Bills sign Mark Anderson

The Buffalo Bills have officially come to terms with free agent defensive end Mark Anderson on a four year deal according to the pass rusher’s agent (and no confirmed by the team). Anderson becomes the second free agent addition to Buffalo’s defensive line in the last week.

Anderson had visited the Baltimore Ravens, Tennessee Titans and Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots, who he had ten sacks for in 2011, also were interested in signing the veteran. He has 163 tackles, seven forced fumbles, and 35.5 sacks in seven seasons. (Buffalo Rumblings)

Mind of Joe
What in the blue hell is going on at One Bills Drive? Did they give more drugs to Ralph? I can only assume this was a plan set in motion in 2010, in which the Bills wouldn’t do anything in free agency for two years and would go nuts in 2012. Let’s bullet point what this signing means to the Bills.

• If you were to tell me before free agency started that the Bills would only land Mark Anderson, who had 10 sacks last year, I would have been totally fine with it. Throw in Mario Williams and I’m ecstatic about the Bills offseason so far. Ive been bitching about the pass rush for the last two years and now we can put that bitch fest to rest.

• I don’t have much info about Anderson besides googling his stats. One thing that jumps out at me was his impact as a rookie in Chicago (12 sacks). However, his sack totals plummeted afterwards (5, 1, 3.5 and 4) only to rebound last year. Also, he’s only started 21 NFL games and only 7 since 2008. Hey, I’m not trying to be a bearer of bad news, but that jumps out at me. Of course, he’s better than any of the defensive ends the Bills had last year. So, I’m cool!

• As for last year, you can’t sneeze at 10 sacks. Belichick used him in passing situations and he was able to get after the QB. I’m not sure if the Bills plan on using the hybrid under Wanny, but Anderson seems like he could be that guy who can play OLB and DE. From looking at highlights, he seems to fit what Wanny wants as a quick defensive end. Also, I think he’s playing on a better defensive line with the likes of Kyle Williams, Marcell Dareus and Mario Williams than he had with New England.

• Ralph Wilson isn’t cheap.

• Poor George Edwards. He must be cussing up a storm at the unemployment line somewhere. He had to do deal with Spencer Johnson’s quick as a snail approach on the outside and Shawne Merriman’s bad Achilles tendon. Now…He sees that Wannstedt is getting legit defensive ends. Someone give that guy a hug.

• I know a number of fans/writers are trying to figure out what the Bills will do with this surplus of defensive linemen. I’m here to say that it wouldn’t shock me if they keep the guys they have. Sure, I’d say Dwan Edwards would be a possible cap casualty or maybe Chris Kelsay, but if you look at what Wannstedt had in Dallas during the Super Bowl years, you’ll noticed he loved having a rotation. The Cowboys rotated Leon Lett, Charles Haley, Tony Tolbert, Russell Maryland, Tony Casillas, James Jones and Jim Jeffcoat on the defenisve line. That’s all we heard about in 1992. I remember going into SBXXVII, experts said the Bills no-huddle offense would be able to neutralize their substitutions because there wouldn’t be any down time. Um, yeah….that didn’t work out well for us. Wanny wanted to keep his guys fresh. Right now, the Bills have 8 defensive linemen they can rotate in. In other words, if it is up to him, he’ll want as many bodies as possible to make his defense work like it did in 1992. 

• Between Mario Williams, Marcell Dareus, Kyle Williams and Mark Anderson, the Bills have given the foursome 95-million in guarantee money.

• So, does this signing happen if Mario Williams goes else where? I’m not sure. I know he said that Mario helped recruit him, but if the Bills didn’t sign Mario, they would have probably overpaid for Anderson out of desperation. Of course, if I’m Anderson, I’d come here because he’s going to a defensive line that will surely make him better. Again, it goes back to who benefits from double-teams? You wouldn’t double Anderson, right? So, who blocks him? The Fullback? The tight end? Air? Turf? Let him run through and have the QB roll to the opposite side of him? Man, I can’t wait until September to see this defensive line. 

• So..What else you got up your sleeve, Buddy?

Stay tuned, I’ll have a Q&A tonight with a Pats blogger about Anderson.