Oy Vey, Captain

Unless you were living under a rock, or perhaps just wasted during the holiday weekend, you are probably aware of the fact that the Buffalo Bills announced their captains for the 2014 season. The captains for the Bills this year will be RB Fred Jackson, C Eric Wood, DT Kyle Williams, DE Mario Williams, LB Brandon Spikes, and CB Corey Graham.

These selections are a little different than some had projected, but for the most part the choices made by the players certainly didn’t shock many people. Here we have a mixture of veteran leaders.

Some of these veterans have been established within this organization, and some are newcomers who have more than earned the respect of their teammates to be given the honor of wearing the C on their jerseys. Three members of this year’s group are repeat selections (Jackson, Wood, and Kyle Williams) who all have been captains for the Bills in previous years. The others however are first-time captains in Buffalo and were chosen for various reasons.

First there is Mario, who is coming off of a 13 sack campaign; the most he has had in the league since 2007 when he finished the year with 14 in Houston. Mario sets the tone for this defensive front, and the threat he poses opens up opportunities for those around him on this defense. Of course, some will tell you that the reasoning behind his selection is due to the fact that he makes “so much money”, but coming off a year in which he finished 4^th in the league in sacks on a defense that broke the franchise record in the category, could be another.

Next we have newcomer Corey Graham, which is surprising to some, but shouldn’t be. Graham is a native of Buffalo and an established veteran in the National Football League. Couple those things with the fact that it is not uncommon for teams to name a special teams captain, and the shock factor should be at a minimum. We have to remember that the players are the ones voting on these matters, and Graham has obviously made an impact since he arrived in the spring.

Finally we have another newcomer in Brandon Spikes, who came over from New England this offseason to help the Bills stop opposing rushing attacks; an area Buffalo fans are well aware has been subpar in recent years. There is no surprise that a middle linebacker of his caliber was selected to be a team captain. The position itself is one of great importance in this league, and Spikes has clearly earned the respect of the men in that locker room since he came aboard. Spikes is a vocal leader who will bolster the Bills’ run defense this coming year, and is extremely important to that linebacker unit, especially with Kiko out for the foreseeable future. As the quarterback of that defense, nobody should be…wait…did someone just say quarterback?

AHHH yes! The quarterback! How could we forget? Why the hell isn’t our quarterback a captain?

If you take a look around, many of the teams in the National Football League have designated a quarterback as one of their team captains. The teams that haven’t; well those are the teams that either have younger quarterbacks to yet prove their worth, or they don’t have one at all. The Bills fall somewhere in the middle here as EJ Manuel has just 10 career starts under his belt and has left much to desire thus far in his career.

To most of us, it came as no surprise that EJ was not named as one of the Bills captains for this coming season. However, as soon as the Bills announced who the captains for this year would be, members of the media tried to create some sort of controversy surrounding EJ’s snub. While it is noteworthy that a quarterback was left off the list, you don’t have to be a Bills fan to realize that there has been constant change at the position in Buffalo, nor do you need to follow the team intently to know that EJ’s rookie campaign was cut short by multiple knee injuries that hindered his progress last year. Will that progress ever come? That is a completely different discussion to be had, and many of these outlets who are seemingly dumbfounded by the fact that this man will not have a patch on his jersey have already told us that it will not.

With all of this in mind, I’m left to wonder where the surprise in this whole thing actually exists. Why is it that we have to look deeper into this issue than is needed? Why do they feel the need to question the choices of those within that locker room as if they know anything about the individuals who were chosen? How does it make sense that in one breath they can tell us that EJ isn’t very good, but in the next scrutinize the fact that he was not chosen for captaincy? Why am I even writing about this?

All of this is the kind of garbage you come to expect as a Bills fan these days. With a 14 year playoff drought and questions surrounding the most important position on an NFL roster, this is the kind of coverage we are left with going into a critical year for this franchise. Luckily, this kind of speculative nonsense is almost over. Come Sunday, we won’t have to worry about what patch EJ isn’t wearing on his right shoulder, because the Bills will be beginning their first season without the man represented on his left. Let’s begin talking about football, and pump the brakes on these pseudo talking points.