Two Bills Drive

Possible suitors: Buffalo Bills, New York Jets, New York Giants, Houston Texans, Atlanta Falcons. Reports out of Buffalo indicate that Cowart, despite missing all of last season with an Achilles injury, will demand a signing bonus in the neighborhood of $10 million. That eliminates teams like Jacksonville and Baltimore, who have the need but lack the cash. Houston, with its 3-4 defense and cap room, makes sense. The Giants need a replacement for Jessie Armstead, and the cap-strapped Jets could find a way to make Cowart work and keep him in New York with Marvin Jones and James Farrior on the market. Atlanta, with talent like Keith Brooking, Chris Draft and Mark Simoneau at :B, could use a player like Cowart if new DC Phillips decides to go to a 4-3 look. Cap concerns – the Falcons are only $800,000 under the cap at this writing – and the likelihood that owner Arthur Blank wants to spend his money on offensive players to surround Michael Vick could nix such a deal.

@ After being cut by Buffalo, QB Rob Johnson will have to take the veteran’s minimum, with incentives, in order to get a job with another NFL team. Johnson is a workout warrior, very smart, tough – you can’t say a bad thing about him if you go off practice tapes. He throws the ball beautifully, has a strong arm, and is not immobile. The problem is that Johnson is a thinker, not a reactor in games. He’s got to see the play develop, think about it and then go, and that takes way too long. As a result, he holds onto the ball way too long, gets sacked way too many times and gets injured because he?s holding onto the ball so long and is so focused that he has almost no peripheral vision for the rush.

@ The Buffalo Bills did not tender offers to 3 players, including LB Kenyatta Wright, making them restricted free agents Friday. Joining Wright are offensive lineman Craig Heimburger and safety Keion Carpenter, according to a list of free agents released by the NFL.

Wright struggled in an attempt to help take over for Sam Cowart, who partially tore his Achilles’ tendon in the Bills’ season opener. After appearing in Buffalo’s first 11 games, Wright was listed as inactive for the final five games.

@ With Seattle Seahawks vice president Mike Reinfeldt turning down the job, the Falcons’ other options are Saints general manager Randy Mueller and Tom Modrak, the Buffalo Bills’ director of player personnel. Modrak would fill the personnel side of the job, but that could force the Falcons to make another hire to handle the business side.

@ Update on the bigger half of the Bills Special Teams Demon Pair, Tasker and Pike. He owns 3 health clubs back home in Cincinnati and in North Kentucky area.

Now that the Saints have released Blake, the Bills have the ability to sign him as an UFA and do not have to absorb his salary cap figure. There were rumors the Bills were waiting for New Orleans to release him before they actively pursued Blake. Will Blake land in Buffalo to compete with Van Pelt for the starting job in 2002?

‘The Buffalo Bills did not tender offers to three players, including linebacker Kenyatta Wright, making them restricted free agents Friday. Joining Wright are offensive lineman Craig Heimburger and safety Keion Carpenter, according to a list of free agents released by the NFL.’

‘"Fortunately we didn’t have a lot of Johnson inventory, it won’t hurt us," Russo says. "But we’ll have to take additional mark downs in order to clear it out."’

@ At the combine, two teams very interested in Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington will be Detroit and Buffalo, who are scheduled to pick third and fourth in the first round of April’s draft. Either team could draft Harrington. Either team could be open to trading down.

@ There will be relatively few prime players available. Some of the best, in fact, may be players released for cap reasons in the past week or so. One player who could elicit interest is quarterback Rob Johnson, released Thursday by the Buffalo Bills, who had hoped when they signed him that he would be their long-term quarterback.

@ Overall, Johnson went 9-18 as a starter and failed to finish 11 of 27 games he started. Van Pelt said bad luck played a big hand in Johnson’s tenure in Buffalo. "It was just some freaky things that would sometimes knock him out," Van Pelt said. "Maybe it was bad luck."

@ Rob Johnson, once considered the Buffalo Bills’ long-term quarterback, was released by the team Thursday, proving too expensive, inconsistent and injury-prone.

“I’m kind of happy, really,” Johnson said.

‘He finished his Bills career as the franchise’s most accurate passer, hitting on 60.48 percent to nose out Jim Kelly (60.13 percent). Johnson also had the lowest interception percentage (2.56) of any Bills QB, being picked off only 17 times on 663 attempts.’

‘He collected $18.85 million of the original $25 million contract he signed with the team.’

‘Flutie was known for doing a lot of politicking in the locker room, which Johnson thought was inappropriate.’