AKC

I'll explain it one more time for you- if you hurt recruiting, something we know the antiwar movement has targeted and affected, you reduce the quality pool of new soldiers going to the conflict. This causes multiple layers of mission degradation that results in unnecessary loss of life. I don't have a magnetic ribbon on my truck or car and I don't own a minivan. The last time I donned my old military uniform and medals it was to attend the funeral of a local hero named Cody Prosser who was killed in the initial stages of the Afghan campaign. There are surely many levels of support one might offer, but there's many names for one who claims support on one level while corrupting the mission on the other. Historically you could choose from among: Apostate, back-stabber, copperhead, double-crosser, hypocrite, quisling, treasonist, turncoat or traitor. I'd think Anti-patriotic would be favored by the PC crowd.

I'm of the opinion that you can be Patriotic and still oppose the action in Iraq, you simply must not interfere with the mission by publicly decrying the war and hurting those fighting. It's this ability to shut the &%$# up and control that opposition that divides the good and Patriotic American from the lesser American.

Supporting the troops in one manner in no way excludes the possibility of hurting them in another. One of the "Big Lies" of the antiwar movement has always been the claim to support the troops while popping off publicly about their opposition to the war and hatred of our command leaders, all during a time of conflict. It's simply an outright lie, something we can prove in any conflict including Vietnam. Ask almost any 'Nam Vet how much the Anti-war protests hurt their image and reception upon returning to the U.S. At least in 'Nam a good argument could be made that protest was responsible considering the circumstancs, but don't take the next step and falsely claim it "helped the troops" unless that claim is limited exclusively to the effect it had on our pulling out. In Iraq we have a completly different example, one hwere protest has already visibly hurt the troops and yet the conflict has recently received more and more support as a necessity from even many objective leftists. It's the few left who refuse to admit their mistakes and continue to hurt the mission, the Deaniacs if you will, who should be ashamed and should immediately cease their unpatriotic actions based upon the clear evidence of those acitons causing needless deaths in Iraq.

It's become perfectly clear that the best thing that could happen for the courageous Americans serving in the Iraq War is to have the best and brightest of our young people joining them to close this chapter in the most efficient manner possible. Unfortunately, and due directly to the lack of Patriotism excercised by many in the anti-war crowd, instead of the best of our youth considering the military as an honorable endeavor many instead view it as a jaded choice. Today, when the best among us are achieving their daily goals in Iraq, the gutless jellyfish who insisted on "excercising their right to rebel" have caused recruiting goals to go into the red. Patriotism IS NOT the excercise of our rights, it instead is the ability to recognize WHEN the exercise of our rights is appropriate. There has been much talk in politics the past few years about "admitting being wrong". Oddly it is those who most fervently demanded contrition of political figures who have gone silent on admitting that their actions hurt, and continue to hurt our country. Today needless strains on the manpower necessary to complete the task in Iraq are inarguably the result of the lack of good judgement by the vocal opponents of the war. There is no shame in being absolutely wrong and admitting it, there is eternal shame for handicapping our fighting forces and refusing to at the very least cease the unpatriotic attacks that continue to damage our country.

I agree the media isn't characterizing the ankle problems as "chronic", but old news reports lead me to agree with BadOl that that's a fair assessment. He's shown up on the Card injury list for ankle injuries (mostly sprains) while missing games and practice for the same in every one of his NFL seasons until '04. The question is did his surgery on the right ankle after the '03 season actually correct what had definitely been a chronic problem up to that time? The feud with Green seems to be almost exclusively caused by Shelton's failure to meet Green's directive to show up in camp at 320 pounds last year. Shelton gets relief in some quarters due to his two surgeries in that off-season, but obviously Green doesn't feel the same way. I have a lot of trouble accepting Green's decision as merely setting an example for the team- Green has gone further out of his way than almost any contemporary coach in cutting talented players slack. Reading between the lines another reason Green might have given up on Shelton is that Shelton may be a much better run blocker than pass pro OT. There's plenty of game results that seem to suggest this, and Green's weight demand would be consistent with the same. If this speculation is accurate, Shelton would be a poor fit in the pure passing O Green wants to play while the fit in Buff might be very good. We've already kicked a LT with superior passing skills but limited value in the running game to the curb plus brought in a bruising OG who is a far better run blocker than pass blocker. Along with the QB change it's looking more and more like the Bill's intend to immediately utilize the mobility of Losman to mask the pass pro issues of the superior run blockers we're adding. All in all, and the additon of Shelton may be the ultimate confirmation of this; it looks like the '05 Bills Offense will look a whole lot different than anything we've had in a long time- maybe ever. A power running team with threats at every backfield position using a combination of play action and moving pockets to force teams from cheating the line. The bad news is that much in that case would ride upon a kid just getting a feel for the speed of the big leagues. That's asking more of J.P. than Pitt put on Big Ben- onfield success at the offensive style we appear to be headed to would go far in elevating TD's reputation as a talent evaluator.

Des pops in every now and then. He's an honest and knowledgeable poster who has contributed much to the football wealth on this board. He also was the one who first brought to (my) (our) attention the exchange issues that made Dan Marino a running back killer, something old film always confirms. Not to mention that he was a betting man who kept his word; a true model for fans of other teams whose fine example of behavior in our forum is too often ignored by the trolls we've attracted in the past year.

Beased upon many of nominations in this string it's clear that the content in one's posts bears no relationship to their fitness for nomination into the TSW WOF. Therefore, under the authority of no one in any capacity to forward this process through to its inevitably unpleasant culmination, I hereby make a nomination of the historically appropriate TSW poster child of all content vacuum: Belinda Belinda Belinda Belinda!

My failure to consider your thoroughness is inexcusable. My penance shall be to read 20 BFinIND and 10 stevestojan posts.

4 pages into this string and I don't see FakeFatSunny mentioned ONCE? Either my age has finally caught up with my vision or I will join the rest of the posters in the string in being ashamed of ourselves.

And is there a more burning example of that than the fact that the name of a serious football contributor like yourself comes up first only in your own post? MyBad for not expanding the field earlier to include you and a dozen others in what I realized would become another "style" thread on TSW ignoring the fundamental attraction this board was built upon.

Very nice!

Let's make sure we reserve the absolutely devoid of original thought a seat up front as opposed to posters like Simon and BadOl who've merely been wasting bandwidth here with serious posts about football. yawn.....

And Gilbert Gottfried can finally get that Oscar he's done so much to deserve.

I'm with you on the vast majority of your analysis so of course let me point out the one thing I have trouble with: Those same concrete spikes that make Smith a non-factor in space on running downs would spell disaster on either edge of the line. He can hide them inside in pass blocking since for an OG pass pro is more of a slow dance with your feet, but on the edge you've got something more akin to a tango. I'd like to see him develop his coordination to the max by putting in 3 hours of jumping rope every day this off-season but even then I suspect he just doesn't have the liveliness in his legs necessary to ever be a effective pulling run blocker or pass blocker on the edge. If he did get a look at OT I'd have to believe they'd want him to get the protection of having a TE help him out more often on the Strong side, but even then there's an awful risk against any DE with lateral speed. It's also hard to imagine him picking up a smaller blitzer- IMO he just doesn't have the instincts to make the adjustments to his sides.

If you run through the OCs in the league you'll only find about 3 or 4 who are capable of holding their own with any regularity against quality interior linemen. Consequently few teams even ask their OC to hold singles against DTs. One exception we get to see a lot of is Kevin Mawae, one of the best in the league and one of the only OCs trusted to single teams, especially in pass protection, against better DTs. Would it be great to sign Mawae- sure, it's just not going to happen and even if a drafted OC becomes one of these exceptions to the rule it will almost surely take him 3 seasons to get competent at all the other duties associated with the position including making line calls and improving dramatically the speed in which he gets off his snap and up into his block from the far less demanding college game. The bottom line on OCs is simply that we're like most teams, and even most good teams, in that we've got a center who requires some protection from his sides and shouldn't be left alone regularly against any of the top 30-35 DTs in the league. The plus we have with Teague is that he at least offers us very good flexibility off the snap in our run game. I beleive the team likes him a lot and feels he's a big contributor, especially on the edge where they like to bounce Willis outside his blocks and really force defenses to play their linebackers and DB help wide- giving Willis more breathing room when he does go inside.

I think of an effective OLine as a little more complicated unit- no doubt we want power inside with a RB like Willis but it's important to maintain some versatility. If you plug another power run blocker in between to power OGs you really limit the things you can do on the edges and how you get defensed. The running offense we played last year asked a lot of our center to get outside and seal, and Teague was very effective at doing that. He has a good feel for moving through traffic and then he's flexible enough to get around for a block on a quicker and smaller player. On his right side you have a more classic power blocking OG in Villarial, someone who will work his butt off to pull all the way to the other side yet he just doesn't have the range of motion of a Trey Teague to finish in space. If we're able to address the LG spot with a big body with good run blocking skills at the LOS we are probably better served, at least if we play a similar offense to last years, in having one interior lineman who excels on the go. That could leave Trey Teague in a pretty safe spot on the depth chart.

From a column on www.nfldraftblitz.com: Kelvin Garmon has been a huge disappointment, even before his knee injury. Garmon can't play in space and protect, period. His run blocking appears overrated too. Apparently he has an almost unique penchant for idiotic penalties with incredibly poor timing. Atthe same time he prides himself on having the refs watch him closely because "you never know when I'm gonna' slap somebody upside the head". Last season strained quad, concussion and torn ACL and MCL. Sounds like a reach based upon the matter in his noggin' and maybe carrying 350 pounds on a chassis that would prefer 290.

I'll admit your ability to digest a compliment is peculiarly Mantis-like, as if it portends a visit from the more fair of the species.

There's worse obsessions than keeping your house free of insects.

That's the spirit- devoid of obsession and suggestive that you've moved on to focus on the Buffalo Bills instead of the Dallas Cowboys.

Looks like somebody beat you to it. Coach Tuesday's Grand Strategy

Amen. While Shout! was likely to show up on the Left Coast the Monday after the featured game, at least the content gave the appearance of being relatively free of pressure from the organization. It was about two issues into Digest when it became perfectly clear that it too closely favored an internal corporate newsletter.

In any community it's a very healthy exercise for responsible members to observe those few of you consumed with hate. It's only when a community in whole ignores those of you on the hate fringe that episodes like Columbine or the rise of Adolph Hitler go unchecked. Hate On!

There's a difference between subjectivity and objectivity- your opinion on me being an a-hole is wholly subjective while your multiple statements that I post as frequently about Bledsoe as you is objectively and quantitatively proven a lie with any even cursory review of the evidence. You can't hide from your posting history! And no, you don't have to worry about me following strings pointing out the contradicitons and obsessions in your posts, the jobless aren't of that much interest to me unless I REALLY have some time to burn ;-) Hate On!

You have no idea what my opinion about Drew Bledsoe is because you're far too busy polluting this board with your repetitive and boring opinion over and over and over incessantly to the point where there's only 8 others on the board who even bother to read any string with your name in it, and those others are the posters suffering from the same obsession. As far as your lies, one example I've pointed out this statement of yours (you seem to be involved in just as many of these DB threads as I am!) is a lie and suggested a easily verifiable challenge whereby you could be exposed for the falsehood. You have declined I assume because you realize the statement is a lie and yet you've used it twice in this string already. Personility defects like dishonesty and obsessive behavior are flaws that are not limited to an online identity. No doubt those habits are a part of your life whether your computer is on or off. And those who really "matter to you" would tell you how much those negative traits consume your life if you'd simply ask them.