As of right now, I believe the Buffalo Bills will be the surprise postseason team in the AFC.

Trent Edwards has experience under his belt. Marshawn Lynch is a budding star. The offensive line is very strong. The defense is supremely coached under the vastly underrated Dick Jauron. The special teams are incredibly strong.

And I think Buffalo, in relatively quiet fashion, cleaned up this offseason. The Bills had needs at cornerback, linebacker, defensive tackle and wide receiver. They filled them all.

Tight end Kevin Everett, who suffered a career-ending cervical spinal cord injury last season, will be placed on the waived/failed physical list by the Buffalo Bills today.

The move is not surprising because the Bills can’t carry Everett on the active roster because of his injury. However, the decision wasn’t done just for football reasons.

James Hardy, the former IU wide receiver just drafted by the Buffalo Bills, reportedly pulled a gun on his father during an argument, according to a police report filed Sunday with the football star’s name edited out.

We interrupt the Matt Walsh hearings, the Michael Boley arrest and the Chris Henry inquiry to bring you a message from John DiGiorgio, linebacker of the Buffalo Bills.

He graduated from college

And there you have it, folks. DiGiorgio graduated from Saginaw Valley State University last weekend, completing the requirements needed to fulfill his degree in physical and health education, with a minor in psychology.

Period.

So what? So his story is a relief from the spate of bad news involving the NFL and one that should be told. In essence, John DiGiorgio going back to school to gain his degree is a story about what is right with the NFL, and hallelujah.

As the Bills rookie minicamp was winding down, one of the three offensive linemen in attendance positioned himself over the ball and reached down with his left hand. A few seconds later Nevin McCaskill was snapping the ball to quarterback Matt Baker.

The dates and kickoff times of a 65-game NFL preseason schedule were announced today, beginning with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game between the Indianapolis Colts and Washington Redskins in Canton, Ohio on Sunday night, August 3.

The Hall of Fame Game -- televised live at 8:00 PM ET by NBC -- is the first of 13 national preseason telecasts carried by NFL broadcast partners CBS, ESPN, FOX, NBC and NFL Network.

With NFL Network airing 54 games either live or on tape delay, every snap of every NFL preseason game will be available to fans nationally this summer.

The 2008 preseason schedule was announced in April, without dates and times, which now have been determined. The date of one of the national TV games has been switched since that time. The Oakland Raiders will now visit the Tennessee Titans on FOX (8:00 PM ET) on Friday night, August 15 rather than on August 16.

The calendar may read May and the Buffalo Bills are just beginning the team's off-season training regimen, but for one segment of the organization, the third quarter has already started.

The drive to tie up advertising and marketing partnerships hits the stretch run in May, two months before players report to the team's Rochester training site.

Elsewhere in this newspaper lately it has been suggested that Ontario is faced with have-not status among the provinces and that we're all perilously close to plunging into a full-blown recession.

In these sports pages, meanwhile, the dollar signs are consistently followed by larger, not smaller, numbers.

Why would the Bills be on the verge of selling 50,000 season tickets for the first time since the last of the four Super Bowl years in 1993? How come, in the midst of persistent mediocrity and unrealized expectations, would interest in this team be at the highest point in a generation?

For left tackles and quarterbacks his name was a synonym for nightmare. Just saying Bruce Smith out loud would make an offensive coordinator shudder. But for Bills fans the name meant dominance and above all sacks. Now almost five years after establishing himself as the league's all-time sack leader, Smith's name will become the 25th added to the Buffalo Bills Wall of Fame.