Buffalo Bills 2000s Worst-Decade Team - Centre Selection

About a month and a half ago MattRichWarren presentedus with his Buffalo Bills 2000s All-Decade Teamseries.  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's series 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.

Let's be honest, we've been looking for a good player at centre ever since Kent Hull retired.  And so far that search has been... well, painful.  So even though we have had ok centres in Trey Teague and Geoff Hangartner, we haven't really had a good one.  Although the argument can be made that we possibly have a great Centre on our roster right now, the Bills are playing him at RG.  So with all that in mind, no one gets spared here.  If you were a season starter for the Bills, your on this list.

Jerry Ostroski
A tenth round pick of the Kansas City Chiefs in the 1992 draft Ostroski spent 2 seasons on various practise squads before landing with the Bills in 1994.  Jerry was the teams starter at RG for most of the 90's and moved to Centre in 1999 to replace a released Dusty Zeigler (Kunt Hull's long time backup and failed replacement).  Ostroski spent his entire playing career as a Bill, but only spent the 1999 and 2000 seasons at centre.  In his season as the Bills Centre this decade he played in and started all 16 games and the Bills had 1922 yards rushing, but allowed a decade high 59 sacks.  Jerry retired after playing in only 7 games in the 2001 season, after returning to the RG position.

Bill Conaty
An undrafted free agent, Bill joined the Bills in 1997 as a multi-positional backup on the interior line.  He spent one year as the team's starter at Centre, the 2001 season.  He played in 43 games for the Bills this decade, starting 16 of them (all at Centre, all during the 2001 season).  In the season the Bills had 1686 yards rushing and allowed 46 sacks.  Conaty returned to his sub role in 2002 and was released following that season.  He would go on to play in 8 more games for the Vikings in 2004 and hasn't been seen in the NFL since.

Trey Teague
You come to realise how bad the Bills have been at Centre by having Trey Teague being arguably the Bills' best Centre this decade.  Teague was a 7th round draft pick of the Broncos in 1999, Teague signed with the Bills in the winter of 2002 and was immediately labelled the team's starter.  Teague played in 4 seasons for the Bills, playing in 60 games and starting all of them.  In his 4 seasons the Bills rushed for 1596, 1664, 1874 and 1607 yards and allowed 54, 51, 38 and 43 sacks in that order.  Teague decided to retire at the end of the 2005 season, paving the way for...

Melvin Fowler
Drafted by the Browns in the 3rd round of the 2002 NFL draft, Fowler played 3 seasons for the Browns and one season for the Dolphins (all as a backup) before joining the Bills in 2006.  He spent 3 seasons with the Bills, playing in 47 games and starting in 37 of them, losing his starting job to Duke Prestin 5 games into the 2008 season.  in his 3 years here the Bills rushed for 1552, 1800 and 1842 yards and allowed 47, 26, 38 sacks in that order.  Fowler was released at the end of the 2008 season, signed with the Cardinals and was released during the pre-season even started.  He hasn't played in the NFL since.

Duke Preston
A 4th round draft pick of the Bills in the 2005 draft, Prestin played 2 seasons at RG before making the move to Centre for the Bills.  As a Centre Preston played in 28 games for the Bills, starting 11 of them, all in the 2008 season after replacing Fowler as the team's starter.  In that season the Bills rushed for 1842 yards and allowed 38 sacks.  Despite the overall efficiencyof the offensive line in 2008 both Fowler and Preston were released from the Bills as it was by far the weakest position on the offensive line.  Prestin was quickly signed by the Green Bay Packers, but was almost as quickly released as he didn't even get the chance to play in a pre-season game with them.  He also has never been herd of since.

Geoff Hangartner
Drafted in the 5th round of the 2005 by the Carolina Panthers, Hangartner built a reputation as one of the leagues best interior line backups while splittingtime at both guard positions and centre in his 4 years with the Panthers.  The Bills signed him on as their starter in the 2008-2009 off season to replace the released Fowler and Prestin.  And while Hang has done a very good job as the Bills starting Centre, it is evident that it is only a matter of time before he returns to his sub role as he will almost certainly be replaced by Eric Wood.  in his one season for the Bills Hang played and started all 16 games for the Bills.  The team also rushed for 1867 yards and allowed 46 sacks.

Well that's all of them folks.  No discrimination here, just of bunch of average, to mediocre to flat out horrible Centres to choose from.

Oh and for the record, I'm Canadian, so to me Centre is spelt properly!

Previous instalments: QB, RB, FB, WR1, WR2, TE, OT1, OT2, OG1, OG2