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Utah John

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Posts posted by Utah John

  1. Usually stereotypes are based on some element of truth, and with New Jersey there are parts that aren't very nice. Port Elizabeth reminds me of what it smelled like driving to Niagara Falls from Buffalo in the 60s -- one chemical smell after another. So the jokes (the New Jersey state bird is the mosquito, the state gemstone is concrete, and the state tree is dead) make sense but only if you don't look around. Most of New Jersey is actually really nice. I read once it's the most densely forested state in the country. Lots of nice towns, close enough to NYC and Philly to get to big cities. Ocean beaches. Apparently not quite in NYS's league for corruption in politics. If anything I think it's overlooked because a lot of it's a bedroom for bigger cities elsewhere.

     

    That house looked really nice, IMHO. Property costs a lot there but that might be a realistic price, at least as a starting point for discussions.

  2. Do you think Justin Brown is better than Mike Williams? I suspect Williams is so pissed at the Bills after what happened to him that he won't ever consider coming back, but with Marrone gone, maybe there's a chance. He's from Buffalo after all and might want to show everyone how Marrone screwed him over.

     

    I never understood why they released Williams instead of just keeping him around to compete next year.

  3. If the Jets can't draft Mariota, I'll bet a nickel they trade for Manziel. They seem to like young QBs who were good in college but can't transition to the NFL.

     

    Julian Edelman made the switch from college QB to NFL WR, and he's pretty darn good. I always figured Tebow would make a good TE but he had the sin of pride and wouldn't lower himself to anything other than QB. I wonder if Manziel could play WR.

  4. I think it's clear that Brady is just beginning to slip a little. He's still really good but is even more antsy when pressured than he used to be. The question is, will he degrade faster than the Bills' defense? Great team Ds don't stay great for more than a couple of years. Players get hurt, players get old, players leave as FAs, coaches leave, coaches don't adapt as the offensive game changes, etc. There's only a couple of years before the Bills' D goes from winning them more games than it loses, to vice versa. So can they keep playing at a high level longer than Brady can stay good?

  5. I think it's 60-40. 60% of the benefit of signing Revis is the harm it does to NE, and 40% of the benefit is making the Bills already-great defense somewhat better. The cheapest and most cost effective outcome is if some NFC team signs him. Maybe Pegula can slip one of his fellow billionaires a few bucks to make that happen.

     

    The Pats defense was Revis, Jaime Collins (who's turning into a great player), Vincent Wilfork (who's slowing down), wily old Ninkovich, and a bunch of other guys. (It's OK if I don't know them, but you'd think Russell Wilson would have learned about them. Oh well.) The point is that Belichek and Patricia built a very good defense around just a few good players. Take one or two away, and their house of cards tumbles.

     

    It's a close call, but considering most of the benefit to the deal would be in hurting NE, and the lost opportunity to sign other players, I'd say no, if an NFC team were to sign him, and yes if he would return to NE otherwise.

  6. I have never knowingly heard one of her songs. Not that I avoid them but I just don't listen to pop music, and if someone else has it on I usually don't know who the performer is. (Bruno Mars is good, I have to say.)

     

    The only thing I remember about Perry is she showed up to tape a Sesame Street episode in a top the producers thought was too revealing, and they sent her home.

     

    Can she sing? I guess I'll find out. She can't be any worse than the Who a couple of years ago, way past their prime guys who used to be great but now are Who the %^%^& was THAT?

  7. For whatever reason, the Bills were loaded with very good to great DTs in training camp. I recall he did very well during preseason, but the numbers worked against him. As it turned out everyone they kept is a good player. Sometimes it just doesn't work out. Cohen might have been better off trying to latch on with a team without a deep defensive line.

     

    Good luck Landon.

  8. So EJ wasn't ready to be a starting QB, but after sitting and watching for a while, just like Aaron Rodgers did, maybe now he's ready to step in.

     

    Same with Hackett, maybe. He wasn't ready to be an OC but maybe if he steps back and coaches QBs for a year or so, he'll have a better idea what he's doing when he gets his next chance as an OC.

  9. First, Fred Jackson had no INPUT into the decision Marrone made, or in the Ryan hiring. He has an OPINION after the fact. Big difference. Get that f....ing straight, Pagac.

     

    Second, Marrone was as much or as little "under the gun" as any other coach. He had another year on his contract, and he had failed to motivate his team to beat the Raiders, eliminating them from the playoffs. Why does that entitle him to an extension, beyond the year he already had to go? That's not "under the gun", it's the nature of the coaching business.

  10. I think Chan will do well initially at putting Percy Harvin, and probably CJ Spiller, to good use, but that the DCs in the league will figure out toot sweet what he's up to, and that will be the end of that.

     

    The Jets have some talent. I think Chris Ivory is a really good player, a lot like Fred Jackson. Harvin is a talented head case. Nick Mangold is a very good O lineman. If they get a decent QB (Mariota?) Gailey could elevate them from trash to mediocrity in less than a year.

  11. The Jets announced today that Chan Gailey is their new OC. Chan was a pretty good OC for the Bills, masquerading as a HC, and will probably do well for the Jets for half a season until the league figures out what he's doing and puts in defenses to stop it.

     

    The key for the Bills is that CJ Spiller had his only productive season under Chan, and may feel that moving to the Jets as a FA is his ticket to a longer career. Also Percy Harvin might benefit from Chan's ideas.

  12. Lynch was not playing to his full ability. I don't know why not. He's an eccentric person and perhaps didn't want to be in Buffalo. Neither did OJ at first of course but then the Bills got a great O line and OJ could reach his potential. Maybe Lynch didn't see that happening and just figured he'd wait out his rookie contract and move on.

     

    If the free agent rules now in effect were in effect in the late 60s and early 70s, it could be OJ would have walked before discovering his greatness.

  13. Very few players can thrive in a bad situation. Fred Jackson can still produce behind a bad O line, but Spiller can't. Behind a great O line, Spiller would be a much more dangerous RB than Fred. A guy's got to be in the right spot for things to work out.

     

    Another difference between Fred and CJ is the ability to play hurt. Spiller is fantastic when everything is right, when his wheels work, but his capability falls off quickly when something isn't right. Fred and most other backs find a way to keep their performance pretty high even when nicked. And guess what, most players are nicked most of the time.

     

    If Spiller leaves, look for him to go to a situation where he can be productive, and then watch as he rips a couple of dazzling runs a game, gets 1200 yards for a season. That doesn't mean the Bills make a mistake if they let him go. They aren't going to have a great O line for at least a couple of years, and by that time CJ will be too old to have the acceleration that made him special in 2012. And unfortunately I think Fred will be retired by the time that great O line shows up. I am so sorry for Fred that when he had his chance to really excel a couple of years ago, he got hurt and missed that chance. I think it's clear that (a) he's still pretty effective but (b) not as much as 2 or 3 years ago.

  14. There's the business end of things, where SJF has great facilities and the workouts and tryouts are very convenient.

     

    Then there's the team-building end of things, where Fredonia with more bars per resident than any city in the country (or used to anyway) provided MUCH better opportunities for the players, and coaches, to bond with each other after practice.

     

    I never bought into the regionalization concept. Seriously, will more people from Rochester buy tickets because the Bills have training camp near them? I just don't buy it.

  15. When things go well, the guy in charge usually gets more credit than he deserves, and the people who worked for him get less than they should. Based on team performance, I can't imagine any assistant on the Bills D or ST not grading out high. I understand Ryan wanting his own guys, which is pretty normal when HC changes happen, but it's really sad for me to think of the great D and ST staff members being kicked to the curb. I'm sure they didn't see this coming, and had plans and expectations to carry on next year where they left off this year.

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