Bills focus on run defense

Ralph Wilson Stadium - As the Buffalo Bills were being run over, run through, and run around, in the last few weeks Defensive Coordinator Perry Fewell did not run and hide.

"You want to go out there and stop it yourself as a D-coordinator" Fewell said this week, "because it's not a good feeling. There were a lot of mistakes made on each and every play. That was unacceptable. I felt like I had to make changes and I'm willing to make changes."

The Bills have made changes in their linebacking corps, with veteran Kawika Mitchell moving over to middle linebacker this week.  Rookie Ashlee Palmer will play in Mitchell's spot on the outside, and second year LB Marcus Buggs is headed to the bench.

Fewell showed his defense 26 Miami Dolphins running plays from last Sunday, each of which, he said, included a mistake made by a Bills defender.

That's a problem, according to Bills DT Kyle Williams.  "Being in a one-gap defense, means one wrong is all wrong. That was our problem."

 "We didn't do a very good job of putting ourselves in position schematically," Defensive End Chris Kelsay said.  "To have the success that they had, I'm not making excuses, they beat us. We helped them along the way. We can't do that."

After shutting down the run in the first two games played this year, the Bills ranked 9th in the NFL in run defense.  But they've given up a total of 472 rushing yards over the last two weeks.  Now they're ranked 27th against the run.

 "It's just a matter of playing sound ball," Michell said.  "We had a lot of mental errors last game and that was a big problem. They weren't blowing us off the ball or anything like that, it was just people weren't playing smart."

 By giving up over 200 yards rushing to both the Saints and the Dolphins, the Bills defense reached a rather dubious milestone. That hadn't happend to a Bills team since 1979.

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The Bills injury list for Sunday's game has DE Chris Ellis, LB Paul Posluszny,  and safeties Bryan Scott and Donte Whitner out.  CB Ellis Lankster is questonable with a lower back injury.  Probable for the game:  OT Demetrius Bell, S Jairus Byrd, DT John McCargo, and CB Terrence McGee.