Hello everyone, this is basically just a copy and past from an email I sent to my dad and some friends when thinking about the Anderson signing. I thought others might appreciate it. Sorry if it's a little stream of consciousness but thats what it was meant to be when I sent it:

"So the Bills just signed Mark Anderson, DE from the Patriots last year (had 10 sacks). This makes our D-Line even stronger. Apparently he is a pass rush specialist, the Bills haven't commented on it yet, but the fine folks on Rumblings assume it'll be Kelsay on running downs and Anderson on passing downs across from Mario Williams. So I was curious what this would mean for our defensive line. I basically did 3 things: 1) I averaged each player's sacks/game for their career and prorated that to a 16 game season (I averaged Kelsay/Anderson to one player since I can't add the two together without inflating stats); 2) I averaged the last two years (2010/11) for each to get a current skill level for the same stats (notes on this: Dareus only has one season and I used 2009/10 for Kyle Williams since he was player hurt in 2011); 3) I took the best year each player has ever had. Granted these stats make two assumptions: 1) everyone stays healthy and 2) these players aren't affected by the new players (I would argue the overall improvement by bringing in 2 new players and having a healthy Kyle Williams back should boost everyone's play making ability)

Just for fun I've included Merriman though I doubt he'll contribute much since he always gets hurt.

First up, last two average

	Average/Game	16 games
Anderson/Kelsay	0.4	6.6
K. Williams	0.3	5.1
Dareus	0.3	5.5
M. Williams	0.8	12.0
Merriman	0.1	2.0

So that would be 29.2 from our starting D-Line alone (not including Merriman), the Bills only had 29 last year from ALL of their players!

OK what about entire career average?

	Average/Game	16 games
Anderson/Kelsay	0.3	4.6
K. Williams	0.2	2.6
Dareus	0.3	5.5
M. Williams	0.6	10.3
Merriman	0.7	11.0

So these numbers are more depressing for everyone except Merriman. If these averages mean anything (I'm more inclined to believe the last two years than the entire career) then our starting 4 (no Merriman) would have 23 sacks, which isn't awful since some sacks come from backups, LBs, Ss and CBs. And if this was accurate than Merriman would be the 4th starter over Anderson/Kelsay and our starters would have 29.4.

Finally, what is the best case scenario:

	Sacks	Games
Anderson/Kelsay	17.5 (8.8)	32
K. Williams	5.5	16
Dareus	5.5	16
M. Williams	14.0	16
Merman	17.0	12

So notes on this, I don't think Merriman will ever be this good again, 17 sacks in 12 games... that would of been 22.7 sacks! Also Mario's best season was actually last year he was averaging a sack a game before injury. So not using Merriman and assuming this totals above our starters could have 33.8, and if you prorate Mario's year last year you can increase the estimate to 35.8.

All in all I'd say our defense is looking up. We should be able to match our sack total from last year using our D-Line alone which then opens up the QBs to bigger mistakes and more INTs and allows LBs or CBs to come on blitzes and surprise the QB. AND don't forget these players should perform better when playing next to better teammates because some of them can't be double teamed anymore!

Side-note: I'd expect our round 1 pick this year to be LT, WR, CB or LB now, I think we can safely rule out DE with the Anderson signing."