By Brian Moore
July 5, 2009

It is traditionally very difficult to pass the ball in the blistering cold of Orchard Park, New York. The Bills home stadium is in Orchard Park. The football becomes more like a heavy rock than a football and when it hits your hands, it can hurt some too.

Buffalo's most productive offenses were led by quarterback Jim Kelly, wide receiver Andre Reed and runningback Thurman Thomas in the '90s. Jim Kelly averaged around 3200 yards for much of his career with an average of 221 yards per game. A far cry from the 300 passing yards that fantasy football folks want from their quarterbacks.

During the 1990 season when they had the best offense in the NFL with a total of 5276 yards, roughly half of those yards came from the runningbacks. It was not some high flying offense that one might envision. They did not even have a 1000 yard wide receiver that year.

Time and time again, fantasy football folks have correctly downgraded Buffalo's passing game due to the history and the cold weather mentioned above. At times, trading away a Buffalo player just before it got cold was a "shark move" to make.

Take note, 2009 will be different.

The Bills schedule is not that cold at all and even includes a number of teams from the south. They start off the year at New England which won't be cold in September. After playing the Bucs and Saints at Buffalo(in relatively warm September), they travel to Miami. Bringing us right up into the month of November when it starts to get cold are two home games against Cleveland and Houston and two games at New York and Carolina. November 8 brings the bye week. Then they travel to warm Tennessee and Jacksonville. We're up to week 11 and they still haven't played in any projected blistering cold games. Over the final six weeks, they'll play three games at Buffalo which will most certainly be cold. The other three are indoors at Toronto, at Atlanta in December and possibly a somewhat cold game in Kansas City.

That Toronto game sure comes in handy since it puts them indoors and avoids the cold.

For the 13 week fantasy football season, they will have only played one game in projected very cold weather.Just one.

I'll cover the Bills offense in more detail in their team preview later this summer.