Inside The Bills

Fan Friday 5-10

Here’s the latest edition of your questions from AskChris@bills.nfl.net and on Twitter @ChrisBrownBills.

1 - Hi Chris,

I enjoy your column and follow it virtually every week. Thank you for the good work. The Bills tend to steal defeat from the opponents during the last minute of the game. What is the strategy to address this issue from the new coaching staff?

Regards,
C.J. Wong

CB: Well the first step has been an ultra-competitive and demanding offseason conditioning program. To a man, every player has said the program has been extremely challenging. It’s designed to have the players properly conditioned for fast-paced play and to have some gas left in the tank come the waning minutes of the fourth quarter.

I think the personnel department made a point of adding players that not only had talent, but a track record of toughness in an effort to add some grit to the roster. These are initial steps, but they will help the team’s fortunes late in games.

2 – Chris:
Thanks for all the great insight you provide.  I have a few questions for you:

1)  I know the Bills released John Potter last year. Can you tell me if he signed with anyone, and why didn’t the Bills entertain bringing him back for kicking competition at camp?
2)  I feel Robert Woods is a great addition to this team and he reminds me of former # 1 draft pick in 1979,  Jerry Butler.   In your opinion, are there similarities between them?

3)  In a recent radio interview Bills (DE) Mark Anderson sounded as if he is still having knee issues, and he didn’t sound too comfortable moving to the linebacker spot.  I know the Bills are building this roster with the idea of players contributing in multiple position on defense.  Will the Bills keep him around just to be a specialty rusher, or could he be released before or during training camp?
Thanks
Joe

Blasdell

CB: Potter to my knowledge is not in the league right now. The main reason he wasn’t brought back was because he was a kickoff specialist only. He wasn’t an especially accurate field goal kicker. Then add in the fact that Buffalo drafted Dustin Hopkins in round six, who is an accomplished field goal kicker and a solid kickoff man and Potter would not be a realistic part of a competition with Hopkins and Lindell. He’d just be taking reps away from the other two. Not practical.

The Bills, much like you, are excited about Woods too because he’s a polished, NFL ready wideout. He should be able to contribute right away in this offense. I don’t know if he’s quite as explosive as Jerry Butler when he came out, but he’s a talent in his own right and has above average speed.

Mark Anderson’s troublesome knee is going to become a concern if it does not allow him to do what makes him an effective player on the field. He had two surgeries through the course of last season, which ultimately landed him on injured reserve. We’ll try to get an accurate update on his situation when OTAs start up here next week. If he’s healthy and available I would expect Mike Pettine will find a role for him.

3 – Chris,

Love the work that you do on buffalobills.com. I got a question for you, as I’m sure most people do when they email you. Now that Chris Kelsay has retired, is Mario Williams going to be taking up jersey number 90? I remember Kelsey wouldn’t give it up last year, but obviously that problem is no longer there.

Thanks for the hard work,

John W

CB: Thanks for the kind words. As it has been explained to me Mario has chosen to keep jersey number 94, which I’m sure has every Bills fan with a Mario jersey breathing a sigh of relief.

4 – Hey Chris ,

I was just wondering if Kyle Williams has decided to or has gotten surgery on his other foot . Toward the end of last season i remembering that there where reports of his foot giving him some trouble & that he was going to wait until after the pro bowl so he could get the surgery done . To this point I haven’t read anywhere if he has had that done. If after the surgery he had last year he felt a 100 times better & if he had both feet done he may be even more of a force than he has been.
Well thanks again for all you do for the fans !!

Mr. T from Fort Myers via Nashville

CB: Yes, Kyle Williams did have surgery on his other Achilles in mid-February. He’s still not cleared to participate in any way at this time just three months removed from surgery. So it’s clear, much like his surgery last year it was not a ruptured Achilles that can take up to a year to heal. Instead it was a frayed Achilles. In such an instance doctors detach the Achilles, repair and strengthen, then lay it back down and re-attach it. Rehab last year was about five months.

When Kyle is ready to discuss it we’ll have the details on his outlook for you.

5 – Chris,

Thanks for the excellent coverage on the 2013 NFL draft.  Now that it’s over, could you explain exactly how the Bills work their “Board” with photos or diagrams.  You can use fictitious names but I’d like to follow how the have the players ranked and then how they work the board as the draft is proceeding.  Is it set up in columns by position and in rows by ranking?  I have a hard time visualizing how it’s set up.  I would appreciate a detailed explanation or if you could create an article for it that would be even better.

Thanks,
Ed White

CB: Actually you’ve got a good handle on it. Positions run across the top of the board from left to right with players grouped by position vertically in columns underneath those position headings. Then the draft grades run down the left side of the board in order 1-7. So a player at the top of the board will have a first-round grade all the way across no matter the position. And so on down the board.

The Bills also have a priority free agent board by position so they can effectively target the best of the undrafted prospects too.

C.J. is a PFF Top 20 player

Based on statistics and performance from the 2012 NFL season. C.J. Spiller ranked in the ProFootballFocus Top 20 players in the league last season.

After seeing Jairus Byrd (25th) and Kyle Williams (22nd) crack the Top 25, Spiller followed with a ranking of 18th overall in the NFL. Here’s what the PFF folks wrote about Spiller’s season.

18. C.J. Spiller, RB, Buffalo Bills (Unranked)

The only reason Spiller isn’t higher is because he didn’t get enough carries in 2012. When he did, he was something to behold. As explosive a player as there was in the league during the 2012 season, he made his blocking seem better by turning nothing into something, frequently. His 6.0 yards per carry average is amazing, while forcing 53 missed tackles on 207 rushes is astonishing. A real game-changer.

Best Performance: Week 10 at New England, +5.0

Key Stat: The most elusive back in all of football with a 94.6 Elusive Rating (22.6 points better than the next best).

Spiller, Byrd and Williams were the only three Bills to appear on the PFF Top 100 list for 2012.

Jairus, Kyle crack PFF top 30

The film evaluators and stat crunchers at ProFootballFocus have been counting down their top 100 players in the league and two Bills have cracked the top 30.

Based on 2012 season stats and film review PFF has Jairus Byrd as the league’s 25th best player, while Kyle Williams, despite playing with a bad Achilles ranked 22nd. Here’s what they wrote about the two Bills defenders.

25. Jairus Byrd, S, Buffalo Bills (72nd)

Is there a better deep safety in the league than Byrd right now? A legitimate playmaker that quarterbacks have to be mindful of on every down, Byrd comfortably finished the year our top ranked cover safety. Now, the way he’s used may not make him the most complete safety out there, but he’s so good at what he does you can’t help but appreciate the Bills’ franchise player.

Best Performance: Week 11 vs Miami, +5.3

Key Stat: Intercepted five passes and wasn’t beaten for a touchdown all year.

22. Kyle Williams, DT, Buffalo Bills (Unranked)

After missing nearly all of 2011 some wonder if Williams would take some time to find his best form. Outside of a couple of disappointing games, they needn’t have worried. Williams missed out on finishing second overall in our defensive tackle rankings only because of penalties, displaying the kind of every-down talent which he has for a long time. As is always the case, Williams was making plays at a relentless pace throughout the entire season.

Best Performance: Week 10 at New England, +6.8

Key Stat: His 65 combined hits, sacks, hurries and defensive run stops were third-most of all defensive tackles.

Bills Bracketology weekend recap

It was all offense all weekend in Bills Bracketology as Scott Chandler’s endzone jump ball and C.J.’s long run for the TD beat out defensive plays by Kyle Williams and Mario Williams.

As expected, the 7 vs. 10 seed game came down to the wire. The 7th seeded Chandler TD eked out the win with 57% of the vote to Mario Williams’ 43%. Chandler will go on to play the perennially tough Jairus Byrd and his primetime pick in the 2nd round of Bills Bracketology, which starts tomorrow.

The C.J. Spiller win was an upset as his 11th seeded 66-yard touchdown run beat Kyle Williams’ 6th seeded sack over Kansas City. C.J. will advance and play the winner of today’s No. 3 vs. No. 14 seed game: a C.J. TD run against the Jets vs. a Bryan Scott interception for a touchdown. Will we see a C.J. vs. C.J. battle in the 2nd round? VOTE NOW!

Fan Friday 3-15

College pro days are in full swing. Pre-draft visits will soon follow, and free agent visits as well. Let’s get to your questions for this week’s edition from AskChris@bills.nfl.net and on Twitter @ChrisBrownBills.

1 - @ChrisBrownBills would Bills take a flyer on Kolb?

Cparkin2009 12:33pm via Twitter for Android

CB: I’d be surprised if Kolb is on Buffalo’s radar. The Bills have been hard at work this week with a full court press on the quarterback prospects in this year’s draft. Landry Jones, Geno Smith and Tyler Wilson all had pro days this week. Though I wouldn’t rule out the Bills kicking the tires on a veteran free agent, it seems to me that the draft is where their focus lies with respect to quarterback right now.

 2 – Hi Chris,

Thanks for keeping us updated all off-season. If the scenario of Geno Smith falling to the Browns at #6 happens, do you think this would finally be the year the Bills trade up to land the best QB prospect? Andy Reid can probably work with Alex Smith and with the Eagles re-signing Vick it looks like they may not draft a QB but the Cardinals will most likely be looking to draft a QB right before us.    

Thanks,
John

CB: I agree that the Cardinals could still draft a QB despite signing veteran free agent Drew Stanton and jettisoning Kevin Kolb. But Arizona needs help in a lot of places after cutting some high-priced vets. Cleveland has addressed some of their most pressing defensive needs early in free agency, so I don’t think ruling them out for adding a quarterback can be assumed. I realize they drafted Brandon Weeden last year, but they have a new coaching staff and new ownership.

Reporters I’ve talked to in Philadelphia also won’t rule out Chip Kelly drafting a QB, though I don’t believe it’ll happen in round one with the fourth overall pick.

As for trading up, Buddy Nix traditionally does not like to move up and down the board. Now he moved up two places last year to grab T.J. Graham in round three, but it’s a whole different ball game in the top 10 and knowing the Bills only have six picks this year, it’s hard for me to see Nix giving up picks to make a move up higher in the top 10.

3 – Chris,
With Mike Pettine being the defensive coordinator now I assume the Bills are going back to a 3-4.  I was wondering what that means for the defensive line?  Will we see Dareus or Williams move to the end again?

CB: Personally I think Marcell Dareus and Kyle Williams are both versatile enough to play end or DT in Pettine’s system. But I’ll let coach Pettine handle this one since he was recently asked about his defense in an appearance on Bills flagship station WGR Sportsradio 550 this week.

“We’re not going to be true 3-4 or 4-3 as far as how we’re doing it,” said Pettine. “We’re going to be multiple in our fronts that we run. It’s a work in progress. We’re going to highlight in our playbook what we do well. So again it’s going to be more roster based.

“We have our base concepts that we’re going to run and those have been put in from a playbook standpoint, but we’re still trying to rebuild it. As a new staff we took what we built over four years in New York and then add the experience of the other coaches on the staff. We’ve basically hit the reset button on everything. I didn’t want to come in and say, ‘This is what we’re running.’ Over time you accumulate a lot of tweaks and adjustments. We wanted to go back to the baseline and say, ‘Here is the way we’re going to teach it and then understand that these are all the variations of it.’”

4 – Chris,

What are the odds that the Bills pass on a quarterback in the early rounds this year? And pick one next year in the early rounds? Are there any prospects in next year’s draft that are better than this year? It seems to me that at least this way we can get the defense squared away and add a receiver or tight end and have everything in place for a QB next year. Thanks . I enjoy your column.

Sam from Tupper Lake , NY
Sent from my iPhone

CB: I think with Ryan Fitzpatrick no longer on the roster it’s pretty much a must that the Bills draft a quarterback somewhere in the first two rounds of the draft. Obviously what falls to them will say a lot in what is ultimately done, but with a thin free agent class at QB and the draft class at QB not tremendously deep the Bills have to land a QB early as I see it.

5 – Chris,

I’m wondering what type of offense the Bills will run given coach Marrone and Hackett’s system at Syracuse. During the season last year Nassib was quoted as saying that their success with the no huddle spread offense was due to the fact that they run to set up the pass. This is an unusual description and quite the opposite of a west coast system. Yet, newly resigned QB Jackson was quoted as saying he’s looking forward to playing in a west coast system. What type of system do you think the Bills will run?  Thanks for your insight. Go Bills!

Joe
Sent from my iPad

CB: I think it’s safe to say the offense will be heavily rooted in West Coast principles, but it will have its fair share of power running. That’s coach Marrone’s influence being a former offensive lineman. He and coach Hackett wanted to take the best elements of a number of different offenses and incorporate them into one system. Essentially their offense is a multiple system with West Coast roots.

C.J. took lessons from Pro Bowl week

Bills Pro Bowl RB C.J. Spiller was a newcomer to the AFC-NFC all-star game this past weekend. Two of his Buffalo teammates were with him in Kyle Williams and Jairus Byrd, but Williams and Byrd had been to the Pro Bowl before. Spiller had not. Here’s how he felt about his time around some of the game’s best in Hawaii.

“It was a fun and enjoyable week,” Spiller told Buffalobills.com not long after Sunday’s game ended in Honolulu, 62-35 in favor of the NFC. “It was more laid back than a typical game week in the regular season. So my family and I tried to make sure we made the most of it.”

Spiller had just one carry in the game, but also contributed four catches for 25 yards for the AFC. Kyle Williams had a tackle while Jairus Byrd had three tackles and recovered a fumble for the AFC defense.

Always trying to improve his game, Spiller made sure to be part of the conversations where some NFL wisdom was passed around by veteran players as well.

“I learned some things while I was out here this week as well,” Spiller said. “How to get prepared for the season, prepared for games, different things like that. So it was a help that way too.”

Spiller and his family will be making the long flight home on Monday back to the east coast.

Bills Pro Bowl trio first in a while

With Jairus Byrd added to the AFC Pro Bowl roster just hours after C.J. Spiller and Kyle Williams Monday, the Bills have a total of three Pro Bowl players participating in Sunday’s game. It’s been a while since the Bills last had three Pro Bowlers in one NFL all-star game.

The last time Buffalo had three Pro Bowl players or more in the all-star game the same year was nine years ago in 2004. Buffalo’s second-ranked defense that season sent three in Sam Adams, Nate Clements and Takeo Spikes. Terrence McGee also went that year as a kick returner.

The 2000 (Ruben Brown, Sam Cowart, Eric Moulds, Ted Washington) and 2002 (Drew Bledsoe, Ruben Brown, Travis Henry, Eric Moulds) seasons are the only other instances since the turn of the century when the Bills have had three or more Pro Bowl representatives.

Spiller’s Pro Bowl schedule

Getting out to Honolulu in time to participate in the full week of practice work for the Pro Bowl has put C.J. Spiller and Kyle Williams on a tight schedule after getting notice they would be representing the Bills and the AFC. Spiller, laid out his upcoming travel plans on a conference call with the media today.

“I looked at the itinerary today and it looks like I’ll be taking off early in the morning (Tuesday),” he said. ”We have a team meeting at 7 pm so I have to make sure I’m there. So I’ll be taking off bright and early in the morning. I’m excited about it, it’s going to be a long flight so I’ll be sure that I’m hydrated and ready to go.”

Spiller is also glad he’s got a Bills teammate that’ll be out there with him that has been to the Pro Bowl before in Williams.

“It’s very special,” he said. ”Anytime you can get more than one guy from a team to go it speaks to the character of the man and the stuff that we commit to as a team to compete at a high level. Kyle has been there before so for me it’ll be good for me to be out there with a teammate that I know instead of just being alone out there. So I’m definitely glad I’ll be able to share this experience with him. So I’m definitely looking forward to seeing him.”

Handful of Bills on PFF all-AFC East team

There are a handful of Bills players that were selected for the ProFootballFocus all AFC East team.

Their choices were the ones most would expect. Here’s who appeared on their squad and what PFF wrote about them.

Running Back: C.J. Spiller (BUF)
It wasn’t his fault he received only 207 carries. However, he can take full responsibility for making the most of those carries, ending the year with a league leading 94.6 Elusive Rating after forcing 66 missed tackles from his 250 touches of the ball.

Wide Receivers: Wes Welker (NE), Brian Hartline (MIA) and Stevie Johnson (BUF)
We wanted to put a fullback in here, but there really wasn’t one in this division that either played enough, or played well enough. That made life a lot easier for us, going with Hartline and Johnson, with Welker working from the slot. All three ranked in our Top 30 for receiving grades by wide outs, and each of them put in a 1,000 yard season.

Guards: Andy Levitre (BUF) and Brandon Moore (NYJ)
There was a legitimate case for both Richie Incognito and Logan Mankins here. As good as Levitre was in pass protection (and he was very good), he really failed to consistently get much movement in the run game. In the end though, his competition just didn’t do enough to oust him. At right guard, Moore finished the season playing as well as any lineman, ending the year our third ranked right guard.

Defensive Tackle: Kyle Williams (BUF) and Muhammed Wilkerson (NYJ)
A controversial decision here with Vince Wilfork missing out. While he was dominant at times, there weren’t many games Williams or Wilkerson didn’t have their way with interior linemen. The more complete player of the two is the Bill, whose relentless play results in plenty of pressure (45 quarterback disruptions, ranking third among all defensive tackles). Wilkerson plays as a defensive end for the Jets in their 3-4 alignment, but the way he can get off interior blocks is something to behold. He had 46 defensive stops in the run game, second among all defensive linemen.

Safeties: Jairus Byrd (BUF) and Reshad Jones (MIA)
Byrd is going to be paid a lot of money, and very soon. There aren’t many ballhawking safeties like the Bill, who has the kind of range that should scare quarterbacks for years to come. He had our highest coverage grade of all safeties and was ranked second overall this year. That’s one spot above Jones, who missed too many tackles in the second half of the year, but became a real playmaker for Miami.

Returner: Leodis McKelvin (BUF)
It could very easily have been Marcus Thigpen, with the two men one and two in our returner rankings.

Players maintain they’re a better team

They know they don’t have the wins to prove it, but the men in Buffalo’s locker room believe they are a better club than they’ve been the past two seasons.

“It’s really hard to sit here and tell you guys that we got better, and that we need to keep the same guys because we can make a playoff push with this team,” said Eric Wood. ”It’s tough to say that from a record standpoint. If you turn on the film, we won two more games than 2010, but if you turn on the film, it should look a lot different. It’s tough to analyze from a win standpoint, because we’re out of the playoffs, and whenever you’re out of the playoffs, it doesn’t really matter what your record is. It’s a disappointing season from that standpoint.” 

“We can play well, we can put good games together,” said Kyle Williams. “We can do things on offense—we can do things on defense. It’s frustrating to look back on it and know that there were games there.  There are a lot of games that we were close in, and there were two in particular that we lost on the last play. It is frustrating. It’s a disappointment. All I know is to get as healthy and I can and prepare and look to next year, and have the best season I’ve ever had. That’s all I can prepare for.”

Byrd, Levitre, Kyle update

Jairus Byrd, Andy Levitre and Kyle Williams all got back on the practice field, but no one was full go.

“Most everybody that was out yesterday did something today,” said head coach Chan Gailey. “Most of them were limited today and didn’t take every rep, but they practiced.”

Byrd (ankle), Levitre (knee) and Kyle Williams (ankle) were all limited joining Mark Anderson (knee), Nick Barnett (knee) and a handful of others. Here’s the full injury update.

DID NOT PRACTICE
WR Ruvell Martin – not injury related
S Da’Norris Searcy – groin

LIMITED IN PRACTICE
S Jairus Byrd - ankle
G Andy Levitre – knee
DT Kyle Williams – ankle
DE Mark Anderson – knee
LB Nick Barnett – knee
FB Dorin Dickerson – ankle
WR Marcus Easley – hamstring
CB Justin Rogers – foot
LB Chris White – hamstring
C Eric Wood – knee

Chandler, Levitre, Kyle back

Three Bills starters that didn’t practice Wednesday were back on the practice field Thursday.

Scott Chandler, Andy Levitre and Kyle Williams were back practicing. We’ll update their level of participation post practice.

Kyle Williams: “That was my friend.”

Bills DT Kyle Williams did not have a good Tuesday. He had received word by phone that his agent Albert Elias has passed away, apparently in his sleep, on a ski trip in Colorado.

“That was my friend,” said Williams, still emotionally affected by the shocking news of his agent’s passing at age 41. ”I got a call from some mutual friends in Dallas. We had been together seven years. He was on a ski trip with some friends. I actually talked to him Monday night and he was coming down to Miami this weekend.

“The guys woke up Tuesday morning to go skiing, he was still asleep. They hollered at him and said they heard him in there snoring and they came back from skiing and said he wasn’t breathing, said he was still warm, tried to give him CPR to get him resuscitated and it didn’t work. I guess over the next couple of days we’ll figure out exactly what happened.”

Williams relationship with Elias grew as the years went by with Elias negotiating the defensive tackle’s most recent extension with the Bills last year.

“He was really a young agent when we started out and got hooked up and we’ve been together for seven years. Our age gap isn’t that big so we had a lot in common,” said Williams. ”In the offseason we played golf and hunted together. We’re from the same area of Louisiana. He works out of Dallas now. When we talked, we talked life and we didn’t talk football and we spent a lot of time together. It was a tough day at our house yesterday.”

Elias represented both Williams and Ron Brooks on Buffalo’s roster. Being a fifth-round pick, Williams had a lot to prove coming into the league, but always knew he had Elias in his corner.

“Yeah. He’s been a big part of my career and been there for me,” said Williams. ”I’ve always had a lot of belief in what I could do and how I played and he’s probably a close second (to believing in me). It’ll be different.”

Pro Football Focus picks 4 Bills for Pro Bowl

The film reviewers and football metric evaluators at Pro Football Focus have chosen their NFL Pro Bowl roster and four Bills appear on their roster.

PFF chose FS Jairus Byrd, DT Kyle Williams, RB C.J Spiller and KR Leodis McKelvin.

Here’s what they wrote about the Bills defensive players and Spiller, who not surprisingly also leads their category for elusive rating with a grade of 99.9.

Players and coaches cast their Pro Bowl ballots later this week.

Bills defenders call performance a setback

Despite practicing it time and again during the course of the practice week the Bills had no answer for Seattle’s read option running attack with Russell Wilson, who had 92 yards on nine carries and three rushing touchdowns in the 50-17 win over Buffalo. For a run defense that had showed league-leading improvement, even they had to admit Sunday was a sizable step back.

“It’s definitely a step back for us as far as run defense goes,” said Nick Barnett. ”It’s unconventional runs, but we’ve got to be able to stop those and it’s not that big of a deal if we execute our responsibilities and we got a little nosy on a couple of plays and you can’t do that against this team. They’ll make you pay for your mistakes.”

Barnett pointed to himself for missing the ‘B’ gap on the 44-yard run by Marshawn Lynch that led to a Seattle field goal. But more than that was Buffalo’s inability to slow the keeper carries by Wilson.

“That is a type of offensive run scheme that we’ve had trouble with, that option that zone read,” said Kyle Williams. ”Since the bye against conventional offenses we’ve made some strides, and done some good things, but to go back to that we’ve had some trouble with that zone read thing. To defend that you have to play very disciplined and we didn’t.”

Mario Williams even went so far as to say there were continuous screw ups with assignment responsibilities.

“You go from being pretty traditional with the running games that we faced here in the last weeks to hitting somebody who is deadly with the read option and get Marshawn on top of that. Now it’s just not one person,” said Williams. ”Now if you know one (defensive) guy switches the other (defensive) guy has to switch too. We both can’t end up on the quarterback and we both can’t end up on the dive and for whatever reason that’s what happened.

“For some reason, whenever they gave us motion and what not and we kind of had the responsibilities switch one person knew what was going on and the other person for whatever reason didn’t and we definitely got hurt in every aspect as far as keeping it or giving it.”

George Wilson said practicing for Russell Wilson and then seeing him live just aren’t the same, but admitted they were undisciplined.

“We worked on it all week, but seeing it in practice and defending it in the game are two completely different deals sometimes,” he said. ”With the way those runs were springing early on there had to be guys being overly aggressive and doing more than what was asked of them on a given play and trying to do too much as opposed to their particular job.”

Seattle finished with 270 rushing yards on the day.

Pro Bowl voting update

A handful of Bills are still among the top five at their respective positions in fan Pro Bowl voting. Here’s where they rank.

Jairus Byrd is 2nd among AFC Free Safeties

Kyle Williams is 3rd among AFC Defensive Tackles

C.J. Spiller is 4th among AFC Running Backs and newewst to crack the top five at his position.

Leodis McKelvin is 4th among AFC Kick Returners     

Voting for the Pro Bowl only goes until Dec. 17th, so cast your ballots now.

Several defenders missing

The defense is missing a few players in practice today.

While Mark Anderson is back practicing there are several sidelined or absent.

Here’s the rundown.

Marcell Dareus
Spencer Johnson
Kyle Williams
Jairus Byrd
Nick Barnett
Leodis McKelvin

The only offensive player not participating is Eric Wood.

Bills run ‘D’ now 4 straight of less than 90

Buffalo’s run defense has now made it four straight games of surrendering less than 90 yards rushing to their opponent. That’s something that hasn’t been accomplished by a Bills defense in this century.

Buffalo defense held St. Louis to 67 rushing yards. Steven Jackson had just 64 yards on 19 carries and averaged just 3.4 per rush. The Bills four-game streak is the longest since the 1999 season when the Bills had the number one defense in football and went four straight without allowing 90 rushing yards from games two through five that season.

“Yeah I mean you watch them on film and you let Steven Jackson get going and he can hurt you,” said Kyle Williams. “He can bleed the clock and he can do a lot of damaging things to a defense. We were able to control that, but in the end we were not able to win the game or control the game.”

NFL.com Pro Bowl ballots

Here’s a rundown of the Pro Bowl ballots of some of NFL.com’s journalists, with a few Bills getting respectable support.

At running back C.J. Spiller appeared on five of the six ballots.

Andy Levitre appeared on two of the six ballots for guard.

Mario Williams was on three of the six ballots for defensive end.

Kyle Williams was on two of the six ballots for defensive tackle.

Jairus Byrd appeared on two of the six ballots for free safety.

Leodis McKelvin got one of the six votes for kick returner.

Remember you can vote for what Bills you believe are deserving of Pro Bowl recognition by casting your own ballot.

Carrington’s anticipation a credit to vets

In our feature story on Alex Carrington’s improved play of late on the home page at Buffalobills.com, we covered several ways in which he has enhanced his game. While he has certainly been the beneficiary of good coaching in his time with the Bills, he also credits the veteran defensive linemen in his positional meeting room for expanding his knowledge of the game.

“My football knowledge and my chemistry with the guys I’m working with has boosted my play tremendously,” Carrington told Buffalobills.com. ”I’ve learned a lot from these guys just by sitting and watching film, talking to them and asking questions.”

Just listening to Mario Williams, Kyle Williams and Spencer Johnson interacting with the coaches in the meeting rooms has helped Carrington know what to expect against specific opponents and even specific players out on the field.

“It’s not one specific piece of advice. It’s kind of collective,” he said. ”I’m very observant and I see the way these guys watch film. I see the kinds of questions they ask and it gives me a different perspective on how to approach my opponent.

“They’ll ask questions that I wouldn’t think of and they’re veterans so they’ve played a lot of these opponents multiple times. So they already have a bead on what kind of player he is and what he’ll do in certain situations. It’s unbelievable. That’s what makes them great players and shows you that they put the time in with film study and the advantage of experience. You can’t teach that stuff.”

Whether Carrington knows it or not, they’re teaching it to him.