TDO'Kearney

Yea - I came to this thread because I thought I was getting a line on a new restaurant in town....

We're all mad about those draft choices in 06 and 09 because for once the casual fan DID know better than the Bills front office. We were screaming for Ngata when they drafted Whitner in 06 and screaming for Orakpo when they took Maybin in 09.

Never forget how good Fred is at picking up blitzes on our potentially fragile 2nd year QB.

He does count UDFAs such as Robey in his re-grade. From the article: "On the undrafted free agents: I consider it fair to consider those guys because, really, that's a part of the draft in many ways. The draft is short to better allocate rookies, so, how well teams add players after Mr. Irrelevant is claimed matters. And I certainly scout and rate far more players than will be drafted." http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/draft2014/story/_/id/10324666/nfl-mel-kiper-regrading-2013-nfl-draft#AFC E

Agreed. Pettine didn't have to come to Buffalo, and as Rob Ryan once famously said, he would be unemployed in the NFL for all of 5 minutes.

Hebron Fangupo LaVon Brazill Moise Fokou Jermon Bushrod And, um, Keith Rivers. All time favorite: Carlester Crumpler. (Twice!) No better name has ever been bestowed on a football player.

"Watching the game alone in my crappy apartment in Houston in ’93. Trying in a frenzy to call home after Steve Christie kicked the comeback winner – and all the lines to Buffalo were jammed. The freaking lines were JAMMED. God, how I loved my tough little hometown at that moment. I went out on my balcony with my Bills sweatshirt and hat on and screamed every abuse I could think of at Houston for about 15 minutes (until I thought the better of it; lots of guns in Houston)." It's funny that you bring up infrastructure. Sometimes it's not the game itself but the little things. In 1991 I was at college in NYC and came back to Lockport to visit my family. I remember how literally all of WNY was focused on the Bills. Walking through the Eastern Hills Mall looked like the concourse at Rich Stadium....a sea of blue and red. Every two-bit tavern had something on their signs "watch the game here" or just " Go Bills". Anyway, after the game my uncle needed a ride to see his buddy who happened to work at the water company. I guess they were getting high later, but the guy showed me an interesting thing...the 51-3 Bills game nearly caused a water emergency in the City of Lockport. They had these machines with spiral graphs that tracked water usage over time. He showed me where water use dropped to almost ZERO around 1 PM, and the 41-3 masterpiece first half had glued everyone to the screen. Then, around 2:15, a 20,000 gallon spike that he said set off low pressure alarms and forced him to open valves to reserve tanks he'd never used. Yes, the entire town got up to take a whiz at the half and apparently flushed almost in unison. Then the Miami game in 2002 during the "blizzard", what most of us would just call a snowy day. The Bills are getting killed by Ricky Williams on the ground but improbably, Bledsoe pulls the Bills ahead 31-21 on two long pass plays to Moulds and Price and the crowd could smell victory. As if to seal the coffin, during the timeout between the third and fourth quarters a gust kicks up and the snow falls hard enough that I started to lose sight of the crowd on the other side of the Stadium. But I could HEAR them though, because we knew Miami had to miserable in the snow and the crowd cheered that snow gust as if it was another touchdown.

You guys going on about the clock realize that it doesn't matter if you still go three and out, right? The Bills got the ball with 5:51 to go and gave the ball back with around 4:30 left and everyone blames the no-huddle? Even if the Bills ran three plays and took 40 seconds off each time, NE still gets the ball with a out 3:50 to play anyway. And I'm taking 40 seconds that wouldn't have run off with the incompletion to Stevie on 2nd down. NE was on the Buff 10 with a minute and all 3 timeouts left. It wouldn't have mattered.

McKelvin was good but I wish he would have intercepted that ball Brady threw behind Thompkins that hit Leodis in the left bicep. Also, Kilo was making some thumping hits in there. I hope he doesn't have concussion syndrome when he's done playing....

Well, based on how I've seen Marrone talk to the media, I'm sure if Leslie Frazier had picked up the phone and called Marrone and said "How do you want to do this game?", Marrone might have simply said we're playing it like a game. There. 15 seconds and you know what you have. Now go prepare. Being unprepared in a pro league like the NFL is unacceptable.

I lived in Lockport in 1980 I remember how excited everybody was when the bills finally beat Miami but what cemented my fandom was the 1981 wildcard game against the Jets. Everything started right for the Bills on the opening kickoff to the Jets where they fumbled and Charles Rome's recovered and carried it in for a 7-0 lead. The Bills jumped out to a 24-0 leadin that game but barely hung on to win 31-27 when Bill Simpson intercepted Richard Todd in the end zone with seconds left amidst the garbage swirling at Shea Stadium. I remember my family laughing about the fact that in a post game interview Simpson was still clutching that muddy ball.

Pro Bowl! Maaaaaaan that's nothing but a popularity contest. Ruben Brown made the Pro Bowl for the three consecutive years after he retired. Peters has the talent to be possibly the greatest tackle ever if he worked hard. Seriously. That's why ppl hate him. I coukdnt get on my Division III college team and this guy could be great and doesn't seem to care.

This is a great thread, actually. Makes me proud to be part of this community. The only way it could be a locker room issue is if its a qb. Mix a gay QB with a homophobic center and you're going to cause all sorts of false starts. Seriously time for society to move on... Dammit, I was getting ready to make some kind of stupid crack about the QB-center exchange but you beat me to it.....

Billy Joe Hobert. Well, he might have been a fast learner if he opened the play book....

Or Chris Pronger. He was hit in the chest with a slapshot and the trainer said when he got there that his heart wasn't beating....even though it restarted quickly. http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/11/sports/sp-48660

He has a Super Bowl Ring and won every game he started for that team in 2002. He made millions of dollars. I'd would give my left nut for that much success. Just sayin'.....

Maybe he got Buddy to go 2 to 1 on a teaser?

Not to mention....it's common. They call it a zone blitz and Dick LeBeau is one of the proponents of it, and no one thinks he sucks...

I don't have a link b/c this was on Sirius NFL radio but I have heard Marty say a few times he doesn't want to coach, but rather, "enjoy the fruits of his labor". The guy is 70 years old, man. Everyone loves him because he came to play LB when the AFL Bills drafted him in 1965 but I think he is retired for good.

Well, the good stats came against reduced pressure and often second string competition. So when the bad stats come against the same, it is cause for concern.

I never drove to a game up there but it's really 60 bucks for parking? Day-mn! I'd turn around and burn my tickets!

You know what? The Pats have a 10 year body of work behind them and were Super Bowl runners up 8 months ago. 3 games isn't a large enough body of work to say that's changed. You can't say this year's Power Rankings have nothing to do with last year when they have 90 % of the same players and a first ballot HOF QB. Leave the Bills at 19 for a few more weeks, lets see how they do these next 3 games before I'd consider raising the rank. I love the direction the Bills seem to be going in but they were 5-2 last year too.

I'm surprised no one posted this so I will. Rule 8 - Section 3 - Article 1 - Item 5: Simultaneous Catch. If a pass is caught simultaneously by two eligible opponents, and both players retain it, the ball belongs to the passers. It is not a simultaneous catch if a player gains control first and an opponent subsequently gains joint control. I don't care who won this game either, it has no effect on the Bills, but Jennings goes up and catches the ball while Tate has his arm in Jennings chest. As they fall to the ground, Tate doesn't even have his other arm in there until they hit the ground. By definition, that's NOT a simultaneous catch. So the refs missed two calls on the same play, the offensive PI (which most people feel the regular refs would choose to overlook at the end of a game too) AND the non simultaneous catch. Not to mention when two refs show up on the play, the first signals for the clock to stop for a change of possession, the second guy runs in and signals touchdown. They didn't even confer. The WORST part was while they were getting the Packers back onto the field for the PAT, they were interviewing Carroll and he mentioned the NE -Buf "just give it to him" game which helped get replay started in the first place....when the Bills didn't come back onto the field and they ran for two....

Actually, in 2007 as bad as the 56-10 game was, the Pats let up. The 8th TD was a defensive score and when the Pats got the ball back with 11 min left they put out Cassel and the second stringers. When it became apparent that the Bills D was too demoralized to stop Heath Evans they started running (who?) Kyle Eckel to run out the clock. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200711180buf.htm I was with you, until someone made the point that he didn't on-side kick the ball back to the Giants. If you're not going to do that, are you really trying to win the game or are you just acting like an a hole?

Actually, in 2007 as bad as the 56-10 game was, the Pats let up. The 8th TD was a defensive score and when the Pats got the ball back with 11 min left they put out Cassel and the second stringers. When it became apparent that the Bills D was too demoralized to stop Heath Evans they started running (who?) Kyle Eckel to run out the clock. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200711180buf.htm