tennesseeboy

The Magnificent Seven inches?

If they both would promise to sober up I might do both!

Hey..I play poker twice a month, and win some and lose some. A little more challenging than scratching a ticket, but I guess its gambling. At least I get to shoot the sh-- with a group of friends and eat pizza while I'm doing it. If buying tickets floats your boat...more power to you.

very tough question. He is a pro bowl player even now. I think if it can be structured we have to try to keep him. On the other hand that is one hell of a lot of cap money and there are some nice looking free agents out there for our offensive and defensive line. I'd lean toward very serious renegotiation.

One can only speculate. The reimbursement stuff sounds like normal governmental crap. The $40,000 a month fee to the lawyers sounds outrageous but the story seems to attribute that decision to "state officials". I think if the guy wanted to quit he should have just resigned and skipped the drama. I wonder if he was angling for the permanent Chairmanship, it didn't work out, and he quit in a snit?

Yeah..I think he can go somewhere at a drastically reduced salary. However his selection and his salary will be based on his performance in the NFL, not on his reputation at the University of Texas...and his performace in the NFL was not stellar, to say the least. He was a failure at tackle (I think everyone will agree with this). He was not a particularly good gaurd, and the reason I don't say he was a bad gaurd is his susceptibility to injuries which meant he didn't play a lot. I think most teams will think of signing him as "taking a flier" on the guy. I'm not too concerned that he will be in the Pro Bowl next year or anything like that...although stranger things have happened.

Actually, one could look long and hard at the so-called "education" benefit of many of these lotteries. In many states the money goes to scholarships to students regardless of financial need and based on (sometimes) minimal academic achievemnt. In most of these cases the students would have gone to college anyway with either parental payment or student loans. So what happens is the poor trailer park guy picking up his six pack and putting ten bucks on his quick picks is subsidizing my daughter's tuition at a state university based on a "lottery scholarship." The poor being taxed to subsidize the tuition costs of the rich and upper middle classe. But hey...if flushing money down the toilet is what turns you on...be my guest!

The lottery...A special tax for the stupid.

It was really a combination of Donohue and Williams. The ripping apart of the defense and switch from a 3-4 to 4-3 without the personnel to accomplish the switch was what set us on a fast track to destruction. Quarterback roulette with Flutie and Johnson doomed the offense over time. Failure to realize the need to keep or acquire a first rate offensive and defensive line was the worst long term mistake. Taking Bledsoe and never developing a "Bledsoe offense" when we had him. Letting him go when we didn't know what Losman could do was bizarre. Really there were a lot of very bad decisions that fall at Donohoe's feet. Williams and Mularkey were very poor coaches so they must accept some of the blame.

Levy is certainly making a huge statement here that things are going to change. I think it is a very very positive step and let's the team (and us) know who is in charge. Looks like its Marv's team.

I never understood the whole hullaballoo. I was relieved he shot a conservative republican texan lawyer as opposed to killing some bird.

Nah...And I wouldn't mind you elaborating on all of those people who might not have ordered fries but for your inquiries as to whether they wanted "fries with that!"

I'd start out getting some litigation experience (a federal clerkship of course is the best possible option). Attorney General of NYS is great for litigation and appellate work, although you might want to look to corporation counsel of Buffalo, albany or New York as well. You might want to put in time at the DA's office or even Public Defender. Earning your spurs in a courtroom will do you well whatever you chose later. Kind of like all of those ex military guys on PPP who never saw a day of combat. Then just keep your eyes open and find your bliss!

MARV says...I'll have a helping of Hutchinson, a side of Bentley and While your at it a dish of Rocky Bernard....!

Actually I live near Blowing Rock, Boone and Asheville (less than an hour away.) Wonderful places, as is Lake Lure and many of the mountain resorts in the Appalachians in Western North Carolina...but he wants the ocean!

Try Tybee Island near Savannah. I go there every year around St. Patty's and rent a house. Sandra Bullock has a house there and it is not too touristy. Savannah is a great city. St. Pat's is a treat with a huge parade and a national rugby tournament. I'd also recommend Charleston/ Folly Beach as opposed to Hilton Head. Charleston is a great city and Folly Beach is a little less crowded than Hilton Head.

I'm a UB law grad (first class of any kind to attend the Amherst campus. Worked my way through as a cop and on the GI Bill, but still loved the law school experience. Socratic dialogue and all that. I went, because of cop background to a "watchdog agency" formed after Attica as Assistant Counsel, and enjoyed that. Shifted to NYS Attorney General and worked on fascinating cases (can you spell "Love Canal?" or Nursing Home Probe? Able to try cases and handle complex appellate work, but pay was lousy. After a major trial shifted to higher edcuation law and have been doing that for over twenty years. Always new issues in intellectual property, contracts, con-law issues and have a med school so there is more than enough med-mal to keep busy. I teach law at a law school in Virginia part time. Never regretted the practice of law.

Gee...Bathtub Billy's and the Giordanos! My son played with the one son and the dad who owned the bar was a really great guy. Some of the nicest people I ever had the pleasure of knowing. They all played on the Junior Americans together as well and ended up playing against each other at different colleges.

Gionta? Didn't his brother Joe play at Aquinas in Rochester? I think he played with my son. I think this Gionta played a year at Aquinas where another of my sons high school and junior teamates coached him. Kid did all right for himself. Lots of good hockey came out of Aquinas over the years.

It's funny watching him now and thinking of him during those glory days. If we did a best punter ever for the Buffalo Bills...don't get mad...I think Paul Maguire would have to make a claim. He might possibly make the all time Bills Special Teams squad with Tasker and Mark Pike and Keith Moody and some others.

Make sure you let us know where to find it. I am a big fan of that Rick Anderson fella. Also of the bills. If our Bills suffered those injuries and had no receivers, and had to make the changes Saban did that year I think there would have been collapses and heart attacks. I loved the comments about Paul Maguire, who I remembered being very careful to point out that he was a linebacker AND punter. He must have been an active special teams guy to have thrown those blocks for Butch Byrd.

I just emailed Rick Anderson and told him it was one of the best articles I've read. He has a lot of other articles at the site and it looks like our own KRC is a major domo of a very good repository of Bills history there.

Was trading up for Ben Rothlinsberger ever a real option? I suspect Pittsburgh was pretty big on the guy.

1965 AFL Champion Buffalo Bills - by Rick Anderson There's an old cliche in sports that goes like this: "The team that plays together wins together." That expression just about sums up the sixth annual American Football League Championship game played 34 years ago in sunny San Diego. Take two teams, one with great individual stars, and the other a team with practically no stars at all, but one with players that are willing to give up individual glory for the benefit of their team. Almost always, the starless team will come out in front. This was exactly the case in the championship game between the Buffalo Bills and the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers had such superstars as Lance Alworth, Keith Lincoln, Paul Lowe, Ernie Ladd and John Hadl to name a few. The Bills didn't have any superstars. They had lost (by trade or by injury) the few they did have before the game. Buffalo traded the mighty Cookie Gilchrist (1964's AFL rushing champion) to Denver, before the 1965 season started, in exchange for fullback Billy Joe - hardly a superstar, but a player who gives 100% for the team. The Bills had lost their top two receivers early that season, Glenn Bass and Elbert Dubenion, when they were both tied for second as the top AFL receivers. The Bills also lost some other important players as the season dragged on. Safetyman Gene Sykes and tackle Tom Keating were sidelined for the season. Hagood Clarke, the man who replaced Sykes, played most of the season with a pulled left leg muscle. Charley Ferguson, filling in for Bass at split end, suffered a pulled left hamstring muscle against Houston three weeks earlier and was put on the injured deferred list for the remainder of the 1965 campaign. With the Bills injury list for the 1965 season, it seemed as if the Bills had been on the battle fields of Viet Nam rather than the gridiron. Here are some of the other key injuries the Bills had to contend with as the season wore on: Safety Gene Sykes was sidelined for the season. Hagood Clarke, the man who replaced Sykes, played most of the season with a pulled left leg muscle. Charley Ferguson, filling in for Bass at split end, suffered a pulled left hamstring muscle against Houston three weeks earlier and was put on the injured deferred list for the remainder of the 1965 campaign. The Bills suffered another big blow during the week of the AFL championship game. Dave Behrman, the team's regular center, seemingly slept in the wrong position one night and he couldn't get up out of bed the next morning. He had muscle spasms in his lower back and was out for the championship game. If these injuries were not enough, there was one more to come. On the opening kickoff of the championship game, All-AFL Guard Billy Shaw was knocked unconscious and didn't return until the second half. So the Bills had three new players on their offensive line; Al Bemiller replacing Behrman at center, Joe O'Donnel taking over Bemiller's vacant right guard sport, and George Flint filled in for Shaw. The Devil himself couldn't have done a better job in trying to cripple the Bills. It seems that Satan had been working against the Bills all season long. Buffalo played 11 of its 14 regular season games in rain and mud, so it was almost a habit of playing in mud ankle deep. It was a total shock to the 38 Buffalo Bills who took the field 30 minutes before game time, to find it a sunny and warm day in San Diego. The most surprising element was the dry field, however. Never did a team put forth more effort that the Buffalo Bills exhibited during their 23-0 AFL Championship victory over the San Diego Chargers. The talent-loaded Chargers were the pick of just about all the experts before the game. They were officially 7-point favorites, but most experts thought San Diego would win by a much wider margin. Even Chargers' head coach Sid Gillman predicted a San Diego blowout along with the rest of the media. He told Buffalo News reporter Larry Felser before the game, "You know, there is no way we can lose this game Sunday," Gillman said the reason was "Because of Kemp. We're going to win this game because Kemp has the maturity of a 10-year-old girl." Kemp and the rest of his Bills would prove Gillman and the world dead wrong. So here were the Buffalo Bills, in their second straight AFL Championship game, and underdogs for the second straight time. The Bills, who did the impossible all season long, did it again. They not only stopped Pro football's top scoring threat, Lance Alworth, but also stopped the entire San Diego team - without a single point. The Chargers were the most explosive team in football in 1965. No one expected them to be shutout on this balmy Southern California afternoon. The Chargers were the team that scored over 30 points in six of their 14 games, for a total of 340 points in all. But shutout they were, and here's how Buffalo did that and scored points of its own: 1. The Bills used double coverage on flanker Lance Alworth (the first time in their history that they ever double-teamed anybody) and shut him out without a touchdown. 2. The defense rushed quarterback John Hadl. Bills coach Lou Saban had studied films before the game and found that Hadl's pass efficiency faltered when he was harried. The Bills front four got to Hadl on several occasions and forced him to scramble often. The safety blitz was also installed, with right safety George Saimes charging through to nail Hadl. This, along with the blitzing of linebackers Mike Stratton, Harry Jacobs and John Tracey, worked with great success. 3. Saban wanted more protection for quarterback Jack Kemp. Kemp had spent over half the 1965 regular season flat on his back because the lack of this ingredient. The week before, Saban had placed Wray Carlton, a 6-foot-1, 230 pounder who had played at halfback for most of the season, at fullback. Lou then removed Billy Joe, ordinarily the Bills fullback, out of the lineup, in favor of halfback Bobby Smith. Saban afterwards decided to put 235-pound Joe back into the lineup to help keep 300-pound Ernie Ladd (tackle) and 285-pound Earl Faison (defensive end) off Kemp's back. 4. The Bills decided that, in order to defeat San Diego, that they would have to control the ball to keep the explosive Charger offense off the field - the less San Diego had the ball, the less points they would score. Saban decided to stick to the time consuming running game. 5. Buffalo used a different kid of offense to help the running game: a double tight end offense. Tight end Ernie Warlick was on one side, and rookie tight end Paul Costa on the other. This gave the Bills more blocking up front where it was necessary for ball control. If there was a star in the AFL Championship game, and it was a hard task to decide just that because the Bills put forth such a team effort, it had to be quarterback Jack Kemp. Kemp, although playing with a separated shoulder and sore ankle, completed 8 out of 19 passes for 155 yards and one touchdown. These may not seem like great statistics, but in consideration to Kemp's health and the lack of adequate receivers, it was an outstanding game. Kemp, who was named the AFL's Most Valuable Player for 1965 earlier in the month, was pronounced the game's MVP for his courageous performance. In an age of expensive football signings, the Bills got Kemp practically gift-wrapped. He was the Chargers No. 1 quarterback in 1962 when he injured the middle finger of his right throwing hand. San Diego coach Sid Gillman, who believed that Kemp was unable of winning the "big game," put him on the waivers, hoping that no team would grab the injured quarterback. Buffalo, who was in desperate need for a solid quarterback, seized the opportunity and grabbed Kemp for the $100 waiver price. This move by Gillman completely backfired in his face. Kemp not only won this championship game, but also the previous year's title game over Gillman's Chargers. For an entire quarter, it looked as if the sixth AFL Championship game was going to be played into the year 1966 without a single point being scored. But with a first and ten in the second quarter, Kemp threw a 22-yard pass to Paul Costa. The 6-foot-5, 256-pound rookie made a sensational, over-the-wrong-shoulder catch at the San Diego 22 yard line. Two runs netted four yards, and Kemp went to the air again - this time on a post pattern to Ernie Warlick. Warlick outdistanced defender "Speedy" Duncan and caught the ball on a dive in the end zone. Warlick, or "Old Hoss" as he was nick-named by his teammates, had spent most of the 1965 season on the bench. Rookie Costa had beaten him out of his tight end position, and the 33-year old veteran was in doubt about his playing future. But Warlick got his chance when Saban employed the double tight end offense. "This was my big chance," Warlick said after the game, "and I prayed I wouldn't muff it. I gave him (Duncan) a move to the outside. He went for it. Then I ran a post pattern." The Bills scored again, only minutes later, when Butch Byrd took a John Hadl punt at the Buffalo 26. Byrd broke two tackles and then proceeded down the right sideline untouched for the second Buffalo touchdown. Paul Maguire, another player received from San Diego for $100, gave the key block at the Charger 10 that cleared the way for Byrd. Byrd explained his 74-yard touchdown run: "Henry Schmidt and Tommy Janik gave me big blocks after I caught it. I stepped inside and tried to stay along the sidelines. The referee said I stayed in bounds by about a half inch. "Paul Maguire knocked down two guys at about the 10," the All-AFL cornerback continued. "Man, he really hit ‘em! That sprung me." After that, all the scoring was done by the Hungarian soccer-styled kicker, Pete Gogolak. Gogolak, who still intends to play out his option, kicked three Buffalo field goals for an AFL Championship game record. In the third quarter, Kemp went back into the pocket to pass. Getting perfect protection, the small but gritty quarterback threw the long bomb to Bo Roberson. The swift flanker mad an over-the-shoulder catch at the SD 24. It was a 49-yard pick up in all, the longest offensive gain of the day. From there, the Bills drove to the four, but the Charger defense stiffened. In came Gogolak. His 11-yarder was true, and the Bills led 17-0. Paul Maguire, the reserve linebacker who does the Bills punting chores, took the snap and booted the ball deep into San Diego territory where it was downed by Charley Warner at the one. The Bills decided to blitz since it was obvious that the Chargers would have to take to the air to get back into the ball game. Hadl went back into the end zone to pass, saw that the blitz was on, and he hurried his throw. Butch Byrd embarked upon the scene once again, this time by intercepting that pass and returning it to the Charger 23. Again the San Diego front four held. So in went Gogolak, and this time he kicked his second longest field goal of the season, a 39-yarder, to up the score to 20-0. By then it was just a matter of time. The Chargers were completely worn out. Everything they did seemed to backfire in their faces. Gogolak's final 32-yard field goal (his third of the day) was just salt to the injury. The unsung hero of the game for the Bills, and for the entire season for that matter, had to be fullback Wray Carlton. He gained 63 yards in 16 trips (3.9 yards per carry), and that tied him with San Diego's Paul Lowe as the game's top rusher. But, as is true with the entire Buffalo team, statistics don't tell half the story. Carlton was injured and missed most of the 1963 season. He was talked out of retirement the season before by Saban, and started out the 1964 season strongly. But another injury crippled him until the last two game of the season. It was then that Carlton played an all-important part in the Bills drive to their first AFL championship. During the 1965 season, Wray had an almost impossible task ahead of him. He had to help replace Cookie Gilchrist, who had been traded to Denver. But the dark-haired, 27 year old veteran came through in great style. In regular season statistics, he gained 592 yards on 156 carries and scored six touchdown. Carlton had been the workhorse for the Buffalo offense all season long. He would gain the big yardage when needed, provided a key block, or go out as an alternate receiver when the regular receivers were covered. His catching abilities got Kemp out of a jam plenty of times. Players like Carlton don't win any awards and they do not receive a lot of attention. But without him, or the other unsung players on the Buffalo Bills squad, the Bills wouldn't have finished close to the top during the 1965 season. The 1965 version of the Buffalo Bills were a rarity in sports. They didn't have any superstars like Jim Brown, Paul Lowe or Lance Alworth, but they did have players who were willing to give their heart for the team. This was the principle reason for their 23-0 lacing over the "unbeatable" San Diego Chargers. There were other reasons for the victory, also. The Buffalo defense played an outstanding game. For the first time in their history, the Bills double-teamed a receiver. So it wasn't such a shock that the man who was so honored was Lance Alworth, Pro football's premier pass catcher. "We double-teamed Alworth on almost every play," said Buffalo defensive coach Joel Collier. "When he lined up at flanker, Booker Edgerson and Hagood Clarke double-covered him. When he was at split end, it was George Saimes and Booker." This alignment allowed Alworth only four receptions for a mere 82 yards, and no touchdown. Hagood Clarke received special praise from San Diego quarterback John Hadl after the gam's end, "We knew he was a tough and heady player, but we didn't think he had that much speed." Buffalo's game plan was to let Alworth score only one touchdown, instead of his usual two. But here is where the heart and pride come in again. The Buffalo secondary, which was statistically the worst in the AFL in 1965, completely shutout Alworth, something no team had been able to do all season. This was a day that 40 Chargers and 30,361 fans in the sunny stands would have liked to soon forget. But, unfortunately for the San Diego fans, it was difficult to do so. The deeply disappointed Sid Gillman had no alibis. "We just got beat," he said. "We lost to a fine football team. The Bills have excellent personnel and coaching. What else is there to say?" The defeat was summed up perfectly when John Hadl said, "They kicked the Devil out of us." Maybe the Bills got even with Satan after all! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bills Backers United is a combined effort between the Bills Backers International Chapters located in Willow Grove PA, Laurel MD, Phoenix AZ, and Virginia Beach VA. Copyright ©2001 Rick Anderson championships...

Sahwahdee Kah