The first days after National Football League training camps open represent the sport's equivalent of the mid-February stretch when baseball's pitchers and catchers report.
It's a time for unbridled optimism, stratospheric expectations and outlandish predictions. So here's one. The Buffalo Bills will not only reach the playoffs, but finish their season on Feb. 1, playing in Super Bowl XVIII.
That's pretty big talk regarding a team that hasn't so much as won a playoff game since January 1994, or even reached the postseason this century.
Take a cold, detached look, though. On offense, Buffalo possesses a premier quarterback, a running back coming off a breakout season and one of the game's elite wide receivers, all supported by a young offensive line that returns intact from a season of steady progression.
But the Bills had most of that last year, plus Peerless Price to draw attention away from Eric Moulds (at least in theory), and still finished 8-8.
After the 3-13 implosion of 2001, Buffalo president/general manager Tom Donahoe needed to sell tickets and offer the franchise's dispirited fan base some reason to hope. Enter Drew Bledsoe.
While Bledsoe's scorching opening half of the season succeeded on both counts, his arm could only cover the Bills' fatal flaws for so long. Buffalo's patchwork defense shredded over the final two months, while Bledsoe and offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride showed little ability to adjust once opposing defenses caught up to their tricks.
So Donahoe gave the defensive front a complete makeover in the offseason. The additions of Sam Adams to anchor the middle of the line, Jeff Posey to provide a pass rush off the edge and fellow linebacker Takeo Spikes to run around lambasting anyone who touches the ball will fuel the journey from competing to contending and beyond.
Bolstering both the run defense and pass rush also amplifies what defensive talent the Bills already possessed.
The defensive tackle duo of Adams and Pat Williams frees up middle linebacker London Fletcher, who will also benefit from being surrounded by Spikes and Posey, rather than a rotating cast of outside linebackers whose names you've already forgotten.
A better rush means last year's only true defensive strengths, cornerbacks Antoine Winfield and Nate Clements, will have the opportunity to validate their reputations as lock-down coverage guys, instead of chasing receivers around until the enemy quarterback feels like throwing the ball.
The free-agent additions also give Buffalo defensive depth, something painfully absent since the last playoff trip in 1999.
Put all that together, and you have a team as qualified as any to represent the AFC in Houston come February.
Particularly when the Bills are still trotting around the St. John Fisher campus in suburban Rochester in shorts, the first catastrophic injury has yet to be incurred and the games that actually count remain more than a month in the future.
The timing also leaves plenty of room for your friendly prognosticator to rationalize, waffle and place blame if Buffalo starts 0-5.
Following the sort of in-depth roster analysis and film study regular BillStuff readers have come to expect, we'll be offering up a full preview of the season in our Sept. 2 edition.
But for now, the pick is the pick -- Buffalo back in the Super Bowl.
Remember, you read it here first.
Unless it's wrong.
BEST FRONT-OFFICE MANEUVERING: Donahoe gets big points for getting the salary cap under control in his first two years in Buffalo, giving him room to sign Adams, Spikes and Posey. But it didn't require a football genius to go after the best defensive tackle and linebacker available, along with a young guy coming off an out-of-nowhere season.
Donahoe's most skillful move came late in 2002, when he signed defensive end Marcus Jones after the veteran's release from Tampa Bay.
If he's healthy, Jones gives the Bills a bargain-priced pass-rushing force at left end, opposite the improving Aaron Schobel. If not, Donahoe picked up ex-Packer Keith McKenzie to compete with rookie Chris Kelsay and second-year man Ryan Denny for the spot.
MOST LIKELY TO CREATE AN OFFSEASON CONTROVERSY IN 2004: Even though no team ran the ball less than the Bills' 388 attempts in 2002, Travis Henry became the most productive all-around back this side of Priest Holmes.
With the offensive emphasis shifting, at least slightly, to the ground game and shorter passes, Henry's numbers should skyrocket.
The added inspiration provided by Buffalo's selection of Willis MacGahee in the first round of April's draft won't hurt, either.
With former 1,000-yarder Olandis Gary around to back up Henry, there's no reason to rush MacGahee's return from a devastating knee injury. But once the former Hurricane is ready, there's no way he and Henry will co-exist peacefully for long.
WHAT TO DO AFTER PRACTICE IF YOU ATTEND TRAINING CAMP: Get in your car and drive back to wherever you came from.
Not to suggest Rochester is achingly dull, but this is a place that goes positively crazy for its minor-league soccer team. Honest to God. Soccer.
At least the coaching staff needn't worry about players breaking curfew -- there's no place worth leaving an air-conditioned dorm room for within 30 miles.
A word of warning -- if you're driving out for the morning session, bring some CDs or tapes. Otherwise, you're virtually assured of exposure to Brother Wease, who makes 97 Rock's execrable Larry Norton sound like a comic genius in comparison. A source in Rochester insists that Wease said something sort of funny, once, a very long time ago. But don't take any chances.
MOST COMPETITIVE POSITION: Pierson Prioleau's arrival late in 2001 provided one of Buffalo's few remotely bright spots. Last year, though, he achieved the unenviable double of starting every game without producing a single interception or fumble recovery.
That's not nearly good enough, so the Bills brought in Izell Reese to compete for the starting job, and probably aren't done auditioning other candidates to line up next to strong safety Coy Wire.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 29 2003 |