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There's no way of actually knowing this but I don't think Tom would have become as great as he's become without Belichick and his coaching staff. But at this point, yeah, Brady doesn't need Bill anymore. But let's not fail to mention the good coaches and players that surround Brady in Tampa. Brady does need a good supporting cast and he's found one. Bill, like any HC, needs a good QB and he has not found one. Since he also functions as the GM, that's squarely on his shoulders. In fact, it's his fault Brady left.

When the Bills took OJ with the first pick of the 1969 draft, it was the fifth time that decade that a running back was the overall top pick. One other top pick was an OT who was going to blow holes open for RBs. And two were defenders who were highly talented at making RBs miserable. Only one QB – Terry Baker - was taken first in the NFL draft in the 60s. The 1960s still revolved around the RB. In contrast, in the 2010s, QBs were the top pick 8 of 10 years. A running back hasn’t been the first player chosen in the draft since Ki-Jana Carter in 1995. Thanks to changes in rules and the evolution of schemes, the NFL is more and more a passing league. And that familiar trend is likely to continue for years to come. Passing will be even more important five years from now than it is today. Beane and McDermott know this. And, look, of course they’d love to build a team that's strong in all areas: running, passing, stopping the run, stopping the pass. But the salary cap presents real limitations. So, clearly understanding the trajectory of the game, Beane and McD built the Bills with one thing in mind: The Pass. Offense. McD recruited Daboll, a guy known to excel at passing concepts but not so much at running schemes, to coordinate the offense. And if you look at our offensive linemen, almost all of them are better at pass pro than road grading for RBs. Which makes sense when you think about the immense amount of money and draft capital we've spent on our QBs and wideouts. Heck, even our backup QB is a former 1st round draft pick and Pro Bowler. Our RBs, on the other hand, are third round after-thoughts. Our O is built to pass. Defense. It always strikes me as odd when people refer to the Bills as a 4-3 defense. The Bills are a Nickel D. We employed the Nickel an astounding 91% of the time last season – the most in the NFL by a wide margin. In fact, it was the most in the hundred-year history of the NFL. One of our LBs – Milano – is a converted high school safety who excels in coverage. When we drafted the other LB, Edmunds, there were arguments about whether he should play inside or outside. And I get the folks who didn't like Edmunds on the inside. He's hardly a MLB run-stuffing thumper cast from the same mold as Chuck “Concrete Charlie” Bednarick or Dick “Stone Maniac” Butkus. He’s a more of a finesse player – better at covering than tackling. In fact, Edmunds is exactly what McD and Frazier want for this defense of theirs that doesn't utilize inside and outside linebackers in the traditional sense. Our D is built to stop the pass. So the next time I throw the blue cheese – never ranch – at the tv because Daboll just called a pass on 4th and short or Edmunds didn’t shed his blocker and didn’t violently obliterate the ball carrier in the backfield, I’ll remind myself of this simple truth. The Bills are all about one thing: The Pass.

Being an old soldier, I liked the M1 tank. I even liked Mitch's attempt to be motivational. But the humor was, um, humorless.

The anti-Belichick crowd looks at Brady's impact on Bill's W-L percentage but completely ignore Bill's influence on Brady. Brady was a mediocre 6th round draft pick that Belichick and his staff taught how to prepare, how to dissect defenses, and so on. Bill isn't Bill without Tom. Tom isn't Tom without Bill.

Great coach. Bad GM.

Diggs. I think Allen and Digs get their mojo back.

My two cents say that your two cents are wrong. I'm not into chakras and rarely one to be attracted to alternative medicine but I've tried "dry" (fire) cupping. The effect was profound - it made my painful back feel so much better. And my experience speaks to the very heart of empirical science. Test something. Can you see/taste/hear/feel/smell a result? That's empiricism. I employed the empirical method and found that fire cupping works at alleviating pain. And, actually, this should be no surprise. Dry cupping involves fire near your skin. The effectiveness of heat therapy for muscle pain is well established. Maybe the vacuum effect helps in some way too - I don't know. You say that "all studies by credible sources" say cupping isn't legit. This is emphatically not true. I would think, for example, that the Berlin Hospital is a legit source. They published a peer reviewed study in a medical journal that concluded wet cupping resulted in a "highly significant decrease" in pain in patients suffering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. American Pain Society. "Cupping Therapy Alleviates Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Pain." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 June 2009. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616190512.htm>. Here's what the Harvard Health Review had to say about cupping: "Does cupping work? A number of studies have examined this question, but unfortunately don’t seem to have convincingly answered it. In fact, a 2015 review of the evidence found that cupping might provide some relief for chronic neck or back pain, but that the quality of the evidence was too limited to draw firm conclusions." www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-exactly-is-cupping-2016093010402 My guess is that as more and better studies are done, dry/hot cupping will be found to be effective at pain relief.

Since you brought it up... I'm not sure who's the best TE I've ever seen play. But the best TE combo was, without a doubt, Gronk-Hernandez. Individually, each was supremely talented. Together, they were a terrifying force. It defies probability that a team could find two TEs this talented in the same draft.

Thanks for your service! Okinawa must have been a great duty assignment. I've heard stories... Northern Virginia is a beautiful place. Seems like a great place to live. Any good Bills Backers bars? Being a Bills fan in Korea was pretty lonely but I found good Bills clubs in both San Francisco and Seattle. Once, when the Bills were still wallowing in mediocrity, we had 100+ at a Bills Backers bar in Seattle for a game, all of us decked out in Bills jerseys and shirts. Very cool to see.

My Colombian ex could have gone to med school but chose not to. She wanted to combine Eastern and Western medicine and didn't feel like the traditional MD program/job would allow her to do that. She studied physical therapy in university but also got certified as a chiropractor. She was also licensed/certified in several other western - and eastern - medical arts. This allowed her to take a more holistic approach toward her patients with a variety of medical modalities at her disposal. Until I got surgery, no MD was able to help me with my back as much as she did. Not even close. The MDs would shoot me up with cortisone and hand me a list of core exercises to do. Useless. But la colombiana would do chiropractic manipulations. Then acupuncture. Then ventosaterapia - hot cupping. Then massage therapy. All that made me feel ten years younger - at least for a while. "Brilliant" people do sometimes go to chiropractor school. It's not just the backup plan for kids who don't have the grades to get into med school.

In the Steeler game, we saw DBs knocking Bills receivers off their routes. We also saw Steeler DBs anticipating routes rather than simply following/covering the Bills receiver. They seemed to know our playbook almost as well as we did. When I first watched the game live, I was giving all the blame to Josh and the offensive line. But the more replays I watched, the more blame I assigned to Daboll.

I'm as happy as the next guy that Motor is averaging 6.4 years per carry. But this isn't nearly as impressive as Juice averaging 6.0 ypc back in 1973 when defenses expected the run and were built to stop the run. I'd like to see our RBs combine for 200 yards when our passing attack falters. I'd like to see our RBs reliably deliver a 1st down on 3rd or 4th and short. Or 4 or 5 yards on 1st and 10. But I'm not whining. The O scored 5 TDs in Miami. It was a beautiful day.

I was in the army in Korea when Levy and Kelly delivered their first winning season. I was serving in Saudi Arabia for the first Gulf War when we reached the Super Bowl for the first time. I lived in the San Francisco area when Steve Young was lighting it up. People couldn't understand why I stayed loyal to the Bills when, as a local, I had an excuse to jump on the 49er bandwagon. I lived in Seattle when Russell Wilson led the team to a SB victory. Yet again, people couldn't understand my loyalty to the woebegone Bills when the 12th Man was willing to welcome me as one of their own. When people mention the four SB losses to me, and they do, I ask them, "Name another team that was good enough to earn a spot in four consecutive Super Bowls?" Did the Marines take you anywhere good?

Despite being an ugly misanthrope, I once had the honor of dating a beautiful physical therapist from Bogota. She was also a licensed massage therapist, acupuncturist, chiropractor, aroma therapist, and so on. She practiced all those skills on me - I had, and still have, a bad back - but the one I enjoyed the most was the fire-cupping. A little rum, a glass, a lighter and voila! The marks it left behind looked awful but nothing made my screwed-up back feel better.

It's curious. All 32 teams subscribe to PFF so they must think PFF has some value. And I've heard PFF comes up sometimes in contract negotiations. But I don't know how you can accurately grade someone if you don't know exactly what play was called, what instructions were received from the coach, what the reads were, etc. Plus sometimes a player will change what he's doing if he sees a teammate missing an assignment. Too many unknowable variables.

PFF still uses antiquated notions like 3-4 and 4-3. Milano is a 4-2 LB. The nickel (in all its variations) is the top defense in the NFL right now and the Bills run it more than anybody. In any case, it's good to see him get some love.

He once played a full season with three broken ribs. Another time, he hit a guy so hard that Sestak suffered a concussion - teammates said he was actually asleep on the field, snoring. His knees were so bad at the end of his career, he didn't even practice any more but still burned with a desire to play. So he sat on a stationary bike all week and then suited up and played on Sunday. He was the third Bill to be honored on the Wall of Fame, behind OJ and Kemp. The Hall of Fame awaits. Larry Felser: "As the rookies came in every year, the cabs dropped them off and they’d check in. I was sitting there one evening and this guy gets out of the cab, and the guy would make Superman look like a ballet dancer. Harvey Johnson, the chief scout, was sitting next to me and I said ‘Who the hell is this guy?' It was Sestak." Ed Abramoski: "He was probably the toughest player in my 37 years as a trainer for the Bills." Todd Tobias (AFL historian): "One of two defensive tackles on the league’s All-Time Team (Houston Antwine is the other), Tom Sestak ravaged offensive lines throughout the AFL. Sestak was that rare combination of size, speed, strength and heart. In addition, his threshold for pain was nearly off the charts. He was the measuring stick for his position in the 1960s." Ted Brevelle (college teammate): “The first days, he looked like a mountain out there to me. I remember he had the biggest calves and the biggest legs I had ever seen.” Paul Maguire (Bills teammate): “He was absolutely superb. But the best way anybody can describe him was a great friend to all of us. The first time I ever met him, in training camp in ’64, he damn near broke my hand when I shook it. You knew you had a friend, from the first time I met the guy. And it never changed. He was that kind of guy. Not one bad thing was said about this guy by anyone, ever. And if they did, they sure as hell never said it to his face.”

Did you see the Chris Sims breakdown of the Steeler's game? He only broke down one play, unfortunately, but the Steelers were clearly ready for us. They were jumping routes in anticipation, knocking receivers off routes, etc. And they were getting pressure just rushing four. Whether Allen's footwork was right or not wasn't the issue. Their D was clearly better prepared than our O. Butler ate Daboll for lunch. But now that you've said this, I'm going to pay more attention when watching the WFT game.

That's an interesting point. Much has been said about the relative impotence of our passing attack. I've talked about it myself. Yet this game had no ST or defensive TDs. The offense had some crap drives. Allen and the passing attack seemed off. And yet the O still found pay-dirt 5 times. It was a good day's work.

Is this true anymore? I don't think opponents necessarily expect the Bills to run on 1st down. I think they expect the short pass.

I don't hate Flutie but... Our defense in those days was really good. Flutie would play like crap for 3 quarters but we'd still be in the game because of the D. Then Flutie would do something amazing in the 4th quarter. We'd win. And Flutie would be named the conquering hero. I'd cheer the win but still be annoyed at the Flutie mania. Anyway, have fun at the game. Living in Georgia, Korea, San Francisco, Seattle and now KC these past many years, I haven't been to a game in OP since the MNF game when OJ got hurt. I wish I could be at the game with you.

I guess I'm in the minority because I never feel really critical of the tv crew. I do like some play-by-play guys and commentators more than others but I don't dislike any of them. I'm more interested in the game - the commentary is mostly just background noise to me. Well, I guess the one exception was when MNF put Dennis Miller in the both. I don't hate him as a comedian but I thought he annoyingly detracted from the game.

Why jinx it???

I'm not sure why Beane would do this. McD chooses his staff. And I'm guessing McD and Dorsey have already had this conversation.

Actually, at one point when I was thinking about the ineptitude of the passing game, I did imagine that. It made me feel much better because, of course, I remember being on the losing end of games like this.