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Last Public Bills Practice Before Saints Game

By Brian Galliford

With a closed practice today, the Bills last night held their final public practice before taking the field Friday in a live game setting. With the Saints just under 32 hours away, here's some notes on last night's practice to keep in mind for tomorrow night:

Youboty Starting to Make Plays?
With Jason Webster and Kiwaukee Thomas entrenched as the #2 and #3 cornerbacks, and Jabari Greer making plays left and right, the pressure is on Ashton Youboty to make sure he doesn't become the fifth cornerback on the roster. He responded by making a few plays last night:

On the first play from scrimmage Youboty made a diving effort and may or may not have had an interception. The pass was low from J.P. Losman and Youboty had inside position on the receiver. In trying to make a play on the ball his hands appeared to be beneath the ball before it hit the turf, but it was difficult to say for sure.

The battle continued during 7-on-7 when Youboty jumped on a quick slant and came up with the interception off Trent Edwards.

Here's my view: the Saints have very good wideouts, even if they're a bit inexperienced. I am very anxious to see how Youboty performs tomorrow night, both in coverage and against the run. The team needs to find a way to get this kid playing time, but he needs to prove he deserves it first. Tomorrow is his first chance.

Losman Praises Lynch... Again
The good news surrounding Marshawn Lynch got even better last night, as his quarterback once again praised Lynch's practice efforts:

"He's pretty fast," said Losman. "He hits the outside pretty good and we had to change up some of the blocking schemes because he was getting out too fast. Those are all positives. He's hitting the hole pretty hard. We don't want to put too much on him. We want to just give him some so he doesn't hit that rookie wall and he hasn't shown any signs of that so far."

It makes me laugh that our offensive line was still stuck in "Block for Willis" mode and as a result was having trouble getting out in front of Lynch. Marshawn won't get the start tomorrow night (giving way to Anthony Thomas), but my guess is that they'll get him in as fast as possible in the first quarter, let him get 15-20 good plays and then let Dwayne Wright, Shaud Williams and Fred Jackson carry the load from there.

More Saints Game Prep
An update on the Saints gameplan has been provided:

Defensive end Anthony Hargrove will make the trip and play according to Dick Jauron. Hargrove has a court date Thursday, but is expected to make the team flight in time to travel.

Brad Butler and Josh Scobey will not make the trip as they have treatments scheduled in Buffalo to recover from their respective injuries. Aaron Merz is questionable to play as he is still recovering from a shoulder problem.

Donte Whitner will likely make the trip, but Jauron indicated that a decision on whether his starting strong safety will play is still to be determined.

"It's a little sore," said Jauron of Whitner's lower abdomen injury. "So we'll just wait on that and see how that goes."

I'm a little disappointed that Butler isn't back yet - I really think that had he not missed all this time, he would have nailed down the starting right guard job. As it stands now, my money is on Jason Whittle, but all indications are that Duke Preston will get the start.

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