The Z receiver position has been mostly a snooze for the Buffalo Bills’ offense this season.

The position — known as the flanker — has been victimized by injuries and a revolving cast of players. The result is Buffalo has received far too few big plays from the wideout spot opposite Stevie Johnson on the offensive formation.

Buffalo’s flanker position has produced 47 catches for 459 yards and two touchdowns.

The catch total isn’t bad. But the Bills’ yards-per-catch total — 9.7 — is the lowest in the league from the Z position.

Donald Jones started the first five games as the Z receiver. Then C.J. Spiller started two games, Jones came back for two and Spiller started one. Then Brad Smith started five games while rotating with newcomer Derek Hagan.

“It needs to be a vital part of our offense,” coach Chan Gailey acknowledged after Thursday’s practice. “We started with Donald and we ended up with Brad. It’s been kind of a revolving door over there.”

“It makes it tough on Fitz,” Gailey said of quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick. “It makes it tough on everybody.”

Jones had 23 catches for 231 yards in seven starts before being lost to an ankle injury. He had five catches for 101 yards in the win over New England. The jury is out on whether he can develop into a big threat at Z.

The Bills moved Spiller there simply as a way to get him on the field. But he’s not a full-time wideout. Furthermore, you’d like the Z receiver to be a pretty good blocker, because offenses like to run to the right — the flanker’s side.

Smith has been very ordinary at receiver, with 23 catches for 240 yards. But he spent the first half of the season in quarterback meetings. Smith only averaged three touches a game, and the Bills only used him as a Wildcat quarterback for 17 plays.

Gailey acknowledges that the Bills need to find the right niche — or niches — for Smith.

“The great thing is he gives us a lot of versatility, that’s the big thing,” Gailey said. “That’s why we wanted him here in the first place. He can play Wildcat, he can play quarterback, he can play receiver, he can play special teams. He can do a lot of things for you.

“We didn’t get a chance to look at him early in the year as much as you’d like, not having an offseason and everything. So it’s been a work in progress to figure out what all he can do. He’s gotten better at everything he’s worked at doing.”

Smith says it takes time to get in complete synch with the quarterback in the Bills’ offense.

“It could be the same exact look from the defense, but depending on a slight shade of the DB (inside or outside), your release is totally different,” Smith said. “Or you have more time or less time on this play. You need to give him a head nod. You need to do this or that, and that’s where he’s going to put the ball. That stuff you just don’t know about by studying the playbook. You can have the plays down. But it’s about going out and doing it with the quarterback in the system.

“The more you work together, as a quarterback, you get a feel for when they’re going to come out of their breaks and how they like to do things,” Smith added.

BOSTON (CBS) – The Patriots suffered their first loss of the season against the then-undefeated Buffalo Bills in Week 3, but a lot has changed since then.

The  Patriots are playing for home field advantage throughout the playoffs, while the Bills might be looking to play spoiler at 6-9.

Read: Wilfork Says Pats “Haven’t Played Four Good Quarters”

Andy Gresh takes his place in front of the whiteboard, with a few appearances by Scott Zolak, this week to break down how the Bills exploited the Patriots defense over the middle in that 34-31 loss.

Watch This Week’s Whiteboard 

How will things change now that New England has a new tandem of safeties, and the Bills are without running back Fred Jackson? Can CJ Spiller do the same thing against the New England D?

Gresh breaks it all down in this week’s whiteboard!

Read: Levan Reid’s Patriots Blog

Tune in to the Patriots final regular season game against the Buffalo Bills Sunday at 1pm on WBZ-TV and 98.5 The Sports Hub. Pregame coverage begins on 98.5 at 10am, with Patriots Gameday on WBZ-TV at 11:30am. After the game, tune in to The Postgame Show on 98.5, and Patriots Fifth Quarter on MyTV38.

The Buffalo Bills already have locked up one half of their aerial attack — signing quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick to a multi-year contract extension earlier this year — and star wideout Stevie Johnson expects to be taken care of similarly this offseason.

Johnson, set to become a free agent, told The Buffalo News on Wednesday that he’s aware last Saturday’s win over the Denver Broncos could have been his final game at Ralph Wilson Stadium, but he’s optimistic he’ll be back with the Bills in 2012.

“I don’t know,” he said when asked what gives him reason for his confidence in a new deal. “I just feel like being here four years and with the coaches that I have here, with the players, with Fitz signing his deal, you would think you’d have the one-two punch. When Fitz came on, I came on. So you would think they would keep it together.”

Johnson has emerged as one of the best young receivers in the NFL over the past two years, totaling 154 receptions for 2,037 yards with 16 touchdowns in 31 games.

The Bills could elect to place a franchise tag on Johnson if the two sides can’t reach any agreement on a new deal.

“Since last week playing at The Ralph, I thought about it –- walking on the field, walking off the field, looking around, looking at the crowd,” Johnson said. “It was kind of crazy because it seemed like four years went by pretty fast, me playing only two years of it. Being in this city and how they adopted me, I thought about it. I don’t think I’ll be somewhere else next year. I’m still pretty sure I’ll be here next year. But if not, it’s a pretty crazy feeling.”

The Bills end their season on the road Sunday at the New England Patriots.

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. – With his first NFL season coming to an end, Buffalo Bills defensive lineman Marcell Dareus apologizes for having to lean back against the side of his locker for a little support.

Even after a three-day break, the rookie first-round pick acknowledged his body was still aching Wednesday, when the Bills (6-9) returned to practice to prepare to close their season at New England on Sunday.

“Phew, everything. It’s not just injuries, but everything,” Dareus said. “It hurts to get out of bed. It hurts.”

That shouldn’t come as a surprise for a player who’s spent the last half of the season shouldering much of the load on a young and patchwork defence that’s lost four regulars to injuries.

Sore as he might feel, and an injury to his left hand hurts the most, Dareus’ confidence in himself and his team has not been bruised even as Buffalo will miss the playoffs for a 12th straight season.

“Well, you know, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and nothing’s going to just change overnight,” said Dareus, selected with No. 3 pick out of Alabama. “We’ve got our rookies playing. We’re contributing to the team. And we’re going to do more next year, and we’re going to try to turn this team around slowly but surely.”

As for assessing his performance, Dareus said: “I’ve done everything in my power to do the best I could.”

His best hasn’t been good enough to turn around a defence that’s still in the transitional stages of switching from a 4-3 to a 3-4 scheme. And the injuries were beyond his control.

That doesn’t mean Dareus hasn’t made a significant impact during a season in which he established himself as a bona fide starter and provided the defensive front an anchor around which it can build.

“That’s been one of the impressive things is the progress he’s made each week,” coach Chan Gailey said. “A lot of people think he’s arrived, but he hasn’t yet. … He’s still learning. I think he has a chance to be even more dominant as time goes on.”

Much as he did at Alabama, Dareus has been a dual threat in both pressuring the quarterback and stopping the run this season.

He leads the team with 5 1/2 sacks, the most by a Bills rookie since Aaron Schobel had 6 1/2 in 2001.

Buffalo has been far better against the run this season. After allowing 200 yards rushing eight times last season, the defence has held opponents to under 140 yards nine times this season.

On the downside, the Bills rank 24th in the NFL in yards allowed; are giving up an average of 25.6 points a game; and got off to a dreadful start in which they allowed 400 or more yards in six of their first seven games.

“We’re not where we want to be statistically,” co-ordinator George Edwards said. “But I’ll tell you we have a lot of young guys who have gotten some good valuable experience.”

Dareus leads the way, which is impressive for a rookie who lost out on key developmental time after having his spring minicamps and conditioning sessions wiped out by the NFL lockout.

Dareus said the time he lost has hurt him, particularly when it came to conditioning. He’s found his stamina lacking late in games, which is something he intends to work on this off-season.

What should help, too, is the return of Kyle Williams, who was limited to playing five games before being sidelined by a nagging foot injury. Together, the two showed glimpses of their potential in clogging up the front and applying pressure.

Without Williams, Dareus has found himself the target of being double-teamed.

Dareus looks up to Williams, that he’s even helped fill a leadership role by following a motto of: “What would Kyle do?”

That’s what inspired Dareus to deliver an impassioned speech before a game against the New York Jets last month. Though the Bills lost 28-24, it marked one of the defence’s better performances during what became a seven-game skid.

“I mostly lead with action, but it just felt like at the time I needed to say something,” Dareus said.

The speech was not lost on his teammates.

“He wants that role,” veteran linebacker Chris Kelsay said. “As long as he continues to perform like he has and carry himself the way he has, I think a lot of people will follow him.”