Two Bills Drive

‘"I checked out every one of them, man," Spikes said Monday afternoon. "Empire Sports, ESPN, CNN, ESPN2. I checked out everything. It was a sight to see."’

‘"He gives you a threat on the perimeter," Williams said. "He gives you a threat with his feet that should he ever get in a ball game he can makes some plays out of nothing."’

‘Although it was only one game, there was undoubtedly something different about this Bills team that I haven’t seen in quite some time. Come to think of it, probably since the seasons surrounding that opening-day win over the Rams in ’92 I had mentioned earlier. Could you feel it?’

‘What did they really do? The Patriots aren’t exactly like shutting down Joe Montana’s 49ers.’

‘Who was Bill Belichick trying to kid when he kept denying that the Lawyer Milloy saga had nothing to do with his team’s performance? He kept saying the Bills totally outplayed the Patriots, and he was right, but to think his strange release of Milloy and his subsequent signing by Buffalo did not play a factor in the game is out of touch with reality.’

‘” Coy is a special young man and he made some significant plays in the special teams, plays that were needed for us on open-field plays,” Williams said Monday. ” He’s a good football player.”‘

‘M&T Bank has signed a 5-year marketing agreement with the Buffalo Bills that gives the it high profile exposure at Ralph Wilson Stadium and the status of “official bank” of the Buffalo Bills.’

‘”Lawyer is no longer here. To my understanding he’s probably not gonna come back, so we can’t count on that. I mean, I want my granddaddy to come back, but I’ve been waiting a long time and he ain’t coming back. The chances of me suiting up here with Lawyer again, you know, miracles can happen, but I don’t see any. As soon as we win or as soon as they lose, things are going to be forgotten.”‘

‘The Patriots came out with a surprising lack of emotion, considering it was opening day, against a division rival, with Milloy and Drew Bledsoe on the opposing team. “There wasn’t really a lot for us to build on and that is because we didn’t make enough plays for us to build positively on,” Belichick said. “I think it is hard to be emotionally positive when things aren’t going well and they certainly didn’t go well early in that game and that is our fault.”‘

‘Even when the Patriots were down 21-0 to the Buffalo Bills at halftime on Sunday, linebacker Rosevelt Colvin was convinced his team could erase the deficit.’

‘Patriots coach Bill Belichick said the club does not intend to pursue allegations of personnel tampering by the Washington Redskins in their pursuit of strong safety Lawyer Milloy.’

‘QUARTERBACK — F-minus. Bad! Bad! Very bad!’

‘”He got something off his back by proving that he can go out there and he’s still the same player he’s always been and even better,” Law said. “If you put anybody in the right situation, they can make plays. Lawyer’s one of those types of guys. He proved to everyone that he has not lost a step. He makes plays. Everyone will have a down year. Hall of Famers have down years.”‘

‘But Law agreed with his teammates that it was foolish to believe that Milloy joining the Bills led to the Patriots’ loss. “It was a distraction early in the [previous] week,” Patriots defensive end Richard Seymour said. “But it had nothing to do with [losing] 31-0. People got to come, people got to go. That’s a part of life. You’re still a professional athlete. If someone lets that affect them, that’s their fault.”‘

‘Truth is, the Pats may go 15-1, 1-15 or 8-8, and we’ll never know what the events of Sept. 2 had to do with any of it. Milloy may be a big part of the Bills winning the division. Or we may find out he’s lost a step, that his overall game has slipped, which the Pats hinted at. Six, eight, 10 weeks from now, with a lot of football played, we’ll know a lot more about the Patriots and Bills, and the true meaning of Lawyer Milloy being up there instead of down here. In the meantime, only this matters. Bills 1-0, Pats 0-1.’