San Jose Bills Fan

I spoke with Rams Head Coach Jeff Fisher's brother (I work with him) last week and he said that Jeff says that Steven Jackson is offensive football's version of Ray Lewis. Warrior.

The way to evaluate the officials is not on a "spot check basis." Each week there are 16 games that have approximately 130 plays in them. That's over 2000 plays each week and that's how you compare the NFL officials versus their replacements, based on those 2000 plays per week over the three weeks in which they worked. If you compared those approximately 6000 plays to the officiating typically seen in an NFL game, I think it's obvious that the replacments were nowhere near as good as the regular officials. JMO.

In your opinion. In my opinion they were an epic joke of incompetence.

True. But they did bring him in for a tryout. Maybe they didn't like the results of the physical they gave him?

Not sure what your motive is but like the others, I'll soon put you on ignore. FYI, Lee is from Bedford, Ohio which is a suburb of Cleveland. He feels very much at home in Buffalo, regardless of the season.

Yet another reason.

An L.A. Times piece on USC players with a bit devoted to Barkley's falling stock (complete with two comments from NFL scouts): http://www.latimes.com/sports/football/nfl/la-sp-usc-ucla-nfl-prospects-20121114,0,182828.story Also, news that Barkley dislocated his shoulder in the loss to UCLA today:

I like the video and think it has a good fun spirit and sense of humor. I think my nephew and his girlfriend are gonna be in Toronto for the game but I won't. He's a Seahawks fan and half Korean so it could be a fun trip for him.

I laughed. I played sports but I was also an orchestra nerd. Wasn't in the chess club though. Smoking copious amounts of pot doesn't usually make one a good chess player. On the subject, the hatred towards divisional opponents like some of you have already said, is somewhat generational and also has to do with the animosity directed towards the top dog, whichever team that happens to be. We've been the Cheatriots'*** bit ches for a long time now. The hatred for me is very close between Miami and New England.

Although it's too bad they didn't sign Alexander.

I don't know if you're aware but the Bills brought Alexander in for a Tuesday tryout about a month ago. This. The Bills wanted Meachem as a field stretcher and offered him accordingly. The Chargers were willing to pay him quite a bit more. Also, there was/is some antagonism going on between the San Diego and Buffalo front offices (AJ Smith and Buddy). We signed Merriman, they signed Roscoe. They came over the top on Meachem. There was another one or two transactions which hinted at this one-upsmanship but I can't remember them at the moment. Finally, the most popular free agent receivers on this board during free agency were Pierre Garcon, Laurent Robinson, and Mario Manningham. Amazingly all three of those receivers have spent much of this season missing games due to injury. It's possibly a good thing that the Bills came up empty on free agent receivers this year.

Two spitballs of information: 1) The official NFL stat is Passer Efficiency Rating or PER 2) ESPN's new metric was unveiled for this season and the jury is still out on this metric

Garrison Sanborn

Hey Nick. I know he used to hang in the stadium lots here when he was a player so I'm not surprised that he feels at home in Buffalo. That's great to hear. Where is it that you ran into him?

I'm gonna have to take this from you. Please hand it over without a fight. We don't want anyone getting hurt. Sir, put down the phrase please and step back…

You'll see. You'll be eating your words.

Stylistically the thing that I find similar about Spiller and Sanders is that they are both dancers. They both go to great lengths to avoid physical contact. That is both their greatest strength and their greatest weakness. On the other hand, I think Sanders will prove to be a more durable back than Spiller. Sanders had 3414 career touches. That's an average of 341 touches per season over a ten year career. I seriously doubt that Spiller will approach those numbers. In that regard (durability), Sanders might prove closer to Emmitt Smith than Spiller. Time will tell.

Oh. Maybe I should re-write it to the melody of "Horse with no Name."

Why are you ignoring the biggest factor in his favor?

Which one is his weak leg btw?

I agree although I have to admit that much of time these days is spent hoping that Geno Smith doesn't get a nickname like Geno Augustus or something like that. I'm afraid some of these highly-ranked QBs are gonna get nicknames to drive up their draft value.

You're quibbling and missing the larger point which is that no one gets a new contract until Chris Kelsay gets a new contract.

And as I've posted a few times, I think the Bills weakness in short yardage has to do with Gailey more than it does personnel. Even though the Bills are a pretty good running team, the identity of the offense is of a passing/finesse team. That's a decision Gailey has made either wittingly or not.

He reminds me of Sanders too. Sanders was a bit shorter and stumpier with thicker legs but otherwise they are very similar. They're also similar in that both runners are dancers and have a relatively high percentage of negative plays (strikeouts?) mixed in with their home runs. He's becoming a better, more patient runner but he's not their yet… and he might never get there. That's alright though because he's already plenty good enough. The improper spelling of the word "ridiculous" is becoming the "dominate" spelling. To the bolded, Exactly. A LOT of people don't seem to understand the benefits of style contrasts and the concept of change of pace. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. When you have a boxer who's an inside fighter and an outside fighter, he's much more effective than a one-dimensional fighter. The same is true with a running game. Defenses often have trouble adjusting to changes in running backs who have different styles.

RIP, Jeff. You were a major player in your time.