thenorthremembers

Zay Jones Helps Grieving Family The Bills' wide receiver sent Dylan a game worn Bills cleat, a signed football, and a note with a very special message. "It said the condolences for your mother, and thank you for being a Bills fan," said Dylan. "It was so cool." Back in April, Dylan, Hannah and their younger sister Maggie lost their mother unexpectedly. They say this unexpected surprise from Zay means more than anyone can know. "The games meant a lot to her and every Sunday we'd watch it," said Hannah. "So just to know that something that she enjoyed so much is helping us get through it is making it ten times better for us." "Knowing what we're going through right now, it just amazing how he can reach out to me like that," added Dylan. Jones did more than just reach out. He made a lifelong impact in true Bills fashion. "It's just how Buffalo is," said Dylan. "When something goes down, everybody helps and is ready for everything so they help a lot." Medina is my community. The loss they are speaking about in this article ran pretty deep. It's great to be a Buffalo Bills fan, and Zay just made a lot of fans in Orleans County. Well done young fella.

It was a lot easier back in the day. In 2005, I went to three practices and ended up with 12 autographs at the end of the summer. You were able to get down closer to the field then. They also did a better job of spacing the crowd out. Took my then 5 year old son two years ago and it was an absolute zoo when the players came out to sign. People lost their minds over Cardale Jones and started pushing my son up against the barriers. I hope the "grown ups" yelling "Yo 12 gauge" while shoving an Ohio State Mini Helmet at him made the money they spent on the helmet back when they sold it on eBay.

To be fair, since becoming a head coach a predominance of his work has come with three quarterbacks since 1999. McNabb, Vick and Alex Smith. I would argue outside of Smith, the other two players were always going to be good, with or without Reid. Kolb never threw for more than 10 touchdowns in a season, and his other starting quarterback was Doug Pederson who threw for 7 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. Not arguing Reid isn't a good coach, one of my favorites actually, but there may have been some luck involved as well.

I feel like the strength of his game is being stout at the point of attack and stopping the run. I don't see him as a pass rush specialist type, at all. There were times over his first two years they moved him inside a bit. That being said, I always thought a good comparison for Shaq coming into the league was Brandon Graham, and if you know what you're getting with him, good run support and limited pass rush you have an average NFL starter.

Not meant for me, but I'll freely admit I thought Robert Nkemdiche was a beast that year. Wanted him in the 1st.

And the Dwight Freeney comparisons. It was a bad draft for pass rushers, and it's not like he was a top ten pick. Clemson had a great d line that year but something about both ends, Shaq and Kevin Dodd seemed to scream plodding. Feel like maybe he would be better suited to gain weight and play inside.

He was a bad pick from the word jump. He was never a tweener DE/OLB, he was always too big and slow for that. If anything he was a DE/DT. I never thought he was a pass rush guy even at Clemson. He used his size to dominate at times but he didn't jump out with nice pass rush moves. They drafted him because Rex was close to him, that should have been shot down. Not his fault he was drafted where he was.

Nothing new for Verrett, think he has played 11 games over the last two years. Is in the last year of his contract too.

I see your point on the first two, still don't think Gurley is as good as Bell. With that being said, I don't think its smart to pay anyone outside of a QB, LT, or Defensive End as much money as Gurley got, and Bell wants. On the money front there is no doubt they can manage all the contracts. If they make three moves by the end of training camp they can make the cap this year. Cut: Ethan Westbrooks Rodger Saffold Cut or Trade: Mark Barron They have a few big contracts fall off next year (Joyner and Suh) so they franchise Donald and then work on a big contract before the start of next season. Gurley's contract is pretty telling, he will be in the last year of his new contract the year they need to resign Goff. If Goff turns out to be a franchise guy they cut Gurley in the last year of his contract and sign Goff. If he doesnt show that, they keep Gurley and find a new quarterback.

Statistical analysis of both on the field performance and athletic measurables would tell you E.J. Manuel should have been a better than average starting quarterback in the league. This would also be the case for Robert Griffin III, Brandon Weeden, and Mark Sanchez. Each of these guys was more statistically accurate than Tom Brady in college, did it make them better than him in the NFL? Matt Ryan is statistically one of the top five most accurate passers of all time and he completed 59.9% of his passes at the college level. As much as I'd like to have an algorithm for accurately predicting a Franchise Quarterback, it doesn't exist, that is why there are so few of them. There are way too many variables that go into the output of statistics, especially at a college level. I would have much preferred Mayfield or Darnold, in fact Allen as the one guy I was dreading the Bills picking. However, at this point its a wait and see thing. The only predictor in assessing a quarterbacks ability in the NFL, is actual NFL action.

Was the buzz created by WGR spending four hours on it tonight? I constantly hear Dez isnt a process guy, but he sure seems to care a whole hell of a lot about football.

I cant believe no one else sees the 4D Chess McBeane is playing here. Harbor spent time on the Patriots roster. We are obviously stealing secrets here. I bet he comes here and turns into a pro bowler. That sneaky McBeane. Patriots should have seen this coming.

Going to be honest, always thought he was overrated. Felt like he was one of those players the media hypes dramatically and the legend just kind of caught on. Not saying he wasn't a good defensive back, just never thought he was as elite and legendary as everyone seemed to make him out to be. In my opinion guys like Charles Woodson, Deion Sanders, Champ Bailey, Rod Woodson and Ty Law were all better. Revis was more on par with Darrell Green, who played at that level for a much longer time. Still makes the Hall of Fame, but not sure I want to get overly excited over a guy who is 225th on the all time interception list. I am sure people will say he didnt have those numbers because offenses respected his side of the field so much, just my opinion.

Yes, he was clocked at 4.43 while working out with Julio Jones in June.

Not sure why people are giving the guy such a hard time. If I was 44, had just ran a 4.4 forty and had a team willing to pay me money I think I'd want to play too. He loves to play football and get paid for it. Such personal reactions, I dont get it.

This was actually a pretty good read, thank you for posting. Now onto ancestry.com to see if I have a Grandfather that owned an oil, or real estate company.

Vacationed in Brooksville two summers ago. Never been more in love with a place. Hoping to retire there as well.

They are 21-22 with him, so I am not sure he impacts the team in a fashion where their record will change dramatically.

He is a great player, there should be no doubt about that. However, I believe the Bills are 21-22 in games McCoy has started so lets not overstate the value of a running back. If he plays, you better hope Allen is great. If he doesnt, you better hope Allen is great. In other news, whats the deal with Bills runningbacks who just cant seem to get their stuff back?

I use The Athletic. The BZ Blitz was a great idea, ultimately the problem wasn't the idea itself, the problem was using tired content from tired writers. They should have taken the idea all the way and brought in new writers, there just wasnt anything to get excited about. I can tell you from using The Athletic over the last month that Fairburn is doing a great job. Graham's contributions on the other hand, about the same as before. I am sure he will write one or two really beautiful pieces but its few and far between.

Because he still tries to act 20 or something else?

Took the week off to to be there with my kid. I can tell you that Jim has been there each day, for a majority of the day and has done a ton of talking. Having my son there has been a complete blessing as Jim really doesn't take any crap and expects a lot from the kids who signed up. Watching my little guy get one on one instruction from a Hall of Famer overwhelmed me more than I imagined it would. The second day my son was doing some footwork on the 50 and Jim stopped and showed him a few things. I am extremely thankful for he and his family in the community. He is a true warrior. The fact he is out there a couple days after surgery should begin and end the conversation. Enough about how how he looks if we can. An aside, I know Chad Kelly gets a tough go of it on this board, but his message to the kids yesterday was very thoughtful and impressive.

Prayers from my entire family to yours.

I am not sure how others will take this article as it clearly highlighting the writers as victims. But when I read it, especially the quotes from Sullivan, Gleason and Graham I can 100% see why the BN did what they did. Specifically: When the editors told Sullivan his editorials were tired: They were correct, his writing was becoming predictable and unecessarily negative. Personally, I am fine with reading constructive criticism, but Sullivan's articles had become somewhere on the extreme side of that. It was clear he had a personal agenda against the Bills and as time wore on the Pegulas. The articles were becoming trite and boring. The writers suggesting if the BN Blitz was more heavily geared towards the Sabres it would have been more successful: This shows how truly how out of touch these writers had become. I am sorry, I know this town loves hockey but the true draw is football. The failure of the Blitz wasnt about football vs. hockey, it was about fans of the sports teams being sick of the tired articles the BN was providing. Few people wanted to pay for a sub standard product. Even 2 or 3 dollars a month was too much for the 1 or 2 times a year Tim Graham knocks it out of the park, because most of the other content was worthless and filled with sarcasm. The BN knew they had to try and start fresh and rebrand themselves, it was a good move, the mistake they made was putting the same bad product in a different wrapper. Pissed about non-guild writers having their articles published on BN Blitz: This is where the writers true colors shine the most. Let me illuminate what the writers are actually saying here, 'We were pissed they hired Chris Trepasso to write for them." At some point, these guys forgot they were lucky to have people read their opinions, and started to think we were lucky to have their opinions in print in front of us everyday. Rather than be humbled by the opportunity, the awards they give one another started to inflate their self perception. Things like this, are clear evidence their elitism and hubris got the best of them. You guys thought you were better than covering the Bills, it was clear in your sarcasm laced editorials and even more clear in how disinterested and snarky you appeared in your post game videos and podcasts. If you didnt want to cover the Bills, and preferred to talk about basketball or Red Sox baseball, then stop collecting your checks and find a job in that space. No one was holding you hostage. And when people got sick and tired of your jaded takes, don't be surprised when they find someone else to do you job, guild or non guild. They Didn't See it Coming: Again with the hubris. Your lack of effort in producing good content lost your company money. And when your company attempted to fix the issues, while still keeping you on, you blamed them. This high brow idea that News is an art, or above capitalism is so out of touch. You guys aren't special, no matter how well you think you write. No clue how they didnt see it coming. The real story here is not they didnt see it coming, rather they thought they were so untouchable they never thought anyone would hold them accountable for their actions. These guys arent victims. They are elitist who feel they are better than everyone else because someone hired them to write something. Additonally, how immature to tweet thank yous to the Buffalo News and then turn around and give takes like this to Buffalo Rumblings, no offense to their site but my guess is some of the writers there are non-guild, but just a hunch. The typewriter bullies finally came up against people (The Pegulas) who had the sway to stand up to them.

Should have never been drafted #1. Mariota and Winston were close enough prospects that the off the field issues should have made it a slam dunk to take Marcus. Koetter and Licht will be fired at the end of the season, and the next regime if they have any sense wont put up with this garbage. All the talent in the world, probably enough to be a top 10 quarterback in the league but too many headaches.