Inside The Bills

Chan on why they carried 4 QBs

A lot of fans were surprised to see the Bills carry four quarterbacks on their 53-man roster after final cuts came down Friday night. Head coach Chan Gailey explained why it was a route they had to take.

“The injury to Brad (Smith), Tarvaris (Jackson) not being here but a short amount of time,” said Gailey after a walk through practice Saturday. ”All of that played into it and you deal with what you’re having to make a decision with at that time. A month from now it may be different, but today that’s where we are and where we need to be. I have a hard time going into a game without a third guy that could take a snap and we didn’t know if we would have Brad this week or not.”

Based on Gailey’s comments it doesn’t sound as if four quarterbacks will be carried for very long on Buffalo’s roster.

Bills roster is likely to change

Bills head coach Chan Gailey was asked several questions about his 53-man roster. The Gailey comment that carried the most weight was the strong indication that the roster is going to be changing over the course of the coming week.

“I think you’ve been around Buddy and I long enough to know that nothing is ever set,” said Gailey. ”We’re always looking for different ways to improve our football team. I doubt that what you see today will show up next Sunday.”

Gailey put his team through an hour walk-through session on the team’s grass field today.

Released practice squad eligibles

Here’s a rundown of the players that were released Friday evening as part of final cuts that are practice squad eligible.

WR Kamar Aiken
OL Mark Asper
RB Zach Brown
LB Tank Carder
OL James Carmon
WR Marcus Easley
DE Robert Eddins
DT Jarron Gilbert
DB Isaiah Green
P Shawn Powell
DB Nick Saenz
OL David Snow
OL Keith Williams

Roster breakdown

Here’s the breakdown by position for Buffalo’s 53-man roster

QBs – 4
RBs – 4
WRs – 4
TEs – 3 (counting H-back Dickerson)
OL – 9
DL – 8
LBs – 7
DBs – 10
ST – 4

Reserve players that made it

Here are some of the more notable players that successfully fought for a roster spot. Congrats to all of them.

S Delano Howell
DE Kyle Moore
FB/TE Dorin Dickerson
OT Sam Young
C-G Colin Brown
LB Chris White
K John Potter

Roster number history under Gailey

With final cuts to get the roster to the required 53 coming later today, here’s a look at how the position numbers have fallen each of the past two years under Chan Gailey for the opening day roster.

Position       2010       2011
QB                          3              3
RB                           4              4
WR                         5              5
TE                           2 (1 sus)3
OL                           9              8
DL                           7              7
LB                           10           11
DB                          10           9
ST                           3              3

How cornerback might alter roster decisions

The Bills have to get the roster down to 53 by 9 pm tonight, and there’s one position that could compromise the number of players carried at each position.

In the last five days the cornerback position had Terrence McGee suffer a setback in his return from offseason knee surgery and Ron Brooks failed to make the trip to Detroit for the preseason finale due to a foot injury suffered in practice Tuesday. If the coaching staff is unsure as to whether either of them would be available to play Week 1, they may have to carry another cornerback on their roster, which would bring that total to seven. (It’s been widely assumed the Bills were going to carry six cornerbacks on their final roster)

The other option, if the Brooks injury is serious enough, would be to put Brooks on injured reserve and designate him as their player to return to the active roster under the new I-R rules, but that would not be able to happen until Sept. 4th after 4 pm. If they put him on I-R prior to that (today for example) then he would not be eligible to return to the active roster. That makes it even more likely that they carry seven cornerbacks to start the season if the injury.

K Potter hoping he did enough

Bills kickoff specialist John Potter was perfect on kickoffs for touchbacks in the preseason going 8-for-8. He was the only kicker in the league in the preseason to have a perfect mark for touchbacks… until Thursday night.

Potter nailed his first two kickoffs in the preseason finale against Detroit for touchbacks making him 10-for-10 on kickoffs. Then to start the second half, Potter booted the opening kick four yards deep in the end zone and it was returned to the 19-yard line for a 23-yard return.

On his next kickoff later in the third, he only kicked off two yards into the end zone allowing Nate Hughes to return it to 19 yards to the Detroit 17. He finished the preseason with 11 touchbacks on 13 kickoffs.

“I feel pretty good about how I kicked off except for a few kicks—a few shorter ones in this game and one in the first game,” Potter said. ”But overall, I’m pretty happy with how I performed so far.” 

Potter’s kickoffs have gone for touchbacks so frequently that most thought the kickoffs to start the second half were short on purpose to get the coverage team some live practice on returners, but that wasn’t the case.

“On those ones, I wasn’t trying to hit it my hardest,” he said. ”And maybe at that point, later in the game, you don’t have the adrenaline flowing so you got to hit it a little bit harder.  That’s something I need to get a handle on, and start working on in the coming weeks. 

When asked if the two non-touchbacks would factor into the final equation on whether Potter makes the 53-man roster.

“It’s all part of it,” he said.

Final cuts are due at 9 pm Friday evening.

Bills that are practice squad eligible

With roster reductions taking place this week, a factor in some of that decision making is the practice squad eligibility of players. Here are the players on Buffalo’s roster that still have practice squad eligibility.

WR Kamar Aiken
G/C Mark Asper
LB Nigel Bradham
CB Ron Brooks
RB Zac Brown
LB Tank Carder
OT James Carmon
TE Mike Caussin (on Active/PUP)
FB/TE Dorin Dickerson
WR Marcus Easley
DE Robert Eddins
DE Sean Ferguson
DL Jarron Gilbert
CB Stephon Gilmore
OT Cordy Glenn
WR T.J. Graham
CB Isaiah Green
S Delano Howell
CB Prince Miller
DE Kyle Moore
TE Fendi Onobun
K John Potter
P Shawn Powell
DT Jay Ross
S Nick Saenz
OT Zebrie Sanders
WR Derek Session
C David Snow
S Nick Sukay
OL Jake Vermiglio
LB Chris White
OL Keith Williams
OT Sam Young

The following free agent players are eligible to be signed to a Practice Squad:

1. Players who do not have an Accrued Season of free agent credit; or

2. Players who have one or more Accrued Seasons, but who were on the Active List for fewer than nine regular season games during each of such Accrued Seasons (Note:  any player who has an Accrued Season during which he was on the Active List for nine or more regular season games is not eligible for the Practice Squad).

A player may serve on a Practice Squad a maximum of three seasons.  However, a player who has served two seasons on a Practice Squad, as defined below, is permitted to serve on a Practice Squad in a third season only if the team by which he is employed that season has 53 players on its Active/Inactive List during the entire period of his employment

The Bills have to reduce their roster to 53 by 9 pm on Friday Aug. 31st.

Bills will be on the lookout

Though the team’s 53-man roster is assembled it’s not necessarily set.

The Bills personnel department will be hard at work scanning the waiver wire for positional upgrades.

With only two tight ends on the roster in Jonathan Stupar and J.P. Foschi it’s reasonable to think they may even add a TE at the expense of another position if the right upgrade can be found.

Couple of undrafteds have a shot

Buffalo has a good history of landing undrafted rookies that ultimately make the roster and it appears it could happen again this weekend.

In six of the last eight years at least one undrafted rookie free agent has made the Bills opening day roster. Here’s the list of Buffalo’s undrafteds that will have their fingers crossed on Saturday.

OL Sean Allen
RB Andre Anderson
RB Joique Bell
OLB Antonio Coleman
TE Andrew George
SS Dominique Harris
OL Cordaro Howard
WR Donald Jones
WR David Nelson
WR Naaman Roosevelt

Predicted 53

Well folks here are the 53 players I’ve selected for who I think the Bills staff picks for their 2009 roster. It wasn’t easy as there were several players that I believe are NFL caliber, that I could not keep on the squad due to numbers more than anything else. Buffalo’s coaches will have some dilemmas on the back half of the roster.

I have a few explanations for my choices at the bottom.

So it’s clear, this is my best educated guess. The coaches know better than I do anyway as to what they need and where on their roster.

QB – (3) – Trent Edwards, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Gibran Hamdan
RB - (3) – Fred Jackson, Dominic Rhodes, Xavier Omon — (Marshawn Lynch on Reserve/Suspended list)
WR – (6) – Lee Evans, Terrell Owens, Josh Reed, Roscoe Parrish, Steve Johnson, Justin Jenkins — (James Hardy on Reserve/PUP)
TE – (3) – Derek Schouman, Derek Fine, Shawn Nelson
OL – (8) – Demetrius Bell, Brad Butler, Kirk Chambers, Geoff Hangartner, Andy Levitre, Seth McKinney, Langston Walker, Eric Wood
DL – (9) – Ryan Denney, Chris Ellis, Spencer Johnson, Chris Kelsay, Aaron Maybin, John McCargo, Aaron Schobel, Marcus Stroud, Kyle Williams 
LB – (7) – Alvin Bowen, Marcus Buggs, Keith Ellison, Nic Harris, Kawika Mitchell, Ashlee Palmer, Paul Posluszny
DB – (11) - [CB (6) - S (5)] – Jairus Byrd, Reggie Corner, Drayton Florence, Ellis Lankster, Terrence McGee, Leodis McKelvin, Bryan Scott, John Wendling, Donte Whitner, George Wilson, Ashton Youboty
ST – (3) – Rian Lindell, Brian Moorman, Garrison Sanborn  

Practice squad (8) – OL Chris Denman, RB Bruce Hall, WR C.J. Hawthorne, DT Corey Mace, DT Derrick Jones, C/G Brandon Rodd, WR Shaine Smith, TE Jonathan Stupar.   

Explanations – Ko Simpson does not make this roster because Jairus Byrd is a long term investment and George Wilson and John Wendling are more valuable special teamers. Simpson is a good player, but I had to chooses a player that I think will be the victim.

I expect to see Marshawn Lynch on the reserve/suspended list to save the team a roster spot. Better to put it to use the first three weeks of the season even if it’s for a player that’s only helping you in the practice setting.

I believe James Hardy will be put on Reserve/PUP giving him another month and a half to build up the stamina in his knee so it’s ready to undergo the rigors of practice and games day after day, week after week. He’s a long term investment. Another six weeks is not going to cripple his development.

In light of how much the Bills’ offense intends to run the no huddle I don’t see FB Corey McIntyre making the roster. In their no huddle attack a fullback is almost never on the field. Goal line might be the only time. Otherwise its base set is a 3-by-1 look (3 WRs, 1 back). Good fullback, good special teamer, but I just don’t see it.

I expect the coaches to keep 3 QBs for a couple of reasons. Hamdan is a confidante of Edwards and he and Fitzpatrick are valuable sounding boards for him. Both have also done pretty well in the preseason.

I like Copeland Bryan a lot as a player, I’d have him on my team if I were picking, but I’ve got him in a numbers game at DE, plus he had trouble staying healthy this preseason and availability on Sunday is a very important factor that coaches consider. I suppose a veteran end could be another option here because Bryan has made some impact plays (2 FRs, sack and FF). That’s probably the toughest choice there.

I’d have put Jon Corto on the practice squad in a heartbeat if he wasn’t going to be on the 53-man roster, but he’s out of practice squad eligibility.

There are only eight offensive linemen on this 53-man roster and I would not rule out a signing off the waiver wire by the Bills if the right veteran is out there at a reasonable price.