Utah John

All that he said about the Bills (and the Titans) is that they haven't shown (yet) they can beat the Chiefs. Well, OK. Let's play the games, shall we? I think he just wanted to set up a nice neat pyramid so he came up with some factor that might not reflect this year's versions. He says the Browns have the best roster 1-53 in the league. I don't think so. They have a good roster 1-22 but I question their depth, and maybe that should be 2-22 because they clearly don't have a better QB than several other teams.

Here's a related question. If a player has guaranteed money in his current contract, and the team waives him, the player takes that contract with him if he's claimed from the waiver wire. Which team is responsible for the guaranteed money? If the player is released (a four year player) his contract is ended. I assume the team that cut him is responsible for paying any guaranteed money in future years.

The thing about Zimmer used to be, he was competing with Harrison Phillips, who is a fan favorite in part due to his commendable off-field activities. The Pats game last year was a big boost for Zimmer's reception here, and now it turns out that both Zimmer and Phillips are on the roster and will be called on for important duties. I agree with this completely except for the part where you said it was underrated. It was HUGE and we all knew it. At that point, the old Pats curse seemed to be kicking in. We've seen the Pats beat the Bills in so many diabolical ways over the years that this looked like yet another disaster. Zimmer really save the day.

Good for him. He's a couple notches better than most of the guys who bounce around the league. Honestly I would have preferred to keep him instead of Sweeney.

In any other context, they could say they were sacked. Not so much, in football.

My biggest concern for this year, aside from injuries and other absences, is that the OCs and DCs around the league will have been studying what the Bills do, trying to figure out some way to attack us. Fortunately (for us if not for them) both our OC and DC are both very creative, and they keep adapting and building. If there's an NFL coordinator out there who learns anything from fan boards, that guy needs a new job. They all know so much more than we do.

Our roster is so strong and deep that it was impossible to keep some players that are better than the guys on other teams. I'm actually happy to see the players we cut get picked up by other teams, partly in consideration of the player's career and partly as validation that we have so many good players. Success breeds success. There were long stretches of years where the only way the Bills could get good FAs was to overpay them. Now it seems McBeane can get the players they want -- they just don't want many because the guys here now are all keepers. Seriously, which players on the 53 are weak links? NONE. It wasn't long ago we were filling O line spots with Vlad Ducasse and similar lumps. Now, up and down the roster, they're all keepers. Not all are the best at their positions, which I think is OK with McBeane, perhaps even by design. The team is built to have everyone at least a B+ player by NFL standards, with most of them A-. We have a dozen A players and three or four A+ guys. This is how a team can afford to have strength and depth across the board, while staying under the salary cap. Teams with too many A+ players do so at the expense of holes in their roster.

The Bills just got finished making cuts including of some quite good players. They have built a roster that makes sense for the moment. When injuries inevitably come, if they're mostly in one position area, then McBeane might make some moves.

The Dolphins have a pretty good team with a handful of good to better players. They almost made the playoffs last year. The biggest thing holding them back is not having a franchise QB. They gave Ryan Fitzpatrick a shot while they were at it. Sound familiar? That describes most of the Bills teams over the drought years. How many times did the Bills go chasing a QB, thinking that getting that one missing piece was going to solve all their problems. Now it's Miami's turn in the ark, grasping at dust in the wind, thinking it's a sign that dry land is right ahead. He's the AFC's Dan Snyder. As much as I dislike Jerry Jones, his teams did win a couple of Super Bowls. Snyder on the other hand has completely screwed up the Washington Football Team.

Who's got the cash to fill up those 60 suites? I realize that's a big source of money for other teams but will that work in Buffalo?

I'm not going to read through pages and pages of comments about how bad Cam is. But has anyone considered that since he doesn't have to go through waivers, that this is simply a way for the Pats to get another player through the cutdown and onto the 53, so he can be IR'd and then bring Cam back?

Probably in the Chippewa Times. How's the cholesterol and diabetes treatment going for you? The real downside of this would be if Josh is not allowed to be seen eating any other wings in public. He's in Wing Central, the nirvana of wings, and if he can't enjoy them because he got a little money to advertise BWW, it would be totally not worth it. Particularly since he's got a few dollars in the bank right now.

If you can smoke there, then I won't eat there. Depends on whether Josh has his girlfriend on his arm. (Or maybe not, depending on how open minded everyone is.)

Lewis is atop Wildgoose because all I ever see is a wildgoose chase of a receiver. Receivers don't seem to have any problem getting separation, and then they're off to the races. Maybe I haven't seen all the plays you have. The Bills-Packers game was blacked out here (as was the Seahawks game) because somehow the NFL thinks Fairbanks Alaska is in the Buffalo viewing area. The Fairbanks TV stations don't think so, so they didn't carry either game. So I'll have to try to catch the Bills game on the repeat telecast. Maybe that will improve my opinion of Wildgoose.

Our Vlad Ducasse days are so over. McBeane will be Hartless going forward (haha). No matter who gets cut, some of them will be such good players that we'll be surprised. It's going to come down to how McBeane want to shape the roster for the way they want to play.

Sanders is enthralled. Me too.

These statistical analyses are supposed to isolate the factor that's being studied. I didn't read the article about how that study was conducted, but I really don't see how you can factor out all the other parts of a team's performance. Does the offense score a lot of points, quickly, and make it less likely that the other team will attempt to run the ball? Does the defensive scheme call for a lot of blitzes and stunts to try to get after the QB, leaving the defense more vulnerable to gashing by runs? There are just too many variables. The old expression, the best defense is a good offense, does apply. The Bills have a lethal offense and can easily be envisioned to put up 14 or 21 points in most first quarters. Once the opponent falls behind by 14 points or more, can it afford to stay patient and keep trying to run? Most don't. (Tennessee might be the exception, since Henry is so good.) I think the best way to stop the opponent's rushing attack is to have a very strong offense of your own, to get the other guys to move away from rushing on their own.

What went wrong for St Louis was it didn't comply with the requirements to stay in a long-term lease. The real lesson from the article is that the city and county (and state?) need a guarantee that the Bills will sign a lease for at least 10 years if the new stadium is built. When the Rams' lease in St Louis went to year by year, the path to LA got lit up in bright lights.

Performance on the field is not the issue. It's every player making the commitment to ensure he's available to practice and play, so he doesn't let his teammates down. The biggest edges the Bills have over the Chiefs this year is the Chiefs' very tough schedule, and the likelihood that the officials have rediscovered the need to call defensive holding on the Chiefs when they commit fouls on our WRs (as the officials did in the SB, and not surprisingly the Chiefs lost that game).

I went with Tennessee. Their defense is better than ours, and while we have a superior QB, they have both excellent WRs AND the best RB in football. Also Matt Barkley. But, this is a strange year. No one can predict accurately what players will be available on any given week.

Boy it's gotta be tough to be such a good athlete that you can almost but not quite make an NFL roster.

I think safety belongs on this list. Poyer and Hyde are great together but there's a huge dropoff behind them.

The main thing keeping the Bills in small-market Buffalo is the passion of the fans. Some of that would be lost if the tailgating experience option was taken away. The Bills have a very strong team right now. But we've seen them with strong teams before, and those lucky times are always followed by longer periods when they aren't very good. (Maybe McBeane can keep the good times rolling for longer than we had in the past. That would be great, but very few teams can sustain very high performance for more than a few years.) We should keep in mind the continued existence of the franchise when the team isn't good. Generally the Bills' fan support stays pretty good even through the dry spells, but part of that is due to the self-entertainment factor in the parking lots. For the long-term success of the team, I think the smart move is to stay in OP and to facilitate tailgating as much as possible.

Lawson's game got much better in his contract year. He basically pulled a Dareus, or tried to. But that was then, and now the Bills have three great looking first-two-round DEs. No room/need for Lawson. Jordan Phillips is another story. I think we could use a big body, active guy at DT. Star can't play every down, and no one else seems to be able to hold up the interior of the line. I think Ryan Fitzpatrick's lead is safe. Wouldn't that be a Texan-style move? Lose next year's first draft pick right off the bat.

Yes, I think so. The other options on the team all have question marks. Roberts was dependable AND a real threat to score. He's a year older but he didn't seem to be tailing off last season.