ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- What if there had been no scream heard around the NFL? What if Tom Brady's knee had not taken the awkward twist that ended his season and prompted so many of us to assume the New England Patriots' reign of dominance was over?
Would we still be talking about the Buffalo Bills' considerable potential to take the Pats' place atop the AFC East?
Would the practices that the Bills have had since their season-opening, 34-10 pounding of the Seattle Seahawks have been so spirited, so filled with the optimism and enthusiasm that had preceded the game and steadily soared with every big play and roar of the electrified crowd at Ralph Wilson Stadium?
"Without a doubt, we would feel good about our team, the way that we played on Sunday, and feel good about where we were in our league, in our division, and in the AFC," defensive tackle Kyle Williams said. "You never want to see someone go down like that, but we would have been just as excited about our team if (Brady) would have been there still playing."
"We take pride in ourselves," said tight end Robert Royal. "All we can control is what we do. And if we play as the team we're capable of being, whether we're playing Tom Brady or Eli Manning or Peyton Manning or whoever, we know we're capable of going out there and winning."
Your tendency is to accept those words at face value. After all, there was playoff talk in the Bills' dressing room long before Brady's injury.
Safety Donte Whitner, for one, made a public declaration that the team was going to finally end its eight-year postseason drought. His confidence was fueled by the offseason additions of defensive tackle Marcus Stroud and linebacker Kawika Mitchell, as well as by the fact the offense already had an elite running back in second-year man Marshawn Lynch and would have a more experienced quarterback in another second-year player, Trent Edwards. That their special teams ranked among the league's best was a given, as was the steady improvement of their offensive line (whose only question mark was the contractual holdout that Pro Bowl tackle Jason Peters ended the day before the season began).
"We felt strongly, coming into the season, that we had an opportunity to compete for this division even with Tom Brady in there," Whitner said. "We felt we had some things up our sleeves to show those guys."
Whitner and many of his teammates also liked the way things unfolded during the preseason, when they showed considerable progress from their first game against Washington, to their second game against Pittsburgh, to their third game against Indianapolis. Only one starter played in the fourth game, against Detroit, but by then the Bills were satisfied that they were taking something special into their opener against the Seahawks.
"And that game just affirmed what we thought we were, which is a good team," Williams said.
Still, with Brady out of the picture, it's even easier to see the Bills living up to that expectation. The same is being said about the New York Jets after their new quarterback, Brett Favre, led them to a nail-biting, season-opening victory over the Miami Dolphins. When it counted most, Favre looked every bit like the dynamic playmaker he had been for the better part of the last 16 years with the Green Bay Packers.
But barely escaping with a win against a team that was 1-15 in 2007 isn't quite the same as manhandling the perennial champions of the NFC West as the Bills did. That's why much of the conversation concerning which team has the best chance of filling the Patriots' void -- if, in fact, there truly is a void to fill -- centers on the Bills.
These are the reasons the Bills' case is so compelling:
» Defensive upgrades. Stroud, a three-time Pro Bowler with Jacksonville, figured to give the Bills some desperately needed bulk and strength in the middle of their line. But against the Seahawks, he did so much more. He literally took control of the game, registering two sacks among eight tackles and consistently collapsing the front of Matt Hasselbeck's pocket. Mitchell, who also brought much-needed size to Buffalo's defensive front, and the rest of the linemen and linebackers fed off of Stroud's success. That only added to the futility of the Seahawks' offense, which entered the game with a receiving corps severely depleted by injury.
It would be no exaggeration to say that his addition to the Bills' defense is akin to the trade that brought linebacker Cornelius Bennett to Buffalo in 1987. The Bills already had Jim Kelly and Bruce Smith. Bennett's enormous and immediate impact went a long way toward helping to launch their Super Bowl run.
Against the Seahawks, Stroud played like a man on a mission. He was so amped up that after several defensive stops, he lifted his arms to encourage the crowd to keep making enough noise to disrupt the Seahawks' offensive communication. He is likely to bring even more exuberance into the Week 2 game against his former team, which shipped him to Buffalo because it wasn't convinced he could overcome the major ankle surgery he underwent last year.
"Regardless of who we're playing, when I step out on the field, my emotions are through the ceiling anyway," Stroud said. "I'm going to be hyper and having fun and be ready to play, regardless."
The game plan that defensive coordinator Perry Fewell used against Seattle gave future opponents plenty to ponder. The Bills unleashed a variety of strategic elements that baffled the Seahawks. Among them were inside blitzes, end-tackle games, and alignments that included four ends standing at the line of scrimmage. And, according to Whitner, that was only a small part of an exceptionally thick defensive playbook.
First, Roscoe Parrish returned a punt 63 yards for a touchdown. He did it with a wild, zig-zagging display of running that left Seahawks players grabbing at air and everyone else in wide-eyed amazement.
"Every time I get the ball in my hands, I don't just think first down," Parrish said. "I think touchdown."
He shares the same mentality as his former University of Miami teammate, Devin Hester. Although Hester might receive more acclaim for the kick-return superiority he has shown with the Chicago Bears, Parrish is quickly gaining ground.
"Absolutely, if you're an opponent, you don't want to have the ball in Roscoe's hands," April said. "He's dangerous. He can make a lot happen. And the best part about what happened against Seattle was that our defense played so well that they punted to us 11 times, and most of them were field kicks." In other words, few instances where a fair catch is necessary and more opportunities to return the ball.
Besides Parrish's return, the Bills also pulled off some impressive special-teams trickery. Late in the third quarter, while kneeling to hold for a 36-yard field-goal attempt, punter Brian Moorman picked up the snap and threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to wide-open defensive end Ryan Denney. For good measure, linebacker Jon Corto forced a fumble on the ensuing kickoff. Placekicker Rian Lindell recovered and one play later, Edwards fired a touchdown pass to Royal.
Why were coach Dick Jauron and April willing to try the fake field-goal play in the opener? Mainly because the first several times the Bills worked on it in offseason and training-camp practices, Denny was consistently left uncovered. And that was against what the coaches knew were top-flight special-teams players. It wasn't a stretch to think the Seahawks, who had to travel across the country, could be caught napping late in the second half.
» Offensive improvement. One of the biggest reasons the Bills' offense scored a franchise-record low of 20 touchdowns last season (including only five on the road) was its predictability. Former offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild frustrated players and fans alike by running the ball nearly 60 percent of the time on first down.
New offensive coordinator Turk Schonert brings a fresher and more aggressive approach. Still, it will take some time for Edwards, who had only 16 snaps in the preseason because of a leg bruise suffered in a training-camp practice, and the rest of the offense to make the transition to a different style and a revamped playbook.
[**Buffalo Bills**
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First season: 1960
Home stadiums: War Memorial Stadium, 1960-1972; Ralph Wilson Stadium (known as Rich Stadium, 1973-1998), 1973-present
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Super Bowl appearances: 4
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"The run-pass mix-up, the formations, the shifts, the motions, the snap counts, all that is something that we need to continue to improve on," Edwards said. "It's something we need to continue to work with and be comfortable with. It's hard, when you get used to a play, and then you have to change the formation and change the wording of the play. You have to be able to kind of adjust on the fly in that case."
Adjusting is what all teams do in the NFL. Some adjustments are much greater than others. No one knows that better than the Patriots, who now must proceed with little-known Matt Cassel as their quarterback.
Few NFL opponents are better acquainted with Brady's greatness than the Bills. His career record against them is 13-1. And in those 14 games, he has thrown 30 touchdown passes against only 10 interceptions.
"If you talk to anybody in the league, everybody wants to beat the Patriots, but everybody wants to beat the Patriots with (Brady) playing quarterback, when they are obviously at their best," Williams said. "That's not a shot at Cassel or anybody else they have. But (Brady's) probably the best quarterback in the league and you definitely want to beat them when he's the quarterback."
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