Bills’ Tasker to Call It Quits

Steve Tasker, special teams star for the Buffalo Bills, will retire after the season, leaving behind a 13-year career that includes four Super Bowls and seven Pro Bowls.

Tasker made the announcement Saturday, a day before the Bills were to play the Jacksonville Jaguars in their next-to-last game of the regular season. He is one of five Buffalo players remaining from all four Super Bowl teams.

“It’s been one long list of gifts,” said Tasker, who is planning a career in broadcasting. “As I looked around here the past week, I realized I received another gift--the gift of wisdom to know when to walk away.”

Perhaps the best special teams player in NFL history, Tasker made a career out of covering punts, blocking punts and returning them. He also was on kickoff coverage, kickoff return and played wide receiver in his career.

“I think he established over the last 12 years he is not just the greatest special teams player that ever played but a tremendous credit to the game and the Buffalo Bills,” Bill Coach Marv Levy said.

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What did Drew Bledsoe think about the New England Patriots’ overtime loss to Pittsburgh?

“The long week, nine days until the game in Miami, gives us a little more time to think about the ‘ifs,’ ” said Bledsoe, who had gone 14 quarters without an interception before throwing one in the third and another crucial one in the fourth.

“I didn’t see him until right before he caught it,” Bledsoe said of Kevin Henry’s key interception. “I was hoping he’d drop the thing.”