Mickey

isn't there some quasi illegal site where you can get this stuff over the "internets"?

Crap, the nfl ticket is only televising the philadelphia game and the oakland game, the doesn't seem right to me.

didn't they extend the deadline for the switch over to digital from analog?

According to the TV 5 website, no game tonight, schedule is marked "Programming unavailable" from 8 to 9:30 and "paid programming" (infomercial?) from 9:30 to 10:00 I have the direct tv signal from northern va. off a box from my brother who has a house there and he has sunday nfl ticket on there as well as the nfl network. I can't see why a local station in va. would televise Buffalo v. Detroit but I would have thought the nfl ticket, given its cost, would include preseason games, no?

I can't imagine what it must be like to be one of those guys dreading a knock on the door from the "turk". To get as far as they have, most would have had to have dedicated themselves to the sport at least since High School if not since little league. It takes singlemindedness and tremendous focus to get to to an NFL camp. Imagine what it must be like to have it all come to an end with a knock on the door, a career over and done with in your 20's. Harsh.

I don't think you or I, or anyone else for that matter has the right to judge who is and who is not a "true fan". In fact, I think it takes more than a fair measure of arrogance to do so. I was born in Buffalo but my family moved to Syracuse when I was 5 or 6, it was kind of traumatic for a kid. The Bills were a way of remaining a Buffalonian at heart. My Dad and Grandfather were huge fans and passed that obsession on to me and my many brothers and sisters. A classic Sunday started with an Abbott and Costello movie before church, mass, then a game of tackle football in the back yard until my Dad called us in to watch the game. All afternoon I could smell my Mom's sauce bubbling on the stove and would sneak in during commercials and dip some bread and munch out when she wasn't looking. Dinner was a raucous and humorous affair...if the Bills won and kind of sullen and silent if they lost. But that was okay, the family experienced both joy and sadness together. My Mom passed away a year ago and its been ages since her "little Jimmy" quarterbacked the team but the Bills are still as deeply ingrained in my family as my Mom's sauce. Now tell me I'm not a true fan just because I think there is a pretty good chance we are going to suck this year.

Why wouldn't they just move him back to RT and Butler back to RG, sending Levitre to the bench where he can transition from a college T to a pro G without getting Trent killed and ending up being the second coming of Dennis Shaw? Starting Levitre is what scares me the most about this celing wax and bailing wire of an offensive line. Tough choice, what is worse, Bell at the critical position of LT or Levitre at G?

Just for you my friend....you little intertwit you.

I am pretty much schizo on my beliefs for what this season holds and I think for good reason. I love this team and always will but I have been around football long enough to have a vauge idea of what is going on and I don't like what I see. But apart from all that, I don't know why so many posters are so fond of commenting not on the team, the game, our opponents, etc., but instead spend a significant amount time attacking their fellow fans and trying to come up with the cleverest put down. Good natured razzing is entertaining and not only expected, but to be desired. That is not what is going on though, its really mean spirited. I have no claim to any expertise in psychology but you have to wonder what is going on when coming up with most boorish, meaniest, vilest insult and drawing the most guffaws and grunts is more important to a person than friendship, camraderie or even just basic civility. I like to think that I only grab my Lord of the Flies verbal spears in self defense and I am embarassed to the extent I may have departed from that rule on more than one occasion.

How? I'm thinking it went something like this, a player said or did something funny and the others laughed. Mystery solved. Seriously, I do think that this team doesn't appear to be as emotionally invested in winning as they damn sure ought to be.

I am so sick and tired of everybody calling eachother names around here. It is just as realistic to think that this team is going to have a very hard year as it is to hope that they squeak into the playoffs. Neither belief should subect one to insults. Why couldn't you have just stated why you think, realistcally, the team will do well without attacking your fellow fans? Perhaps there are a few whiners among them but I am not sure being a rude little intertwit is any better.

Why don't you park your arrogance some place else? It is absolutely appropriate to discuss the team's fortunes around here, in fact, I dare say that is the primary reason people come here at all, at least the people not looking to put others down in a pathetic attempt to raise themsleves up.

That idea, having long since been dead, can't be killed again thus, this latest embarassment constitues mutiliation of the corpse which is the idea that the Chiefs are a well-run organization rather than the killing of it. I know, its quibbling but I do so love to quibble.

I hope you are right about the interior but other than Wood, who I think has a bright future, I don't think our interior line problems have been solved. Levitre has been less that unimpressive and Handgartner is little more than a slightly better than average journeyman. Really good offensive lineman are hard to find. Once you do find one, you should hang on to 'em like superglue. I can't stand Brady either but I find it hard to insult a guy who regularly kicks our ass. If we had the opportunity, right now I'd trade Poz, Evans and Lynch for him and our first rounder next year.

jeez this is even uglier than I thought it would be

I will believe it when I see it. But it would at least reduce the number of gambles we are taking on the line. Right now we have 5: Walker at a new position, 2 rookies, Butler at a new position and a new Center. This could get Levitre off the field and Both Butler and Walker back to the positions they know. So you end up with 3 gambles: The new center, rookie Wood starting and Bell at LT. It may come down to who scares the coaches more if they have to start them, Levitre or Bell? Will that be hemlock or cyanide?

Odd isn't it? The things that can happen when you go for talent and damn the checkbook. But these last 9 years of shrewd contract negotiating has been ever so much more fun.

If the cynicism were based on only a few preseason games, it would be silly but the truth is, there is a lot more to base our worries on than these glorified scrimmages. Our pessismism is also based on the reality of how they finished the season last year, the reality that they are taking no less than 5 gambles on the offensive line and that their top pick missed all of camp. Add in the departure of Peters and Marshawn's suspension and there are plenty of reasons for people to be legitimately worried about this year. The preseason games could have helped to calm those fears but instead, they have exacerbated them. Certainly, you can spin each one of those factors into something positive but just as certainly, reasonable minds can legitimately cite them as a rational basis for being very concerned that this simply is not our year. So please don't characterize everyone who sees this as something other than a playoff year as being negative nancys or nervous nellies foolishly overreacting to the preseason games. You don't have to agree that this will be a difficult year but allow us the courtesy to disagree without being insulted by our fellow fans. Perhaps you have never, in the history of being a fan of this team, expressed concern about a player, a coach or a front office decision but if you have, you should understand the current view by many that, though we hope otherwise, this is more likely to be a tough year than a playoff year.

A quarter and a half. The length of time they play has zero effect on winning or losing against the PATs. It is a preseason game and getting pounded by the Steelers' first unit and then beating up on their second or third unit won't prove much of anything. I am fairly well alarmed at how poorly the offense has played so far but at the same time, I know from many years of watching football that preseason doesn't mean much at all. If our poor play extends to the regular season, then I'll worry but for now, I see no reason to turn a preseason game into a must win situation where we risk injuries to starters and lose the opportunity to get a last long look at our new guys before cuts.

He may very well be, as you say, "garbage" but consider for a moment what it might mean that our starter might not be as infinitely better as one might hope. Getting outplayed by garbage in a meaningless preseason game with all the "played against first string" and "played against second string" excuses notwithstanding, is not exactly what I had hoped from our franchise QB. Trent Edward is hardly a done deal as the future of this franchise. This is the year for him to close that deal. He deserves all of our support because he has shown plenty of promise and besides, the alternative is too terrible to contemplate.

We might have had a reasonable conversation or discussion but clearly, that is not what you come here for. It's possible to disagree with someone, even strongly, without being a rude, raised-by-pigs, little twit about it. When you grow up (please tell me you are not an adult with manners this bad), you might want to try leading with a thoughtful, even if strongly worded, response rather than 14 year old insults. There are plenty around here who applaud that sort of thing so if you are here to draw grunts and guffaws from the meanest little intertwits around to give your appalling lack of self esteem a desperate boost, we can only hope you will grow out of it some day. If Trent tosses two picks a game, fumbles at least once each game and produces no points for a 4 game stretch, you think that, "not being surprised" at Fitz given a shot under those conditions would be ludicrous? Really, just how many games with more picks than points would Trent have to have before it would be something less than ludicrous?

Improvement in a critical area like the pass rush would be most welcome indeed.

As a public service, here is a collection of links for info on Copeland Bryan as he has been the best pass rusher so far in the preseason games by far, a welcome development given our desperate need for a pass rush. Sports Illustrated Draft Profile Draft Countdown ranking (#23) Local Arizona Article Bryan explains what happened to him after the draft when he was shuffled from the Titans to Chicago. Local Arizona Link Bryan explains how going 3-8 hurt the chances for the senior wildcats to get drafted. Draft Daddy 40 times for Copeland Bryan At this point, I am desperate for a diamond in the rough, a surprise player that comes of age and far exceeds expectations. Copeland is as good a candidate as any. Feel free to add anything else you can find on him.

At this stage, I agree, no way on earth is Fitz a starter but at the same time, Trent is playing poorly and I don't care what his completion percentage is. His job is to get this team in the endzone, so far he is 0 for 3. In fact, I have to wonder if completing 10 out of 10 isn't more a demonstration of just how risk averse he is rather than how accurate he is. We all like him, we all see some good things in him but its high time that potential turned into reality and a glimpse or two of that in the preseason wouldn't be the worst thing that ever happened.

Actually, if Trent plays that bad in the regular season for 3-4 games, I wouldn't at all be surprised to see Fitz given a shot.