AKC

Seems like the Yin/Yang on Shelton runs like this: Yin- Very solid in run blocking, with superior skills at the point of attack Good in pass pro when his head's in the game Yang- Not a great run blocker in space Has lapses in pass pro when he loses interest Undisciplined in training and weight management The one thing that might arguably jump out is that his attitude difficulties seem to make him a Denny Green type of player- or at least the type Green has taken pride in rehabbing in the past. There's another way to look at it though, and that is that Green plays a deep threat offense that gains its running advantage off the strength of it's pass protection and passing effectiveness. Shelton sounds like a guy who would be far more effective in a play action offense like ours, a run first instead of pass first O. In fact, the funny thing is Green would probably be best suited with a LT who was superior in pass pro with less emphasis on run blocking skills- say someone like Jonas Jennings! For the Bills, adding a Tackle who can consistently control the left edge (something we haven't had in over a decade) should propel Mr. McGahee to Pro-Bowl starter after the '05 season.

Krumrie appears to have done a good job getting into Edwards head in his limited role. In that limited role he showed the good feet that allow him to bust gaps, maybe better then any of our interior linemen. It's run support where the big drop-off comes- Williams is one of the best run support interior linemen in the NFL while Ron Edwards isn't even on the map. His starting in place of Williams would IMO precede us becoming victim to more effective rushing attacks on Sundays.

That's surely a conclusion you might reach even if you acknowledge BadOl/DC Tom and Todd's point that draft slotting simply makes the GMs "decision" on his contract offer to the high pick less a negotiation than a hostage demand. A GM's contract skills can be scrutinized very accurately by the contract offers made to players resigning, players renogotiating and players signing on in Free Agency, but in the area of contact negotiation it's hardly fair to hold a GM over the coals on the initial contracts of early round draft picks. The reality of slotting due in part to the rookie cap simply make the deals too cookie cutter and IMO less debatable as far as the wisdom of the original deals. You can argue the pick, but the deal is far less arguable.

Bubba's best ball should still in front of him as a 6th year TE, and he seems like a natural fit for our O with his good blocking skills. It is hard to imagine GB not realizing just how good he is and finding a way to keep him. Another interesting thing about Bubba is his career QB rating of 158 ;-)

You can carve that in a tree. Half of the posters throwing cursing parties for the Bledsoe departure were the same nincompoops screaming we needed to add Jeff Garcia last offseason- "all we need is a good QB with mobility!". It's perfectly understandable though if you apply their math- A) 1/53rd of the roster is more important than the balance B) 1/53rd of the roster is capable of losing football games but incapable of winning them C) in '04 1/53rd of the roster lost 7 games while it's not really clear who those 9 wins get credited to ;-)

The life of a troll is spent looking to attract as "comrades" the most mindless of idiots on any board through the exploitation of wedge issues among a fan base. You really should go see a veterinarian about all those treble hooks stuck in your lips ;-)

Of those options you'l find Berdoo the most favorable from homecosts to property taxes and cost of living. It'd out you about 70 minutes from the beach in smart traffic conditions and you'd be within 30 minutes of much of the best 4 season golf in the country. Our neighborhood in Santa MOinca is nuts- I saw a converted set of old bungalows liste at 600K two weeks ago that are one bedroom/650 square foot units. In the mountains where we spend most of our time (north of the SFV about 45 miuntes) pricing way better, about 350K for a 2000 sq foot home. But you will be required to shovel snow, about 9.5 feet so far this year ;-)

You're of course, absolutely right in your observations that have been documented by everyone before you who has been exposed the the inefficiencies of socialist influenced work forces. How many times does one have to go into a Post Office or DMV and see the lazy, inept work force "go on break" just as you reach their window and contrast that with a visit to 7-11 where the employees are easily as well trained as any posty (money orders, lottery, etc.) yet when the 7-11 line gets long they grab everyone in the building to answer the demand. The funny thing about it is the 7-11 employees make about 1/3rd the pay! The big problem though is that any beneficiary of socialism will find ways to support it, regardless of whther the balance sheet is far in the red.

On LG and TE I'm onboard 100%. Our biggest need is a second quality TE, and that's if Campbell comes back 100%. Otherwise we're basically looking at a full restock on the talent we've got at the position, and FA is where that rebuilding would have to start. The good news at the OG spot is that our personnel guys have already hit a home run at the position in FA. Most personell teams have their strengths and the will get some positions right over and over- if they do the same at LG as they did at the other side last season we'll be well on our way to playing the power rush offense the balance of our talent is better suited to, except as noted above at TE. On Jonas, while he's a superior pass blocker I hate how tall he plays in the run game. I realize it has a lot to do with his build but he simply carries too high a center of gravity on the move to be the right fit for us in the same power running scheme we should be building for. He'll get mucho pay for that beautiful pass pro slide, and that's the kind of money we don't need to spend on a LT who is a liability in the run game based on the offense we need to play. Price plays very good for stretches and then looks like Jamie Nails for a game. I can't figure him out- I assume it's a head thing with him and that doesn't make me comfortable with him topping the Depth Chart at LT. Funny thing is I didn't feel that way at all entering the '04 campaign, but he was one of the big dissapointments for me this past season, a fan who had a lot of hope he'd finally emerge into a full time NFL lineman instead of a #2. He played '04 like a the perpetual #2 he's been in his career.

I'm betting on the tide continuing towards the positive side of that stat in '05.

While it's good for the team it gives us less to speculate on having so few players who might leave us of their own choosing. It's probably easy if you're simply a bad team like Chicago to have few players eligible for Free Agency, but a rising team like the Bills makes this a serious challenge. Congratulations Tom on bringing us into this off-season with just 12 players eligible for Free Agency, with only 7 of those unrestricted.

Yeah, he definitely favors the equine bundle of DNA strands in my eyes too.

I have to say if I were in charge of the Democratic strategy I don't know if I'd be wheeling out Nancy Pelosi displaying her newly discovered ability to use the word God in public, or the one that strikes me as even more confusing: Dem threats to hijack the Gonazalez nomination for AG based upon Abu Ghraib. I can't believe anybody in this country actually thinks Abu Ghraib is anything more than a blip on the screen to the American public right now.

It appears to me to be based in large part upon pride- in the 80s Reagan convinced a segment of voters that the previously dirty political label "conservative" was nothing to be ashamed of- beginning the "outing" of many who might have otherwise kept their true beliefs under the radar. Providing a perfect example of Newton's 3rd Law, liberals began their shrinking act at about the same time, reaching the nadir today where they refuse to even mention the label. America since its founding has been a country that has rewarded courage versus cowardice, and the reward for the crowd on the right standing tall and proud with their conservatism has garnered tremendous political gain for them while their counterparts on the left are arguably being punished for denying their own colors. The critical thing though is that it's no one's fault but the left for allowing this to happen. Maybe the Pelosi/Dean wing of the Dems will treat the bleeding by standing up and saying "I'm liberal and I'm proud of it, and here's why....". Until then I believe the public will continue to view today's liberals as disingenuous and as a result an undesirable faction to be allied with. On elitism the libs lose big for this reason- the Democratic Party is run by elite wealthy whites whose lives are segregated from the people who they claim to represent. If the libs truly cared one bit about the little guy- the middle class family and their kids, we would see them throw away their unholy protection of the Teacher's Unions and embrace the voucher programs that are heavily favored by lower middle class minorities and anyone who wants every kid to get the best shot at a good education. The Democratic Party has become the New Plantation, with wealthy white stiffs like Kerry being put up as somehow representative of inner city minorities and Average Joe. The blind and the foolish are the only ones who don't see right through that facade. It's the same white guys holding the keys to the Plantation as it was in the slave days with the House N*****s like Jesse Jackson greeting everyone at the door. Polling though suggests that the slave revolt may very well be underway, inviting "traditional" Democrats to throw away the shackles of entitlement promoted by the New Plantation for the far greater promise of an environment friendly to self-reliance.

I'll have to check to see how many times I've ever quoted Strom Thurmond................ Uh, that would be never.

You'll need to grab some utensils. A whole bunch of them. The truth about American Heroes and the States that produce them in by far the highest percentages Can I assume you'll continue your game of refusing to acknowledge the facts laid out in the article regarding our foot soldiers, facts that coincide exactly with those I introduced into the conversation many posts ago? And you might want to cease your adolescent mumbling on about me denigrating New York Vets (a group to which you may want to note I belong) in your drowning attempts to hide your utter lack of any basis to carry on your unsupported side of this discussion. No matter how many times you type it, it remains as much of a lie as the first time you threw it out there.

I didn't realize Mickey had an argument ;-) His M.O. in my experience appears to be to continue typing unsupported allegations and innuendo while completely ignoring irrefutable facts that are offered in contradiction of his positions. Here again he's doing the same- he's unwilling to concede the simple (yet undeniable) fact that Red States produce more military volunteers per capita than New York City. Rational discussion requires willing participants, he's unwilling to explore the facts which makes him far more a belligerent than participant.

You may as well cite Big Bird as Senator Robert Byrd, the former Ku Klux Klansman who is warmly accepted by Democrats as a family elder. Byrd's brains today at his advanced age of 142 fall somewhere between a liquid and solid as a state of mass. Some refer to that as Jello. But hey, you're welcome to bring the brain dead into the conversation! Just make sure to bib him up when you have him over for dinner ;-)

The Big Elms- my first Filet Mignon! Tasty. The little Italian place Sunsets was another Hornell fave.

You can try to say something I never said, but you won't find it in my posts. I was 4 when Kennedy hooked us up in 'Nam. In my teens it was my expectation and desire to go serve in 'Nam and carry on the family tradition, one that dates back to every conflict in this country since we tossed the Brits out. Unfortunately we were on the wrong side in that one, but since we were left behind by the Brits we moved to WNY from NYC which had "recently" become hostile to Tories. We more than made up for that poor judgement over time and I grew up with heavy doses of Victory at Sea with the old man showing me his boat in Kwajeilan, Iwo, invasion of the Philipines, etc. 'Nam didn't hold on long enough for me to get in but I enlisted after college. The question posed is a contemporary one, and knowing what I know now about all the actions we've taken historically, it seems the current conflict is among the top three in citizen and congressional participation and approval. That seems for the most part like a good thing to me and I support it over the covert work the Dems did getting us into Vietnam with no chance to discuss it privately by the Executive Branch. So I did not oppose 'Nam at the time, but it seems fair to speculate 'Nam wouldn't have included the U.S. if the same measures instituted by the Bush Administration for Iraq had been applied to that situation. Libs won't ever admit that the Bush lead up was thousands of times more fair, not to mention desirable, than Kennedys but the fact is it's virtually impossible to structure a cogent argument to the contrary.

You're not one of Tom Reuning's kids are you?

Class of ?

One of my brothers lives on Jericho Hill. You on that side of town?

So let me see if I've got this one figured out- the majority of Americans are influenced to vote for Republicans because they're motivated by fear, soundbites and vitriol- making them: A) cowering B) fools C) easily incited by hate Are you sure you haven't mixed up your party profiles here ? ;-)

You continue to bash the most courageous of Americans by refusing to acknowledge that a kid in a rural state is far more likely to sign up, serve and be killed in Iraq than a kid from New York City. Stand up and admit what is undeniable. Yes or no- can you admit it or not? "I don't protest the war just it's execution". Possibly you missed the last election when the excrutiatingly indecisive John Kerry said "I voted for it before I voted against it." Like his idiotic misstep, you want to have it both ways but it's an outright lie. In wartime you either support or you don't. We have history to show us how it works. In WWII we got nearly across the board national support and it assisted the cause and the homecoming reception for the soldiers in the fight. In 'Nam we got protesters who were directly responsible for American deaths and a horrible legacy of poor treament for the returning soldiers. You'd condemn the current fighting men and women in Iraq to the fate of the 'Nam vet apparently because of your hatred for the President. I won't let you continue the lie here in public without pointing it out. You have become a hypocrite of the highest order talking about lying Bush this and lying Cheney that, yet you promulgate the big liberal lie of contemporary times when you say you can "protest the execution of the war" and support the troops at the same time. It's a flat out lie, you can say it all you want, but history is my proof that you are harming the future of the public acceptance of our returning Vets with your lack of self-control. It's become obvious that you intend refuse to acknowledge those places in this country who lose the highest percentage of uniformed servicepersons. You try to dilute the argument with citizens instead of being honest and hold true to the original discussion about service to the country in our Armed Forces. You don't seek here to offer any exploration, your words instead are left as hollow and false propoganda.