All_Pro_Bills

Most times how your fare in the legal process is directly dependent on much money you have to spend to defend yourself and how 'good' your attorney is along with whether or not they believe your 'story'. I've seen people charged with more severe offenses get a lighter sentence than others charged with lessor charges because of what I concluded was how much they could afford to spend. If this was you or I against the off-duty cops we'd have be facing felony assault charges the day it happened.

That is true to this point in time. The suspects, still not charged with any offense to this point, have kept quiet. That is smart. I've read police reports that state the officers followed every process and procedure to the letter and the suspect was clearly guilty. But when the statements were examined in light of the available physical evidence, available video of traffic stops or other sources, phone records, medical reports, and testimony from witnesses, the officers, and the suspects, etc., there were a large number of contradictions, omissions, and misstatements in the police report. Sometimes enough to get the charges dropped completely and much more often enough to get them significantly reduced. That's what I expect here. A reduction in charges for the entering of a guilty plea to a lessor offense rather than a very public jury trial. While its nothing official, reality is a prosecutor can be more motivated to acquire a conviction or a guilty plea and less concerned about the severity of the sentence and punishment. They might deny this but they'd rather get a 'plus 1' for a conviction or reduced guilty plea than taking a chance on a verdict of innocent from a jury trial. Most defense attorney's will also advise their client to settle for a reduced sentence when weighed against the risk of a jury trial unless they are certain they can select a jury that will be sympathetic to the defendant and that's not going to be easy in most cases.

I believe it was Bill Parcells that said these draft experts are mostly 'information gatherers' and not talent evaluators. That seems like an accurate assessment to me. Otherwise you'd think they would be working for some team that A+'s its draft every season..

Interesting the hear that feedback from a trooper. My guess is he's spot on. And I suspect the same, maybe these guys pull this off all the time and this time were charging their tab to Shady's party and they caught on to the scam and confronted them. The off duty cops got an attitude of so what, we're cops so what are you going to do about it? And then things got out of hand. So now the cops and the DA are holding back on the arrest warrants until they can come up with some kind of cover story and get everybody involving singing the same song.

According to EPSN, no arrest warrants are expected today. This looks iike it might take longer than the Warren commission investigation into the Kennedy assassination.

I suspect the poster meant #1 and from my experience and observation I agree. And perhaps the off duty officers got the crap kicked out of them because they tried to pull a number 1 on somebody that didn't quite see things that way?

That is likely true but the advantage of a 911 call is there a recording of the conversation that can be presented as evidence. Calling the station directly may or may not be over a recorded line so some potential record may be lost. Another option would have been for the off duty officers to make an arrest on the scene. Generally, police departments have an off duty code of conduct policy which describes the officers responsibility and authority when off duty. Not being familiar with Philadelphia's I can't say for sure but generally when an off duty officer witnesses a potential felony crime in progress they are compelled to act. The fact they choose to do neither of these, call it in or make an arrest, will raise questions from a competent defense attorney about the event. Perhaps their active participation in the brawl or intoxication led to their lack of action? But I speculate here.

And why are 'off duty' cops always in strip clubs?

Yup, as I suggested earlier, a $50K donation to the Philadelphia PBA and some compensation to the injured and it goes the way of an undisclosed out of court settlement.

And to expand a bit, a good lawyer will question the off-duty police as to why they didn't call for on-duty assistance. Or call 911. This might seem trivial but it is very important. Given their professional training of what a crime is and what a crime isn't why didn't they call the police immediately after the altercation? The defense will suggest they determined no call to the police was necessary because they felt no crime was committed. Maybe they were too drunk to know what was going on? Maybe they didn't want their wives knowing they were at a strip club? Were they guilty of DUI in driving themselves to the hospital? And the scene was wiped clean of physical evidence and there is no video from inside the club. Sure there might be eyewitnesses but how reliable are they and what did they see or hear if anything?

If the league suspends Shady for charges which are either dropped or he is found not guilty the players association would certainly appeal. And have a good case against the league. That said, McCoy is guilty of one thing for sure and that's bad judgment. The team would be wise to evaluate their financial and on-the-field commitments here.

My experience with the legal system is your chances of winning a case are directly proportional to how good your lawyer is and how much you have to spend. I suspect McCoy will be cleared and will not be suspended for any number of NFL games. A $50K donation to the Philadelphia PBA will probably take care of everything. In a month or so, the police will recommend the prosecutor drop the charges and he will do so.

My take on Manziel is he's got talent and potential to be a decent pro QB. In college he didn't have to try too hard because those abilities and the players around him were superior to most opponents. So he pretty much could goof off and still win and outplay most opponents as evidenced by his current activities. In the pro's things are much different. Everybody is a superior athlete, big, fast, strong. Also lots of them grew up poor and driven. So you get superior athletes that are willing to make the sacrifice to be the best and that's not going to be topped by some priviliged kid with talent who won't put in the work. Simply, right now Manziel doesn't appear willing to put in the work and effort up to this point. So he's getting the crap beat out of him on the field and his off the field antics make him look stupid. Maybe he wakes up and figures it out, or maybe somebody close to him give him a good slap in the face and he realizes he's wasting this opportunity. Or maybe he follows his current path and he ends up a total bust and a big time loser. It's pretty much up to him to decide if he wants to party or work.

All of that and they still only won by virtue of a missed XP. If not for that the media might be saying how a beaten and battered Brady overcame it all to lead an OT comeback win. That said, New England losing has put a smile on my face the whole day today.

If NE wins by less than 14 pts. I'll be surprised. The Bronco's got lucky beating a Steelers team without their best WR, down to 3rd RB, and a QB with 1/2 a throwing arm and still had to sweat it out into the 4th quarter. They should devote their time to preparing for the game rather than wasting it talking to the media and sending out tweets.

Since ultimatums without a realistic plan rarely work, I would rather hear the owner gave the GM and HC some direction to put together a plan that detailed exactly how they are going to make that happen. A plan TP would review with Whaley and Ryan by the end of the month that identified what went right, what went wrong, what can we fix, what can't we fix, what are our constraints, etc., and what are the steps the organization is going to take, and when, to get things right. I don't know anything about Pegula's business philosophy but if my suspicions are correct and he's approaching this as a business problem then I'll wager this is what he will want to see.

Whatever the schedule the BIlls will have to beat good teams to make the playoffs. They went 1-5 against teams that are in the playoffs this season. That just isn't good enough. To me the biggest positive going into next season is that QB is no longer the team's number one need. Sure they could upgrade the spot if the opportunity presents itself but there is no sense of desperation and resources can be focused elsewhere.

The team should release Goodwin. He's fast but injury prone and the roster and position spot can be better utilized.

I never root against the Bills. The last time I pulled for the Jets was to beat Baltimore in SB3. But that was a different time when its was the AFL vs. The NFL.

Every one of these QB's comes with issues whether it's performance, behavior, age, just to name a few. Otherwise, why would they be available? For the Bills the big questions are do they think Tyrod has shown enough to consider him a solid starter going forward and what the team needs is a viable back up option? Or does the team need to bring in a free agent with the promise of an open competition for the starting job? My biggest concern with the Bills is exactly who is going to make the evaluation on the QB situation? I don't have a lot of confidence they're get it right. Because looking at the teams track record for what seems like forever, they don't seem to have the skillset to sort things out when it comes to the QB position. The recent past is littered questionable decisions that even to the casual observer appeared to be wrong at the time. Such as, they picked EJ who in the 1st?

Yes, the prevailing wisdom at the time was the Bills needed some incremental improvements and one of these needs was a 'better' head coach. Ryan was supposed to be that incremental talent on the sidelines that would provide the Bills with the edge needed to push out 1 or 2 more wins and get into the playoffs. Some other additions were made on the offensive side and the logic was that if the offense would improve a bit and the defense would hold steady the team would be more successful. The offense did show improvement but everything else was a disaster. I'll admit it that at the time of the hire I expected Ryan to be an improvement but I just haven't seen anything to justify that belief during the course of the season and likely into the future. My wife said it best at the time saying "why would you want to hire a coach who's known as a defensive genius that you scored something like 90 points against in two games last season"?

IMO Terry Pegula made a major blunder and its not meddling here or there. He should have cleaned house of all Wilson regime personnel from top to bottom immediately after last season, enlisted the support of some subject matter experts, hired a new general manager, and then let that GM identify and hire a new coach who would be charged with hiring his staff. This would have established organizational structure and ensured everyone was on-board with an single strategy and approach to the team both on and off the field on day one. Right now we appear to have a GM and head Coach that aren't on the same page with personnel and philosophy regarding players, schemes, you name it. Just looking at the results this season shows this arrangement simply can't and won't work. This team has clearly regressed in so many ways including both organizationally and statistically and the sooner ownership comes to this conclusion the better. While its a big financial hit I think ending the Rex Ryan experiment after this season is over has to happen for this team to make any progress. It's time for ownership to admit a mistake and take the right actions to get things moving in the right direction. This season is lost but there is time to save us all from several more years of this soap opera of an organization. Rex the person seems like a great guy to sit down and have a beer or two with but to me its obvious he's not the guy I want coaching my team.

In looking at the scenarios and the schedules I've pretty much conceded 1 wild card spot to the Chiefs. I see the competition for the final spot between the Bills, Steelers, and Jets as the most likely outcome. The Steelers have the Bengals and Broncos left on their schedule. If they win both of those frankly they deserve the playoff spot. The Bills just need to win out. For all purposes its playoff time now. Lose and they're out. But none of the 4 games left are against an 'elite' QB which has pretty much been an automatic loss with this crew. Rex generally doesn't let an average QB beat his defense. That means the games should be decided by how well the Bills offense executes and protects the football. I just don't see them losing to Dallas based on the performance of their offense I've watched without Romo. Just dreadful. The defense is good. I wasn't all that impressed with the Redskins on Monday night either. I haven't watched much of them and expected better based on the pre-game build up. The Eagles game is a toss up at this point and their victory over New England was due to some rare mistakes by the Patriots rather than stellar play from the Eagles. They got lucky. It might boil down to week 17 and a winner take all battle with the Jets for the final spot. A game between two teams that have brutally disappointed their fan base in the past when the chips are on the line.

Why didn't Goodell make his move against the Patriots the Monday night game the week before?

Nice to see him admit the current process, whatever that is, is insufficient. But a veteran HQ should have a workable and effective process in place game one of the season. Just another example of Ryan's lack of attention to the critical details and 'little things' that make up the thin margin between winning and losing most weeks in the NFL. Rather than spending his time playing the baffoon by planning stunts like wearing a Clemson helmet to a press conference those wasted moments and brain cells would be better being focused on the week's game plan instead.