Buffalo Bills Training Camp: Time To Go Back to the Drawing Board

I was thinking about all of Chan Gailey's grandiose plans for the running attack this season, when John Steinbeck's line sprang to mind: "The best laid plans of mice and men..."

Just one week into the Buffalo Bills' exhibition season, and the Bills are already without their top two 1,000-yard running backs in Fred Jackson and Marshawn Lynch. It is expected that both will miss the rest of the preseason, and Jackson may be missing the early stages of the regular season, as well.

At this juncture of training camp, Gailey was looking to install more of the running game playbook. They had worked in a percentage of the plays, but he had more plays that he intended to add.

What will he do now? In the postgame press conference, Gailey mentioned that the Bills wanted to run some plays with the two backs in at the same time. That concept must seem like a distant memory now.

In an immediate response to the injuries, the Bills took steps by waiving injured players Ryan Manalac and Felton Huggins.

In their place, they added two undrafted rookies that had already been in and out of other NFL camps: running back Andre Anderson from Tulane University and wide receiver Aaron Rhea from Stephen F. Austin.

They may be nothing more than warm bodies for training camp, but there are a bunch of walking wounded players right now on the 80-man roster.

What Are The Ramifications of the Injuries to Jackson and Lynch?

From a preseason standpoint, it means that the Bills will get much longer looks at rookies C.J. Spiller and Joique Bell. It also means that Chad Simpson stands a great chance to make the opening day roster.

From a football production standpoint, it causes a bit of uncertainty: who exactly is the Bills power running back right now? I mean, if you are playing the Colts later this week and are looking at a third and one, or a fourth down and inches, are you going to give the ball to Spiller, Bell, or Simpson?

If the lack of experience in the running game results in the ground game having difficulty in productivity, it may cause the Bills to force the passing game to develop into more of an option than they intended.

That can't be a good thing for the Bills right now, for a number of reasons: the quarterback play, lack of a solid No. 2 receiver (or a No. 3), and the play of the offensive line, which allowed quarterback Trent Edwards to get hammered at Washington.

For Chan Gailey, it also means that he may need to alter the running game to take advantage of who he currently has available to run the ball. While Jackson and Lynch are more than capable of running the ball between the tackles, I am not as convinced about the others.

Maybe we need to see them doing that on a consistent basis to feel better about running it inside. Until then, I envision running the ball to the outside, or cutting back against the grain more often.

Another byproduct of the injuries is the actual performance of the running game during the regular season. Think about this for a second. Why do you have training camp? You put in plays, you let your running backs learn how the linemen are going to block in certain situations, and you develop a team chemistry between the linemen and the backs for each and every play.

Now, you suddenly eliminate the top two backs and hope that the desired chemistry will finally materialize sometime down the road.

But how long will it take? Maybe in week three, week five or week eight?

Sure, Fred and Marshawn will probably be there every day to watch from the sidelines. But, it is not the same as running it live in practice, not even considering the pads versus no pads issue. They just won't even be allowed to practice, period.

This issue is a very real set back for the team. Another factor is the limited health of the linemen.

It is great that Spiller will be getting more reps with the first team and seeing more live game action. But if we repeat last week's starters, then that means he is developing chemistry with Cordaro Howard and Kirk Chambers.

Taking all of this a step further, it means that if the running game does not advance as quickly as was once hoped, then the offense will stall out like last year. We all know what kind of a formula that was, for the record.

I shudder to think what that will be like, sitting through that kind of a debacle again. I hope against hope that this will not come to pass, so this will be a very big test for Gailey's creative genius to see what he can come up with.

The injuries almost guarantee that whatever trade window would have been there for the Bills, to capture some degree of talent for Lynch this year, has all but vanished.

No team will trade for him while he is injured. He very well may be back for week one, and could be the week one starter, which would be a complete role reversal from what happened with Marshawn and Fred for the 2009 opener.

It also means that the Spiller draft pick is looking better and better. No one envisioned that we would lose both Fred and Marshawn, but that is the reality.

It also could result in Spiller finding himself at running back exclusively for the near term, and all the plays that were drawn up for him lining up in the slot are put on hold for now.

The best laid plans of mice and men, indeed!