‘The Bills, sans The Big Three and 15 players overall from last season’s 11-5 playoff club, are relishing the opportunity to disprove the consensus opinion that they’ve lost too much firepower to remain a Super Bowl contender. They say people are overrating the loss of golden-oldie stars like Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith and Andre Reed and underrating their young, talented replacements like Shawn Bryson, Marcellus Wiley and Peerless Price. They say that yes, the team will feature seven new starters, but there are also 15 returnees, forming the nucleus of a defense that ranked No. 1 in the NFL and a No. 11 offense that should be much more explosive with Johnson taking over for Doug Flutie.’