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Young didn't win any games over there. The defense won games. The coaches won games. ST won games. I don't recall him single-handedly winning any games. The team's W-L record was good. VY's own stats weren't stellar.

Will Coach Lee's coaching push Fitz's rating up 5 points this year? Did all the injuries to Fitz, FedEx, the O Line and the WR Corps cost Fitz 5 points last year? I think the comparison to Eli is a fair one.

There's a psychological phenomenon known as "the Pygmalion effect" which observes that people tend to perform the way their leaders/parents/teachers expect them to perform. People treated like winners tend to win. People treated like losers tend to lose. While Coach Lee may or may not know the term "Pygmalion effect" - I'm sure he knows the concept. Most good leaders and coaches do. So of course Lee's not going to say, "Fitz lacks the tools to succeed at this level." Bill Parcells notwithstanding, most good coaches will talk up the potential of their players to boost their self-confidence and self-esteem so the players work hard to live up to the perceived potential. I like Fitz and believe he can lead us to the playoffs. But I take the praise of coaches with a grain of salt.

If memory serves, the Marv Levy didn't win the time-of-possession battle very often with the K-Gun no-huddle offense. Yet we won a lot of games in those days. I'm not sure how much TOP means either. I'd go with turnover differential. Dominance of lines would be a good one, too, if more easily quantifiable.

In his pre-injury years, Merriman averaged about 13 sacks a year. Over the past three years, he's averaged about 1. So let's split the difference and say he gets 7 this year. I'm okay with that - especially because M. Williams ought to get 10+ and Anderson will push double-digits. Kelsay will get a few. Both K.Williams and M.Dareus are capable of 5+. And then the LBs and DBs may contribute a few more. If all these guys are healthy, what kind of blocking scheme can account for all of them? You can't double-team everybody. The Bleacher Report article, btw, was amateurishly written but I love the author's enthusiasm and the Dennis Hopper/Bruce Smith reference to close it out.

Hopeful's logic is irrefutable. A 'fully recovered' Merriman is a Pro Bowler. He's already proven in the NFL what he can do when he's 100%. The question is whether or not Merriman will ever fully recover what's he's lost. A fully-recovered Easley may be more productive than a mostly-recovered Merriman. My guess is that both Easley and Merriman are more productive this year than last (yeah, I know, ain't that a bold prediction!) but neither becomes a full time starter unless the starter gets injured. As Hopeful observes, Easley is still kind of a rookie. And Merriman has been on the sidelines for soooo long that it's hard to imagine him regaining his Pro Bowl form, at least not this year if ever.

This list worries me because there are some really good, important players here. If ALL these guys start the season 100% healthy, we'll be off to a great start! But if some of them heal behind schedule, or never fully recover, we could struggle again this year. Btw, I voted for FredEx. Despite CJ's good showing as his replacement, Fred was the catalyst of the offense last season when the offense was really rolling.

Anderson's mean was skewed by injury and playing time issues. His year with the Pats, I hope, shows what this guy is capable of when used properly.

Nobody that I know has ever suggested Kelsay is the second coming of Bruce Smith. In fact, I think fan opinion tends to fall into one of these three categories: 1. Kelsay is a solid, if unspectacular, well-rounded starter. 2. Kelsay is a good NFL backup. 3. Kelsay should have been cut. The fans in buckets 1 and 2 can make cogent, rational arguments. I think the fans in bucket 3 are reacting emotionally either because they're annoyed by Kelsay's big paycheck, or his failings as an OLB, or both. Personally, I can only commend the guy for uncomplainingly accepting the move to OLB. He's been a loyal Bill and that makes me a loyal fan of his. Anyone who has the attitude that he'll do anything without complaint to help the Bills win is a good guy in my book. Kelsay has been a starter most of his career here because he's been better than the back ups. Cutting him would have been a huge mistake. Looking forward, I don't care what side he plays on or whether or not he starts. I'm just happy he's in the rotation. We're a better team with him than we'd be without him.

I think it's more accurate to say he makes quick decisions. He gets the ball out quickly often and that helps keep the sacks down. But, yeah, sometimes you wonder what the heck he's doing. He'll never be a Brady or Brees, but I do think he can a contributing member of a playoff team.

Our D seems good on paper but I'm worried about injuries. We're hoping Merriman, McGee, and K. Williams all recover from serious injuries. And that no one else gets hurt. Not to be a pessimist - I'm usually not - but I really want to see some healthy bodies flying around in preseason for me to feel truly confident about our D.

Thanks for posting this on Memorial Day. Maybe not one of the best players in Buffalo history, but still one of the very best Bills.

I picked Miami because I remember the old days when the Bills hated the Phins and the Phins hated the Bills. The game was special both for the fans and the players in both cities. We don't really have comparable rivalry right now. You can call NE our biggest rival these days. But to them we're only a mosquito that gives them some minor, occasional irritation.

I was surprised Fitz had never received much coaching on his mechanics before. I can see that being neglected at Harvard. But in the NFL until now? The NFL is the big time and you would think coaching staffs would coach anything and everything that might help them win on Sunday. The other thing I thought notable about this article was that Lee is a technician. Some folks here speculated that Lee was hired by Gailey specifically to better implement the wildcat. Lee is far more than a wildcat guy. It's great to read that he may help Fitz become a more accurate QB with better fundamentals.

That's an impressive memory! I don't even remember what number I wore in HS, let alone the numbers of past Bills with a few, rare exceptions. OJ wore 32, didn't he?

+1 It was rather amazing how frequently he was in the right position and how frequently the pass was completed anyway.

I find it interesting that as bad a HC as Jauron purportedly was, he'd get us near .500 with very little talent to work with.

PTR, no worries.... I'll be happy when we score 40 points a game this season. Since LB isn't our best position, I guess it's great we only have field 3 of them this year rather than four. I have a feeling that these 3 will look better under Wanny's leadership than they looked last year under Edwards. Having some hefty, talented guys in front of them will help.

Chris Brown's article made me start to wonder if 2012 would be a break-through year for the O Line. I was not overly impressed with our O Line last year. I'm one of the guys who thinks that our gaudy sacks-allowed total had more to do with Gailey's quick-hitting offensive scheme and Fitz's fast decision-making than it did was pass protection. And that the impressive yards-per-carry average of our backs had more to do with play-calling and the talent of our backs than it did with rush blocking. Yet, I'm also starting to think that this line could be very good. IMHO, our biggest O Line problem last year was, obviously enough, injuries while our second-biggest problem, debatably, was LT. About the former: last year our players didn't have the advantage of working the full off-season with our good trainers and S&C coaches. I'm looking forward to fewer injuries this year. In regards to LT, when the QB is taking 3-step drops, there's less of a need for a good LT than in an offense with a mad-bomber QB. Nonetheless, it's easy to imagine the offense being more productive with a better LT than Bell and his 2011 post-injury replacements. Bell was still learning the position and maybe he'll be a superstar in Philly - but he wasn't for us. I'm really hoping Cordy Glenn proves to be an upgrade at LT. I'm trusting Nix/Gailey when they say he's a Tackle, not a Guard. I'm also intrigued by Zebrie Sanders who was runner up for the Jacobs Blocking Award for the most dominant offensive lineman in the ACC. Good for us he had a bad Senior Bowl. Another consideration is there have been lots of analyses that correlate O Line productivity with continuity. Our interior linemen have worked together now for a while. Altogether, I'm hopeful that this will be our best O Line in long, miserable time. Here's an excerpt from Chris's article: “It’s really big for our offensive line just having continuity bringing those guys back. We have a good solid group of interior guys that have been working together for a couple of years now with a lot of us starting a bunch of games,” said Eric Wood. “We all trust each other and all know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and the numbers proved it last year.” Buffalo’s offensive line led the league in fewest sacks allowed (23) and ranked fifth in yards per carry average (4.9) all despite using three different players at left tackle and four different players at center in 2011. With Rinehart and Urbik, both restricted free agents, back with the club for 2012 valuable continuity can be maintained. “It definitely counts for something,” Urbik told Buffalobills.com. “Chad started 12 games and I started 13 and we’ve got Eric (Wood) and Andy (Levitre) back so we definitely have a lot of experience in the middle. It’s going to help us out a lot jelling together as an O-line whether it’s Chris (Hairston) or Cordy (Glenn) at left tackle starting this year.”..

Thanks for posting the link. That was a powerful, moving video. The mom's ability to forgive was impressive. For those who want to more about Casey, here's a good link with a nice article and a different video: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=6021619

Most national media types know a lot about the NFL but aren't experts on individual teams, except maybe a few of the perennial contenders. And since the Bills haven't been contenders for about as long as Obama's been a father, it's rare to read/hear anything intelligent about the Bills from the national media. Kirwan just proved to be an exception. He didn't tell us anything we didn't already know, and we may not all agree with his projected 2012 starting defensive lineup, but he showed he understands what's happening here. Thanks for the link, eball.

I so disagree. Koonce is telling us that financial wealth doesn't equate to emotional, psychological or spiritual health. Koonce still had wealth after football. But he lost his happiness and because suicidal. If this isn't "compelling" to you, don't read the article. A lot of ex-players suffer after the NFL. Maybe the concussions have something to do with it. Certainly, the sudden loss of admiration and adulation after becoming accustomed to it will have an impact. It's only human. You seem to want Koonce to be more like us and be happy with less. But Koonce is like us. Most of us would probably suffer emotionally if suddenly we were a football star and then with equal suddenness, we weren't. Those are hard transitions for the regular guy. Duerson and Seau committed suicide. Koonce considered it. Go out and get a heart, fellas.

Yeah, the part about Mario playing LDE is old news. But imagine it. Right handed QBs will have Mario in their face coming after them. He might get less sacks at LDE but he might be more disruptive. I thought I ready somewhere that Kelsay could rotate with Anderson at RDE, depending on Merriman's recovery. It's good, though, to read that Merriman is looking so good. Weird that DE seems to have been transformed from a weakness into a strength in just one year.

Well, we don't have studs at every position but at least most of our starters deserve to be NFL starters. We've had years when I didn't believe that.

Depressing... but true.