The State of the Bills

by Bryan Ault

Free agency is over, for all intents and purposes. All the "impact" players have been signed, and anyone else the Bills add will be for depth or camp fodder, at this point.
With the draft to go, where do the Bills stand?

Just to be different, let's start with Special Teams. No doubt, some S/T talent was lost with Wire, Aiken, Hargrove and most likely Haggan. But none of those guys are irreplaceable, and other guys like Wendling are stepping it up. The core of the S/T- Coach Bobby April, Lindell, Moorman, Parrish, and McGee- still remain. This unit should be about the same as last year, and hopefully they can return to 2006 form, when they were dominant.

Defense: the Defense should be significantly betterthis season. Despite an overall horrid performance and a slew of injuries last year, the D displayed moments of confidence, and they did seem to improve as the season wore on. In addition, the Bills obtained Spencer Johnson, Kawika Mitchell, and, most importantly, Marcus Stroud. The DT rotation is much improved. We have a hole at cornerback; however, I'm not overly concerned for two reasons: 1. Kiwaukee Thomas and Jason Webster weren't exactly star material, and 2. more pressure on the QB (hopefully) and improved OLB play in the Cover-2 zone will minimize the impact. There are some depth issues, particularly at safety and OLB, but with the additions and with guys like Simpson and Poz returning, this unit should be solid. I don't expect a repeat of the dominance of '03-04, but there's every reason to expect this unit to be good enough to keep us in games, and maybe even win one or two for us.

Offense: This is a real problem area. The offense was terrible last year; not just bad, but terrible. And while the Bills had no significant losses, there have been no significant additions either- just a couple of journeyman TE's. Basically, the front office is counting on a new Offensive Coordinator and improvements from guys like Edwards and Lynch to put us over the top. That's not enough to go from a bad O to a good O, or even from a bad O to a mediocre O.

Offense has to be the focus of the draft, but I just don't see how we can possibly get enough help out of the draft to get production out of the O. The rest of the team looks solid, but the O will hold us back.

To complicate matters, here's a brief summary of the rest of the AFC East:

Patriots- They lost a few key players, and probably took a step back, but they were 10 steps ahead of the rest of the division. Expect them to win the division with ease yet again.

Jets- They had a very busy off-season, and filled some key holes. It will be interesting to see if Mangini can get this team to gel and perform. Still, the Jets certainly won't be the pushovers they were last year, and they may be very good if everything falls into place.

Miami: They took a few steps forward, but they were already 10 steps behind the rest of the division. While they are not a threat yet, they are on the right track, and will pull out a few surprise victories. They still need to resolve the QB situation before they can be taken seriously.

Overall, the Bills have improved somewhat. They still won't be able to catch the Patriots, and they need to be on the lookout for Jets and Dolphins teams that are on the rebound. It's going to be frustrating to watch the offense hold us back for at least the 6th straight season.