Fantasy Football Preview: Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills haven’t been a very successful franchise recently, but that doesn’t mean that they are devoid of offensive talent that can help out your fantasy football team.
The key for Buffalo is to be able to stop the run better on defense to give their offense more opportunities. They have focused on that aspect in the draft, will it pay off?
Quarterback
Whether or not Ryan Fitzpatrick should be a starting quarterback for a hopefully playoff team is debatable. Whether or not he’s worth a flier as a starting fantasy quarterback in a deep fantasy league or a backup quarterback for spot starts shouldn’t be. Last year in 13 games, Fitzpatrick threw for 3,000 yards and 23 touchdowns. On top of that he added in 269 rushing yards. That’s not great, but a full season of those kind of numbers would be roughly 3700 passing yards and 28 touchdowns, which could make him a near top 10 fantasy quarterback. Buy in on Ryan Fitzpatrick. Chan Gailey has succeed in his career with a good passing game and the Bills have decent wide receivers and running backs who can catch the football.
Running backs
Fred Jackson
Jackson is a player who just does what he’s suppose to do and is an excellent candidate for a number two running back, and borderline number one RB.
Last season in only 222 carries Jackson had 927 yards and 5 touchdowns as well as another 215 yards receiving and two receiving touchdowns. With Lynch out of the way and Spiller best suited as a dynamic chance of pace kind of running back (return-man/reciever/playmaker) Jackson should h get more carries this year. Of course this also depends on the Bills being able to keep teams from running the ball and controlling the clock as much as they did last year (over 33 minutes per game) to give Jackson and the offense enough opportunities to put more points on the board.
C.J. Spiller
I’m not sure Spiller will ever be a great fantasy running back. I think he’s more akin to Reggie Bush who’s impact on the field and the fact that his presence can create problems out paces his stats. Last season Spiller only had 74 carries and averaged 3.8 yards per carry. He did also throw in 24 receptions. Spiller is a speed player who needed to adjust to the speed of the game. I think he’ll havea better year this year, but I’m taking Jackson and many others before Spiller.
Johnny White
A couple of weeks ago I linked a story to a Bills beat writer who thinks White will get 6-8 carries a game. That’s not much, but it’s something. He could be useful in very deep leagues.
Wide Recievers
Stevie Johnson
There aren’t too many draftable wide receivers on the Bills, but Johnson is one of them. He had a breakout season last year, 82 catches for 1073 yards and most impressively 10 touchdowns. He has good size and is a pretty good play maker. He’s taken over the role of #1 WR from Lee Evans and is a decent option for a number one fantasy wide receiver. I dont’ expect his stats to go down much, and they could even be better.
Lee Evans
If Lee Evans had played his entire career in Indinapolis or New England we could be talking about one of the best wide receivers in the N.F.L. He still makes big plays (he avearaged 15.6 yards per reception), but he’s a speed WR who’s thirty years old now and not a big touchdown guy. He’s best suited as a flex WR.
These are the most draftable players in Buffalo, there isn’t a ton of offensive talent, but it’s improving. They have young WR worth taking a look at like David Nelson and Shawn Nelson could be useful at Tight End, but until the Bills can hold the ball the longer on offense I’d advoid most of the players for fantasy purposes. If you’re smart though Grab Fitzpatrick and Jackson had good values.
Thoughts?