tennesseeboy

I just don't see his playoff contention (with the exception of the Houston comeback game where he had an unbelievably good day which would go a long way in the considerations). as being all that good. Against the Giants he was not effective once Lofton was shut down and made a number of bizarre drops, the Miami playoff game the Redskins game were lost in great part because of his dumb penalties. I think Kiet Joyner had a pretty good analysis in the URL posted above. "Let's examine Andre Reed. 1) Was he ever regarded as the best player in football? This is a very high standard, to be sure, but no, I don't think anyone has ever suggested it. 2) Was he the best player on his team? Andre Reed would be considered one of the best players on his team, but I don't think he would be considered the best. Bruce Smith is thought to be one of the finest defensive linemen of all time, Thurman Thomas is one of the two or three best running backs of his era, and Jim Kelly was one of the best quarterbacks in football. Andre would probably have to be ranked fourth by this measurement. 3) Was he the best player in his conference at his position? 4) Was he the best player in football at his position? I decided to answer these questions concurrently. Andre Reed has never been considered the best receiver of his era, what with competing directly with Jerry Rice. To decide the race for second best receiver of this era, I decided to look at the All-Pro teams. The Professional Football Writers Association of America and the Associated Press vote for All-Pro teams every year. These teams are supposed to represent the best players at their position. Two wide receivers are named on each team. Jerry Rice, whose career started at the same time as Reed's did, has been named All-Pro in every year except two. This leaves only one All-Pro slot per year for most of the years that Reed played in. Andre Reed has only been voted to an All-Pro team once, during the 1989 season. The best receivers of Reed's era (1985-1997) are generally considered to be Rice, Michael Irvin, Sterling Sharpe, Andre Rison, Mark Clayton, Mark Duper, Tim Brown, Art Monk, Steve Largent, Cris Carter, Herman Moore, and Reed himself With the exceptions of Largent, Duper, Clayton, Brown, and Reed, all of these receivers are NFC receivers, and most of these receivers were the All-Pro receivers during Reed's career As such, it would seem that the NFC had the better receivers. That being the case, you could probably make an argument for Reed being the AFC's best receiver of that era. With Duper, Clayton, Brown, Largent, Haywood Jeffires, Ernest Givins, and Anthony Miller as his chief competition, you would probably find that Reed ranks as good, or better, year in and year out. He was voted as the AFC Pro Bowl starter four times and voted in as a backup three other times in his 13 seasons, and no one else in the conference comes close to that. For the honor of the best receiver in the AFC over the last 13 seasons, Andre Reed gets my vote. 2 THE COFFIN CORNER: Vol. 19, No. 5 (1997) 5) Did he have an impact on any playoff or playoff caliber games? Andre Reed made a number of large contributions in big games for the Bills. He was an integral part of Buffalo's comeback vs. Houston in the 1994 AFC Wildcard game. He caught two touchdown passes in a 1991 AFC Divisional playoff game against the Chiefs. He also had a big game against Miami during the 1995 season that helped clinch a playoff spot for the Bills. The overriding memories I have of Andre Reed in the postseason, though, are in Super Bowls XXV and XXVI. In Super Bowl XXVI, Reed disagreed with an official's call, got mad, and tossed his helmet down in anger. This was pointed out to the official by one of the Redskins' players, and it cost Buffalo a 15-yard penalty. The penalty knocked the Bills out of field goal range at a point in the game where a field goal could have helped swing the momentum toward the Bills. In Super Bowl XXV, the Giants defensive game plan was to stop the big play, and force the Bills offense to put together a drive in order to score. They were very successful in achieving this. The Bills that year had James Lofton as their deep threat. Lofton's repertoire of pass patterns consisted of a go pattern and a deep out. The Giants took away the deep out pattern all game, and the Bills hit the go pattern successfully only once. On that play Lofton was covered, but the defender was only able to knock the ball into the air, where Lofton caught it on a rebound. Lofton finished with one catch for 61 yards. This left two other options in the Bills receiving corps. Andre Reed and Keith McKeller, the Bills tight end. McKeIler was a pedestrian receiver, so therefore Reed had to be the focal point of the Bills passing game. Through the first quarter and part of the second, Reed performed admirably, catching passes over the middle and keeping the Bills drives alive. In the second quarter, Reed caught a pass on a crossing route. He evaded one tackler, then was nailed by another. Reed struggled to his feet, and after the game said he had never been hit harder. It showed. Reed was still the focal point of the passing game, but he dropped three key passes throughout the rest of the game, two on 3rd down when the Bills needed the catch to keep the drive alive. He short armed balls in order to protect his ribs from the Giant defenders. It is my feeling that when the Bills offense needed him the most, Andre Reed, the man who once appeared in a magazine ad stating "You're going to get hit either way, so you might as well catch the ball," did not do so. The Bills offense refocused its attack with Thurman Thomas at the center, but was unable to overcome the loss of their entire passing attack, and lost 20-19. 6) If he retired today, would he be the best player in football not in the Hall of Fame? By my estimation, there are many players who were held in higher esteem during their era than Andre Reed is held in his. Dwight Stevenson was the Gale Sayers of offensive linemen, a man who only played six years but made such an impact that he is considered one of the best linemen ever. Ray Guy was the best punter ever, with the possible exception of Sammy Baugh, and is the only pure punter to ever garner any serious Hall of Fame consideration. Mick Tingelhoff was voted All-Pro for seven straight years in the 60's, five of which were unanimous selections. Del Shofner was voted All-Pro unanimously five times in six years. Benny Friedman was the best passer of the 20's and has been kept out of the Hall due to issues other than on field accomplishments. All of these players were considered to be by far the best at their positions at some point during their careers. Andre Reed has not been considered to be the best during his career, and as such would not rank ahead of any of these men. 7) Are most players with comparable stats at his position in the Hall of Fame? Andre Reed's career total for reception and yardage points is 1009. He is thus currently tied for 27th all time. This places him in the company of receivers such as Haven Moses, John Stallworth, Reggie Rucker, Wes Chandler, and Ken Burrough, with whom he is tied. It puts him just ahead of Elroy Hirsch, John Gilliam, Carroll Dale, Gene Washington, and Dante Lavelli. Ofall of the receivers just mentioned, only Hirsch and Lavelli are in the Hall of Fame, and one could argue that they were inducted more for being one of the great receivers of their eras than for their c"

Exactly. He did a lot to hold the league together, to manage the merger, and really was a voice of reason for the small market teams (and one could argue the entire NFL). I think he deserves it, but don't think he will get it. As far a Buffalo is concerned however, the Bills and professional football would not be here but for Ralph Wilson.

Makes sense to me...their employees can't even afford clothes and have to rub up against each other to keep warm!!!

Dated, but nice article on Reed and the hall of fame. Reed was not all that durable at the end missing a lot of games because of an ongoing "groin or leg" injury that teamates were rather skeptical of. http://www.profootballresearchers.org/Coff...r/19-05-717.pdf

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...ects/B/Baseball Reed was a very talented guy and an outstanding receiver, but come playoff time you never knew what you going to get in critical moments. Doesn't mean he wasn't good, just means he ain't hall of fame material.

Important advice...Do NOT ...repeat Do Not......send this to your wife or girlfriend. Sure fire suicide.

At a certain point relationships go into a death spiral...and if you start with that contact you'll just get into one. Nothing wrong with a contact saying in essence "I'm sorry things ended badly" but then again...there's nothing RIGHT with it either. Things ended, whether badly or not if irrelevant in the long run. Think about it. Do you want to try to rekindle the relationship? If that is your goal don't dick around with one of these cutesy letters that are sure to cause problems. Gotta lick your wounds and move on...

Bruce is a given. I'm not sure about any of the others. Reed hurt his chances with all of those dumb penalties in big games, Tasker (who probably deserves it for his world class special teams play, and being mvp of a probowl as a special teams player) isn't going in because he was "only" a special teams player. Ralph was a voice in the wilderness for a long while, and probably deserves to get in as a founder of the league. I suspect when all is said and done it will be Bruce for sure, Ralph a strong possible, Reed and Tasker as possibles, but very unlikely.

going 4-1 is nice any time...but the teams going to the playoffs seem to be the ones that perform late in the season.

lI'm not buying the talent. Certainly not off the field. Davis is a train wreck who has run off good and bad coaches on a regular basis. We have a mediocre coach with a staff that is mediocre. How do you get by having people at the very top who are actively working against whatever coaching staff is in there? Oakland is going nowhere until that gets resolved. Buffalo will continue with 7 and 8 wins if nothing changes. Oakland will continue with 5 or fewer wins if nothing changes. And that is based on lack of talent, particularly off the field.

What stood out for me was the belt he took in that last playoff game. I thought as highly I thought of him as a qb (the best the bills ever had...and I've seen them all) he was going to get very seriously hurt if he kept playing. As someone said, his shoulder was going and he was never very mobile...and believe me mobility goes with age. He left at the right time.

Somebody call the Juice Defamation League!

Gotta see it. Looks like a strong year for movies lately. Eastwood is a pretty safe bet in dam near anything.

Let me amend that to say that its all about wins and losses in the last five games of the season. Take at look at the records of teams in the playoffs and how many went 4-1 to get there. Apparently its a strong finish that gets you to the dance. http://www.nfl.com/standings

Finally though, its all about wins and losses.

Oakland 5-11 Buffalo 7-9 The Oakland Raiders are on the low end of mediocrity The Buffalo Bills are a low to mid range mediocre team. This is like picking the best bills qb since kelly if we deleted Flutie from the mix.

Can't fault your logic. I think it would be a huge boost to UB Football, and would give the Big East a shot in the arm. We have the stadium, the fan base and the team...

Gotta go with the Flutie. The proof is in the pudding, and he has the record to establish him as by far the best of THAT list of quarterbacks.

I gotta go with play calling. Whoever is sending the calls in takes too long, as you have pointed out. Not to mention that he is also sending in pretty lousy plays. I guess the offensive line could use more work and we should shore it up with the draft and free agency. I think a change in the offensive co-ordinator position would be called for, although he seemed far more aggressive and assured in his play calling in the first six games. Wonder what happened.

I'll probably see it. I'm not a Cruise fan either, but he is not bad in the occassional action film, so what the hell...I'll take a chance. I've seen some magnificent films the last few weeks including Rachel at the Wedding (Anne Hathaway in a powerhouse role!) Doubt...All three major actors are great and one is from Rochester, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt is quite good in this...and I'm not a Brad Pitt fan.) Still on the list is slumdog millionare and Milk.

Gas prices are 1.49 here in Tennessee. I haven't seen the mini-serve signs here, but they sound like a good idea.

whoops...another invasion of Poland? Doesn't this belong on the nazi board?

I've given it thought, but it doesn't work. I've lived in Tennessee for over a decade, watched the Music City Miracle in a bar where I was the only Bills fan, and TRIED to root for the Titans. It doesn't work. My dad took me to the parade to0welcome the Bills in 1960. I watched the Kemp Lamonica dispute, Cookie Gilchrist, Tom Sestak years and suffered through the Dan Darragh years. I was awed by OJ and Fergie and then the great superbowl years...Kelly Thomas, Reed, Smith et. al. I suffered through Scott Norwood. (I met Bill Parcells at my son's restaurant and told him he was the only guy in my life who actually broke my heart.) Nope. We have a cruel cruel mistress and frankly we just don't have the wherewithal to leave her. Talk all we want we will still be here next year. The bills are the girl that brought us to the dance and will most likely be the girl we take home with us.

This year? I think the offensive co-ordinator has to take a good share of the blame, with DJ right behind him for all of the same issues that others have been citing for years. It seems like there was an entirely different coaching staff in the first six games, offensively innovative, amart play-calling and with some command of the clock and the team. We were second to last in penalties this year ? (I'm not sure that we were that bad, but we did manage to commit major penalties at critical times.) I think we can improve with a good draft and perhaps (at least) a new offensive co-ordinator. Playoffs? I don't know given that we were 0- 6 against AFC east, and they aren't going to get worse in the next few years.

I guess we have to look at the position that will help us the most. Offensive linemen in the first round? I don't think so although we could use a guard and center. I suspect we will be best served by going for the best defensive lineman or outside linebacker available. I think we will be looking for a center in the second round and a guard or two after that. It will be interesting to see how we go with this one.