Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

My oh my, it's September already. That means many things, of course, but most important is…

FOOTBALL!!!

Yes, it's time for me to start droning on about football on a weekly basis. It's my burden, and my curse. So we'll get right on with it, starting with the most important franchise in the NFL, without whom the entire league might as well fold up and die:

:: The Buffalo Bills.

The Bills started a rebuilding project two years ago, bringing in a new coach and a new General Manager, jettisoning the last bastion of talent from the run of Super Bowl appearances in the early 1990s, and opting to give Rob Johnson his shot at quarterback over Doug Flutie. Johnson didn't work out, but I still think the Bills made the right decision that year. Nevertheless, they went 3-13 in 2001 with the beginnings of a youth movement that continued apace in 2002.

The additions of Drew Bledsoe and Mike Williams on the offensive line a year ago, combined with a general sense of stability on the O-line that had been missing for several years, finally made the Bills a fairly potent offensive team. But their defense was terrible (although it improved late in the year), which ended up putting too much pressure on Bledsoe to win games all by himself. Repeatedly put into positions of having to win shoot-outs with his arm, Bledsoe began to force his throws and make bad decisions with the ball, and the Bills ended up limping to an 8-8 record. (I had predicted a 6-10 finish, so I was happy.)

So here we are, heading into 2003. The Bills made substantial upgrades to their defensive personnel in the offseason, adding linebackers Takeo Spikes and Jeff Posey and defensive lineman Sam Adams, along with a few others. The Bills' D was porous last year, allowing opposing teams to either rack up a lot of rushing yardage or letting their quarterbacks take advantage of the Bills' lack of a pass-rush to stand in the pocket while their receivers got open. I would like the Bills to have acquired one real pass-rusher in the offseason, but in any event they'll be a more physical team and they'll be much stiffer against the run, which should help a secondary that's more talented than their stats from the last couple of years let on. The Bills' D figures to be a lot better this year…but now, there are question marks again on offense.

I figure that on the basis of better defense alone they'll finish better than last year. Defense is the key to winning consistently in the NFL and always has been; if they can have fifty percent more defense than they had last year, I figure that will make up for the loss of twenty-five percent of their offense. Of course, they might have lost more than twenty-five percent. We don't know yet.

The biggest offensive loss was receiver Peerless Price, who was a free agent but thanks to the NFL's rules on such things, the Bills ended up getting a first-round pick from the Falcons for signing Price anyway, which they used to draft Willis McGahee, who would have gone in the first five picks had he not blown out his knee in last year's Orange Bowl. I doubt McGahee will play at all this year - - I don't care how much he insists he's healing ahead of normal, you just don't mess with stuff like that - - so Travis Henry again will bear the load of running the ball. (Yesterday the Bills traded Olandis Gary, who had been their likely backup, possibly implying that they mean to play McGahee later this year. I really hope they don't do this.) And he'll have even better blocking, with the O-line being young, more experienced, and with Sam Gash once again providing lead-blocking duties. Gash is now in his second stint with the Bills, and his first stint was outstanding.

The hope is that the running game will improve sufficiently to allow the Bills to control the clock and accommodate the loss of Price, which will now result in Eric Moulds seeing double teams pretty much on every offensive snap of the ball this year. Second-year-man Josh Reed has a chance to step up (and he showed a lot of promise as a rookie last year), but the Bills also lost Larry Centers, who was a big part of their passing game. Tight end Jay Riemersma, a guy whose reputation is surprisingly high in the NFL given his lack of production the last few years (not all his fault), is gone as well.

The last major question mark for the Bills is head coach Gregg Williams, who is in the last year of his contract despite the fact that his assistants are all signed beyond this year. Williams has shown a lot of growth in his short time with the Bills. He's not nearly as pig-headed now as he seemed when he first took over, and he's shown willingness to admit when something's not working and try something else. (One thing that always drove me mad about Marv Levy and Wade Philips both was their unswerving loyalty to their coordinators, no matter how lousy their results could be. Had Levy recognized Walt Corey's deficiencies as a defensive coordinator a few years earlier, he might have won one of those Super Bowls.) This year, Williams has added former Bengals head coach Dick LeBeau (a fine coach who had to work in Cincinnati, for cripes' sakes) to his mix. However, Williams also shows a tendency to make incredibly goofy decisions in games, and the team still shows a maddening lack of discipline that reflects directly on the head coach. (Ruben Brown is a nine-year veteran. Shouldn't he have learned how to not false-start by now?) Williams tends to get outcoached, but if his learning curve continues, those days may be over. Or maybe not.

So, how do I think the Bills will do? Barring disastrous injuries - - always a worry in the NFL - - their added defensive strength should translate, I think, to a few more wins. So I think they'll finish 11-5 this year. That might be good enough to win the division. It also might leave them out of the playoffs entirely. We'll see.

:: So, what about the rest of the AFC East? Well, longtime readers will know that I've never been sold on the Patriots and Bill Belichick (whose regular season record is still under .500 for his career). I still believe that their Super Bowl win two years ago constitutes the single most amazing confluence of luck in NFL history, when week after week the Patriots managed to either survive potential disaster by sheer happenstance or overcome teams that were better on paper but undone by bad coaching. Lots of folks are singing the Pats' praises for signing Ted Washington, but they guy has been titanically overweight for so long that I'm seriously skeptical as to whether he can stand up to an entire season in the trenches again, especially in a division where he's going to face Rickey Williams, Travis Henry, and Curtis Martin. And I'm still not convinced that Tom Brady is a great up-and-comer, as opposed to the current incarnation of a Mark Rypien-type QB (i.e., a guy who excels for a couple of years in just the right system). Defensively, they're still pretty good, but I'm just not sold on their offense. They were only 9-7 last year.

As for the Dolphins, well - - yeah, they've got all this defensive talent. But again, it's old defensive talent. Rickey Williams is great when healthy, but he's always an injury threat. They're unspectacular at QB, and they're woeful at head coach. I'm sorry, but Dave Wannstedt proved to me that he's a bad coach in last year's finale, when the Dolphins completed their usual December swoon by blowing a late lead in New England. A win would have given them the division. The loss kept them out of the playoffs entirely.

Finally, there are the Jets. I actually think that the Jets might have the best coaching in the AFC East, but they suffered a major exodus of talent in the offseason (a lot of them went to Washington, thus sending Oliver Willis into ecstasy) and Chad Pennington is hurt right now. So, who wins the division this year? Well, I'm going to go ahead and put myself right out on the limb. My predicted order of finish in the AFC East is:

1. Buffalo
2. New England
3. Miami
4. NY Jets

Stay tuned tomorrow for the rest of my football stuff, including my thrilling prediction of this year's Super Bowl champion.