Buffalo Bills: Is There Enough Time Left for Any Rookies to Start Week 1?

The Buffalo Bills first preseason game is set for Saturday, August 13 at the Chicago Bears. That is just a mere five short weeks from this coming weekend. Five short weeks to learn whatever new wrinkles and schemes that Chan Gailey and his coaching staff have decided to install for the 2011 NFL season.

As the CBA negotiations seem to intensify by the day, everyone involved is hoping for a swift compromise and an end to the current labor lockout. Once that is done, Buddy Nix needs to hammer out deals with the best of the undrafted rookie free agents that the Bills covet. Since nobody knows when NFL free agency will begin, it would not be a surprise to see the Bills grab as many of those free agents as they can conceivably sign, since they are not going to be very expensive to begin with.

Once free agency begins, then it will be time for the Bills to address their own free agents like Paul Posluszny, Donte Whitner and Drayton Florence, while still trying to find time to negotiate and sign their own draft picks. Finally, Nix will be tackling the NFL unrestricted free agents that the Bills have determined are their priorities to round out the 2011 roster.

If all of that sounds like quite a lot to do, trust me it is. Nix and his staff will be tested to try to address as much of that agenda as they can, as fast as they can, without letting targeted players fall through the cracks.The free agency period promises to be fast, crazy and exciting. We probably have not witnessed anything like it before, and hopefully we won't have to experience anything like it again for quite some time to come.

While all of the above is going on, keep in mind that the five week window prior to the first exhibition game against Chicago continues to tick down. Following the Bears game, the Bills have three other contests that don't officially count, starting with a Saturday night game at Denver on August 20th. Then the Bills get to unveil their new home uniforms for the first time on Saturday, August 27th against the Jacksonville Jaguars before concluding the exhibition schedule on Thursday, September 1st in Detroit to face the Lions.

Then there are just 10 days left after that, (crunch time), before the first regular season contest arrives, Sunday September 11th, at Kansas City. That is exactly 67 days from today. On the surface that sounds like enough time to outsiders, but remember that we still do not have a CBA deal done yet. That is why every day that comes and goes is crucial to the team and to Chan Gailey.

Now we come back to the rookies. On the surface, let's go ahead and state the obvious. The Bills first four draft choices, Marcell Dareus, Aaron Williams, Kelvin Sheppard and Da'Norris Searcy are the players that the Bills probably viewed as potential starters when they were drafted back in April. The Bills final five picks; Chris Hairston, Johnny White, Chris White, Justin Rogers and Michael Jasper are thought to be more developmental types that might be in line to start somewhere down the road.

The latter five picks are going to either have some sort of specific reduced role with the Bills active roster in 2011, or they will be part of the practice squad, with the caveat that the practice squad guys are exempt from being plucked away by other teams this year due to the unique nature of the 2011 season. Remember this class is completely void of any OTA's, rookie orientation and mini-camps, so they are really behind the eight ball right now.

So out of the four potential starters for 2011, how many of them realistically have a chance to be ready for week one in Kansas City? I believe that the guys facing the steepest battles of the quartet are going to be Aaron Williams and Da'Norris Searcy. To learn all of the vast types of coverages that the Bills employ will take time. There is also the need for them to learn how they are expected to interact and play off of the Bills returning veterans that are also in the secondary. That doesn't happen overnight.

The unfortunate landscape of the 2011 CBA problems might have been sufficient then to prevent both Williams and Searcy from a potential starting job in week one to waiting until somewhere later in the season, when Gailey has determined that they have progressed enough to finally be deemed ready to go.

Williams and Searcy could both be guys that see action on nickel situations and ease them into action that way. Once they get a taste and see the speed of the NFL game, you slowly increase the workload.

Next we move on to Kelvin Sheppard, the Bills inside linebacker candidate who the Bills selected in the third round. Sheppard will need to get some badly needed one-on-one time with new inside linebackers coach Dave Wannstedt. He is going to have to know all of the Bills schemes. learn all the keys that he has to read and learn how to react to the various tricks that offensive lines will be executing on him.

Sheppard will probably need to spend some time watching Andra Davis, and hopefully Paul Posluszny in action, (assuming that the Bills are successful in signing Posluszny to a contract extension), before he can be ready to assume action in regular season games. If Posluszny decides to play somewhere else, then the Bills probably have no choice but to go with Sheppard, and let him literally learn on the job. I don't see any other candidate that would start in front of Sheppard right now if Poz leaves.

Finally, we come to Marcell Dareus. Out of the entire Bills draft class, Dareus is the one player that due to his tremendous physical skills, power and athleticism, can line up on Week One and be effective from the get go. Dareus will have a learning curve to be sure, but so much of what happens in the trenches is a reaction to what is happening right in front of you, that the Bills coaches will be content to let Dareus go out there in Week One and do what he does best. That is to wreck havoc on offenses.

We don't know yet what kind of shape Dareus will be in whenever he is allowed to report to camp. How many snaps will he be able to be counted on for Week One? Do the Bills think he can be good for 60 to 70 percent of all snaps from the beginning and then try to gauge his workload from there? Remember that there are some other young high draft picks in Torell Troup and Alex Carrington that are also anxious to see their workload and snaps increase from what they experienced in 2010 as well.

So to recap the situation, my best guess is that Dareus will be the only Bills rookie that will be viewed as a starter for the season opener. Depending on what happens with Paul Posluszny, Kelvin Sheppard might also be a starter, but that remains to be seen.

After the Bills reach the bye week on their schedule, which is Week Seven (October 23rd), it is conceivable that either Aaron Williams or Da'Norris Searcy, or both, might have gained enough knowledge in game experience and in practice time to be ready to take over a spot in the starting defensive unit. That is the way I potentially see this season unfolding.

That is also making an assumption that a new CBA gets done, and that none of the Bills draft class stages any type of prolonged holdout over their contract or contract negotiations. If that happens to any of the Bills draft picks, you can throw the above predictions for that player right out the window.

What do Bills fans think?