Stranded in Boston

yeah baby! I'll be there with my twin boys! Don't you love observing the few baffled Pats "fans" at the Harp, staring as us (200+ crazed Bills fans) with dazed looks on their faces, sipping their foofy craft beers at the bar ... ? for statistics aficionados: 2007-2014, bootstrap test, p < 0.00000000001 ...

Take it easy, dude; there's good and bad people everywhere (although I'll always maintain that WNYers are particularly friendly ). But before you buzz-saw off Mass, be aware that it has a lot of good things going for it -- super high employment/work opportunity, great public education systems and world-class universities, universal statewide health care, great public transportation, etc. Plus thousands of smart, selfless people working insane hours on really important stuff for all of us -- like medical research -- when they could be making a lot more money in finance or whatever. So ... sorry you didn't enjoy visiting Mass in your teens, but I'll bet you'll appreciate it as you get older -- and wiser. (That all said, I still can't stand these New England SOBs two weekends every fall, plus assorted Sabres-Bruins games -- not to mention that BS series-ending foul call on Bob McAdoo in the 1974 Braves-Celtics playoffs series ... )

Hi Punt, I don't post here often, but thought I'd add my two cents to your comment ... I moved from Buffalo to Boston 33 years ago. No doubt New England sports fans can be smug homers -- which is especially annoying given how many of them are band-wagon transplants to the area! But in the end, spectator sports are just entertainment, and the give-and-take between fan bases is all in good fun. For example, I always enjoy sparring with my students here before Bills-Pats games (and then usually lying low for a few days after!). However, it's a bit over the top to claim that "the Boston area is full of people that [sic] feel superior to others". There are lots of good folks here, just like back home in dear old WNY. I'll assume that was a typo, and you meant "sports fans" when you wrote "people". Have a good day -- and let's go Bills!

... and we'll of course have to play New England the week after both those moon games.

heck yes, K-9! My thoughts exactly ...

Jeff Glor, from Kenmore East, baby!!

Good stuff, guys. I've lived in Boston for 32 years. Luckily my wife is from Italy and doesn't give two ***** about the Pats (except that "Jimmy Garoppolo ees very cute!"). It was also a good thing that she married me before she observed me watching a Bills game. But I have to keep an eye on my kids, especially my twin boys. So far my propaganda efforts have been successful (maybe a little too much -- one time they stomped on the Pats logo at Foxboro, which forced us to run for our lives). But if those little bastards ever come home wearing any Pats gear ... ...

Awesome, Ocemur! It's all in good fun, but I've lived in Boston for 32 years now and enjoy the yearly sparring with my (bandwagon) Pats-fans medical students. This year I threatened to fail any of them who show up to my class wearing Pats gear. They all chuckled, so I followed it with a stone-cold rejoinder: "I have tenure, so there is nothing they could do to me if I fail you." That wiped the smile off their smug little faces -- except for one kid, who I found out after class is from WNY! Anyhow, we better beat those bastards this year or I'll never hear the end of it!!!

Gentlemen, I'm with you on Robert James. (See my avatar! )

This is actually pretty fun. We've had a lot of good corners through the years. I unfortunately don't remember Butch Byrd, but for my money, Robert James was the best of the bunch (of course, DB play was more bump than run in the early 70s!). I loved Antoine Winfield (fearless tackler), and Thomas Smith was a fantastic cover guy and sticky tackler. And of course Nate Odomes just made plays. I'd take all those guys over Gilmore, although it's so hard to compare with all the rules now hindering DBs.

Since moving from Buffalo to Boston 31 years ago, I have become generally numb to the Patriots (punctuated with bouts of intense loathing). Sure, they have their blah-blah unique pin-prick passing formula that allows them to win in today's milquetoast NFL, with its faux concern for player safety. And sure, somehow the chips always seem to fall their way -- the miraculous Edelman catch, the missed face-mask call that would have offset the holding penalty that put Atlanta out of field-goal range, the dropped pick in the end zone in OT, etc., etc. But take solace, fellow Bills fans. On my way home from the Super Bowl party last night, there was absolute DEAD QUIET; I mean, you could hear a pin drop in the street. And it's not just that New Englanders have become inured to winning: it was the same going back to their first SB win in 2002 (OK, maybe there was a bit more bewildered excitement that time). Even last night, as I politely clenched my jaw and fumed as the Patriots came back in the 4th quarter, the Patriots' fans at the party mostly chit-chatted about some new device that they'd bought, or commented on the commercials. Accuse me of sour grapes if you will, but I'm making an objective, empirical observation. It's just different from back home. So I'll just keep my mouth shut and carry on for yet another off-season. But one of these nights, I'm going to drive over to Tom Brady's house at 3 AM (I know exactly where he lives), calm as could be, pull into his driveway, lock the doors of my car, and lean on the horn until the Brookline cops smash my windows and haul me out of the car. You know, like in that scene from Shawshank Redemption when Tim Robbins plays opera over the prison PA.

Hear, hear! A lot of old timers (like me) are just baffled by the whole kerfuffle. OK, the Bills had a less-than-stellar-year, and everyone is upset. But It's football, for crissake, not a soap opera! Poor Larry Felser must be rolling in his grave ...

Wow, thanks for that. Besides Shady doing Shady stuff, did you notice the block by Cordy Glenn on that play? Absolutely blasted the DE/LB 6 yards off the left end. I just love to watch Cordy play; great technique and work ethic, and strong as a bear.

Deep behind enemy lines here in Boston ... I wore my Bills hat all week, and had to listen to a lot of smack-talking from my students. Tomorrow morning will be fun! Plus the Bills fan club at the Harp across from TD Garden will be rocking next week for the LA game.

I also just saw the Alexander sack and RTP call. Just wow ... can you imagine how many times Bruce Smith would have been flagged for that?

I have to say, half the fun of threads like these is waiting for DC Tom's response.

I'll just weigh in on the "one good play" category: unknown Bill Cahill busting a 51-yard punt return back for a TD on the last game of the year in 1973, against the Jets, effectively putting the game out of reach. Oh yeah -- that was the same game in which OJ broke Jim Brown's single season rushing record. I watched that game with my brothers on a broken down black & white TV in the dingy basement of our house. To our minds, Cahill's punt return was the most exciting play in that game, because we cared much more about the Bills getting the win than that rushing record!

Just an objective observation: My students here in Boston have been giving me crap all week about the game. I am keeping my mouth shut this time -- but I occasionally challenge the more obnoxious ones with the following query: Can you name the Patriot's starting offensive line? Most of them just start stammering, to which I calmly point out that the average grandmother in WNY can not only name the Bills' offensive line, but the newest guy signed to Bills' practice squad. Perhaps that's cold comfort, sour grapes, etc. given the usual annual 2-game beat-down. But I am sure about one thing: when we beat those SOBs, it will be SO much sweeter!

LOL ... well Kelly, I don't think modern science has addressed that question yet. Maybe we're all a little blind for sticking with the Bills as long as we have. On the other hand, Monday (or Friday) mornings still feel great after a win! Now let's just get that great feeling next Tuesday morning, shall we?

Hi all, I've enjoyed the discussion about color vision here, but maybe I could clarify a few things (not to play the professor, but ... well, I am a professor ). If you don't enjoy a little science talk, please ignore this post! Watching the game, I also was surprised that the NFL didn't realize that red-green colorblind people would have trouble sorting out the two uniforms. About 2% of males (not 13%; not sure where that number came from) have red-green color blindness, caused by mutations in either the long- (L or "red") or middle-wavelength (M or "green") cone photopigments in the retina. I'm pretty sure the 2% number is accurate, because every year I ask my medical school class of ~70 students if anyone is colorblind, and invariably no more than one student or rarely two (always male) raise their hands. The L and M photoreceptors work together to allow us to discriminate red and green hues. Basically, our retinas and brains "compare" the relative absorption of photons by the L- and M-cones to assign hue on the red-green side of the rainbow of light wavelengths. People with red-green cone mutations are not color "blind", because they also have short-wavelength sensitive (S) cones, which can be compared to the spared, un-mutated red- or green- cones to discriminate blues and yellows. L- and M- cone photopigments are proteins which are made from genes on the X-chromosome. Females have two X chromosomes, but males only one; the mutation is recessive, so that females are generally fine with one functioning gene out of the two, but males are out of luck. By definition, red-green colorblind fathers pass their X chromosome -- and therefore the mutation -- to their daughters , but the daughters are only carriers; I am not aware that they have any measurable deficit in color vision, and they certainly do not have enhanced color sensitivity. Also, while there is evidence that there can occasionally be functioning anomalous mutated photopigments that still function, vision scientists have to work pretty hard to demonstrate even subtle differences in color sensitivity in these people. I have also heard reports about rare individuals with four photopigments, but I (and many other scientists) are skeptical that these individuals have "enhanced" color vision, because the output of the cone photoreceptors is combined in the retina and the brain in complicated neural circuits, and it is unlikely that brain circuits would be able to “handle” a fourth cone input. Red-green perception could be slightly altered in these people, but I doubt it would be enhanced in any meaningful way -- notwithstanding claims about tetrachromic artists! A last thought – a simple thing the NFL could have done to help out beleaguered colorblind fans would have been to make the uniforms a different overall brightness or luminance. This is easy to distinguish. For example, at night people with red—green color blindness can distinguish red and green traffic lights based on overall luminance differences (although the LED-based traffic signals make that harder for many of them now). Anyhow, enough science blather. Enjoy your Sunday and GO BILLS!!! Please, oh PLEEEASE kick the Patriots a$$ next week ... so if nothing else I can shut up my Patriots-bandwagon students for one week ...

I'll be wearing my Bills gear all week here in Boston. For sure my students will be decked out in their Pats jerseys, hats, etc. -- and the little pissants will be squawking. Should be fun ... But they are dead wrong on the physics; fairly elementary thermodynamics ... I already explained it to some of them. Come to think of it, maybe I'll put that as a question on the mid-term. Then we'll see where their loyalties lie.

I will miss Fred as much as anyone. The guy personified Buffalo's Rocky-Balboa-lift-yourself-off-the-mat ethos, and it's sad that he will not be on the roster if (when!) we make the playoffs this year. However -- not to knock any other posters -- I find very odd the comments that Fred was waived to keep Bryce Brown on the roster so that Doug Whaley can "save face". Whaley strikes me as a guy earnestly trying to improve the roster. But more to the point, the Bills traded their 2015 4th round pick for Brown. Lost in the tumult of the last two days is that the Bills also waived Ross Cockrell. Cockrell was a 4th round pick in 2014 -- i.e., he cost the Bills the same as Bryce Brown. If Whaley was trying to save face over a 4th round pick, shouldn't he also have clung to Cockrell? Anyhow, I hope Fred has a good season with whomever he ends up. And I hope nobody on the Bills wears #22 for a while ...

Hey CBF, I was also a big Henry Jones fan -- but I have got to go with my man Robert James, 3-time pro-bowler and the original shut-down corner. Too bad they couldn't fix knees back in the mid-70s like they do now. Joe Cribbs deserves mention as well. Come to think of it, #20 has been pretty damn good to the Bills ...

Who is this John Eisenberg whippersnapper -- does he think that football only started in Baltimore with the Ravens? What about Earl Morrall -- not once, but twice: he subbed for Johnny Unitas in guiding the Colts to an NFL championship in 1968 (en route to SB III), and then did it again for the 1972 Dolphins. I recall Morrall won 10 or 11 games subbing for Bob Griese in '72, including in the playoffs.

Hey Jimmy, for a Jets fan, the proper conjugation of your thread title should be, "I seen you guys IS practicing".