Did you know that the San Francisco 49ers are in second place in the NFC West with a record of 3-8. The Buffalo Bills are 6-5 and are in last place in the AFC East. That is Bullshit, man.
That is all for the pre-game preview. Onto the game preview.
Quarterback: Buffalo: Trent Edwards, San Francisco: Shaun Hill
The first thing I decided to do when seeing that Shaun Hill was the starting quarterback for the 49ers was to search “wordpress” for blogs which mention Shaun Hill; a piece that I wrote about J.P. Losman 6 months ago was in the top 10 hits. That is to say, Shaun Hill is not getting much love in the blogosphere. This is not a surprise, considering that I still thought J.T. O’Sullivan was still the starting quarterback for the 49ers; something which was compounded by the 49ers official depth chart listing O’Sullivan as the starter. I think that they just want Western New York sports bloggers to look idiotic. Well guess what? I did my research this week and you aren’t going to fool me.
Here are some fun facts about Shaun Hill so we can all get to know him a little bit better
- Believe it or not, Shaun Hill was signed as an un-drafted free agent by the Minnesota Vikings in 2002.
- While attending college at Maryland, Hill was a kinesiology major.
- He was not considered an NFL prospect at the time so he went to NFL Europe and played for the Amsterdam Admirals where he went onto lead the league in passing yards! Quite the accomplishment, eh?
- In 2006, after signing with the 49ers, he went onto take exactly zero snaps during the regular season. Spending time behind such NFL legends as Trent Dilfer, and Alex Smith on the depth chart.
- Since taking over the starting job from J.T. O’Sullivan in week 10, Hill has put up the following line, 7 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, 906 yards, with a QB Rating of 94.6. Not too bad.
Trent Edwards on the other hand, well, while he may have been a more highly touted prospect coming out of college has been pretty much average when you take his full season numbers into consideration. Here are Edwards’ numbers with his league ranking in parenthesis
| Comp. % | Pass Yds | Pass TDs | INTs | Sacks | Rating |
| 67.3 (6) | 2,266 (15) | 10 (T19) | 10 (T7) | 20 (T13) | 86.6 (17) |
Ultimately, the question is which Edwards comes to play on Sunday? Is it the quarterback who guided the Bills to a 5-1 start, or the signal caller who helped Buffalo lose 4 straight. So goes Edwards, so goes the Bills.
Advantage: Buffalo Bills
Running Backs: Buffalo Bills: Marshawn Lynch, Fred Jackson, San Francisco: Frank Gore, DeShaun Foster
This is a tough match up for me to call. Gore has more yards and is rushing for nearly an additional yard per attempt where as I am from Buffalo and I love Marshawn Lynch. Each back has their strong points when matched up against each other but I just can’t shake the idea that Lynch is a better all around back than Gore. So rather than letting my rabid homer-ism make this choice, I will take a look at the back up running backs.
SF- DeShaun Foster, 23 carries for 41 yards
Buf- Fred Jackson, 81 rushes for 353 yards.
Whenever I have a tough decision when it comes to running backs I will always go to the back-ups stats. Thank heavens we have Fred Jackson.
Advantage: Buffalo Bills
Buffalo Bills: Lee Evans, Josh Reed. San Francisco: Isaac Bruce, Bryant Johnson
Isaac Bruce is 36 years old. In wider receiver years that is about 88 years of age. Bryant Johnson was not good enough to play on the Cardinals when Arizona stunk.
Moving on.
Advantage: Buffalo Bills
Offensive Line: Once again, I am not going to list everyone on the offensive lines, sorry.
I am going to repeat this analysis word for word until something changes.
Last week I said that I would be giving the advantage to the opposing offensive line every week until Jason Peters stops pissing me off. Well, Jason Peters is still pissing me off.
Advantage: San Francisco
It is too bad Jonas will not be playing in this game
Defensive Line: Buffalo Bills: Ryan Denney, Marcus Stroud, Kyle Williams, Chris Kelsay. San Francisco: Ray McDonald, Aubrayo Franklin, Justin Smith
Dammit, enough mother effing 3-4 defense. Granted, the 49ers only have three wins this season, but the Browns totally stunk, too, and we lost to them. I do not know what it is about 3-4 defenses that stifle the Buffalo offense so, but this should be a good of a chance as any to instill some confidence into our offense by soundly defeating this style of defense. Then again, if Buffalo loses this game, it doesn’t matter what they do the rest of the season because there will be about a .034521% chance of the Bills making the playoffs.
Advantage: Buffalo Bills
Linebackers: Buffalo Bills: Keith Ellison, Paul Posluszny, Kawika Mitchell. San Francisco: Parys Haralson, Takeo Spikes, Patrick Willis, Manny Lawson
One time, and possibly still, fan favorite, Takeo Spikes had quite the interesting tidbit during a conference call with the media earlier this week, from Chris Brown
49ers LB Takeo Spikes has admittedly thought a lot about his return to Buffalo this week. He also had an interesting comment about all the 51 jerseys seen at the games.
“I’ve thought about it several times,” said Spikes of what his return to Buffalo will be like. “I don’t think I left in a bad way. From time to time when I see the games on TV I see a lot of 51 jerseys in the crowd, and I would like to think that a lot of those 51 jerseys… I just can’t really see them… no disrespect to Paul, but I just can’t see them buying another 51 jersey. I think I put enough good work in where they kept mine.”
Yeah, umm, I don’t think so, sorry Takeo. You were a favorite player of mine when you joined the Bills. Your arrival, coupled with Lawyer Milloy, and Drew Bledsoe, started a new period of optimism in my career as a Bills fan. The thing is though, no matter how bad our economy is, we can always just put duct tape over your name and replace it with Posluszny. Just like we did with Bledsoe for Roscoe. We might be poor, sure, but we are creative.
As for actual analysis; Patrick Willis is hurt and Takeo Spikes is old. Go Bills!
Advantage: Buffalo Bills
Secondary: Buffalo Bills: Terrence McGee, Jabari Greer, Bryan Scott, Ko Simpson. San Francisco: Nate Clements, Michael Lewis, Walt Harris, Mark Roman
First and foremost, I have something to get off of my chest; I miss Nate Clements a lot. But not for the reasons that some may. I don’t miss him going for the interception on every pass thrown in his direction. I don’t miss the cap space that he would have taken up with his $80 million contract. Hell, I don’t even miss the rare tackle he would make from time to time. Let me tell you what I miss; the Nate Clements show.
That show was awesome.
I miss how Nate would, presumably, get super high before every show and then he and Robert Royal would make wonderful jokes. I miss Clements just cracking up for no particular reason every thirty seconds or so. I miss that big blank stare on his face when someone would ask him a question when it was quite obvious that he could not care less about the question and was just counting the minutes until he and Anthony Hargrove, again presumably, get real baked together.
I really do miss that show a lot.
As for how Clements is playing this season, well, his two interceptions and one forced fumble have really had little to no impact for the 3-8 49ers. Oh, and for those of you interested in Clements thoughts on this upcoming game, you can read them here.
Advantage: Buffalo Bills
No, that is not me and Nate Clements, but thank you for asking
Special Teams: Rian Lindell, Brian Moorman, Leodis McKelvin, Terrence McGee. San Francisco: Joe Nedney, Andy Lee, Nate Clements?
Scouts Inc. says that the Bills special teams are better and I am inclined to agree. With Allen Rossum injured, it looks like Nasty Nate might get some time returning kicks this weekend. There was a reason that Terrence McGee usurped Clements as our primary return man.
Advantage: Buffalo Bills
Bills win, again, 40-14.
Tags: Bills players getting high, Bills/49ers preview, Brian Moorman, Buffalo Bills, Isaac Bruce, Marshawn Lynch, Nate Clements, no ' in 49ers, presumably, Robert Royal, San Francisco 49ers, Shaun Hill, Takeo Spikes, The Nate Clements Show, Trent Edwards
November 28, 2008 at 2:28 pm |
I hate to break it to Takeo but while I’ve seen a few Spikes jerseys still floating around I’ve seen more McGahee jerseys than non Poz 51s. And we hate that fucker.