Buffalo Bills: Travis Henry vs Willis McGahee

Today someone asked me who I think the Bills’ Starting RB will be and why.

As I mentioned once before, it’ll be Willis McGahee.

The Bills organization, understandably, doesn’t want to shake things up. They aren’t telling reporters anything about who has the official lead in the duel for the #1 RB spot. That alone, to me, is telling.





Over the course of the off season and preseason, Travis Henry has attempted, mostly successfully, to act like the situation is what it is and it’ll just have to be dealt with.

But management has to remember how he complained that drafting McGahee in ‘03 was “a slap in the face”.

In an effort to sooth Henry’s feelings, there are already hints of using a “halfback tandem”; in other words a two back system. Sure, something like that could work, but it isn’t going to happen.

Here’s what I said about the two after their preseason game against Denver.

“I know that of Buffalo’s top two running backs, it’s Travis Henry who gets all the press. But if he has another game this underwhelming (6 carries for 6 yds) and Willis McGahee keeps tearing things up like he did last night (13/58 1 TD) things will be changing very quickly.

Henry looked anything but prepared and capable. McGahee looked like the steal of the ‘03 draft. He showed fantastic straight ahead speed, good vision and surprising strength. He isn’t especially quick, but overall he was very impressive.”

But, it isn’t simply that McGahee outperformed Henry during but a single preseason outing. It isn’t merely an issue of which RB put up the best numbers in a meaningless game.

It’s about which of the two came into the game giving a damn. Which of the two came prepared. Which of the two came to play. And which of the two proved to have the better instinctive feel for his job. And I’m sure it’s about which of the two is has also shined more often during training camp.

I’m not going to knock Henry for his smaller size (5'9" 215 vs McGahee at 6' 223), because I believe that Henry is probably the stronger back proportionally.

Henry is tough. He endured some serious pain last season, playing through both a rib injury and a fracture in his leg.

Henry is a good runner, when he wants to be. Maybe he just doesn’t take camp and the preseason seriously.

Mostly, though, Henry thinks he simply deserves the starting job because he's Henry.

He'll be a Bill this year and he'll spend a lot of time bellyaching about not being the starter. He may even get himself suspended for his tantrum throwing. He may want out, but he has no say in the matter.

If he has any kind of spine to him, he'll have seen the way McGahee performed and then find himself motivated to be better himself. It could happen. If so, it’ll make head coach Mike Mularky’s job a lot harder when the final depth chart is being made up.

But in the end, McGahee will start. He’s not only physically the better back, he prepares better mentally, has better vision and he better understands the importance of this competition.