The Associated Press

Takeo Spikes needed no prompting to show his enthusiasm when he arrived at his first Buffalo Bills training camp in Pittsford, N.Y.

Walking up the stairs to the team's headquarters alongside fellow starting linebackers London Fletcher and Jeff Posey, Spikes called out to a group of reporters.

"Here are the three best linebackers in the league," Spikes said. "Print it, fax it, write it, photocopy it. This is where it's at."

It was a fitting and highly anticipated entrance for the newcomer, getting a new start after signing with Buffalo in March following five losing seasons with Cincinnati.

"It fires me up greatly, knowing that you have a chance to walk in here knowing that you're going to win," Spikes said. "That's priceless to me. That's what drives me. I know where I've been, and I know where I want to go."

BRONCOS: Safety Lee Flowers was suspended without pay for the first four regular-season games for violating the NFL's steroid policy.

The Broncos issued a statement Saturday saying the team knew Flowers would be suspended before signing him in June.

Flowers will be able to participate in training camp and Denver's four preseason games before his ban starts Aug. 31. He will be eligible to return to the active roster after Denver's game against Detroit on Sept. 29.

Flowers signed a one-year deal with Denver after spending his first eight seasons with the Steelers, including the past five as a starter. He started 14 games last year.

CARDINALS: The crowd was dotted with No. 22 jerseys, many in newly-minted Cardinal red and a few in the familiar Cowboy silver and blue, as Emmitt Smith went through his first workout with Arizona. "The only thing that's changed on me has been the helmet color, the jersey color, the shoe color, and the pants color," he said. "Football is football."

No one has carried a football for more yards in NFL history than Smith, and after 14 years and three Super Bowl rings with Dallas, he finds himself the centerpiece of a Cardinal franchise that has one playoff victory in 55 years.

JAGUARS: Defensive end Tony Brackens expects to be out two to three weeks while he recovers from an appendectomy.

The Jaguars placed him on the physically unable to perform list Friday, throwing his availability for the season into question.

Brackens is more sure. He said his surgically-repaired left knee is fine, and if it weren't for the appendectomy, he would be on the field.

"With my knee, I'm able to do whatever, as soon as the appendectomy part is over," he said.

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