San Jose Bills Fan

I had read through the thread but hadn't seen this. Sorry about that.

Deliberately confusing? Quest to be right? I don't even have a dog in this fight. Why would you even think that. I don't care to be right… but I like for opinions to be clear in a discussion… mine and others. I was surprised that you would bring up Miami and recruiting violations. If the Penn State penalties are more appropriate for recruiting violations, I wonder what you think would be appropriate penalties for what happened at Penn State. Don't feel compelled to respond with an answer if you haven't already but the question begs to be asked.

This goes back to your excellent point that if Fitz completed just one more pass each game last year that his completion percentage would have gone from what many here view as a mediocre 62% to an outstanding 64.9%. In supporting my belief that Gailey overemphasized the pass last year, I always said that it was just a few plays each game. Personally it had nothing to do with citing the run/pass percentage. It was more a case that when you watched the game you would say "the Bills need to run here" and they would pass… and that would happen 2-3 times each game. With me it was never a case where I thought they needed to run 10 more times each game. Like the BPA vs Need debate, it's not really a black/white argument so much as it's a discussion of varying degrees.

Who cares? Like I said, it's not really a tragedy but it's not really for you to say things like "they are not bearing the brunt of anything" and "the students will be just fine playing for WVU or Ohio State." How do you know? What if those schools are no longer options for them? For you to be this dismissive and flip is pretty offensive to me, I'll admit that. "Oh come on; they'll be back in a bowl game in 2016. It will be like this never happened." As for the above comment, I guess I'm mystified that you would think that. It's quite amazing the very wide range of views on the NCAA sanctions. Some like yourself see it as being a bump in the road. Others view it as a virtual death sentence having a decade-long effect on Penn State. But in that post at least you didn't support your view at all. Again, flip and unsupported. What do you think of Ramius' post? "This punishment was more appropriate for what went on at Miami than for what went on at PSU." Again, why enter a discussion if you really don't want to elaborate on your points? It's a mystery as to what point you're trying to make: That covering up child sexual abuse is the same as recruiting violations? That the nature of the transgression is the same? That the magnitude of the transgressions is the same?

Yep. My ignore list is burgeoning.

And what was Paterno's role? Have you actually followed this story at all? You make two points, none of them very well explained. It's very likely that Paterno had the most power in the room when discussing how to deal with this situation. He was the most powerful man at Penn State and people who don't understand that are very naive, IMO. Wow. A bit of an exaggeration. Penn State recruits very heavily in Pennsylvania. Many of the kids who play on the football team have dreamed about playing for Penn State since the first moment they knew what a football was. Is this a tragedy for them? I would judge that on a case-by-case basis but your comment about "not bearing the brunt of anything" is a bit ridiculous. I think a lot of the NCAA sanctions were based upon the intention that this be a warning to other institutions. In other words, "If anything like this is happening at your school, you had damn better report it to the authorities and if you don't, this is what 's gonna happen." I think it's an appropriate message. The collateral damage however is highly unfortunate. Anyone know how their latest recruiting class stacks up to recruiting classes of the recent past?

Well done, gugny. Kudos to you.

Sorry for the tone of my writing. I got a bit annoyed because there were the usual 20 or so (exaggerating of course) BPA vs Need threads before the draft. It's perhaps the most hackneyed argument on this forum and kinda the last in-depth discussion I want to embark on after the draft. It almost goes without saying IMO that when a person says BPA or Need that they are saying it in a relative sense. I just wanted to point out that the Steelers and Ravens seem to draft very differently than the Cheatriots****. It's obvious to me if it isn't to others. Perhaps a figment of my imagination but when you look at the horrendous New England drafting from 2006-2009, you can see the 2 first rounders, 4 second rounders, and 4 3rd rounders that busted for them and you can see that all of those guys were reaches based on the consensus… that for some reason the Cheaters**** somehow felt that they were better evaluators than the other teams. The Steelers and Ravens rarely make surprise picks. They usually take the guys that everyone else is saying "God_____, I can't believe ______ slid to the Ravens/Steelers" You almost never get that with the Patsies****. Often with New England**** you end up scratching your head although it seems that the 2010 and 2011 drafts are better than the 4 years preceding. BTW, I'm not really sure why you seem to attach the word consensus to my posts (you did this last year during an O-line thread). I couldn't care less about consensus. The fact that I occasionally become passionate in advocating for my own view does not equate to me fighting for a consensus. It's always pleasant when people can find common ground in their views but if it doesn't happen, I couldn't care less.

The bolded word there really saved you a lot of grief!

I believe those were his exact words to the judge. For low IQ individuals? Not very much I would guess. He doesn't. It's very sad. An old, reserve running back who doesn't play special teams? The rest of Travis' life is not looking very promising.

I'm not worried about Smith in the least. I do enjoy discussing certain subjects and this is one of them. I'm more than happy to see how it plays out and I don't buy the argument that having Brad Smith around is gonna preclude us from keeping some of our other players (Levitre, Byrd). When push comes to shove, the Bills will do what they have to in order to make a fair and good faith effort to re-sign those guys. In the meantime I am hopeful but skeptical that Brad Smith will make me change my opinion of his signing. I hope I'm wrong but it's an interesting discussion, IMO.

That's what I said here: Unless it's a really long thread, I try to read through it before posting.

I'll post only once more on this subject. As has been argued many times ad nauseum, it's never ALL BPA or ALL need. It's always a bit of both. So lets not dredge up that bipolar debate. Yet again. I stick to my original point. Pittsburgh and Baltimore have a habit of drafting late because they're always good but unlike New England, they invariably take players who are considered excellent values at the time of their picks. They don't try to "outsmart" the competition like the Cheatriots*** tend to. When the Steelers took Ziggy Hood 32nd overall in 2009 they didn't need a DE but he was the highest-rated player available. Pouncey and DeCastro were the highest-rated players when they were selected. You can go back and cherry pick all you want and I could do the same. But I've made my case as have you so I guess we'll continue to disagree.

It's semantics. Whatever you want to call it, it's about Smith justifying his compensation and place on the roster. And what you just described sounds more like versatility than effectiveness to me. Also, Smith is a veteran… a high-priced veteran… so I wouldn't lump him in the same group as a rookie… and it's already been pointed out that the repertoire of plays he was asked to execute was extremely limited. As for playing three positions, while he made one outstanding TD reception, other than that he only did one thing well which was run the ball in 3rd and short situations.

Happy Birthday Millbank!!!

Is that why that damn toad is glowing?

Yep. They don't even know who they'll be starting at right tackle… trying to block Mario Williams. We're gonna kill 'em!

But… but… those things have lead paint on them.

http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/132628-jets-sign-wr-derrick-mason/page__pid__2206354#entry2206354

Yes, but that's already assumed so it only makes more work for everyone.

Yeah, I'm a zero tolerance person when it comes to stuff like this. Interesting. One of the really great skills of law enforcement people is the ability to identify vehicles. I am pretty good at it myself but have to admit I was stumped by the vehicle in this particular case. I know it's about a half-century ago but when I was a 6-year old going to kindergarten I would walk to school by myself… as did numerous of my classmates at the time. This was in 1967… which was a different time. However abductions did occur back then… just not as frequently and often without any publicity. Agreed. I'm very compassionate in many cases but not in these cases. Not torture maybe but a good beating followed by terminal incarceration. Not sure what's going on with the link. Here's another one: http://jalopnik.com/5927331/identify-this-car-and-help-catch-a-guy-who-tried-to-abduct-a-10+year+old-girl-in-philly-on-tuesday?tag=tocatchacar The comments from jalopnik are quite outstanding. These guys know their shyt.

That's one possible explanation…

Then what happened?

Public admissions of desperation are kinda embarrassing. But now that you mention it…