Going into last year Spiller was a big question mark. The year before Fred Jackson really came into his own late in the season surging into starter status for those paying attention. But Spiller had been around and only had shown some flashes as a third down pass catching type of back and was only used sparingly in that role and not really as a backup RB. Spiller was used last year in the begining in this specialist sort of role and not getting real backup, let's give our starter a rest, type of carries. Jackson was the starter and the workhorse and Spiller just got his touches in certain situations, The 3rd down guy. Most of us, and the football world as a whole didn't consider Spiller capable of full time production.
But, Spiller was a nice surprise, and proved very capable in a full time role for the rest of the season. Now maybe he still may not be capable of doing it full season but he did great with the added carries, a full workload of touches, through the rest of the season. This discovery was very good for the Bills team as a whole as Spiller as a backup was a bit of a worry going forward. The Bills were wondering if they needed another RB going forward to fill the backup role and they found out that Spiller was much more of a total RB than they thought. I think Spiller's real football stock has really risen a lot in Buffalo, the change from a 3rd down specialist to true Backup RB status is huge.
