My 2010 Bills Forecast

Chan Gailey had just been named Bills head coach when I last posted here in January. There has not really been much to be excited about over the last 8 months, let alone write about. But, the season is about to start so I thought what the hell.

On August 19th, my friend and I took our $125 seats (half the original price I paid 2 years ago) in the 500 level of the sleepy Rogers Centre for pre-season game number 2 and game number 4 in what seems to have become an sort of "white elephant" of sports promotions called the Bills Toronto Series . We planned on have a beer, chatting and leaving at halftime. The Bills treated us to 3 first quarter touchdowns on their way to a 24-21 lead over the Colts when the first stringers left near halftime. I had watched the entire (sorry to say) debacle in Washington the previous week and my expectations were low. CJ Spiller electrified the crowd (ok, "electrify" is way too strong but I found it mildly electrifying) with a long TD run and Edwards hit a wide open Lee Evans with a long bomb as well. Payton Manning played well into the second quarter, the roof was open on a nice evening and I left at halftime (I caught the whole game later in the week on NFL Network) feeling better than I thought I would.

The 53 man roster was announced this past weekend and, looking at this year's depth chart, there realy is no reason to think that the team will even challenge to be .500. The most glaring area is the offensive line which has no proven top flight players and a very thin reserve list. The defencive backfield, on the other hand looks very good by league standards. Would we rather have a good O line and a weak secondary? I'd probably say yes to that.

As always, we'll see. One of the NFL's most appealing phenomenons is that teams can change profoundly in the course of a year. In addition to being too short on talent to realistically hope for anything much this season, the Bills appear to have a very tough schedule, especially early on, but maybe some of those teams which were very good last year will fall off as veteran players age, injuries mount etc. What looks like a relatively easy schedule can be a brutal one too. Maybe this year, somehow, the Bills can be one of those teams that makes other teams schedules more difficult. It could happen.

But it probably won't. I say they will finish 5-11 and win against the Bears - their first regular season win in Toronto.