Inside The Bills

Shep, Merriman out for tonight

The Bills coaching staff has decided to err on the side of caution with Kelvin Sheppard and Shawne Merriman.

Buffalobills.com has learned that both Sheppard and Merriman will not dress for tonight’s game. Head coach Chan Gailey has said that with the shortened offseason taking every precaution would be the approach. Merriman has been plagued by a tight groin, while Sheppard is still not fully recovered from a hamstring injury.

Shep being smart w/hamstring

Kelvin Sheppard returned to the practice field earlier this week off a nagging hamstring injury that cost him almost all of training camp. Though he desperately wants to play Saturday against Jacksonville, he’s fighting that urge and trying to be smart in the final stages of healing.

“You’ve just got to be careful because you don’t want to rush into it and then look back and say you should’ve waited,” Sheppard told Buffalobills.com. ”I’ve been wanting to get back out there ASAP, but it wouldn’t have been the smartest thing to do. It’s a collective effort between myself, the training staff and the coaches to get together and do what’s right, not only for myself but for the team too. Whatever they want is what I’ll do.”

Sheppard said in practice the athletic training staff was keeping a watchful eye on him to keep him from going all out this week.

“They just tell me to make sure I go at a pace that’s moderate and not go out there and open it up and do something crazy,” he said. ”We’re approaching the third preseason game and we’re going to blink our eyes and be headed down to Kansas City. I don’t want to have any regrets about anything.”

So while Sheppard remains a question mark for Saturday night’s game, he does feel his hamstring is very close to being sound for anything and everything.

“It’s definitely improving and that’s helping me a lot physically and in my mind knowing it’s getting better and that we’re almost there,” he said. ”We just have to take that final step.”

Wang out for Saturday

Bills OT Ed Wang did not practice Thursday and is not expected to dress for Saturday’s preseason home opener against the Jaguars.

Morrison not expected to play

Having just signed his contract with the Bills late last night, which was sent into the league this morning, Kirk Morrison is not expected to be on the field Saturday night for Buffalo’s preseason game against Jacksonville.

Morrison no doubt would’ve been motivated to face the team that felt he was expendable, and ironically chose to replace him with free agent LB Paul Posluszny.

WR Martin’s adjustment

Typically Bills WRs coach Stan Hixon wants his wideouts to learn all of the receiver positions in Buffalo’s offense so they’re prepared to step in anywhere and execute. However, with time very short for newly signed WR Ruvell Martin to get up to speed with the terminology of Buffalo’s scheme, he’s been asked to learn just one spot for now.

The catch there is Martin, who has been in mainly West Coast systems since coming into the league, hasn’t learned one receiver spot at a time.

“They’re trying to tell me to focus on one spot,” he said. ”I have a tough time doing that. Being in the systems I’ve been in before they’re all concept systems, so it’s kind of tough to just learn one spot. When you hear a concept you envision the entire play. He’s telling me to focus on a certain spot and I’m going to make sure I’m ready for that spot, but in the meantime I’m going to be doing my best to learn all the spots.”

Martin explained which spot he’s been asked to learn initially.

“Right now they said ‘X’, but that’s the thing, who knows,” he said. ”I could come in tomorrow and they could change it.”

The ‘X’ receiver is typically the split end position on the left side of the offensive formation. Some teams do switch the letter assignments in an effort to mislead opposing defenses.

Martin is expected to play in Saturday’s preseason home opener against Jacksonville, but he’s not expected to get on the field until the second half.

Moore fined $20K for Jones hit

Broncos S Rahim Moore’s vicious hit on Bills WR Donald Jones will make him much lighter in the wallet.

The league handed down a $20 thousand fine for the rookie safety for the hit he delivered on Jones last Saturday that knocked him out cold.

Jones is not expected to return to Buffalo’s lineup until the season opener.

Dareus hoping to play Sat.

Marcell Dareus was reportedly seen on crutches after Wednesday’s practice in Buffalo’s locker room. Dareus identified his injury in a Thursday morning radio appearance.

Appearing on KISS 98.5 radio, Dareus explained what happened in practice Wednesday.

“I got kicked in my calf and they said I bruised a muscle and they didn’t want to take a risk, so they sent me out of practice and I got some treatment,” Dareus said. ”We were stretching it out trying to get it back well.”

When asked if he’ll play in Saturday’s preseason home opener against Jacksonville, Dareus wasn’t certain.

“I don’t know right now,” he said. ”I want to play. I think I am going to play, but I don’t know just yet.”

Kelsay has eye surgery

Bills OLB Chris Kelsay had blurry vision after taking a hit to the side of the head in the Denver preseason game last weekend, so he decided to get his head checked out. What they found sounds serious, but was taken care of with simple laser eye surgery.

“I had a hole in my retina so I wanted to get that corrected and have some laser surgery done on it,” Kelsay told Buffalobills.com. ”I just wanted to do a few tests on my head. It wasn’t too bad. They just did a quick laser procedure, it literally took like 10 minutes. I’m just limited to contact for a couple of days.”

As a result Kelsay is not expected to play in Saturday’s game.

“It doesn’t sound like I’m going to play on Saturday,” he said. ”It was too bad. The third preseason game is when we get the majority of our reps in the preseason. But September 11^th is the date we’re all shooting for and I’ll be back well before that. Next week I should be full go.”

LB White out for Sat.

Bills rookie LB Chris White is still nursing an ankle injury. He tried to do a little work in practice Wednesday, but was extremely limited with what he could do. As a result he’s not going to be suiting up for Saturday’s game.

“What we had him do was just come out and go through some bags and do some preliminary work,” said head coach Chan Gailey. ”Then we’ll up it tomorrow and then we’ll up in the next day.  He’s still out for this game but we’re hoping to get him back maybe for Detroit.”

Buffalo closes out their preseason on Thurs. Sept. 1st against the Lions.

Starting LT comes down to game

The sudden competition at starting left tackle between incumbent Demetrius Bell and linemate Andy Levitre continued in practice on Tuesday, with the rep count almost dead even with the first unit. Head coach Chan Gailey offered some clarity as to how things could play out pointing to Saturday’s preseason game against Jacksonville.

“They’re splitting reps and let’s see who plays the best come Saturday night,” he said. ”We’ve got a lot of work to do and it’s almost not fair to Andy because of throwing him in there so late in the game and asking him to play this week, but he’s done it before and we think we need to give him a shot to do that.”

When asked where that leaves Levitre, knowing he’s essentially competing for two different starting roles, Gailey said at worst Levitre is the team’s starting left guard for 2011.

“He’s the starting left guard,” said Gailey of Levitre. ”If Demetrius ends up being the guy at left tackle, he ends up going back to starting at left guard.”

Preseason stat barometer

Not a whole lot of stock can be taken in the preseason stats for NFL clubs. Their best players are not on the field for most of the game and coordinators aren’t running their best regular season stuff. Still they’re interesting to examine. Here’s a look at some of Buffalo’s defensive statistics through two preseason games and where they rank.

Total defense – 15th (311.5 yds/gm)
Points per game allowed – 13th (17 ppg)
Yards per play allowed – 14th (4.9)
3rd down defense – 23rd (44%)
Time of possession allowed – 16th (30:28)
Run defense – 26th – (132.5)
Pass defense – 11th (179)
Sacks – 1st (11)

Buffalo’s total defense last season ranked 24th in total defense, 30th in 3rd down defense and last in run defense. They were also 28th in points per game allowed. They also ranked 27th in sacks. Again just preseason numbers, but they could be further indication that they’ll be improving in several categories.

Naaman to miss rest of preseason

Bills WR Naaman Roosevelt looks as though he’s not going to be available for the last two preseason games.

Roosevelt, who has been one of the most consistent players in camp, suffered an ankle sprain in the Denver game.

“He got that ankle rolled up and it’s going to be a couple of weeks with him,” said head coach Chan Gailey.

That would rule him out for not only Saturday’s preseason home opener against Jacksonville, but also the preseason finale the following Thursday against Detroit.

Late pm practice for Bills

The Bills are back at One Bills Drive, but their practice here on Monday will be late in the day.

Chan Gailey will have his team out on the field at 3:30 this afternoon as the team gets back to work on the heels of their last preseason game at Denver. Buffalobills.com will continue with full coverage of the team’s preparations leading up to the regular season.

Batten hoping for no fine

Bill LB Danny Batten, who was flagged for roughing th epasser is hoping to avoid a fine by the league.

Here was his comment postgame about his hit.

DannyBatten57 Let’s hope the NFL has mercy and dosent fine me for QB hit tonight… I’m not a dirty player.

Batten hit the Broncos QB before he delivered the ball, but finished his hit by taking him to the ground. The officials apparently had an issue with him following through on his hit feeling he drove the QB into the ground.

How a player going full speed is supposed to pull up on that seems tough to me.

Barnett cautions Bills fans

Bills LB Nick Barnett knows their performance against the Denver Broncos may not have been anything to shout about on Saturday night, but he’s promising bigger and better things for the regular season and is telling Bills fans not to panic.

“We should be able to run our base defense and stop them, then again, we did not game plan them at all,” said Barnett. ”I probably watched one quarter on them, and that was today. It’s the preseason, you’re supposed to be able to go out there and play your base defense and make the plays. We came up a little bit short, but there were some good things that we can take from this game and build upon. I wouldn’t throw away your season tickets; it’s going to be a great season, don’t worry.”

Spiller shows

Head coach Chan Gailey wanted to get C.J. Spiller some additional touches against Denver and he did. What he got from Spiller in return were some positive results.

Granted Spiller didn’t bust off a long run for a touchdown, but that’s not where Gailey and the offensive staff wanted to see progress. They wanted to see it in his patience with the ball in his hands and in his decision making.

“I thought C.J. did a couple of nice things there,” said Gailey. ”He hit some runs, hit some creases. He ran up in there. He held onto the ball. I don’t know about protection. I’ll have to go back and look at that. We wanted to look at him tonight to see where he’s made progress and I thought he did make progress. That was a positive.”

Spiller’s first three carries went for 19 yards. He also had a couple of receptions for 11 yards. The numbers are far from eye-popping, but his vision on those runs and patience to let things develop in front of him showed improvement.

“C.J. we wanted to get him some touches and get him back into the flow of a game,” said Fitzpatrick. ”He did some really good things tonight. Just in general running the ball early we did a good job and have some good film to look at.”

Bills hot about hit on Jones

It may not have been visible on television, but the Bills offensive players did not take kindly to the hit that Broncos rookie safety Rahim Moore laid on Donald Jones along their sideline Saturday night.

So much so that Fred Jackson and Stevie Johnson started screaming at the Broncos players, with Johnson getting in their faces almost helmet to helmet. A couple of lineman also ran up on some of the Broncos players that gathered at the middle of the field while Jones was being tended to.

“Nobody wants anybody to get hurt, but if you look at one thing that maybe was a positive tonight was the reaction from our guys towards them,” said Ryan Fitzpatrick. ”I think we are a tight unit and I think you saw it right there and you saw it by the way Fred ran the ball the next few plays. For somebody to take a shot at our guy, that didn’t sit well with us and I really like the reaction that we had.

“We weren’t going to go out there and start swinging and getting penalties. It went to show that we’re a team that doesn’t like being pushed around. We’re not going to be pushed around by anybody and we thought that was inappropriate the way it went down and we reacted to it.”

Bills injuries not serious

Bills head coach Chan Gailey got right to an update about the handful of injured Bills in Saturday night’s game, including Donald Jones who was knocked cold on an illegal hit along the sideline and Johnny White whose head was slammed into the turf on a tackle and had to be carted off strapped on a backboard.

“I know the injuries were of concern to everyone and the good news right now is there were no serious injuries,” said Gailey. ”Guys will miss a while, but they’re going to eventually be fine.”

Johnny White was taken to the hospital for examination, but cleared and flew home with the team Saturday night. So did Jones.

Arthur Moats suffered a bruise to his leg and Naaman Roosevelt and Felton Huggins sustained undisclosed leg injuries.

Levitre to get center reps

Andy Levitre will be splitting time with the starters tonight with Chad Rinehart. He’s also going to see some time in the pivot.

Levitre is going to be getting a handful of snaps at center tonight against the Broncos. Head coach Chan Gailey said it’s merely to see what emergency options they have at their disposal should the need arise as it did last season in Week 13 at Minnesota.

Levitre played about five reps at center in practice this past week.

Quinn #2, Tebow #3 QB

While the QB rotation for the Bills is pretty much set in stone (Fitz, Thigpen, Smith, Brown) there was some healthy specualtion as to which Broncos quarterback would come in after starter Kyle Orton. Now we have the answer.

ESPN analyst Mark Schlereth, who played half his career in Denver, said it will be Brady Quinn as the backup and Tebow as the 3rd QB.

markschlereth Tonight Brady Quinn takes over as #2 QB for Broncos Tebow goes to #3!

The general consensus in Denver is that Quinn played the best of the three QBs in the last preseason game.