Edwards got good news on two fronts in the wake of the Bills' 7-9 finish. He had several doctors look at his passing shoulder, and said they found nothing unusual about late-season soreness he felt. He also was thrilled the team retained head coach Dick Jauron.

"The shoulder is great," said Edwards on Friday on a visit to the Super Bowl XLIII headquarters. "I've had a lot of rest and recovery. That's the way my entire body is. It will heal on its own. The swelling has subsided and it's fine. It was the normal wear and tear from the season.

"There was nothing major. I met with a lot of doctors. Everyone thinks it's all good and there's nothing I need to do."

Edwards repeatedly voiced his support for Jauron last season.

"I'm extremely happy," Edwards said about the coach's contract extension. "It's just frustrating to see all the fingers pointed at him when I feel like the fingers should have been pointed at others. He's the wrong person to do that to. The players play, the coaches coach, and it ultimately comes down to the players on Sunday performing.

"I specifically could have done a better job. And if you ask that question to the other 52 guys on the team they'd say the exact same thing."

Given the disappointment in the Bills' finish -- losses in eight of their last 10 games -- Edwards was not eager to detail his individual accomplishments in 2008.

But he thinks he gained invaluable experience that will make him better next season.

"We started off so well, then we started not winning games we should have won," he said. "I'm always my own harshest critic. I'm going to find a way to get better and fix things. There's a lot of game experience to build off of. We need to learn from those losses and learn to take something away from that. We need to find ways to take this year's season and use it to our advantage."

Overall, Edwards ran a more efficient offense than in 2007. He completed 65.5 percent of his passes with a passer rating of 85.4. Those totals ranked sixth and 17th, respectively, in the NFL. He had six games with a passer rating of better than 90. He improved his average gain per pass attempt from 6.06 yards to 7.22 yards, 11th best in the league.

Those were the pluses. The Bills still were only 25th in yards gained.

Edwards considers the win over San Diego his best game. He was 25 of 30 two weeks after getting hurt against Arizona.

"I enjoyed the Chargers game a lot because people were questioning how are you going to respond to a concussion," he said. "We played a pretty good Chargers team and beat them at home and kind of quieted the critics a little bit. That's always fun to do that. People are going to be watching every move after a concussion."

Edwards said the concussion was no factor in the four-game losing streak after the Chargers game.

"No, not at all," he said. "I felt fine a week later. People want to find something to write about, something to talk about. I was perfectly fine after the week-long break I took."

Edwards said he is eager to spend a second straight season in the same offense, under coordinator Turk Schonert and quarterbacks coach Alex Van Pelt.

"I don't need to learn an entirely new offense, and more so the other 10 guys on offense don't need to learn an entirely new scheme," he said. "Turk is going to be there. Alex is going to be there. As a young player, it only helps your development by having the same guys there."

Edwards played in Derek Jeter's celebrity golf tournament this week in Tampa.

But next week, he's starting a month-long workout regimen in Southern California with former Stanford teammate Evan Moore, a tight end for Green Bay. He will be back in Buffalo in early March.

e-mail: mgaughan@buffnews.com