--DE Al Wallace, who joined the Bills on their final day of training-camp practices at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y., got in for a few plays against the Titans the very next night. Wallace, a four-year starter for the Panthers, had been waiting for his phone to ring all summer and the Bills came calling after Ryan Denney broke his foot. In addition, Anthony Hargrove will miss the first four regular-season games for violating the NFL's substance-abuse policy. "Everything was moving a little fast and you're just trying to get your body to respond the way it used to," Wallace said. "But I felt good. As I get more reps in practice and the next game, I'll be good to go."

--Bills GM Marv Levy, whose NFL career began in 1969 as an assistant coach with the Philadelphia Eagles, is a very forward thinker. Still, there's a piece of him that longs for the days before free agency drastically changed the landscape of the game. "Well, I can understand the wish for free agency and commiserate with it," he said. "But I would rather see the continuity a team has than all this player jumping. I'd like to say, 'Dick Butkus is a Chicago Bear.' But if you don't change with the times, the times change you."

--The Bills set franchise records for fewest penalties and fewest penalty yards in a season a year ago but have struggled in the preseason playing cleanly. Perhaps that's what the preseason is for, but coach Dick Jauron was especially miffed by an illegal block thrown by Mario Haggan that nullified a 74-yard TD punt return by Roscoe Parrish against Tennessee. The Bills simply aren't good enough to overcome those kinds of mistakes when the games count for real. "We've just got to quit making those kinds of errors and trust our teammates," Jauron said. "If you're not in a position to throw a legal block -- and clearly Roscoe can make people miss on his own -- the deal is just to turn back upfield and pick up another guy."

--DE Aaron Schobel's new seven-year, $50.5 million contract, combined with the four-year, $23 million deal the club gave Chris Kelsay to retain him as a free agent, means the Bills are paying their starting defensive ends an average of $13 million a season. That's good money for two former second-round draft picks that have never played in a playoff game. For the record, Schobel's deal is the richest in Buffalo professional sports history, topping the seven-year, $50 million deal the NHL's Buffalo Sabres gave their leading goal scorer, Thomas Vanek.

BY THE NUMBERS
3.92 -- Points the Bills scored off turnovers in 2006, second best in the NFL.

QUOTE TO NOTE
"We think he made great progress. It takes a quarterback time. People draft a first-round quarterback and say, 'Gee, he wasn't good enough' and then they start to hammer him so hard and his confidence begins to wane. J.P. made great strides and I have to say this, he studies. He gives the impression of being a California beach-boy dude, but he's a very focused young man. His confidence has begun to spill over to his teammates and their confidence in themselves and in him has grown." -- GM Marv Levy on QB J.P. Losman, who begins his third season as the Bills starter.

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