San Jose Bills Fan

Absolutely he doesn't need any more enablers. Even the mother of the teammate whose death he's responsible for pleaded for compassion and understanding towards Brent. That's way more generous than I would be to a person responsible for my son's death. But yes, this kid needs the cold, hard slap of reality. The sooner the better.

The laughing on the sidelines incident really bothered me, and for a couple of strange reasons. I remember thinking "someone on the Cowboys should have gathered the players before that game and said 'It shouldn't be necessary to even say this but you guys can't be laughing and joking around on the sidelines with Josh. To do so is definitely inappropriate behavior.' " Then I remember thinking, "there's no reason anyone should even have so say something like that." In other words, it's sad that someone would even have to say "now make sure you guys don't act like a bunch of idiots." Sad but apparently necessary if you've made the decision to put him in that situation. Brent has neither money or fame. He was a 7th rounder in the supplemental draft. However it remains to be seen how helpful being a member of the Dallas Cowboys is as far as him avoiding prison time.

Borrowing a page from The Onion, I see.

Probably had to take a few cigarette breaks as well.

Many of you undoubtedly remember this topic: http://forums.twobil...ge__hl__cowboys Brent was arrested and indicted after a December 2012 car crash killed his teammate, 25-year-old Jerry Brown Jr. Brown was a passenger in the car that Brent was driving. Police said that Brent was speeding when his car hit a curb, flipped and came to rest upside-down. Police alleged that, at the time of the crash, Brent had a blood-alcohol level that was more than twice the legal limit. The latest is that Brent has been misbehaving and is being affixed with a different type of alcohol monitor: http://dfw.cbslocal....oys-josh-brent/ Lawyers in the office said that Brent’s ankle monitor showed signs of alcohol use at least four times. The monitor tests the wearer for alcohol every 30 minutes of every day. In court on Friday, prosecutors pointed to a number of occasions where Brent’s monitor detected low levels of alcohol. However, defense attorneys on Friday morning were adamant that Brent had not been drinking, and said that common household items can register as alcohol to the ankle monitoring device, including yeast and hand sanitizer. In addition to possible alcohol violations, the district attorney’s documents claimed that Brent had failed to show up for multiple bond supervision appointments, and also pointed to 22 occasions — on 22 different days — where Brent’s ankle monitor data did not properly download to the system. An employee for the company who runs that system explained that Brent needed to be at home for that download to work correctly. Lawyers said that this is not the first time the Cowboys defensive tackle has been cautioned. According to the documents, a judge warned Brent in March about violating the terms of his bond. While on the subject of drinking and driving, it's Memorial Day weekend and I hope all of you act safely and responsibly this holiday weekend. Also please remember to take a few moments to appreciate why we Americans observe Memorial Day. Have a safe and happy holiday everyone.

This could be taken any number of ways by Ray Lewis and by everyone who is not Ray Lewis. I'm guessing Mitchell intended it in a lighthearted way (inasmuch as someone can be lighthearted about someone's murder) and for fun. Whether Mitchell contemplated this or not I think it certainly wasn't meant for mass consumption. Finally I think there's at least a 50/50 chance that Ray Lewis has laughed about this so I'm gonna go with it being funny (in spite of being in bad taste) and that it would be more appropriate to laugh about it than any other reaction. JMO. I thought it was funny.

And that is the sad and succinct statement of the way things are today. It goes back to the reality that pandering to the lowest common denominator means that you are reducing the "brain quality" of the product. In a sports context, targeting the casual fan (i.e.- unscientific Top 100 lists) necessarily punishes the knowledgeable fan. But to focus on the positive, I now have several hours of very high-quality programming to look forward to. :thumbsup:

I just started watching the first episode. This is as good as any work NFL Films has ever done and is certainly the most eloquent statement made for it's preservation. Since the advent of The NFL Network, more and more resources have been poured into that part of the business and the NFL has cut budget and employment at NFL Films. Many believe that there is a hidden agenda within the NFL to kill NFL Films because it's what they call "dinosaur television." The evidence is quite substantial that The NFL Network was created in part to extinct NFL Films. It just goes to show how dysfunctional our society is that people are more likely to watch Warren Sapp than they are a Ken Burns-caliber documentary. Anyways priceless stuff and thanks very much for posting.

What school is that if you don't mind saying?

That's very interesting. The field heating system at Lambeau field (unless it has changed) was electrical wires, think of a large toaster grid. According to this, the stadium in Cleveland has a completely different system: The playing surface is a Kentucky Bluegrass irrigated field, with a sand-soil root zone and an underground heating system that involves nine boilers and 40 miles of underground piping. The heating system prevents the field from freezing and extends the growing season of the turf. Although it was designed for football, the playing surface was built large enough to accommodate international soccer matches. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FirstEnergy_Stadium_(Cleveland) Can't speak for how the playing surface in Cleveland has held up in late season games nor do I recall them having a home playoff game since that stadium opened. Like I said earlier, the grass field in DC gets pretty bad late in the season although that might be partly because they have college games there too.

Lombardi had that installed I believe. It doesn't help the grass to grow but just helps prevent the field from becoming frozen hard. IF the Bills went to a grass field (which they would never do due to the enormous additional cost), it might help a bit. Do they still play the Section 16 Football games at the stadium? Even in Washington DC which is considerably more "grass friendly" than the Ralph, they have a very time with the playing surface in the autumn months.

Well your first post was excellent and when I read the second one, I was blown away. You are to be lauded for your writing skills and your disclosure and condemned for plagiarizing. We'll take a few more minutes to review your case before rendering a final judgement.

My thoughts on this topic are that: 1) Sapp is the worst kind of idiot, a distasteful idiot. It's hard for me to watch him without wanting to smack him in the face. Also people who think that Sapp is getting flak simply because he's being "anti-Buffalo" are morons. He's getting flak because there's no basis for him to be on television, much less national television. 2) Ronde, while seemingly a more substantive man than his brother Tiki, is nevertheless very similar to his brother in that he exudes a lot of style without much substance. Have some passion and conviction for God's sake! 3) Byrd is an outstanding player, definitely a top 5 safety. When you consider his youth and the fact that he's always played behind horrible front 7s, he's even more valuable.

FWIW, Ron Jaworski feels that the offense Kelly ran at Oregon will not work in the NFL. Jaws believes that Kelly will have to change the Oregon offense in order to have NFL success: http://www.phillymag.com/eagles/2013/05/22/eagles-wake-up-call-jaws-says-kellys-system-wont-translate/ A recent Grantland piece tries to make sense of Kelly's decision to draft Matt Barkley and what that might mean to the Eagles offense. http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/60151/what-matt-barkley-and-the-eagles-offseason-say-about-chip-kellys-plans The piece suggests that Kelly is being very open-minded and will adapt as he needs to to survive in the NFL. Another interesting piece to the Chip Kelly discussion is that his coaching staff on offense is very stacked with NFL-experienced coaches (Shurmur, Bicknell, Staley, Lazor, Williams), further evidence that he's not approaching his first season with the attitude that he's an unquestioned authority who already has all the answers.

Having a specially designed greenhouse/growhouse to nurture the field is a cool idea. The grow lights would provide for photosynthesis and warmth and the irrigation could be controlled perfectly. Of course there's the immense cost involved. Do you pay $400 million for a grass field and growth system which is expensive to maintain or do you pay that same money for a dome and artificial grass field which requires almost no maintenance? I love the idea though.

Every word of this post is a tour de force of rationality. Bravo. And this is freaking hilarious! You are a damn good writer. Clearly better than most who write for a living. Kudos to you.

Really excellent post except for your very last sentence. I don't think you give big contracts to players that aren't difference makers.

I agree. It could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Being drafted in the second round, he has enough of a burden without having to lug that extra vowel around.

But, 29-21 is a marginal winning record….

In the hypothetical situation where Chan had a much better DC, the Bills would probably have won 2-3 more games and Chan would probably still be coach. I'm so glad that he was stubborn enough to stick with his buddy Wanny, thereby being directly responsible for the Bills ineptitude and his own firing. Even with an improvement to 8-8, this team was going nowhere under Chan.

That was Buddy.

We're not allowed to say things like that because apparently the Jets own us and therefore we have no right to anything but the highest respect for the Jets.

Max, you keep making this claim about Troup having back problems dating back to college. Others are asking you about this. I'm not saying you're wrong but for the second time, I'm asking you to document this claim. Do you have a link?

No. The bottom line is that there are 32 NFL teams and not a single one of them has any interest in signing the free agent QB. The bottom line is that the CFL team which holds his rights say that he's welcome to come in and compete for the 2nd string job. The bottom line is that only one Arena League team has any interest in him, and that's because the team knows that he would be a box office draw. That's the bottom line.

That is funny. I wonder how often some of these guys get hit on.