Buffalo Bills 2000s Worst-Decade Team - TE Selection

About a month ago MattRichWarrenpresented us with his Buffalo Bills 2000s All-Decade Team series.  And for about a month we voted on a series of poles to determine who was worthy of being on that team.  But more often than not we also ended up complaining over the limited sometimes horrible talent that we had to pick from for any given position.  So it was about at the TE position that I thought "hey why don't we also vote on the worst players that played for this team over the last decade?"  And so here we are.

Now just like MattRichWarren'sseries I have a few criteria for players to be eligible for this team.  They had to have played in at least a full season's worth of games in this decade to be eligible.  Starting is not requirement, but you do have to have played significant amounts of snaps in those games.  That means that, for example, the Bills 3rd receiver might make the list, but a 4th or 5th stringer wont be considered.  That means that we wont end up voting for 7th rounders that ended up playing 2 snaps.  These are going to be real players that played real roles on this team over the last ten years.  And just because a player ended up on the All-Decade team does not mean that you can't also be on the worst-decade team.

I'll keep this short.  You know a team's been bad at a position if you yearn for the days of Pete Metzelaars.  I mean our Bills All-Decade TE was Jay Freakin' Riemersma for God's sake!  We just sucked at this position, threw and threw.  Here are the standouts of the awfuls (aka starters).

Jay Riemersma
A 7th round pick of the 1996 draft, Riemersma played in 3 season for the Bills this decade.  He was a serviceable TE that was good enough to be recognised as the best the Bills had this decade.  but in a decade of awfulness, that doesn't really say much.  In this decade he appeared in  44 games for the Bills, starting in 42 of them.  He had 116 receptions for 1312 yards and 8 TD's.  Those numbers may seem decent, but one must remember that those weren't even good enough to beat out the team's fullback of the time (Larry Centers).  Jay left the Bills after the end of the 2002 seasons and joined the Steelers, where he played the last two seasons of his career.

Mark Campbell
Riemersma's replacement was also a downgrade in almost every way.  Campbell was signed away from the Browns in the 2002-2003 off season and wore a Bills uniform for 3 seasons.  He played in 42 games for the Bills, starting in 33 of them.  He had 70 receptions for 681 yards and 6 TD's.  The Bills let him go after the 2005 season, when he join the Saints for his last two seasons in the league.

Robert Royal
Campbell's replacement was  Mister "Freash of Breath air"(45 seconds in) himself.  He played in 3 seasons for the Bills, joining the team in 2006.  He played in 47 games, starting 37 of them.  He had 81 receptions for 832 yards and 7 TD's, but also accumulated 4 fumbles and numerous dropped passes.  He was released from the Bills at the end of the 2008 season and joined the Browns, where he continues to stink up the place.

Derek Schouman
A 7th round draft pick of the Bills in the 2007 draft, Schouman has shown some (limited) promise as a complete TE.  He also has also had some durability issues, ending up on IR in 2 of his 3 seasons as a Bill.  He has played in 21 games for the Bills, starting in 15 of them.  The has had 27 receptions for 275 yards and 1 TD.  He remains on the Bills as a capable backup to promising young TE Shaun Nelson.

Omissions:  Derek Fine (a blocker first, he has had too many injury issues to show us if he could ever be any good), Sheldon Jackson (played as Riemersma's backup, and although he was bad, I saw no reason to include backups when I could have starters) and Michael Gaines (see Stephen Jackson, except he was Royal's backup and actually outplayed him).

Previous instalments: QB, RB, FB, WR1, WR2