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No, Chaz Bono would rather eat lard out of a bucket more than anything else. For me, lard in a bucket is at the bottom, but just right above KFC.

Lori is right. The Bungles only did it to draw penalties. The Bills did it to play their best 11 against others' best 11. And Peyton has only "taken it to another level" because the passing game has been opened-up since the late 90's. And as for being tougher, I'd like to have seen him and Brady play when you couldn't ground the ball outside the tackle box. It's just too bad that the Bills never faced a team as weak as the 2006 Bears in the SB.

It's obvious you "don't really care about the CBA." Your utter lack of knowledge about it already made that known. For starters, the owners didn't need to lockout the players prior to the 2006 season. Therefore any talk of losing revenue is just ignorance on your part. The only reason the big market owners passed that POS CBA was because the NFLPA stopped pushing back the start of FA, and if there wasn't an increase in the cap, teams like the Redskins, Cowboys, and Patriots* would have had to cut players left and right to get under it. So instead of doing that and telling the players they weren't going to get more, the most logical thing to do was give the players a huge raise and increase the cap, and subisidize the smaller markets. Brilliant I'm sure you'll claim, again because you "don't care about it." As for "large debt service," the only owners to whom that would have applied in 2006 were McNair, Lerner, Johnson, and Wilf. That is, owners who recently bought their teams for $800M+. No owner at the time had debt service on his team's stadium because they had them paid for them by the taxpayers (hence the reason none of them own their teams' stadiums), except for Snyder and Kraft. And in their cases, probably not even, since they've charged the fans enough to pay for their stadiums several times over. And basing the cap on total revenue and not shared revenue DOES put the Bills at a competitive disadvantage, among other reasons, and hamstrings the future owner. Assuming the future owner decides it's worth keeping the team in Buffalo like Ralph did. Don't talk to me about "Ralph's first reaction," pally. The fact that the owners opted-out of the CBA after two years proves that Ralph knew what he was talking about. Any mindless ramblings by you about Ralph's "first reaction" and underlying motives is wasted bandwidth. The CBA was junk. Ralph knew this. The owners realized this later and killed it. There is really nothing more to say, unless you're so thick that you can't get that through your head. Oh, wait... Another simplistic statement. All of the "old guard" owners have maximized their investment on their team, having bought them for (compared to now) peanuts back some 40+ years ago and having had their stadiums built by the taxpayers all along, some even getting state-of-the-art stadiums built which increased their revenue even more. Just because you "don't care to know about it" reveals more about you than anything else. And you're really losing it if you think that making the playoffs will lead people in a horrible economy to begin with (nevermind the global slowdown) to start paying even close to average ticket prices, should the team start making the playoffs again. A $10 price increase wouldn't get them out of the bottom quarter, yet would probably kill most families' chances to see games, and I bet it would do the same in your case, assuming you even go to games. But let me know where this vast, untapped pot of wealth is located in WNY. And we all know the taxpayers can't even approach affording building a new stadium for Ralph, like virtually every other team has had done for them. You can't even assure me that you can think for yourself. What makes you think that I believe what you can assure me about Ralph thinks?

Can't stand KFC. I'd rather eat lard out of a bucket. But hey, that's just me.

Sorry Thurm, but you lost 2 and we're still waiting on the 3rd, which at best will likely end-up a stalement since we'll never know the actual contract offered. And instead of getting stuck on "well, there was a 3rd team," realize that the larger issue is that even if there was another team interested besides the Eagles and Giants, that's just 3/31 or less than 10% of the league that was interested in Peters. And even Graham said that the Giants weren't "nearly as interested as the Eagles," meaning they probably wouldn't have even offered their 1st round pick for him. You'd think that such a great player would have triggered a bidding war, but the best the Bills could get was the 28th overall pick, which is still good considering the Bills never used a pick on him originally.

That was an intra-squad scrimmage and the idea is to not injure your star players. If that were a real game, Florence would have gone for LT's knees, not up high.

Crowell apparently suffered a setback from his knee surgery and the strongside LB'er position is now up for grabs for the Bucs.

Kolb should be glad to be employed.

In case you missed it: There are your answers for the Bils' policy on offers and contracts and the seriousness of other teams interested in Peters. As for the contract offered, when Russ Brandon says it was the richest in Bills' history, I'll believe it was in the $9M range. But I'm still in the process of getting Tim Graham's best estimate at the Bills' final offer.

Thanks. Any ballpark for Peters' final offer?

Gee, you think the owners said "we have the best labor situation in sports" and "hallelujah, we have labor peace!" when they voted 32-0 (totally united, not "pretty united") to kill the CBA they signed just 2 years before? And they had an "opt out" clause because they had a feeling it would blow up in their faces, like it did. But the problem is that now, they've opened the floodgates. It will be a lot harder to get the players to accept a percentage of shared revenue, like it was before, now that they've been getting total revenue. The lockout should have happened 2 years ago and the increase in money to the players should have never happened, or been minimal at best. Touting "labor peace for 2 years" is probably the dumbest defense of the CBA that's I've heard yet. Look, it's obvious to everyone that the CBA was a POS. Why you can't bring yourself to admit it is anyone's guess, but I have an idea why. And the CBA should mean a lot to Bills fans. Basing the salary cap on total revenue, and not shared revenue, puts the Bills at a competitive disadvantage. Oh, so "Ralph's first objection was only because the cap would immediately go up." Yet he was under "no obligation to pay the increased cap anyway," so why would he be protesting? Makes no sense. What Ralph really protested was revealed by what he said after the infamous "I didn't understand [the CBA]" clip that ESPN embarrassingly ran, which was "I think the players got too much." Obviously his fellow owners figured that out, a couple years late®. And really, why should you as a fan care if he gets "free money" from the other owners? You should be ecstatic, because it means the ticket prices for "your" team stay the lowest in the NFL. Hmmmmm. Hey, if it walks like a duck...

Well, it ended with an injury. And he wasn't the same player afterwards, getting cut by the Eagles after 1 season, after the Bills traded him there.

Tim, do the Bills have a policy on discussing contract terms? Is it different for players they've signed, versus players to whom they offered a contract but were rejected? Also, do you have an idea of what the Bills' last offer to Jason Peters was? And how serious was the interest of the 2 other teams in Peters, besides Philly? Thanks.

There's no point in responding to you anymore either. Do yourself a favor and ask Tim Graham about the Bills' policy on contract terms, for player signed or offered a contract, as well as what he's heard were the numbers on the last offer to Peters. Better yet, I'll do it myself, on the "ask Tim Graham" thread, so that everyone can read it. Toodles.

It's six of one, half a dozen of another comparing Coastal Carolina, Temple, and Syracuse, with Rice, Arkansas, and UTEP. But Maybin had 7 sacks against Oregon State, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana. So to characterize his stats as padded against "inferior competition" is spurious at best. And again, Maybin was a redshirt sophomore last year, while Orakpo was a redshirt senior. It would be more fair to compare Maybin's season against Orakpo's 2006 season. And it wouldn't be close.

No there won't be a "spending spree" by any owner. That was hyperbole on my part, meant to say that if Jones, Snyder, or Kraft even entertained the idea of going on a spending spree, he/they would get slapped down by the other owners because they were responsible for putting them in this predicament. The reason why the owners opted-out was because the players got too much, and going on spending sprees would be the height of stupidity. Although I guess there is Al Davis. I agree that there likely won't be an uncapped year, as there will probably either be a new CBA or a lockout. About two years too late the owners present a united front. And Ralph was arguing against the CBA because it was garbage. Hence the reason why the owners opted-out of it. It's plainly obvious to even the simplest person. But since it was "Krafted" by your guy, you obviously think it was a work of art.

Haven't been paying attention much, have you murra?

Maybe she actually saw James Hardy's gun?

Robert Mathis of the Colts is 6'2" and 245#, and is a LDE. Maybin (at 21 years old) is 6'4" and 250#. It can be done.

Has anyone seen my blanket? Oh, there is is, dripping...

If you've been a fan of the team for oh, say, even a year, you'd realize that the Bills don't release contract terms. Do a search for Bills' signees/re-signees and you'll see "Terms of the deal were not disclosed." If you don't believe that the Bills offered Peters over $9M/year, which is more than Evans got, much less believe the ("concrete?") $7.5M number that was mentioned by a poster, yes you are claiming that the Bills lowballed him. The Bills knew his contract demands. They had just given Evans an extension averaging over $9M/year. Peters wanted out. Hey, all I have to do point to the fact that the Eagles only needed to give-up the 28th overall pick to get Peters, to prove that no other team was seriously interested in him. The Rams should have been all over Peters. Same with the Bungles. But if you hear who that "3rd team" was, do tell. But it really won't matter because neither of them offered anything substantial(ly more than the Eagles did), otherwise the Bills would have taken it.

Yes, it was used on C.J. Ah You. Actually I was wrong on the 5th rounder for Stroud. That was from the Bears, for Darwin Walker. The Bills got Walker and a 2008 7th rounder (which was used on Steve Johnson) from Philly for Spikes and Holcomb.

Yeah but he's a "thug." He was in the car with Lynch on Chippewa that night, and also wouldn't talk with the cops.

One 3rd was for Trent and the other 3rd was for Stroud, along with the 5th they got for Spikes and Holcomb.

After that embarrassment of a CBA Jones, Snyder, and Kraft assured everyone was so great, only to see it killed just 2 years later, putting them in this predicament, yeah, the last owners to go on a spending spree will be these three jokers.