1000YearFrankReich

While it would seem that you'd probably want something more like Chris Johnson production out of the 9th overall pick, the truth is that kind of running back is slowing disappearing from football anyways. Having two good running backs with different skill sets is becoming much more the norm these days, and really it makes sense to spend less on two guys combined then say on one Chris Johnson (who, btw managed 24 yards on 9 carries in a losing effort Sunday). I look at offenses like the Packers, Saints, Patriots and San Diego and I see teams that utilitize lots of different skill sets without featuring many stars as the model for NFL offenses moving forward. It's better for dealing with injuries, salary caps and can allow for an expanded playbook. Spiller obviously is not taking the league by storm, but he retains the ability and potential to develop into a serious weapon for the Bills. I would definitely like to see him do a bit more with the touches he gets, but its definitely not time to give up on him yet, and I still think he will be more of a weapon for this team by the end of the year.

I saw that stat too. Some people are pointing out that it happened in the 2nd half once we had a big lead, but it did not. Charles got a couple of big gains and got most of his yards in the first half, and on those drives the chiefs were the most successful (missed FG, scored TD). 6 yards per carry is obviously not great, and if they have that stat at the end of the season then we are a lock for Andrew Luck. But in total they only had 108 yards surrendered on the ground and 60 of them were on 3 carries alone, as other people have pointed out here. On most drives they contained Charles very well and got the ball back for the offense. In turn the offense was aggressive and put points up early and often and forced the chiefs to basically abandon the run mid way through the 3rd quarter. The chiefs averaged 165 yards per game on the ground last year (1st), and the Bills averaged about 170 rushing yards surrendered per game (worst), so only giving up 108 is very good, and throat-stomping a great running team on the road is pretty dang amazing, actually. I think you can chalk it up to a great game plan by Gaily & Co and great execution by the players, as the managed to dictate the style of game instead of the other way around. I think we'll see in the coming weeks if that 6.0 ypc means anything, but I'm very happy with 108 ypg, 9 tackles for a loss and the defense limiting a good running team to 5 possessions of 5 plays or less in the first half.

Didn't get to see the game as we never get Bills coverage down here, but watched it incessantly online and been looking everywhere for as many highlights as I can find. Here are some of my impressions of the game to add to a list I largely agree with... 1. Bills did a very good job containing the top rushing team in the league from last year, something you would not expect from the 2010's worst rush defense. This was the offseason #1 priority and the preliminary results were very good. Allowed only 108 total rushing yards. The Chiefs did manage 6.0 yards per attempt however, so not exactly perfect, and clearly early in the 3rd quarter the Chiefs had to largely abandon the run. Still, Charles got most of his meager 56 yards rushing on two plays, one 22 and one 14 yard rushes in the first half, both on the Chiefs best drives of the 1st half. Besides those plays, he was largely contained, and eventually made irrelevant by the play of the offense. Certainly Charles is the most potent weapon the Chiefs have, so it was a great job to neutralize him. 2. The Chiefs had seemed like one of the model teams to look at in trying to turn around a franchise after last years playoff run, but to go on the road and pound them is a great statement that the Bills are ready to do the same. The Bills played with enthusiasm and guts and showed the league and themselves what they are capable of. Hell, if we were in the AFC West we'd already be in great shape! 3. We did seem to get some breaks early on, like the fumble on the opening kickoff and the reversed touchdown. But good teams make you pay when things go their way, and the Bills pounced on those early chances and made the Chiefs play catch-up the rest of the game. Very nice to see that. Also, the Chiefs took a little momentum into halftime, holding us to FGs and scoring a TD of their own and then stopped the Bills first drive in the 2nd half. But the defense came up with a couple of tackles for a loss on the ensuing KC possession and the Bills offense took the good field position they got and converted a nice TD drive with it. Very impressive, nicely aggressive and the kind of killer mentality the Bills haven't shown in awhile. That all but wrapped the game up, as the chiefs struggle to score quickly. Its hard to imagine a better opening game. The Bills still have alot of questions to answer, but it would seem that they should bring a lot of confidence into their home opener next week against a team flying across the country on a short week, so it's hard not to start thinking about 2-0. Great job Bills!

Feel like this response wasn't getting the love it deserved. Nice. Gave me a good snicker.

Well, this depends. The thread is called 'All NFL Team' and I would have very little disagreement with you, but if I were building a franchise I would go younger at a few of the positions then you went... QB: Rodgers (27) over Manning (35) WR: Fitzgerald (27) over A Johnson (31) C: Pouncey (22) over Kalil (26) DE C Johnson (25) over Peppers (31) DT: Suh (24) over Wilfork (29) SS Berry (22) over Reed (32)

Well, if the weight gain was accidental because he wasn't working out, then I can see him looking for an excuse. It is plausible because of the lockout, tho. I hope the extra weight doesn't hinder him, but there is always a concern of overweight guys wearing down late in games. Overall it just makes me nervous because so much is riding on the guy and I basically only want to hear great news about him. Hope it works out. I hope so. Need him basically to be another Suh if the Bills are going dig themselves out of this hole.

Wildcat!

This kinda worries me a lot. Probably just because so much is riding on Dareus and this sounds more like an excuse then anything else.

We neither, which is good, but at same time the franchise is in a rather deep hole and needs to pull a few lucky cards here and there. It's not my money, but I think he would have been worth a one year deal to see if he can get back together or not. If nothing else we do not seem to have any depth on the o-line and so maybe come midseason he coulda stepped in.

Sure keep him to play against other team's 3rd stringers. Of course, it won't happen, tho.

Thanks. I wanted to find statistical confirmation of something that it seems we all mostly know from instinct: 228 is really small for an OLB. Maybin was drafted to be one of the guys from my previous list. A guy whose job it is to get sacks, and at this point he is going to really have to shock a lot of people (myself included) to do it at his current weight. Which is why I'm unfortunately pretty confident he is done in the NFL, basically without ever getting started. As for Harrison, joking aside, I feel like he is a very instinctual and aggressive player who does a good job making up for being slightly undersized. For comparison, tho, if Harrison could use an extra 8 pounds to improve his game, Maybin, a guy who has shown no instinct for his position, would need to put on 3 times that amount. It's a big difference, and I again expect that it's just to big of one to make Maybin valuable at OLB, and there seems little point in trying to make an ILB, TE or SS out of him if he is clearly too stupid to know that losing weight in the off season was a career ending move. Another note about Harrison: He is the only player on the list who went undrafted, and was cut several times before finally finding a spot on the Steelers roster. Even then he was a backup who saw little playing time his first 4 years in the league until he was 29 when he finally got his chance and has been tearing up offenses (and fines) ever since then. I know Gailey is on record stating that Maybin has heart, but if you put Harrison's heart into Maybins body out of college and he would be 2 time defending defensive MVP already. Maybin ain't got no heart neither, no matter what Gailey says to prop him up. I couldn't agree more. If he had shown any promise at all before this point I might retain some hope given the weight development, but none given his first two years. He is a cut at end of camp. Wouldn't even practice squad him if we could.

Maybin is a bust. If his weight is indeed 228 as his player page on ESPN is already reporting, then he is basically done. I think most followers of NFL football would know instinctively that 228 is significantly lighter then most OLB in the game, but let's look into it deeper and confirm. Here is a table of last year's OLB sack leaders across the NFL, with their ESPN listed weights (hopefully this isn't too hard to read) 2010 OLB Sack leaders/Sacks/Rank/ Weight/ Height DeMarcus Ware* / 15.5 / 1 / 262 / 6-4 Tamba Hali / 14.5 / 2 / 275 / 6-3 Cameron Wake* / 14 / 3 / 250 / 6-3 Clay Matthews*+ / 13.5 / 4 / 255 / 6-3 Shaun Phillips* / 11 / 13 / 250 / 6-3 Terrell Suggs* / 11 / 14 / 260 / 6-3 James Harrison* / 10.5 / 16 / 242 / 6-0 LaMarr Woodley / 10 / 20 / 265 / 6-2 Kamerion Wimbley / 9 / 23 / 255 / 6-3 Brian Orakpo / 8.5 / 26 / 255 / 6-4 The last one makes me weep like a little girl. Overall we can see here that the average weight is just under 257, and not only that, but the grouping is pretty tight with 8 out of 10 falling between 250 and 265. Harrison is a bit of an outlier here at 242, but is also giving up about 3.5 inches of average height, so infact it seems more likely he is overcoming his lack of height for the position then the muscle/speed combination. Maybin is 6-4, so he is prototypical in that regard. But yet Maybin reports to camp, where he is more likely to lose weight then gain it, already 30 pounds under the average weight of the best players at his position? Now there are certainly examples in sports of guys who defy conventions and overcome what seem like physical limitations like this (Spud Webb anyone?), but given how much Maybin has already struggled his first two seasons I'm pretty sure he is not gifted enough in other areas to overcome this new self-created limitation. One other thing comes to mind about this as well. I can't help but feel that Maybin is just flat stupid. If he is really trying to make a go of this NFL career thing then why would he report to camp clearly so far from what is obviously the prototypical weight for his position? Can you imagine if a heavyweight boxer showed up for his weigh-in after training for 6 months 30 pounds under the heavy weight limit? Would you bet on him? Of course not! He would be laughed out of the room. So what in the world was going through this guys head in the off season while he was working out and losing all this weight? I can't even imagine. Combine that with the fact that he has been very slow to learn his new position, which isn't exactly rocket science, and personally I find it pretty clear that there isn't much going on above Maybin's shoulders. It looks like we have a literal and figurative lightweight in Maybin and so I'm very skeptical that any report of his greatness from training camp will translate to anything in actual NFL games. Add in the fact that putting on 30 pounds in a manner that is safe and productive for an athlete could take more then a year and it seems to me that clearly Maybin is a bust, and if he makes the team is probably just taking up roster space. Again.

Dam, that is about half of what Miller got from Seattle. A little more per year, but less overall, for a player who is probably about 80-85% as good as Miller. In other words, Boss seemed like a steal there. I think Boss would have been a good addition. Probably could have helped both blocking on the o-line and added a legit red-zone threat. I guess people have been saying that Chan doesn't like using TE's that much, but it seems like Bills missed out on adding a good skill player for not too much money. Disappointing. I know its important for teams which have struggled as long as the Bills have to largely build through the draft and try and not to move too fast by signing lots of expensive free agents, but having a quality TE locked up through the prime of his career for a reasonable sum seems exactly like the kind of building block the Bills needed. Maybe Chandler works out, but Boss seems far more likely to produce.