Sisyphean Bills

Suffering retribulation.

A lot of flags because these are two bad teams playing fugly.

Whitner with an INT. Career year!

Good news: The Lions are winning.

The entire point of the slide is to protect the QB. It should be a penalty to hit a QB in a slide, but the total lack of consistency in calling it is maddening. The NFL officials really need to clean up their act on calling it.

Yes, some young players can develop and even show signs of it.

It's hard to believe his streak as "Mr. Inactive" is over. This is just brutal.

You mean that the Vikings defense is not quaking in their boots at Lee Evans speed?

2 first downs.

I thought the NFLPA had already had its members vote themselves out of the union. Who do they represent? (Edit: From context, it appears that they haven't actually de-certified, though teams voted on this earlier in the year.) As far as the health insurance, the article clearly suggests that the union ran the numbers on paying for 2000+ players and their family's health insurance, balked, and is now pointing the finger at the owners.

They had to make room on the roster for James Hardy somehow.

Don't think so. But, we did pick up Shawne Merriman to fill his role.

I haven't forgotten Whitner's guarantee. He still owes me some season tickets.

Can you send me my refund check before Christmas? I need to get a few more gifts. Thanks.

While there is the Maybin is still just a little kid argument, the rookie Arthur Moats has shown more development in the last few games than Maybin has shown in nearly 2 seasons. For those expecting him to explode out of a phone booth wearing tights and a cape in 2 or 3 more years, the issue is how this guy is suddenly going to start using proper techniques, along with his impending physical metamorphosis from a WR's body into a D-lineman, when he's shown so little ability to adapt and develop so far. A gratuitous Yogi-ism: "90% of the game is mental, the other half is physical."

The two teams the Bills have beaten this season are also 2-9.

So much for Buddy's free agent class. It's like a magic show. Poof! They're (almost) all gone.

Travis "Giga-kids" Henry

All too true. Of course, some of that is that the Bills have no pass rush and their run defense is the worst in the NFL. Still, I doubt any of the players you mentioned in your post would've called their 0 INT season their "Career Year". Well, maybe, if it was a contract year.

First, I wasn't saying "Whitner is garbage" (and I don't think you thought I did). He's an OK player and he's making a lot of tackles on a team with a sieve as a defensive front. (I don't think he is very good in pass defense and that is not just a "stats in a vacuum" comment -- it is from watching him play and seeing opponents target him.) Second, you raise good, fair points. They may go somewhat as to why the Bills had him overvalued in the draft. At OSU, he played on a defense with some excellent college players all around him. The flip side of that though is that great players make those around them great. Troy Polamalu isn't merely the recipient of Fate's good fortune. He's not just another uniform out there that happens to accidentally be in the right place at the right time by cosmic coincidences. His instincts, awareness, and knowledge of the game allow him to be a game changer, which allows other people on his defense to also make plays. The Steelers defense is utterly different with him than without him. With Whitner, the Bills have moved him around and he has missed time and some fans even say the secondary play improves when Wilson or Scott were on the field. For the Bills to get better, they need to add game changers to their roster and not just keep decent players that might make some great plays if they were surrounded by All-Pros.

I'm just happy he was awake long enough to realize they needed a TE.

Nix would have to offer Rucker a contract, knowing that Rucker's agent would take the bait, that Rucker preferred to stay in Dallas and would have his agent contact the Cowboys, that the Cowboys would also offer Rucker a contract to their 53-man roster, and that the Cowboys would cut precisely the "guy he really wanted all along", and that that player wouldn't be claimed by someone else before the Bills. That's a lot of if's, and's and mind reading of a large number of people.

Prior to this year, Whitner averaged 1 INT and 3 PDs a season. That's scant production. This year, he has 5 PDs and 0 INTs (3 PDs came against Shaun Hill of the Lions).

Has anybody actually done the analysis to see how often it is that defenses roll their coverage to Lee this year? A game by game trend might be, ah, interesting.

Isn't there anyone on the Packers practice squad?