Rocky Landing

For a brief moment, I saw this and thought, "What? Trade Mario???"

"Search me... I don't have Hacket's balls..."

Here's what I've taken away from this game: Offense: I never thought I would find myself being an Orton fan, but I am now. He holds onto the ball too long, and he's woefully immobile. I'm not sure how well he can throw on the run, because I've barely seen him do it. But, he has raised the level of offense, spreads the ball around, and has turned some of our less heralded players into studs-- Hogan, Smith, Gragg. But, the O-line needs to be better, obviously. Definitely the weak link in the offense, imo. That being said, I think (and hope) that Orton's going to be here for a while. I think we really missed Fred. At least two less sacks if he were on the field. Brown, and Dixon were great, and I don't think too many of us miss Spiller. But, FJ plays a huge role on this team (as a check-down safety valve, among other things), that Dixon doesn't have yet. Defense: Schwarz is the real deal, and deserves a lot of credit for this win, imo. Geno, and the Jets' poor secondary essentially gave us a 14 point head start. When Vick came in, and marched down the field for a touchdown on his first drive, he looked competent, mobile, and accurate. When we went into halftime with a seven point lead, I honestly thought we were going to come back out and lose the game. But, our defense made adjustments, and soundly shut Vick down. Vick's mobility was a non-fctor in the second half. One play in the first half really bothered me, though. Orton got sacked by two defenders who hit him from either side without being touched. How the hell goes that happen???

I'm here all week! That's a heavy story. Thanks for sharing it, my friend.

It's the uniform. It's a different color.

Exactly (But, really, I'm just kidding around with the OP)

What about Chris Hogan?

"I'll be partying in the Hyde Lounge at the Clippers game, tomorrow night." That has a nice ring to it.

Maybe you should change it to "approximate?" "My prediction thread is approximate up to this point. 4-3" Has a nice ring to it.

Decker and Salas limited in practice. Who else thinks Rex was lying when he said Harvin wouldn't be playing much?

If they didn't raise the number, we could safely assume that there would be three challenges per team, per game, every game. Out of curiosity, if the human element could be removed entirely, and all penalty calls were made by a computer with 100% accuracy, would you consider that an improvement?

Concussions are no laughing matter. I've had a few myself and they doorknob earlobe your brain off. Anyone who jokes about such a thing, even rubber matting, should have their mad about afterward.

Well, if you're going to start an entire thread based upon your own prediction from another thread, then yeah... nitpicking will happen.

That's maybe not such a bad record when you consider that the best he has had under center might be the current Michael Vick.

I think such a change would only increase the amount of controversy surrounding such calls. As it is, we can look at the replay and say, "bad call." But, put it up to a review, and the slightest bit of inconsistency from one officiating staff to another, or one call to another opens up a whole can of ugliness, and would turn into a huge distraction. Especially with PI. I think we do the game a disservice the more we remove the human element-- even from officiating. At some point, we may as well have computers call the penalties. And, the technology certainly exists.

My impression of him is that he is a businessman, and while I am certainly glad he is the new owner, I don't hold to this vaunted opinion of him. He would be crazy to tell his HC, going into week 8, that he was on the bubble. But, even if he did say it, and even if he meant it, his opinion could surely change as quick as TBD's collective, fickle opinion should we go 6-10, yet again.

I have a feeling that this game will get away from one team, or the other. Geno has a great day. Rex/Mornhinweg out-coaches us. Their defense plays like rabid, cornered animals. Our run game falters. Orton gets sacked six times. Glenn's arms fall off. --OR-- Geno craps the bed. Dixon/Brown exceed expectations. Orton to Watkins/Woods/Hogan/Chandler/etc. We shut down their run game. Jets fans boo. Whoever wins does so by a significant margin.

What's your definition of "exact?"

I'm not really sure. But, if he did, how much would that be worth? It's early in the season.

Assuming that Rex Ryan is fired at the end of the season, should the Bills consider him for head coach?

I don't think that's really the point. A GM must always consider all the risks vs. rewards in a given trade, and the possibility of a Watkins injury is more significant in terms of risk when you are assessing whether that one player is worth the three players you would have acquired otherwise.

The entire premise of this thread is a straw-man argument. And, the ensuing debate seems to go along with some bizarre assumption that the primary value of a first round draft pick is for the purpose of drafting a "franchise quarterback." Since when? Our disfunction at qb contributed to the risk of paying such a high price for Watkins in other ways. EJ's inaccuracy lowered Watkins value on the field. I don't believe the main concern in Watkins high price was that "now we don't get to draft a franchise qb in the first round in 2015." Especially since we were so "all in on EJ" at the time. The question was, and still is: was Watkins worth our 9th pick (Ebron, apparently), 4th round pick, and whomever we would have drafted in the first round in 2015 (whichever position that might be) combined. It wasn't a low-risk move. But, considering Ebrons so-far underwhelming rookie season, and how good Watkins is proving to be, I think most of us, at this point, think it was worth it.

This is true, of course. But, it's also true that LA-- especially Downtown LA-- is not the same city it was twenty years ago. I've been here since '91, and for decades they were talking about "revitalizing downtown." And, it was a joke for decades, but it has now happened. Staples Center has been enormously successful. Silverlake, Los Feliz, Echo Park (home of the famous Rampart precinct), have all gentrified. Even the downtown loft district is unrecognizable from when I lived there in the 90s. $80,000 cars parked on the street an no homeless population to speak of. There were entire homeless communities when I was there. Los Angeles will have an NFL team. I just hope it isn't the Raiders.

I believe that if either the Rams, or the Raiders were to plan a move to L.A. they would get unanimous support.

I certainly wouldn't say that the refs were biased against us-- we got away with a few things, too. But, I know what you are saying. I thought the Hogan fumble was BS, also. It sure looked to me like his knees were on the ground before the ball came out, but not enough there to overturn the call on the field. Really, to me the officiating all season has looked inconsistent as hell. Anyone else feel this way?