Archives for January 3, 2012

‘It’s hard not to conclude that Wannstedt’s promotion will improve the defensive unit and that it will gravitate away from the 3-4 alignment, for which it was ill-manned, and switch to the 4-3 of which he is an advocate.’

‘Pass rush should be the top priority for the Bills, followed by left tackle and a big-play wide receiver to make sure Stevie Johnson is the second-best receiver on the roster. Johnson, despite his antics, is a talented player who makes a good No. 2 receiver and should be re-signed.’

‘”Obviously as soon as possible,” he said. “We’ll see what happens with that. I’ll just put faith in Buddy (Nix) and see what happens. But the sooner it happens for me, the better for myself.”‘

‘"I’ve done this for a long time and we’re kind of at the stage now where you sit back and evaluate things," Wannstedt said. "Everyone’s curious about what changes will be made, what’s going to be different, and a time and place will come to talk about that. Right now, it’s more of sit back, try to catch our breath, evaluate players, evaluate our scheme, and take a look and see where we can improve. It’s really not that difficult. We’ve got a lot of room to improve. We have some good young players, we have some good veteran players and that will be the next step."’

‘”I don’t know what’s going to happen and obviously I’m not a decision maker. I’m not going to be involved in that process. I know that they know I want him back. He knows I want him back. He wants to be here. We’ll see how it turns out. But I’m a better player with Stevie on my team. I feel he’s a better player with me as his quarterback.”‘

‘Bell said the knee injury he suffered against Denver was not as serious as feared, and he will be healthy heading into free agency. Bell suffered a torn meniscus (cartilage) and had surgery last Wednesday to repair it. He said he should be close to fully recovered in two or three weeks.’

‘Contacted later, Osadchey said that the stations remained interested in airing the games but that when the talks got to the point where they felt it was no longer in their best interest, “we walked away.”‘

‘His master plan? “Keep the good and try and improve on the bad,” he said.’

‘Edwards guided two of the worst statistical defenses in Bills history. This unit gave up 434 points, second-most in team history, passing last year’s figure of 425, which had been second-worst. The guy was a dubious hire to begin with because he had no coordinating experience, so now we’ll see if the old vet Wannstedt can get blood from this stone.’

‘”You love what Stevie does on the field – before he scores touchdowns,” said Gailey, who benched Johnson for the final three quarters of Sunday’s season-ending 49-21 loss to New England after Johnson drew a 15-yard penalty for excessive end zone celebrating, his second such penalty of the season. “(For us) you just have to decide if he – and we – can get that under control.”‘

‘The 2012 schedule appears relatively soft – the 10 non-division foes were a combined 67-93 this season (.419) – and the Bills might cash in with the No. 10 overall pick in the college draft.’

‘Wannstedt takes over after spending the past season as the team’s assistant head coach while also responsible for inside linebackers. He is a defensive specialist who previously served as head coach at Chicago and Miami.’

‘Edwards spent two years as Buffalo’s defensive coordinator and has 14 years of NFL experience. Prior to taking the Bills job, he was linebackers coach for the Miami Dolphins for five seasons.’

‘”One of the tough things in this business is doing things like that,” said Gailey in his address to the media on Monday. “Many of you and people out there will speculate that this was set up way back [but] that’s the furthest from the truth. Dave was hired to help me, to help the defense and that’s what he did all year. It got to the point where I felt like we needed a change and so we made the change.”’

‘The other decision facing Stevie Johnson is his place of employment. He’s a free agent this off-season and hasn’t had his contract demands met by the Bills. He thought this latest incident would have an impact on the Bills decision to pay him. “When it comes to re-signing players, penalties and things, the good and the bad, everything is going to be thrown in the process of re-signing. I think it may play a role in how things play out for me. With the team going in the direction that it is, we have players ready to make that step. Do Coach Gailey and the staff want a guy like me here? I can’t control that. They know that they have someone working and working hard. It’s really going to be on them at the end of the day.”‘