Buffalo Bills: People forget this but actually the Bills were a preseason favorite to go like 9-7 or 10-6 last year. I predicted them to go 7-9 Bills hope for some swift moves this year. despite having a really talented team, but I predicted them to have a horrible head coach (I’ve some experience). Along those lines: According to footballoutsiders “there is a clear correlation between maintaining continuity on the offensive line and having success.†Funny that the Bills have been both bad and have never had a consistent offensive line. This year they’re bringing in a bunch of young guys fresh off selling Jason Peters to the Eagles and may not even have shored up which rotation they’ll use as a bunch of their players played different positions in college. I mean, even if there’s talent there it seems unlikely that their offensive line will be brilliant this year. In preseason the Bills have looked really bad, beating the Bears in week 2 (the Bears were on their first game and didn’t gameplan) and then getting blown out by basically every other team, including a 17-0 drubbing by the Steelers. Oh, and they didn’t score a single offensive touchdown in the entire preseason and fired their offensive coordinator who then blamed Jauron for wanting too vanilla an offense, which has been each Jauron team’s downfall so far anyways. Marshawn Lynch is also suspended for the first 3 weeks of the season so it’ll be a heavy dose of (mildly injured) Fred Jackson and (mildly old) Dominic Rhodes rushing the football while (mildly bad) offensive linemen try to protect Trent Edwards in the passing game. I do not predict great things from this offense despite a talented receiver corps (Evans, Reed, James Hardy, Owens, R. Parrish, etc.) (incidentally the Bills were 22nd running and passing the football last season and then got rid of their offensive line so… getting worse would be a bad idea). Defensively the Bills are still pretty bad, they were 13th and 14th against the run and pass last season and footballoutsiders devotes much of its section to mocking their defensive line. In all honesty I doubt their line of Shobel (if healthy), Stroud, Kyle Williams and Kelsay is all that horrible, but it’s probably not amazing. Their secondary is good and people are predicting Paul Posluszny to have a big year despite the fact that he was terrible in college. I’d expect similar to last year only with a worse offense, which means an average defense, a bad offense, and Dick Jauron’s 4th season as head coach. Umm… that is NOT a recipe for success. Fantasy Potential: I’m petrified of all of their receivers even though I kind of think Edwards is talented. I’m also petrified of Marshawn. Proceed with caution. Outlook: 5-11 and the entire coaching staff fired. Miami Dolphins: So last year I predicted the Dolphins to win the division despite going 1-15 the previous season, so I think I deserve SOME 2009 could be interesting for the Dolphins. credit for that since I think zero other people did that, footballoutsiders calling it a “fluke†even in this season’s preview. They give two main reasons for it happening: 1) they were the healthiest team in the NFL last season and 2) “The single biggest factor was clearly the last minute acquisition on Chad Pennington.†I mean, I do think the first point is important, but it certainly doesn’t explain why they beat a healthy Patriots team 38-3 @New England in week 3 (among other things). And I do also think that FO tends to overrate the quarterback position. I actually predicted the Dolphins to win that division based on a good defense (I was actually kind of wrong there) and a good offensive line (I was not wrong there). As it is, the Dolphins had the 11th best run defense, 25th pass defense, but were top ten in both rushing and passing the football (well, 10th in both). In the offseason the Dolphins made the stupid move of improving their offensive line, signing C Jake Grove from the raiders (who were too busy eating their dessert) and letting their young guys grow with the team. I’d imagine a fairly strong offensive year again for the dolphins, particularly if Pat White can perform in the wildcat as planned. As things stand with Pennington incidentally I DO think he’s by far their best qb, and the dropoff to Henne is pretty significant. But all the same they have a good running attack and that line should be able to protect for any qb long enough to find someone a little bit open. Defensively I’m actually surprised at how bad they were last season. They’ve possibly improved by adding Gbril Wilson at safety to complement Yeremiah Bell, but the real problem of last season was probably the D-line, which they apparently shored up judging by preseason. Their LB corps is already quite good with Joey Porter, Channing Crowder, Jason Taylor, and Akin Ayodele. We’ll see, I’d guess their D-line of R. Starks, J. Fergeson, and K. Langford will still struggle a bit but they’ll probably be an average-ish defense. However, unlike the Bills they appear to be reasonably well-coached and should be able to play similarly to last season. If the injury bug bites them as is predicted by FO then they obviously could be hurt a little, but they’re really young and it’s hard to think they’re absurdly untalented at the backup positions. They’d like their line to stay healthy but they still have reasonable depth, particularly on the interior of the line. I dunno, I mean, any team if they lose 100% of their players to injury will have a bad season so I think you base preseason predictions largely on the starting team + depth and I don’t see why the dolphins are that bad. Their QB is aging and if Henne needs to play a lot this season that could be a bit of trouble for their passing attack but a good offensive line should ensure at least a competent offense, and their defense looks equally competent if not improved over last season. That sounds pretty good to me. Fantasy Potential: I love their WR1 and possibly WR2, though I’m not really sure who that will be. Likewise I think Fasano could well be a good TE, and I think that their running game is pretty good with White, Williams, and Brown. Their defense may well be 10th-ish overall. Outlook: They were pretty inconsistent and got some luck at the beginning of the season last year before teams figured out that the way to beat them was by throwing all over the field. The Pats slaughtered them @Miami in like week 14 or so despite being slaughtered themselves in week 3. But they also took time themselves to gel (starting 0-2) and… I mean, I think 10-6 is perfectly possible for this team. BM
