Aside from all of the chatter at quarterback, Buffalo Bills GM Buddy Nix made some very interesting comments about his team's receivers and offensive line during last night's State of the Bills address.
"We've got some exciting young players," Nix said. "One of the things that we had to do was to get young, and we did. We started out this time last year, we had one wide receiver, (and) we didn't know if our offensive line would hold up through the first game. We struggled early, but we were able to come out with nine receivers, really young guys that have got a lot of potential, and really improved as the year went along. So we feel good about the receiver position. We made some strides in the offensive line, and that's really hard to do during the year."
During the season, the Bills had several young receivers emerge, most notably Stevie Johnson, but also David Nelson, Donald Jones and even Naaman Roosevelt. Given that fact, fans had assumed all along that receiver was a position of comfort for the team, and Nix validated that last night. His thoughts on the team's offensive line were perhaps a bit more surprising.
"We were able to get Kraig Urbik, Chad Rinehart, Mansfield Wrotto - these were two third-round draft choices and a fourth-round draft choice," Nix said. "These guys are big, they're young, they're 25 years old. We've got a right tackle, Erik Pears, he's 28, but he started two years for Denver, when they were winning. So he's got a chance to be our right tackle. We feel good about those young guys, but we also need another tackle. We do need a tackle through the draft, or through free agency if and when that happens."
BuffaloBills.com lead journalist Chris Brown has speculated all off-season that Pears would have the first crack at the right tackle job, and it appears as if he's correct. Depth is a major problem at offensive tackle, however, and Nix did what he could last night to alleviate any fears that the team wasn't aware of that fact. Still, it's somewhat surprising, given how anemic the offense was at the end of the season.