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For fans of NFL teams, offseason discussions center predominantly on macro lists (team needs, free agents, draft rankings) and transactions (coaching changes, free agent signings, draft picks and undrafted free agents). Discussions can therefore be repetitive, and opinions formulated deal with ordering the lists or critiquing the transactions.
The concept of this post is not novel - it deals with two lists, and the ordering of them - but we're hoping that, at minimum, it engenders at least a slightly more critical look at the team, and fosters a different angle of discussion. The idea here is to strip away a lot of fluff, focus on the pillars of the 2013 Bills, and look for the players that may be easiest to replace.
The Buffalo Bills clearly have plenty of holes to fill this spring, but that's not the only way to make your team better - you can also upgrade elements of your team that were constants (or near-constants) the previous season. There will be some overlap, of course, but for this exercise, we're going to forget about every Bills player that did not play at least 70 percent of offensive or defensive snaps last season.
We're asking you to pick one player on offense, and one on defense, from each group as the player whose position you would most like to see the Bills upgrade. Put another way: which player on each list is the easiest to replace? Whether or not you believe that the Bills have a player on the team that can replace the player you're choosing, or if they'd need to go out and find someone this spring, is irrelevant to the discussion. We're talking specifically about areas to upgrade, in a vacuum, without considering these other factors. It's a starting-point debate.
Seven players on offense qualify for this discussion, and at least two of them are frowned upon frequently enough by Bills fans that the resulting discussion should be, ahem, passionate. Things will be much more difficult on defense, where all six players that qualify are arguably coming off of career-best seasons. That should be a fun one, too.
Here are your two lists. Remember: your charge is to pick one name from each list whose position you most strongly believe the Bills should try to upgrade. Happy arguing!
Offense
- WR Robert Woods
- WR T.J. Graham
- TE Scott Chandler
- OT Cordy Glenn
- OT Erik Pears
- OG Kraig Urbik
- C Eric Wood
Defense
- DT Kyle Williams
- DT Marcell Dareus
- DE Mario Williams
- LB Kiko Alonso
- CB Leodis McKelvin
- S Aaron Williams