San Jose Bills Fan

Of course "the pessimists" were skeptical of the Wanny promotion pointing out that he didn't seem to have much of a positive impact as an assistant and that his reputation was largely built on talented teams a long time ago. The bastards were actually right in this case.

Even the national media generally believed that Wannstedt would do a good job. It's kind of incomprehensible that you could take those players and have that poor of a defense. There were a lot of people rightfully shocked at the suckitude of the Bills D. That's why ultimately all the discussion is meaningless. But we're still gonna have the discussions.

Nice Haiku. The discussion here has been excellent and I have nothing to add but I'm trying to keep my post count higher than yours. :nana:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I won't bother too much with the main thrust of your post which was a criticism of his 3 INT performance. Any QB who's had any kind of career in the NFL has had similar games. Was Flutie overly-sensitive and did he sometimes pass blame to others? Yes. Marino was an a-hole too. We weren't talking about personalities. The reason the won-loss record and Rob Johnson always comes up is because every time someone mentions Flutie's won-loss record, it's explained away with the "great defense" rebuttal. The point is that you need more than a great defense to win games and that there was another QB who had the benefit of that same great defense and he was very good at losing games. As to your last sentence, we'll continue to disagree. Flutie was 38-28 as an NFL starter, playing for mostly bad teams, before and after his prime. He wasn't pretty to watch and he didn't put up big stats but like the Celtics famed 6th man KC Jones, when he was in the game the team played better. Flutie was not mediocre and I'm done on the subject.

… "Elder" people have much more experience and perspective than younger people. Thus they've seen the decline of horse racing and boxing which were 2 of the 3 most popular sports in this country before 1950. They've seen the most popular sport, baseball, take a back seat to other sports. Your comment is absurd. I see I don't have to correct you on Lem Barney's more recent comments as others have done so, whether or not you acknowledge that. Yep. That's why I expressed doubt about a link between youth participation and spectator popularity.

:thumbsup:

She's an employee of the state isn't she? Doesn't that basically define what her interests are?

Fair points. However… As to your first paragraph, while all you say has been stated before and is possibly true, NFL teams prefer that their players workout at the team facilities. So do the team's fans. The team is the employer and the fans are the revenue that ultimately pays the players. On top of that, the number of players who don't participate in "voluntary conditioning programs" is less than 5% as far as we can tell. Very few players turn their noses up at their team's conditioning program. It seems like it's 1-2 players per team IF that. So McGahee's refusal to work out with his teammates is problematic at best As to your second paragraph, it's true that pre-injury he was viewed as an elite talent. However he didn't have just a simple ACL tear. He tore his ACL, his PCL, and his MCL. This was a catastrophic injury and there was never any guarantee that he would come back the same player. He's had a good career but no one would argue that he's the same player he was pre-injury so that was another negative that Donahoe overlooked, in addition to knowing he would miss a year and in addition to RB not necessarily being a position of great need.

So you're saying it's pettiness to blame Pettine?

Interesting take and in accord with my own feelings. Of course I didn't grow up with soccer but seriously (please don't condemn me here) when I was growing up, kicking was something girls did. You never kicked in a fight and kickball was a girl's game (or coed). This is a half-baked theory at best but I believe that there's something about American culture that's all about using the hands and not the feet. Just the reflections of a baby boomer.

Git' er done?

38-28 as an NFL starter with most of those starts coming after the age of 36. He was a good NFL player. He spent his prime in the CFL.

EJ has trouble with long ball consistency? That's not what I've seen or read. Do you have a link?

Just as a point of comparison, a similar scenario played out this year with Marcus Lattimore who if healthy would have arguably been the first RB drafted. He was taken by an established team with very few holes (San Francisco) in the 4th round at #131.

This has gotten a bit blown out of proportion. My point from the start is that I believe that Belichick has been very instrumental in Brady's development and that Brady wouldn't be the player he is today without Belichick. On numerous occasions I've cited the cheating and lack of Super Bowl victories since the cheating was exposed as serious tarnish on Belichick's reputation because the margin between victory and defeat is typically much thinner than most people believe, IMO.

It's certainly possible but it's a far cry from what Marrone has been saying about EJ so far (shortly before cutting TJax): Said Marrone, "I think Kevin has done a nice job… but I think EJ Manuel and Tavares have done a good job… again Tavares and Kevin having experience you'd think that they'd feel very comfortable in those situations but I've been very, very happy and even… I don't want to say surprised because we had high expectations but I think EJ's done a very, very good job… so for us it's gonna be tough making decisions on reps as we move forward."

An ESPN blurb I picked up via PFT this morning seems to imply criticism of Bills new DC Mike Pettine. Ironically the criticism is that the Jets defense was not aggressive enough over the last two seasons when Pettine assumed a larger role in the defensive play calling. Considering that the Bills D seemed to be blitz crazy during OTAs and minicamp this offseason, the allegations seem strange to say the least. But apparently the statistics back up the claims: http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/jets/post/_/id/23928/sunday-notes-a-different-brand-of-defense The statistics don't lie. Here's a breakdown of the Jets' blitz percentage (5+ pass rushers) over the past four seasons, according to ESPN Stats & Information: 52.4 percent in '09 (first in NFL), 44.7 percent in '10 (third), 32.8 percent in '11 (12th) and 34.0 percent in '12 (11th). Detect a trend? In fairness to Pettine, he lost the top corner in football, Darrelle Revis, which may have caused him to become more cautious. Yet when I mentioned that alibi to two players, they shot it down, saying Antonio Cromartie capably replaced Revis as the No. 1 corner. I'll say this: The defense will be fun to watch in 2013. The piece also mentions Pettine's "mysterious lateral move to become the Bills' DC."

Where to start? 1) You invalidated Belichick's entire career in one sentence so I'm supposed to devote paragraphs in refuting you? I had already put more work into my posts than you did. 2) I never said "greatest of all time." I said that he's considered by most to be the greatest of his generation. I never compared him to Lombardi, Landry, etc. 3) The Cleveland sports writers would of course call it the" Reign of Error." Belichick's standing with the media hasn't changed at all. It's not about his popularity with the media, it's about his football team's performance. 4) Upon close examination of his time in Cleveland if you're honest you'll find that he did a good coaching job there and that his "failure" there is overstated. If you want to disagree that's fine. 5) Yes Belichick is a cheater and as I already mentioned, I hate him and his team. That said I don't completely dismiss his entire body of work due to that reason. Rather, I attempt to account for that in evaluating his work. 6) I'm not gonna attempt to play psychologist here. I don't know what his motivations are but I think Belichick is a bad person and an excellent coach. 7) Again, I don't think Tom Brady has the same success he's had without his association with Belichick.

Maybe. Regardless I'm wondering what the TV ratings in this country are for World Cup Soccer and whether that might give an indication of the ratings EPL will get. I hear occasional mentions of Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, etc. around here. I wonder if the hundreds of thousands of people in this country who played youth soccer will watch EPL more than they watch MLS. And I wonder if sports fans in general will watch EPL.

I didn't know this and this will test some of the theories of cause and effect. I'm very interested to see what kind of ratings EPL will get. And your suggestion that MLS has lukewarm ratings because it's a minor league makes sense for sure.

And wasn't he working towards a minor in Sign Painting?

A guy is fired so that automatically invalidates the remainder of his career? Is that your position? If you care to know what my opinion is based on, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xEU2xcJOFw To say he was fired so he's overrated as a coach is a gross oversimplification. There's a reason that most NFL people consider him the greatest coach of his generation. Again I hate the Cheatriots*** but not to the point where I'll disregard the truth.

It has tons of gratuitous violence, IMO. I can watch boxing and enjoy it in fact but I can't watch MMA. I know the guys are skilled but the skill to violence ratio is way out of whack IMO. It's not so different for me than it would be to watch two guys with baseball bats trying to kill each other. That requires skill too but not the kind I like to watch. JMO.

And Bud Adams wouldn't have given Putin the ring, he would have given him the bird. Both of them in fact.