Geeky John Clayton has Bills as one team "set to shock"

[iinii]

First John Clayton announced the Bills are one of his surprise teams

 

I just read similar from Don Banks

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writ...ider/index.html

 

Buffalo -- Was the Bills' 5-1 start last season a mirage? It's possible, given the five teams Buffalo beat in that span finished a combined 24-56 (.300), with only one of them (the 8-8 Chargers) turning respectable later in the season. It's a make-or-break season in Buffalo, because Dick Jauron and his staff know a fourth consecutive 7-9 finish spells the end, and that should lend both clarity and urgency to the situation.

Signing Terrell Owens was the ultimate win-now move, but a good short-term fix for an offense in desperate need of more points and production. The Bills' reworked offensive line remains a work in progress, but the season should rise or fall on the progress Trent Edwards makes in his second full season as a starter, and the development of offensive coordinator Turk Schonert as a play-caller.

If both aren't markedly better, the Bills will stretch the AFC's longest playoff drought to a decade

 

Six 2008 playoff teams who won't repeat

Miami -- The Dolphins' 10-win improvement last season was a turnaround for the ages, but Miami might wind up wishing it hadn't set the bar quite so high in the first year of the Tony Sparano era. I like what the Dolphins are building, but I can't see them duplicating their 2008 success, when they won eight of their 11 games by margins of nine points or less. Last year, Miami had the NFC West and AFC West on its schedule. The party's over, because this season it's the considerably tougher NFC South and AFC South that the Dolphins draw.

 

Miami helped itself in the secondary in the draft and free agency, but that's not going to be enough to separate the Dolphins in the AFC East because I think the Patriots, Jets and Bills all got better on defense. And if I were a Fish fan, it would make me nervous that Chad Pennington has rarely put together two big seasons in a row without an injury or a benching.

I read those and questioned Banks logic. We will be playing the same tough southern divisions that Miami has on its schedule. Is T.O. going to make that big a difference?