Bills safety Jairus Byrd said he will have surgery to repair a hernia injury that has

hampered him much of the season.

Byrd had surgery in July to fix a sports hernia, but has had discomfort in the groin area

during the season. He has practiced on a limited basis the past six weeks or so.

Byrd was placed on the injured reserve list Wednesday. He is leading the league in

interceptions with nine.

"They'll have to go back in there again," Byrd said. "It's already set up, so I'm going in

[to] get that taken care of. ... I've been dealing with this for a while, and right now I'm

just kind of thankful for the year I had, and I'm going to try to get better and come back

next year better."

Byrd, a rookie second-round draft pick, missed all of training camp due to the injury.

"I think over time it just kind of reverted back just because of scar tissue, and there's

other issues too that are going on [in the groin area] that might be causing it," Byrd said.

"That's why I'm going to go get it looked at."

Byrd said he will have plenty of time to recover during the offseason. Asked at what

percentage he has been playing, Byrd said: "Probably 70, if that. A lot of the stuff, like

deep balls when they stretch, I really couldn't get there. So I had to kind of just mask that

by getting more depth and just doing different things, and it was tough."

Said interim head coach Perry Fewell: "He's a tough kid. He was struggling to make plays

and he was just getting worse. He wasn't getting healthier so we had to make the decision to

get him fixed."

. . .

Brian Brohm is preparing to make his first career start at quarterback for the Bills on

Sunday in Atlanta.

Brohm took the first-team repetitions in practice Wednesday, and newly re-signed Gibran

Hamdan served as the No. 2 QB. Ryan Fitzpatrick, who injured his ankle in Sunday's loss to New

England, watched practice from the sidelines. Fewell would not yet rule out Fitzpatrick as the

starter.

"He [Fitzpatrick] felt better today than he did yesterday, and we'll see day to day,"

Fewell said. "I'm going to evaluate it up until game time and that's the way I'm going to go

with it. Ryan is our quarterback. I'm not ruling him out."

Brohm was signed by the Bills off Green Bay's practice squad Nov. 19. He was a second-round

draft pick of the Packers in 2008 but has yet to play in a regular-season game.

. . .

Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan played last week against the New York Jets despite a turf

toe. The toe still was sore Wednesday and he did not practice. However, in a conference call,

Ryan sounded like he expected to play.

Falcons star running back Michael Turner is more questionable than Ryan. Turner has been

battling a sore ankle that essentially has kept him out of four of the last five games. He

managed just one carry last week before leaving the game. He did not practice, either. Other

Atlanta starters who did not practice were middle linebacker Curtis Lofton (shoulder,

hamstring) and cornerback Chris Houston (hamstring).

. . .

Receiver Terrell Owens scoffed at questions raised about why he went to Toronto for a

promotional appearance on Friday and a Raptors NBA game Friday evening, even though he missed

Bills practice that day. Owens was listed as out due to illness last Thursday and Friday. He

played the full game against the Pats on Sunday.

"Anything that I do, there's always somebody who is going to try to make a story out of

it," Owens said. "Coach Perry [was asked] about my trip to Toronto, and I didn't miss practice

just to go to Toronto. I wanted to go to practice last week and I came in to practice and

coach told me not to. So I had already had some obligations to fulfill with an autograph

signing in Toronto. I'm a big basketball fan anyway, and there was a game, and I just went to

the game. It just shows you anything I do, people are going to try to nit-pick, and I'm just

really not that guy. However you look at it, people can say and speculate whatever about me,

but I'm just not that type of person that they've heard about or what have you. I wouldn't not

practice all week and go all the way to Toronto just to go to a basketball game — they

were playing the Nets for crying out loud."

(The New Jersey Nets are the NBA's worst team.)

Owens was sporting a furry, pink "tundra hat" during his media briefing, adding a bit of

levity to the Bills' post-practice routine. The hat company (found at tundrahats.com) is

another one of Owens' business partners. "It's not one of my best fashion statements but it

keeps the head warm during the winter months," Owens said.

. . .

Linebacker Josh Stamer, a Bills special teams ace from 2003 to 2007, was re-signed by the

team Wednesday. He took Byrd's spot on the roster. Stamer played for Tennessee last season and

was with Cleveland this year before being released Nov. 25. ... The Bills signed linebacker

Ryan Manalac to the practice squad. He spent preseason with the Bills. ... Fewell confirmed

that quarterback Trent Edwards is not expected to play the last two games due to his ankle

injury. ... Linebacker Bryan Scott (concussion) also did not practice. Rookie Nic Harris is

expected to take Scott's place in the starting lineup. ... Second-year man Reggie Corner will

start at cornerback for Terrence McGee, who is out for the season with a shoulder injury.