Bills’ kids are united, unlikely to be divided

By Anthony Bialy  |   Tuesday, January 27, 2009  |  Comments( 54 )

Buffalo Bills
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The Buffalo Bills have plenty of time to get older. Particularly, their three key skill men on offense are NFL infants, and the fact that each has some time to go before being cranky about being 30 is a positive sign for a team that tends to deal in negativity. Even considering its extensive playoff exclusion string, this franchise faces a decent number of chances for success without doing anything other than changing calendars.

Prolonged expectations start out wide. With five seasons down, the good news for wide receiver Lee Evans is that he mans a position where footballers can enjoy lengthy careers. Greats such as Hall of Famers Steve Largent and Art Monk along with should-be Hall of Famer Andre Reed all had careers lasting into teen years, while Jerry Rice caught his first pass from Moses. Evans’ 27th birthday comes in March, and his athletic livelihood is still close to just starting even as he stands at 296 receptions.

Meanwhile, running back Marshawn Lynch doesn’t even turn 23 until around draft time; the day is April 22, if you simply must send him an e-card. Even better, he’s only made 530 carries for 2,151 yards over his NFL career. The accepted wisdom is that running backs invariably fall apart after getting to 10,000 yards and/or 30 birthdays, and he’s closer to drinking illegally than he is to hitting the rusher’s ceiling.

As for the man who gets them the ball, quarterback Trent Edwards turns 26 the day before Halloween, which means the bright side to a 2008 season dotted with black holes is that he conceivably hasn’t peaked yet. With merely two years and 23 starts behind him, some of his awkwardness and errors can be chalked up to youthful indiscretion; that said, Edwards needs to grow up and focus on playing like a mature young person every week. Still, the upside is that he has a few more seasons in which to start doing so before reaching football geezerdom.

Falling short of making the playoffs is always a waste, but the optimistic view is that the offense is built around three young players who are more importantly young for their respective positions. The wise-guy pessimist would counter by noting it means that these three have numerous opportunities to waste their potential and keep missing the postseason for even more consecutive years. But that view is as miserable as it is uninformed: Each of the trio has shown enough over extensive action to provoke hope for a while.

And the kids’ party isn’t only being held on offense, either: With young men like Donte Whitner and Paul Posluszny joining them on the other side, this team’s members are more likely to know Terry Bradshaw as a pre- and post-game lovable buffoon rather than as a during-game success quarterbacking the Pittsburgh Steelers.

These impudent youngsters can brush up on league history later, as they presently have multiple seasons to prove they can excel. There’s lots of time left for Skee-Ball and the ball pit for a team at the equivalent of the football age where they haven’t outgrown Chuck E. Cheese’s.
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