Archives for September 2, 2003

In a move that some observers regard as curious and others see as cutting edge, five teams — Buffalo, Denver, Indianapolis, San Diego and Washington — will begin the season with only two quarterbacks on their active rosters.

After re-evaluating James Stewart’s shoulder injury, the Lions decided to put on him on season-ending injured reserve Tuesday. After injuring the shoulder in Detroit’s final preseason game against the Bills, it was originally thought that Stewart would only miss the first three or four weeks of the season. While Stewart’s injury obviously hurts, Detroit addressed its lack of depth at tailback over the weekend by acquiring Olandis Gary from the Bills.

We apologize for the inconvenience, but we had to turn off guest access to our message board because of server load. We will allow guests back in once the Lawyer Milloy situation dies down.

The Chicago Bears signed G Corbin Lacina to a one-year deal today and made room on the 53-man roster by waiving T Bernard Robertson. Originally drafted in the sixth round (167th overall) of the 1993 draft by Buffalo, Lacina has played in 121 career games with 79 starts, playing for the Bills for five seasons (1993-97).

”’I’ll tell you what, I became so comfortable with the whole situation here so quickly, I feel like I’ve been here a lot longer than I have,” Bledsoe said. ”I feel young again and excited about playing.”’

Armed with Drew Bledsoe’s endorsement, the Buffalo Bills have already contacted Milloy’s agents and made an opening contract proposal, ESPN.com has learned.

‘For the past six years, Skorupan has worked as the director of business development for Marsico Corporation, which is a commercial general contractor in Pittsburgh. "We’re about a $30 million company and half of our work is done through private negotiated work. The other part is through bidding process. We do schools, hotels, office buildings. So I work with developers and architects and try to negotiate projects (in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio)."’

‘"This is a game we all want to jump on and redeem ourselves because we didn’t play as well as we probably could have last year against them," Williams said. "We made some strides against some of the other teams. Now our guys have a real good, focused approach that what has to happen (on Sunday). I like their attitude, I like their work ethic and I like their concentration level right now. They’re pretty focused."’

‘But the workload was misleading. The Bills were giving Gary every chance to impress them, to show flashes of his 1,159-yard season of 1999. Morris had done all his impressing early in training camp, demonstrating time and again his sure hands, his ability to run after the catch, his desire to expand his duties beyond special teams.’

‘”We’ll see how it goes,” Donahoe said after practice Monday. “We’re comfortable at least starting out that way.”‘

‘” I went home and got in shape, started lifting weights and ran a bunch and made strides in the mini-camps,” he said. ” I was able to get some good reps and work on the things that I needed to work on, and that’s what helped me the most. I think I improved a bunch because of the mini-camps. I wanted to progress throughout the four preseason games, and I think I did that. I played better each game.”‘

‘Gary auditioned — unknowingly — for the Lions in Thursday night’s final exhibition game. He gained 57 yards on 16 carries. When Stewart went out on the second possession of the game, President Matt Millen began talking to Bills General Manager Tom Donohoe.’

‘Instead of backing up Bills running back Travis Henry, however, Gary found himself as the No. 3 running back with the possibility of rookie Willis McGahee getting off the reserve/non-football injury list in mid-season. So when the Lions approached the Bills with a trade, Gary didn’t mind making the move to a team that had lost its own starting back — James Stewart — indefinitely to a shoulder injury.’

‘The Bills are trying to reach an injury settlement with the four-year veteran, opening the possibility of re-signing him after Week 10 of the season.’

‘”Olandis was probably going to have a hard time making this team,” said Bills President/General Manager Tom Donahoe. “That’s not a knock against Olandis. Some people just did really well this summer. Sammy Morris had a great camp, Joe Burns, Travis and obviously the two full backs. We felt that when we looked at the final numbers we could only keep five running backs.”‘