QB

Trent Edwards

RB

C.J. Spiller

(+) Check out a highlight tape of this guy and tell us he isn’t going to be a stud…   WATCH THIS!!!
(+) He wasn’t the first running back taken in the 2010 draft for no reason.  The Bills will want to get Spiller into the action, and probably pretty quickly
(+) Being their running back of the future, C.J. will get plenty of touches on a team in the midst of rebuilding
(+) He has great hands, great vision, and can take it to the house on any play… (see above video)
(–) Fred Jackson is actually a hell of a player, is dedicated to the team, and has worked real hard to be as involved in the offense as he is
(–) Between Trent Edwards, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Brian Brohm, it might not be the best environment for a rookie running back to be in

Fred Jackson

(+) Fred’s targets went up by 15 from 2008 and he somehow scrounged out a 1,000-yard rushing season with limited carries (237 carries, 4.46 YPC)
(–) Fred Jackson was an undrafted free agent when he came into the league, and his skills are below average amongst starting RB’s in the league
(–) Buffalo has a below average O-line, ranking 22nd overall in run blocking
(–) With the addition of the 9th overall pick, RB C.J. Spiller, Fred Jackson’s days as a Bill are limited, and more importantly, his carries will be grossly limited as well
(–) With a very weak passing attack, finding holes to run through won’t be easy
(–) The Bills will be playing from behind most of the season, so running the ball in the second half of games will be a challenge
(–) Buffalo has a terrible Rush Schedule at 29th in the league

Marshawn Lynch

 (+) The fugliest man in the NFL scares opposing defenders to death every time he approaches them
 (+) The former 12-overall pick in the 2007 NFL draft has just undrafted Fred Jackson and rookie C.J. Spiller to compete with for playing time
 (+) Even if he’s not the starter or 3rd-down back, he could still end up as the red-zone RB for the Bills
 (–) Has more trouble staying out of jail than Gary Busey
 (–) His production and playing time has decreased each of the last three years
 (–) Could possibly be cut by one of the worst teams in the NFL and never play football again
 (–) Has both the 4th toughest rush schedule in the league and runs behind one of the worst offensive lines in the league… not a good combo

WR

Lee Evans

(+) He’ll be the only proven pass catcher on this roster to start out the season, so targets should be a strength for him
(+) He has good speed and is a nice deep-ball threat playing a weaker pass schedule (6th in the league), so some long touchdowns could be had
(–) Lack of an average WR2, a weak running game, a poor offensive line, and a dud for a QB really should help calm any expectations for Evans this season

Steve Johnson

Roscoe Parrish

TE

Shawn Nelson

-  The Buffalo Bills began the 2009 season with expectations of being better than 2008, a season in which
        the finished 7-9 with Edwards only starting 12 games
-  They began the season 1-4 as Trent Edwards struggled with injuries
-  Fitzpatrick finally came in to replace Edwards and the team finished with a 6-10 record on the season
-  The team scored 258 and allowed 326 against

2009 Total Points Rank:         12th (108 tot pts)
2009 Average/Game Rank:     15th (6.8 pts/gm)

FR=Fumbles Recoverd, PA=Points Allowed, FP Rank=Fantasy Points Rank, FP/G=Fantasy Points per Game

2010 Bills Defensive Outlook... 

As bad as the offense will be for the Bills this season, the Defense is at least respectable.  I wish I could tell you to make the Buffalo Bills Defense and Special Teams the first Bill of the board this year, but that would be breaking Mike Spike Jones’Cardinal Draft Rule:  DO NOT DRAFT KICKERS AND DEFENSES UNTIL THE FINAL 4 ROUNDS OF YOUR DRAFT.

As bad as I would like to romanticize this Bills team to be the worst ever (besides the winless Lions team, sorry Detroit, you’ll never live that one down), the Bills D could actually be a sleeper. 

PYRO has them rated as the 5^th overall pass defense and the 14^th overall Rush defense.  The rush D won’t end up there at the end of the year, cause this team will never be in games and will get the ball run down their throats.  That being said, they were also 5^th overall last year in turnovers and 18^th in sacks.  The sacks are weak, but not a colossal meltdown like the Jags were.

-  Paul Posluszny led the team with 110 tackles, George Marshall had 103
-  The Bills had 32 sacks last season
-  Leading sacker was Aaron Schobel with 10
-  How can the Bills increase the effectiveness of their defense
-  Jarius Byrd led the team with 9 INTs
-  Team forced 13 fumbles
-  Team forced a total of 41 turnovers

Team PYRO is hyper about Offensive Lines!  Understanding who will be blocking for the players on your roster is vital to your teams Fantasy success.  We take many factors into account when we rank these units, including weight, height, starts together as a unit, starts per year played, rushing average, sacks allowed, draft position, contact situation, pro bowl/all pro honors, Adjusted Line Yardage (ALY) and Adjusted Sack Rate (stats found at the link below).  O-Line Rank is one more piece of the puzzle that directs us towards delivering you a Fantasy Football Championship. 

Here is another great resource for looking at O-Lines…    http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol 

The fantasy lifeblood of the players sitting on your roster boils down to one EXTREMELY important stat.  Drum Roll please……………………………  ATTEMPTS!!!!  Ahhhh, there, we said it.  Before you can make a play, you gotta have the pill in your hands.  It’s pretty simple really, in the immortal words of the maligned Keyshawn Johnson… “Just give me the damn ball”.  There is no “I” in the word “team”, but don’t fool yourself, it’s in the word rotisserie twice. 

For the QB, it’s Pass Attempts, for the RB, it’s Carries, and for the WR and TE, it’s Targets.  If you look at the players in the league who are amassing large quantities of points, they are the ones who are seeing the rock come their way the most often.  Sure, you have to be good enough to do something with the p-skin when you get it, but never forget, you can’t make a play until you have the pill in your hands. 

The PYRO Offensive scheme charts aim to deliver you perhaps the most important information you could attain before and after draft day; Will my player get the chances they need to put out or will they be shut out?  It really boils down to what the offensive game plan on Sunday is.  These charts should provide some perspective on which teams are going to live by land and which are going to live by air. 

By Air

-  Edwards will have to battle for his starting job with Ryan Fitzpatrick and Brian Brohm.
-  New coach Chan Gailey is giving no edge to any QB, so look for an intense QB battle during training camp
-  Last season the Bills ranked 30th in passing with 2,515 yards through the air
-  Behind Lee Evans the WRs are young and inexperienced, look for one to have a breakout season
-  The TEs did not have a very productive season catching 26 passes between the top 2
-  The running backs were effective receivers out of the field especially Fred Jackson

By Land

-  The Bills biggest strength was their run game. With two legitimate starters in the backfield,
        Fred Jackson and Marshawn Lynch, the team compiled an effective running attack
-  The team ranked 16th in rushing yards with 1,867 on the ground
-  The 2 QBs, Trent Edwards and Ryan Fitzpatrick, for the Bills also compiled over 100 yards rushing,
        look for this to increase with the spread of Gailey

RZ Touches (Position Rank) = The first number you see is Red Zone Touches (a pass attempt, a carry, or a target inside the 20 yard line).  The number in the parentheses is where this player ranks amongst the rest of the NFL at that position.

% of Teams RZ Touches (Position Rank) = The first number is the players percentage of touches cut out against the total number of the Teams Red Zone plays called.  The number in the parentheses is where this player ranks amongst the rest of the NFL at that position.  So, if Thomas Jones received a touch in 45 percent of the Jets Red Zone calls last year, and Knowshon Moreno received a touch in 38 percent of all the Broncos plays last year, Jones would be ranked higher at his position than Moreno would be.

RZ TD Success Rate (Position Rank) = The first number is the percentage of which an individual player was able to score a TD against his total number of touches.   The number in the parentheses is where this player ranks amongst the rest of the NFL at that position.

Why Should I look at this Chart?

We couldn’t possibly take up a whole minute of your valuable fantasy football research time babbling about the importance of Attempts for your team and then leave out Red Zone Tendencies.

Yep, same drill with these charts, only a lot more important if scoring TD’s is what you’re leagues about.  The PYRO Red Zone Tendencies chart delivers a touchdown focused microcosm of the Offensive Scheme section.

To score a TD, your player needs a touch (pass att, carry, or target), and when they get a touch inside the 20, great things can happen for your Fantasy teams total points line.

It’s really easy, touches are King and converting a touch in the red is Fantasy Gold.

PYRO 2010 Bill Leaders in the Red Zone...

1. Fred Jackson
2. CJ Spiller
3. Marshawn Lynch
4. Lee Evans
5. Jonathan Stupar

Grade* = Team PYRO took this number directly from NFL.COM - not a number devised here by us, you know, your friends who don’t sleep?  In other words, proceed with caution knowing the source, but we thought it was at least a worthy effort and could help you gauge just how solid the teams draft was.  We hope it helps, we think it will. 

Draft Bits... 

RB CJ Spiller was the first RB of the board this spring.  He’s clearly talented and by all accounts we expect him to supplant Fred Jackson and Marshawn Lynch as the feature back this season.  The Bills will struggle to move the ball, so expect a slow start.  Spiller should slowiy gain some traction and help out.  FANTASY IMPACT! 

WR Reed is headed for season ending surgery.  FANTASY IRRELEVANT

OL Wang is having Thumb Surgery, due to miss 8 weeks.  He was a non factor anyway.  FANTASY IRRELEVANT

Team PYRO considers our Strength of Schedule data an essential part of building you a Fantasy Championship.  This data is integral in helping us rank our players each year.  So far, so good.  We go to GREAT lengths to deliver you this PYRO nugget and we know nobody else in the industry is putting forth this type of effort, which puts you at a great advantage if you have been using us as your fantasy football research outlet.  Our SoS considers three factors when determining rankings for schedules for the upcoming year:

1) 75% weight is applied to the strength of defense from the previous season.  This is determine by fantasy points given up (run and pass).  Easy right? Here's where Team Pyro goes deep: before we get to that number, we factor in the quality of teams that these defenses had to face (essentially, a strength-of-schedule for the prior season).

 
2) 20% weight is applied to Free-Agent, Trade, and Injury Returns that will help or hurt the team for the current year.  We rank each players impact to their former team (2008), sum it all up, and then rank each team accordingly.

3) 5% weight is applied to the NFL drafincoming rookie impact.  It's a challenge to successfully gauge a rookie's effectiveness (too many Jamarcus Russells out there) which is why we valued it so low.  Some teams not only drafted highly touted defensemen this year, but will be immediately filling deficient positions from '09 with rookies, and usually, anything is an upgrade when you are starting a rookie.

Chart Key =

Ranking:  1=easiest  32=toughest

QB's, WR's, and TE's

(INDY) Peyton Manning, Reggie Wayne, and Dallas Clark have the EASIEST passing schedule in 2010

(BALT) Joe Flacco, Anquan Boldin, and Todd Heap have the HARDEST passing schedule in 2010

RB's

(SF) Frank Gore has the EASIEST rushing schedule in 2010

(MIA) Ronnie Brown has the HARDEST rushing schedule in 2010

June 16, 2010

Signed WR Marcus Easley. Waived LB Mike Wright.

June 10, 2010

Signed LB Arthur Moats and QB Levi Brown. Waived DE Will Croner and OL Jorge Guerra.

June 8, 2010

Signed OL Kyle Calloway. Waived DB Stephan Virgil.

June 5, 2010

Agreed to terms with LB Reggie Torbor.

June 3, 2010

Signed LB Danny Batten.

May 27, 2010

Signed OL Ed Wang.

May 12, 2010

Released RB Walter Mendenhal and C Kyle Mutcher.

May 11, 2010

Signed RB Chad Simpson. Released DT Marlon Favorite.

May 5, 2010

Named Darrell Moody national scout. Promoted Matt Hand to an area scout. Announced college scouting assistant Michael LaFlamme will add pro personnel assignments to his duties.

May 5, 2010

Signed G Cordaro Howard.

May 1, 2010

Signed WR David Nelson and LB Mike Wright.

April 29, 2010

Signed WR Naaman Roosevelt, RB Joique Bell, DE Will Croner, DB John Destin, G Jorge Guerra and DB Stephan Virgil.

April 21, 2010

Claimed TE Michael Matthews off waivers from Detroit.

April 12, 2010

Signed RB Rodney Ferguson.

April 8, 2010

Re-signed TE Derek Schouman.

April 7, 2010

Signed RB Walter Mendenhall.

March 31, 2010

Signed WR Chad Jackson. Re-signed CB Ashton Youboty.

March 30, 2010

Re-signed S George Wilson, LB Keith Ellison, LB Jon Corto, DB Cary Harris, DB Jonathan Stupar and WR Felton Huggins.

March 17, 2010

Signed DE Dwan Edwards to a four-year contract.

March 16, 2010

Signed LB Andra Davis.

March 11, 2010

Re-signed TE Joe Klopfenstein.

March 8, 2010

Agreed to terms with OT Cornell Green on a three-year contract.

March 2, 2010

Signed DT Marlon Favorite.

February 19, 2010

Named Daryl Daye assistant coach.

February 18, 2010

Announced the retirement of OT Brad Butler.

February 17, 2010

Named Bobby Johnson assistant offensive line coach.

February 16, 2010

Released TE Derek Fine, WR Justin Jenkins, DB John Wendling, LB Ashlee Palmer, DE Jermaine McGhee, DE Marcus Smith and C Marvin Phillip. Named Stan Kwan special teams assistant coach.

February 10, 2010

Named Doug Whaley assistant general manager/director of pro personnel.

February 9, 2010

Named Eric Ciano and John Gamble co-strength and conditioning coaches.

February 4, 2010

Named George Edwards defensive coordinator.

February 1, 2010

Named George Cortez quarterbacks coach, Bruce DeHaven special teams coach and Stan Hixon wide receivers coach.

January 27, 2010

Named Curtis Modkins offensive coordinator/running backs coach, Bob Bicknell tight ends coach, Joe D'Alessandris offensive line coach, Giff Smith defensive assistant and Kevin Patullo offensive quality control.

January 19, 2010

Named Chan Gailey coach.