skibum

Jets 17 - Bills 12 Reality check game - these Bills are not very good. 4 FGs because they can't finish in the red zone, they cling to a lead until the Jets punch it home on their last drive. Tyrod throws a pick at midfield during the 2-minute drill. I feel like I've seen this a thousand times before.

It has to be more than just an ACL. I have had both of mine repaired, and I was back to 100% in a year's time - and I'm not a gifted athlete with access to state-of-the-art rehab resources like Reggie Ragland is. I was fortunate to have minimal cartilage or other collateral damage both times, but it's very common for folks to damage the meniscus and/or articular cartilage at the time of injury. I wouldn't be surprised if we start hearing talk of microfracture surgery soon.

Jim Ritcher. Die-hard metalhead. Also Mark Wright. Steady player for a good while.

So KC is willing to give up a middle round pick to see if Ragland can live up to his potential, but the Bills aren't willing to to do it for free.

I live in Maine, where every bar is a Patriots bar. There are zero other Bills fans in town. When I go out to watch a game, I sit alone in silence. There's no Genny Cream Ale on tap, and the wings are abysmal. The local bar has Sunday Ticket; there are about a dozen TVs with a variety of games on, but the Bills game is never on unless they're playing the Pats, and if they're playing the Pats I won't even go out. Actually, I only go if the Bills game is on at a different time from the Pats games, because the place is ridiculous during Brady time. It actually works out well, because the Pats are on prime time like every week. I politely ask the barkeep to turn on the Bills game, then wait a half hour for her to get around to changing the channel. Then I have to listen to all the locals waxing homoerotic about Tawm Braaaaaaaady and how wicked awesome he is. If I openly root for the Bills, I get taunted - sometimes in a legitimately threatening way. It's not a lot of fun.

I am 40 and I have never owned a TV. It's not that I'm totally opposed, but I just don't get much out of it. For a long time, I would actually binge on TV a little when I was at a hotel or visiting friends or family that had TV, but now I find the whole thing so noisy and obnoxious that I can't watch for more than a few minutes. I still love watching sports, and that's the only thing I miss. But I can't stomach one minute of modern sports analysis on ESPN, etc.I have recently considered buying a TV so I can watch movies at home, or maybe check out Game of Thrones or the like. Seems like you can get a ridiculous TV for not a lot of money now.

Until the '01 Super Bowl, I always pitied the Pats franchise. Back in the pre-Brady days, the Bills owned them - so I had no problem rooting for them as an underdog in the Rams game. For several years I would even say I was happy for them, as an objective sports fan; they were simply a team that emerged from decades of despair to become a dynasty. But then I moved to Maine and experienced the full brunt of Pats-fan douchehood. The love is gone now.

OK, Brady makes Hogan look really good, but does anyone in here really think that Marquise Goodwin and Walter freaking Powell are better receivers???

Just in time for the SUPER BOWL

At least the Bills organization has been trying to field a winner in recent years. They just aren't very good at it. There are other franchises out there where this could be a legitimate thing - Historically, the Chicago Cubs deliberately fielded crappy teams for decades because old man Wrigley discovered that they could fill the seats regardless of the results. In the NFL, the Bidwill family did much the same with the St. Louis Cardinals. Tanking for top draft picks has become pretty standard procedure in both the NHL and NBA in recent years.

Having been through both partial and full ACL tears, I would bet that there is about a 95% chance he's going to need surgery, and he would be better off just getting it over with ASAP. I had a partial tear with good stability, rehabbed hard, then tore the bejeezus out of it four months later in a pretty routine fall. Even if it is 'only' a partial tear, stability will never get any better than it is today. There is not enough blood flow to the ACL to prompt any healing. Even if it is relatively stable today, the ligament is compromised and unable to provide full support in all directions. Reggie Ragland's job is to get repeatedly body-slammed by 300 pound strongmen. The rigors of football will snap what's left of his ACL in due time.

Besides Wide Right, this would be the thing I would fix. That was such a brutally horrid decision. No telling if it would have changed the outcome of the game at hand, but I know that the Bills' Karma would be in much better shape today if Flutie had gotten the nod like he deserved.

Wide right. Is there any other answer?

Anybody catch this? At around :24, as McGee is reversing field in a crowd of black jerseys, A Bills player streaks through the crowd running due south and delivers a stealth groin punch to one of the Saints, who then crumples to the ground clutching his naughty bits. Great stuff!

My only beef is with the Cardale pick. He's such a long shot that I just don't see the point. I am also a firm believer that you should take a CB or safety somewhere in the first four rounds of every draft, whether it's an immediate need or not. That would have been a good place to take one. Otherwise, I think they got a lot of value across the board; a lot of seemingly safe picks, but nobody that makes you stand up and say, "dayum!!!". I'd give it a B+ overall.

What's even more aggravating is that it was an Ed Hochuli game. That guy calls a penalty every other down as matter of course, and he missed that one entirely.

He played great when he was healthy - made a lot of catches and had some big blocks, too, if I recall. If he has an injury that prevents him from ever playing at a high level again, that's not his fault. The FO took a flyer on a guy with a lot of talent and potential injury problems. They gambled and maybe lost. Why all the hate? What is wrong with you people?

Would not have mattered. That game was a beat-down.

Another Jasper thread?

Karlos actually reminds me of Adrian Peterson, but about 10% less amazing in all facets. Maybe like Adrian Peterson now, as opposed to Adrian Peterson at the peak of his dominance? Also, Karlos's moves on the TD run yesterday were reminiscent of Freddy J. - subtle shifts in direction that cause people to miss before they even get close. That takes incredible vision and Gretzky-like command of time and space.

We need a guy named Stoneburner.

I love how this guy just keeps plugging away and always ends up playing a bunch of games no matter where he goes. Consummate badazz.

Bad news for Kiko. ACL sprains are tough because they generally don't heal much at all - there's not enough blood supply to the area, unlike the MCL which heals itself in a few weeks. A sprained ACL is usually just one more twist away from popping completely, and often they are stretched out - creating laxity which puts every other part of the knee at risk. The only thing you can do for it is to strengthen the rest of your knee and avoid dangerous things, like playing professional football for example. Otherwise, it's surgery. He will probably opt for a cadaver graft this time, which is riskier (sometimes the body rejects them and they just rot away), but there is no damage from harvesting your patellar tendon or hamstring for material as there would have been in his previous surgery.

Only if Gronk is clinically dead on game day.