KingRex

A few years back, in a snowy game, one team had the grounds crew drive a plow along the yardline where they were kicking an FG. There was no rule against this obvious competitive advantage and my recollection is the kick was good and THEN the rule was changed. I think Miami and Shula were the victims. Does anyone remember who the rule bender was?

Actually, because the fix is in, the omniscient powers have declared this the year the Bills return to the SB and even win it. Word is leaking out about the puppetmasters setting up development of the background pieces which take longer to produce which support their virtual total control of events. I must admit I was beginning to question my belief in conspiracy theories after word leaked out about Jade Helm 13, but it appears life is back on track in regard to the next SB!

I have to give 30 for 30 a lot of credit. I agree with you that I can easily pass on some of the recent ventures (I for one care very little about the U- the topic of not only a recent feature but apparently a follow-up). Kudos to them for their recent piece I Hate Christian Laettner. Since I actually have little affinity for Duke (I grew up liking Dean Smith/U/NC/Michael Jordan, I had planned to skip this show. I don't hate Laettner but easily can do without him. However, buddy of mine was a buddy of the Laettner family so I watched part of it with her. It was great and I tuned into a redo to see the beginning. Even for those who might reject it feeling like its old news, the Laettner piece reminded me that I don't know what I don't know. Unless you want to claim perfect knowledge of everything, I'd be a little slower about rejecting its stories unseen.

Hi rep Donald Yee just announced he is appealing 4 game suspension. My GUESS is he succeeds in reducing the suspension to 2 but this not only still knocks him out of game 3 against us, but lessens the team commitment to their #2 Garofalo. 2. The big ticket is not whether a player appeals but whether the team appeals. If the tam accept the transgression the Pats ** lives

I hate to admit it but its gonna b fun to b watch.

The name of the game now for the Bills now is sack (and do not try to injure him, but if he sits so be it) Garafalo and make him run for his life. Its going to be interesting to see how the Pats** back-up QB deals with the best pass rush in the NFL. However, if the Pats** are forced to use their disaster QB then game over.

Bless his memory and bless his heart, I laid the major blame for this move which did not work on the owner Mr. Ralph. We fans owe him a lot because he brought the Bills here and more important kept them here when he could have made a lot more $ if he had moved the team to LA or simply sold it. However, he adopted our community and his fellow fans in a huge way. Ironically, imho the biggest Mr. Ralph football draft decision was actually the seemingly minor choice of not drafting (or somehow other way) of acquiring a potential replacement for Jim Kelly a year before they drafted Todd Collins as his replacement. Mr. Ralph's biggest error which I identify as the main football reason we are 0-for the last decade and a half for not even making the playoffs is that by not acquiring and developing a replacement for Kelly in 1984, the Bills had to reach for and draft Collns in the 2nd which was a round earlier than many saw him being picked. Even worse, Mr. Ralph made a bad football judgment that like it or not, only he could make that when Kelly's contract ran out and he would have been an unrestricted FA, Mr. Ralph violated both the letter and spirit of the salary cap rules by entering into a handshake agreement with Kelly to reward him with a big payment in his next contract. When it turned out that this next contract never happened, RWS paid Jimbo a million bucks apparently to avoid a lawsuit enforcing the handshake deal. What should the Bills have done in the 1984 draft to get the "new " Jimbo? Who knows? Its a lot of theoretical woulda/coulda/shoulda. However, on the face of it the Bills picked Greg Bell in 1984 with their 1st round pick. A good player who had a rookie year with the Bills deemed Pro Bowl worthy. However, in an NFL where RBs often get hurt, Bell was an LA Ram by 1988 and the Bills had moved on to Thurman Thomas as their RB. When they picked Bell a QB by the name of Boomer Esaison was still on the board. Could you imagine a K-gun which was then turned into an E-gun after Kelly was forced into retirement. In 84 with their second pick the Bills chose WR Eric Richardson. Still on the board if one is looking for someone to back-up Kelly was a young QB named Jeff Hostetler (the woulda/coulda/shoulda bonus if we had picked him to sit on the bench behind Jimbo is that he would not have been the QB who beat us in our first SB and Hostetler rather than Frank Reich would have been asked to lead us to victory in the greatest game ever played. Further on in the draft if we had been smart enough to draft a back-up for Kelly a year earlier is that perhaps we would have passed on drafting Rodney Bellinger or Sean McNanie to pick-up another eventual SB winning QB named Jay Shroeder who was still on the board when we made either of the two critical Bills picks above. We (meaning Mr. Ralph as ultimately only he could make the illegal handshake deal with Kelly and only he could authorize or sign the huge checks to sign and welch on his word with Flutie, to overpay Rob Johnson, perhaps make a stupid investment in Billy Joe Hobert, but overall mismanage the QB situation for a decade and a half and still have it up in the air today. The Whitner choice di turn out to be foolish, but the QB mismanagement issue to me is the real travesty in how Mr. Ralph and his chosen flunkies mismanaged this team and myriad drafts.

I think Bennet's comments on Petty likely indicate 2 things. 1.Petty is one tough SOB. 2. How different success at something important like representing your country or staying alive in warfare are how different (and likely how silly) success in the entertainment medium of organized football are. It was either Hollywood Henderson or noted Dallas misanthrope Duane Thomas who was once asked during the by design excessive Super Bowl hype whether the upcoming SB was the most important moment in his life. His reply "If the Super Bowl is so important why do they play it every year?

tanx

Yep, Fins/Jets fans are virtually idiots by definition (I'm sure thy feel the same way bout us) we are linked by our common Pats dislike. My guess is that there likely is a talented tenth among even idiots.

I was quite amused by responses yesterday to my ask for a consensus on a "new" name for the Patriots. I am happy to cede my original suggestion to a proposal of a poster for a new name of the NE Pats** (I like the focus on their legacy being tainted rather than a more straightforward labeling of them as Cheaters- the Cheater tag will simply result in arguments over what constitutes cheating or not where "everyone" has a valid opinion). The ** however attacks their legacy and the opinions of the 31 cities that do have teams will matter as much as the allege factual arguments. I ask whether there are Fins and Jets fans who can all reach agreement on a new Pats name. I think if TSW and some parallel groups all agreed to use a common name such as The Pats*** (or whatever, I care more that we agree and less what specific wording we agree upon) and these common signs follow the Pats** all season it might get in their heads. Likewise if it pierces the media that fans from multiple teams (my guess is Seahawk fans would also be a useful target, then this new Pats** moniker would draw national attention. An argumkent over what constitutes cheating would be one where Pats** fan opinions would be in a minority but on par with others. Howewver, a argument about the Pats** legacy would be one where they start from most hating them.

The good news for the Bills is found in his second season stats where the simple fact is in the real worl he proved capable of putting up some impressive #s (such as his RD/INT ratio and simple raw #s for production. the bad news is that he also is quit capable of putting up bad results with the same team or proved unable to lead the team to productive outcomes when as always happens in the NFL injuries happen. Even worse for the Bills the trendlines of Cassel production are going the wrong way right now. This is why imho I see Cassel as the Bills #2 QB until he proves otherwise with pseudo real world production for the Bills in this pre-season. EJ also clearly has his failings as we desperately look for our next savior, but in the immediate past EJ has simply experienced more success leading an NFL team to success than Cassel. The other thing I like about EJ.over Cassel is that EJ seems to have more escapability than Cassel. Given the current work under progress with the Bills OL, at least until the 5 best player we plan to rebuild our OL finally comes to fruition, having a mobile QB who in essence adds another blocker to our passing game is going to be useful.

I think one thing that the braintrust has clearly stated time and again is that they plan to start the best 5 OL players without regard to where the individuals are assigned based on some sense of demographics. This actually makes some sense as the Bills seem overburdened with "classic" Ts and it is my sense that it part of the reason we lack "traditional" G talent. If you want to guess who sticks I think the likely top 5 are Woods,(C is the one position where the multiple needs of the position means the best C will play, Seantral Henderson and Glenn are likely to be among the best 5 and will play T. I like the Bills OL prospects as they will need to find 2 starting Gs and 2 swing guys from Miller, Williams, Cujo, Incognito, Richardson, and Urbik. I think they canfind 2 starters and 2 reserves from these 6.

I suggest we all refer to them when necessary as the New England Astericks. I think this name puts the entire Brady reign of error in the proper context. .

Overall, my sense is which NFL tean do you play in is probably overwhelmed by other factors such as: 1. Are the owners and coaching staff a plus, a wash, or idiots. The sense I get is that most teams are a wash but there are a few idiots out there that players either want to avoid or are attracted to them because they are stupid (Oakland). In general, I think the Bills are a wash (Miami I think has developed a rep for things approaching idiocy after the Incognito breakdown). Nice weather in Miami though. 2. Can this team win? Bills are pretty suspect in this regard, but new world post-RWS and with Ryan provides hope. The team has acquired a ton of good players though.

I think the key assessment questions are: 1. How would you feel if your opponents did this playing your team? 2. How would you feel if your team did this? My answers are: If an opponent did this to me I'd feel that they were pretty ticky-tack and unprofessional. This action is not a full scale violation of th rules (ex. they regularly made use of performance enhancing drugs but this clearly is a violation of both letter and intent of the rules setting up an equal playing field. One can argue and have reasonable difference of opinion whether this formal violation is driving 1 mph, 5 mph, or 20 mph over the agreed upon speed limit but yes this is a violation of the rules. It really changes the nature of the usual sports argument from how good are these Pats teams to how big should their asterisk be. 2. If my team di8d this to win the SB I would be a bit embarrassed.

Naw, actually Tolstoy and a lot of other masters of authoring works of fiction could easily produce a 100 page on an issue that really should be summarized in a few lines. In the end, a few lines could say whether they took specific actions outside of the regular game activities or not. It probably takes 100 pages to attempt to justify or attempt to explain away why clearly planned and intentional actions were taken by someone on the Pats payroll which were outside of normal game prep activities.

None likely to get into Canton without paying admission, but 2 appear capable of QBing a team centered on having players with the skill sets of McCoy/Jax, Watkins/hardin Clay and our D to a playoff berth.

I think Kiper's big problem with the Bills draft this year was that it reflected a strategy where Kiper's bread and butter he draft ha more minor role in team building.

Bill Polian has forgotten more about football than I will ever know. However, even an idiot like me is probably correct in not being disappointed that the Bills did not waste a draft pick on any of the available QBs in this draft as zero, nada, zilch, none of them seems remotely possible to payoff for the Bills on a timeline relevant to this team. This team has gone a decade and a half without even making the playoffs. Who does Polian think we should have drafted to help us take the essential first step of making the playoffs this year. The BPA approach clearly does better at this.

I'm just disappointed his name is not Williams. Maybe he can legally change it.

ST- A straight coaches see something they can improve or fix in his game to make him an ST regular and contributor.

To early to tell and will bre too early for 2 more years.

Exactly. The reality of this team is that every single member of their DL was resigned. The big difference between this D and last year's is that our base package is a 3-4 rather than a 4-3. Given we are increasing our base LB need by 1 AND we have traded away a young up and coming LB , simply dismissing Spikes does not seem like the smartest football move. If we can get something better for less expense GREAT. However, if we can't and resign him, GREAT also. I simply see no reason for a Bills fan to either dismiss a player who has human llmitations but performed well when asked last year and publicly says he wants to stay, why hate on him.

What evidence (and by this I mean public statements by Spikes or his agent of what level of compensation he expects/hopes for and/or a statement by the Bills r any other team about what he can expect/gets. I have seen none (and doubt anyone is negotiating in public). I think all we know is that no deal btw. Spikes and a team has been made yet and that Spikes has publicly stated his desire to comeback. All we know for likely is not that Spikes over-values himself, but that Spikes wants to make the maximum dollars he can make. (Does anyone have a problem with this?) Further, he has publicly stated he wants that max offer to come from the Bills. I not only have no problem with this but I am glad to hear this. From the Bills perspective, I would GUESS they want the best player they can get at the least expensive price (well duh!). Spikes is an NFL vet who knows past Bills systems. He has strengths as a run stuffer but must be helped out by the scheme or talent to make him the best defender against the pass. If the Bills have a better alternative at LB, then great take it. However, it is easy to imagine they will not have a more capable talent than this vet proven run stuffer when we had t give up young LB talent in Alonso to get an A level offensive threat in McCoy. I feel great about where we are and will feel fine even if we have to "settle" for this vet with not full talents but demonstrated run stuffer chops.