AFL player to eclipse 1,000 yards rushing in a season and set a (then) pro football record 243 yards rushing in a single game (including 5 TD's). To read a lot more about his career and his life I recommend checking out the links on the Buffalo Bills website. Here's another link to a video done in memoriam. Also, a great write up on the AFC East blog on ESPN.com.



Cookie Gilchrist, 1935-2011

Recognition Well-Deserved

A heart-felt congratulations to Buffalo's Kyle Williams for making it to the pro bowl (albeit as an alternate). This is recognition he should have had initially, but at the very least he was a first alternate and will be making the trip to Hawaii. Buffalo Rumblings posted a link to pro football focus who gave him the honor of Defensive Player of the Year, and though he probably won't even factor in defensive MVP talks, his body of work, regardless of the team he played for, says he probably should. Here's a good link from Buffalo Rumblings which sums up his first ever pro bowl season.



Congratulations, Meatball, you earned it.

For my 53+ Dead Homies

As foreshadowed by a decade of ineptitude, the Bills finished a far cry from a farther cry away from the playoffs. That said, it was to be expected and they did fulfill my expectations as far as their record was concerned. I thought 4-6 wins would come from this team and hey, we got 4, one or two of which were exciting to watch. My overall observations of the team are that, for the most part, the positions at which we appeared to be the weakest, we were in fact the weakest (perhaps the only exception to that would be quarterback) but we played beyond the level of talent we had as a team.

Both sides of the line, the linebackers, tight ends, and secondary played right up to their potential and no further. The receiving corps and quarterback were, to many, a surprise. I thought we had talent at receiving coming into the year but Fitz really did make his presence known in a much bigger way than I think anyone really anticipated. For me, he was the biggest surprise of the season and due to his performance, we are now left to wonder whether or not the Bills will put QB high on their priorities this April. He earned his beard with the way he took command of the team.

As for disappointments, there are many but I'd like to really look at #21.

CJ Spiller was predicted to be in contention for offensive rookie of the year before the season started, and rightfully so. He had a great preseason, was ranked #1 at his position and was drafted very highly. Unfortunately, he split time at the beginning with Lynch and Jackson, never was able to find his footing between the tackles, battled with his butterfingers both rushing and returning, and as a result, turned in a pedestrian freshman season. How unprecedented....Well no, not at all. We've seen this before but it has been a while.

OJ Simpson (striking resemblance to CJ Spiller, two intitials and a seven letter last name beginning with "S"), the Bills' #1 draft choice in '69 had similar production and after two seasons bore the label "bust" just as Maybin does now and just as some premature evaluators have labeled Spiller.

The Juice's rookie season was mediocre for a number #1 halfback and #1 overall pick. A few yards shy of 700 rushing, 2 rushing TD's, a yards/carry average of 3.85, 343 yards receiving, 3 receiving TD's, a yards/reception average of 11.4 and 6 fumbles.

Spiller's rookie campaign? Playing "Other Guy" to Jackson's "Blankman", Spiller racked up a paltry 283 yards rushing, 0 TD's, a yards/carry average of 3.82, 157 yards receiving, 1 receiving TD, a per reception average of 6.5 yards and 5 fumbles (mostly on special teams).

The most glaring differences are in the receiving numbers and fumbles. In receiving, maybe you could argue that having hall of famer, Jack Kemp, throwing to you would improve your numbers. Call me crazy but I think that's a factor to consider. By comparison, Jackson this year had a per-catch average of 6.9 yards, so to me that says it's more the function of who's throwing or what plays are called than the talent of the player. As for fumbles, Spiller fumbled once every 31 times he carried the ball (including special teams, excluding fair catches), OJ fumbled once every 39 times (including special teams, excluding fair catches), this is inexcusable to me and I see that as an area Spiller really needs to work on.

All in all, I think the two are a lot more similar than they are different. For 3 years, Bills' fans knew OJ as "stutter-step Simpson". Then Lou Saban came back to Buffalo and he got the electric company to turn on the "Juice". Right now we have the "plumbers union" as our O-line and instead of being locked down tight and sealing off blocks, they're letting blockers leak through and Spiller, well, he'll spill the ball every now and then with that kind of blocking. For argument's sake I'll mention Jackson's average of 4.18 yards/carry this year, not much better. Again, to me blocking is the bigger issue. That's a decrease of about a third of a yard per carry from his average last year and he fumbled once more this year than last on 77 fewer touches, special teams included.

So yes, Spiller's first season didn't go so well and was a disappointment, but I'm not gonna sell the guy short. Let's keep it in perspective before throwing the word "bust" around. OJ wasn't the "Juice" until he had a coach that put the pieces around him for him to succeed, and with top talent like he and Spiller both have, he got himself a bronze bust in Canton. Spiller showed flashes of brilliance but needs to learn the game at an NFL pace. He's got the talent but he needs some more talent blocking for him in order to take his game to where a top tier RB's should be and become a bust in Canton, not a bust in the 2010 draft.

Honorable mention disappointment: Special teams. We got better at covering as the year progressed but it seemed like at the beginning teams were averaging 30 yards per return no problem. Also Moorman and Lindell slumped through parts of the season which is atypical for both of them.

Honorable mention disappointment: Turnovers/turnover differential. The last two games were outliers. The Bills had little to play for and it showed in how they played, giving up 13 turnovers in those two games alone and greatly skewing their -17 turnover differential for the season. Still, on the heels of a season where they nearly lead the league in interceptions it's appalling that they didn't start picking off passes and forcing turnovers until the last 8 weeks of the season. This shows we truly need a pass rush and a stout defensive front that can get to the ball sooner and disrupt plays. I think out safeties played decently, though there were many horrible plays with missed tackles and reads, but all-in-all Byrd had a more well-rounded season this year and Whitner played his heart out to make plays. The corners didn't do enough to force turnovers. How many times did you see tight coverage on a receiver who just beat the defender to the ball? McKelvin was picked on all year, McGee was injured, Florence was baited into costly penalties...it just wasn't pretty. I have to say that they had some rhythm near the end of the season but the switch from zone to man coverage was slow and costly on the secondary.

My 2 favorite players of 2010: Kyle Williams, aka Meatball, and Stevie Johnson aka Stevie Styles aka The Joker. It was fun watching these guys play and they kept me interested despite the score of whatever the game. Williams deserved a probowl nod and was snubbed and you could argue the same for Stevie Styles (I bet if his drop vs. the Steelers hadn't occurred and been so highly publicized he'd have been going to the bowl). These guys really turned out to be something special and I'm eager to see them on the field again, hopefully with some better people surrounding them and allowing them to make more plays. Also Arthur "Legend Killer" Moats turned out to be a find and could turn out to be a great pass rusher depending on what happens with Merriman and the incoming draft class.

Most Consistent Player: Poz, this guy HAS to come back next year. Sign him, and sign him for a long contract. He may miss a game or two, but if you can do that and still put up career numbers you are a solid player.

Honorable Mention Consistent Player(s): Eric Wood and Kyle Williams. They are some of the best linemen in the business and we need to stack some more linemen around them. If we can hit on some linemen this year, we'll have something special going because we already have the base of our offensive and defensive lines.

In summation, though their record met my expectations, the Bills' of 2010 exceeded my expectations in how they played. A run-first team became an aerial threat, if only for a few weeks and took much more talented teams by surprise, gave them a run for their money, and gave their fans a thrill or two and a few ulcers. If I think anything comes out of this season it's respect from other players who came into some of the games thinking they'd get an easy W and 70 minutes later walking out like they'd been hit by a bulldozer. The Bills now have an identity again as a team that won't quit no matter the score, no matter the time on the clock, and no matter what the odds-makers say. With some more discipline and some more talent, Buffalo can have a team. I tip my hat to Chan on the coaching job he and his staff did, and though it wasn't a great season for the Bills, I'm proud of how they played and excelled in many ways when perhaps they should not have.

Maybe we'll soon see some flashes of the Levy-era Bills in the years to come. Bills who play inspired by this excerpt from the Ballad of Sir Andrew Barton which all Bills' fans should know by heart because it epitomizes the wagon-circling spirit of the never-die Buffalo Bills and is one of Levy's most famous quotes:

"Fight on, my men," says Sir Andrew Barton,
"I am hurt, but I am not slain;
I'll lay me down and bleed a while,
And then I'll rise and fight again.

heh heh, hells yeah Bills!