VJ91

Oh come on now. The Buffalo Bills are the small marketest small market team in the NFL. From now until Ralph passes on to that 'ol Rock Pile in the sky, every year will be a tight rope act for Brandon and his inner circle jerks. They won't be signing any top tier free agents, but they will be spending as much "cash to the cap" they can afford to put a competitive team on the field. Stop looking at them as if they really have any chance of winning a Super Bowl under these conditions. Of course you can't "buy" a Super Bowl championship, although Dan Snyder keeps trying. However, you cannot spend as little on free agents and signing bonuses as the Bills do, and expect to even make the playoffs much less have a chance to go all the way, either. The Steelers and Giants obviously know how to get the most for their salary dollars. The Colts and Chargers are excellent as well, and we all know the template for success today is the Pats. And I'm sure better coaches and real NFL caliber GM's would get the Bills farther. But top-notch coaches and GM's cost more money to! As long as the Bills keep the ticket prices so cheap, and continue not to sell out all of their premium seats and suites, I'm afraid one game in Toronto a year won't afford them the money they need to spend the signing bonus cash needed to pay today's needed superstars.

Donte Whitner as made some huge game-changing plays during his 3 year career so far. Um, let's see, there was that one play he made......or, was it in that other game when he......oh wait, I know, remember that awesome play he made against.......Ok, Ok, I've got it now, I remember when Whitner.......Oh what the hell, you know the plays I'm talking about right? Whitner was a horrible number 8 overall draft choice by Marv Levy and his little group of inner-circle jerks. He's still a young veteran, and he could turn into the player Levy told us would be the "center of our defense" for the next 10 years, but to this point, he is basically invisible during the course of the game. I could care less if Scott sends him to the bench sometime this season, if he doesn't start intercepting the ball or knocking running backs out within a couple yards of the line of scrimmage on a regular basis, as a top 10 first round safety should have already been doing by now.

Good info on your site. The line should be better this year, with the infusion of the younger & stronger road graders. But the inexperience all across the line will make things difficult. The biggest x factor could be Hangartner, if he can help those two kids lining up next to him recognize the line-calls and keep the mistakes to a minimum. And oh by the way, who the hell is Hangartner, anyway? Maybe he can do a reasonable impression of Kent Hull. Hull came out of nowhere - (the USFL) along with super-star Kelly 1986, and the guy was the rock of those great lines for the next 11 seasons. Check that....I just woke up. In reality, I'll settle for Hangartner to be the "rock" of this mystery line for one season, the one we know T.O. will be catching passes as a Bill, pulling the double teams off of Evans.

You are 100% right, the Peters trade may have built the Eagles O-Line for long term success.

He missed the biggest one of all: "I want to apololgize right now to the Dallas Cowboys & their fans for forcing them to cut me last season. I know I only produced a lousy 69 Recepetions for 1,052 yards and a paltry 10 TD's. Compared to your new number one receiver, Roy Williams and his amazing 36 receptions for 430 yards and 2 whole TD's, I can certainly understand why you felt you had to get rid of me. Especially since I only averaged 83 receptions for over 1,200 yards and 14 TD's my first two years as a Cowboy, I'm amazed you kept me around for all three seasons. What kind of productions is that? I mean scoring only 38 TD's in three seasons, and catching only 235 passes, why did you ever put up with me at all?" "Also, I would like to apologize to the Buffalo Bills and their fans. Depsite the fact I am 35 years old, and I am coming off my worst season as a Cowboy, it was only 6 receptions, 35 yards and 7 TD's better then your number one receiver, Lee Evans put up last season. Plus I keep myself in excellent physical condition, and I still have a passion for winning football games. So if I come up there and put up similar numbers from my three season with Dallas, I am sorry if it upsets the Bills organization as much as it did in Dallas."

The Bills will finish 7-9-0 because they got rid of the Pro Bowl LT that helped them achieve a record last year of....7-9-0. Nice prediction, Faulk. Makes perfect sense to me.

And the NFL would care about this.......why? Please tell me the odds of the Bills even having been chosen to play in this game if not for T.O. being in a Bills uniform that night?

But what difference will a win over the Pats in Game One do if: (Fast start-->Slow fade) is the inevitable path for this DJ coached team?? You think one big win to start the 16 game marathon season will make DJ and Turk-ey suddenly do "well" making game time and mid season adjustments when things heat up, and they have to rely on gut feel and intuition?? Here's what I think: it's time for these players to start manning up and making DJ's job easier for him. This is their 4th season with the guy, its' time for the vets to earn their money and LEAD the younger players into the damn playoffs. If a big win in game one doesn't end up as a playoff season, or at least finish close to the playoffs with a winning record, then it will all get blown up again anyway, and the "big win over the Pats" will be as meaningless as the last "big win" over the Pats to start the season was way back in 2002....or was it 2003?

OK, sorry I jumped on the thread. As far as Johnson, maybe he really didn't have a mysterious "sports hernia" at all. Maybe the kid was as inconsistent as everyone thought he was, and after getting drafted, he got off his butt and started working. Pro athletes, even immature rookies, have extremely large egos. Nothing they say surprises me anymore. And you are 100% right about one thing: if the kid had any kind of injury that would have impeded his workouts with millions of dollars on the line, there is no way he doesn't tell every team trainer about it. This injury claim does make no sense at all.

My guess is that....who cares? We seem to need to start a thread on every DE the Bills did not draft, on how they are doing in their OTA's. Johnson was the best Bengals defender during mini camp, while Maybin was trying to "learn the system." Oh no, Johnson is great and Maybin sucks, right?? Tell you what, at the end of the year, if Johnson has more sacks then Maybin, I'll congratulate your for bringing this OTA report to our attention. However, since I'm predicting Maybin to get 7 or 8 sacks this rookie season, Johnson will have to be better then the Bengals are reporting.

Wow, you're right. Well they sure played a hapless meaningless game while RJ burned them for over 300 yards passing, "earning" his start the next week against the Titans.

Since he will be missing the first 3 games, I say he should play the most out of himself, Jackson and Rhodes. He will need the work since he won't be playing those first regular season games, and preseason games are good for nothing more then keeping your starters healthy and seeing what back ups might be better then others.

I always considered women in their late 20's / early 30's full blown adults, but what do I know? Here's one idea. Log onto E-Harmony.com and fill out your personality page. Make sure you are specific about looking for women in their late 20's/early 30's that are not quite adults yet, that live in the metro Buffalo NY area. I bet you get at least 2,000 hits back. Of course I'm only guessing, since I have never used E-Haromony.com myself. Come on, let's be serious for just one milisecond here. Buffalo has thousands of single women in every age group, just like every other city of similar size in the world. Would you move to Russia for the food and family? I doubt it. But have you checked out the gorgeous Russian athletes that keep showing up on the tennis and track and field tours?? Plus, most of us only need to meet one or two good women in our entire life. A tad over half of us will get divorced from the first one, so the second one will come in handy. Don't you think you can find at least two women of your age in the metro Buffalo area over the next 30 years or so??? I know you can do it, even in downtrodden Buffalo!!

You left out a few minor details in your post. Number one, Flutie did start for the Bills in the playoffs over a healthy RJ against the Dolphins during his Pro Bowl season in '98, and lost that close Wild Card game in the final seconds with a fumble after being caught from behind by a bigger slower Dolphins lineman on their 5 yard line. Then, Flutie received a hefty pay raise from the minimum to about $5 Million Dollars a season, and was named the starting QB for the entire '99 season, in which he led the Bills to a solid 10-5 record before being "rested" for the last meaningless regular season game against the hapless Colts at home. THEN, the Bills screwed him by naming RJ the starter for the WildCard game against the Titans the following week, after Johnson had a great game against the hapless Colts at home. So yes, Flutie got screwed after starting 15 of 16 games in '99. But so what? He came out of nowhere and earned himself 5 Million a year and did everything in his power to prove his worth. He had nothing to be ashamed of, and had no reason to get pissed and divide the locker room and all of that diva crap that the newest Buffalo Bill seems to do with every team he plays for all these years later. Like I said before, it was not Flutie's fault how short he was. But he deserved to play in the NFL his entire career, starting or backing up. No way should he have quit and settled for the CFL just because he needed to be the starter for every game.

"Great" question.....if you don't follow the Buffalo Bills on a regular basis, that is. Gee, why don't the Bills set the bar on signing rookies? Let me count the reasons: 1) They complain about how small their "small market" is on a regular basis. 2) They use "cash to the cap" budgeting when siging free agents. 3) They have sold regular season games to another city in another country, just to "survive" in today's NFL. 4) They charge the least amount of money for tickets in the NFL, by about 20% average. 5) They have zero PSL's to earn extra money from, because they know Bills' fans cannot afford them.

Flutie's magic season was not '99, it was '98. He came in for the injured Johnson and turned the NFL upside down while helping E-Moulds have the best season of his career. Unfortunately, Flutie was the starter in Miami for the Wildcard playoff game after that season, and although he played well and the game was close, he fumbled in the last few seconds inside the Dolphins 10 yard line, and I don't think Wade forgot that when he benched him for the wildcard game in favor of RJ the following season. Flutie's biggest problem was not the NFL coaches that kept benching him in favor of taller QB's. His biggest problem was his 6'5 sized ego. He wasted the 8 prime years of his career being a star in the CFL, because he could not accept the challanges of starting in the NFL. He gave up. He quit. Frank Reich had prototypical size and arm strength GM's and coaches were looking for during his years in the NFL. But he didn't demand to be traded (there was no free agency during Frank's career), or quit and go up to Canada just to be the "star" of a lesser league. He spent almost his entire career backing up Jim Kelly, and made some pretty huge contributions along the way. Finally, during his last couple years in the NFL, Bill Polian brought him to Carolina to start for the expansion Panthers a year or two while rookie Kerry Collins learned the game. Flutie would never accept being a back up. It's too bad. I would have liked watching him those 8 years in and out of starting lineups in the NFL. He was one of the greatest pure athletes to every play pro football, and I loved what he did for the Bills in '98-'00.

Bottom line, the Jones' 'Boys cut Owens (10 TD passes) in favor of Williams (1) from last season. Good luck with that, Jerry and Steve.

It's obvious I don't understand what you are saying? I understand that you are telling us that Mike Williams would have been a player the Bills and we fans would have wanted to sign on the cheap if some other unfortunate team had drafted him number 4 overall and had busted for them, right? I understand that, I just don't agree with it. The Bills have not been known for signing high first round draft picks that have failed miserably with other teams. Please name just one that failed as miserable as Williams that the Bills were "salivating" to sign. I cannot think of a single one. I also can't believe Jacksonville and whoever else tried to revive Williams either.

Fitzpatrick came in for the Bengals after Palmer went down for the season and started 11 games last year. His numbers were respectable given the Bengals disappointing play on the entire offense. If the Bills thought he sucked so bad during these past OTA's, and that Hamden was totally hopeless for anything other then a number 3, I'm sure they would have made a strong play for Grossman. If you look around the entire NFL, including all 12 playoff teams from last year, you would find that every one of them would be "in trouble" if their starters went down for more then two games during any part of the season this year!

Well I agree that the Bills should have paid Peters. But barring serious injury, I also believe he will continue to have a Hall of Fame caliber career with the Eagles, so Langston Walker better be having the off season of his young veteran career preparing to do the best job he can protecting Edwards this season. I could not care less that Langston is intelligent and well spoken and may have a wonderful career in broadcasting, law or politics after he retires. I only care that he has been using that superior brain to figure out how to work with his nutritionist and S&C coach this past off season and into the pre-season, to turn some of that fat gut back into muscle and strength and perhaps even a little quickness or at least better footwork to succeed at the "very overrated position" of LT. Say all you want about Edwards and T.O. I think Walker is the key man for the Bills offense this year.

I won't waste my time checking every number 4 overall pick this past decade, but the only way any of them could be less effective then Williams has been the past 4 years is if they have been out of football completely. The Bills drafted the slug in 2002. He was gone by what, 2005? And who has he played for since then? I don't remember salivating over Tuten Reyes. I didn't even know who the hell he was. Same for Melvin Fowler, and more recently Mike Hangartner. But I know that none of those three players were picked number 4 overall in the entire draft of their rookie years!

Wow, how exciting. When you told him you were a big Bills fan, he must have laughed his huge butt off thinking about how the Bills made him wealthy while becoming the biggest draft bust in Bills history. And you wished him well.....why?? Who will you run into next, Erick Flowers for a game of tennis?

You might be a fish, I'm not. I won't welcome him at all. Other then you, I don't know where these rumors are coming from that the Bills would want this felon at all in the first place. If Goddell lets him back in, and if Brandon the Marketer brings him in, I won't "boycott" the Bills over one loser. But I won't be happy about him playing for Buffalo, and I think Mr. Vick will find a lot of unhappy animal lovers in the stands ready for him at the Ralph, and at every other NFL stadium for that matter. Just say no, Roger, just say no.

Vick is a convicted felon. I'm not denying him his rights to work for a living. Before calling me an A-hole, you should have taken the time to read my entire post. Playing football in the NFL if a privilege, not a right. If a bank refuses to hire Vick as a bank teller because of his prison record, are they now A-holes too? Have you ever filled out a work application? Every one of them asks if you have ever been convicted of a crime. Why would those A-holes ask that question, I wonder? And as a matter of fact, I do consider myself a better person then Michael Vick, for not running a freakin' dog fighting camp that tortured the losing animals to death. But that's not even my point. The NFL fines and suspends players every day for things they do wrong. It is called a code of conduct. You don't think there should be any code of conducts for NFL players earning millions of dollars? That's nice. My point is that since the NFL does have a code of conduct, they should hand out a life time suspension from playing if you are convicted of a felony and serve time in prison. If that makes me an a-hole, no problem. At least I won't have to watch bigger a-hole criminals on TV every week earning millions of dollars when they should be struggling to work any job they can get while realizing how stupid their crimes were.

And there are still fans out here who think Lost-man is a starting QB in the NFL? He just needs the right system, a fresh start, a better team. The only people who disagree with you are all 32 NFL GM's and head coaches.