silvermike

Oh, and as to the specific case: I think the Bills are the ones who should re-negotiate this one sooner rather than later. If they trust Bell, he'll be getting more expensive every single year, and it's clear that his best seasons will come after this contract expires. Extend him for four seasons after this one, with good money and a no-holdout clause, and we're in business.

Parker's lost a lot of face with the Crabtree situation, and hopefully players will stay away from him or at least back off his strategies a little bit. Ugh. But it's all well and good when you start making your players an extra $5M by holding out, or getting a new contract a year or two sooner, or force a trade, etc. Parker's cost Crabtree millions of dollars right now, if this really is all his doing and not the player's (and if you're a player, you want an agent who will also tell you to shut up and take the deal, even when you are the one who's pushing for more). Crabtree could reasonable stand to lose $35M in this whole affair if he goes back into the draft.

#1 is at least worth something. #2 is mostly because people pass to the guy he's covering and he makes the tackle downfiled #3 is for real #4 might be to and who knows what leading the league in tackles, as a team, means. I guess it means your defense is on the field a lot.

I wonder if we'd bring back Langston Walker if it turns out Butler is out for a few weeks.

Man, imagine when they get used to playing their positions.

So we will at least have McKelvin, McGee, and Corner ready to go next year, with Youboty a possible departure, and Ellis Lankster maybe competing for the dimespot with Drayton Florence? There is no reason for this team to acquire a CB in 2010. Now if only it were so clear with safety.

When was his deal set to run out? After this season or next season.

I wonder what the causation is here - I'm sure the holdouts cost players experience, but that should wash out after a year or so. I wonder if agents who are more skeptical of their clients' ability will hold them out more.

It's interesting. THere's more charts and graphs here, if you like'em: http://www.advancednflstats.com/2009/09/4t...udy-part-1.html Basically, I think it that coaches' decisions are usually rational, it's just that their goal is to not get fired, rather than to win. So you're risk adverse, and don't make decisions that call attention to your coaching. Being stopped on 3rd down reads as the players' fault, being stopped on 4th down is a coaching blunder.

This is, by the way, the last possible year for any of these 'firsts.' The league now rotates home and away games on an 8 year cycle, since 2002. So we've reached year 8 and everyone will have played everywhere, even the Texans.

http://www.buffalorumblings.com/2009/9/16/...uffalo-bills-vs Weird.

If anything, I think the game last night was called in our favor. We were overpenalized because of sloppy play, not a ref bias.

Leodis McKelvin is our kick returner all the time.

I don't like Jauron and agree that he should get fired, but not because of tonight. It was one of his better performances. We lost on McKelvin's fumble and you can't put that on the coach, plain and simple.

The line really had some promise. Bell made boneheaded, first-start mistakes, but he blocked well. The whole line blocked well. And that's as good of a front seven as we'll see this season.

I mean, as much as this one hurts, I agree. Yesterday, I thought I was going to be wasting my Sundays all year. Now, I think we are, if not a contender, at least in the conversation.

Do you seriously think the coaches seem worse today than they did yesterday?

The Bills lost by one point, on the road, on Monday night, in the season opener, of the acclaimed best team in the league. The next 15 games are winnable, now. This is a real, pro football team. The team scored on sustained drives, and put pressure on Tom freaking Brady. 15 games. Bring it on.

Would you rather lose like this or 41-3 like everyone was predicting?

Shout!

I think the 2009 Bills would beat the 2008 Bills, BUT they got lucky to go 7-9 against a much weaker schedule last year.

Honestly, I'm amazed it doesn't happen every week. Players stay at a local hotel, and there must be at least a few home fans in from out of town at any given local hotel. It doesn't take much for them to find out the road team is staying there (football teams don't exactly go unnoticed), and, well, fans back home for a football game tend to get pretty drunk. And drunk folks might not object to the idea of waking up an entire hotel to piss off a few rivals. I guess maybe they just usually get too drunk to even think of it.

http://blogs.buffalobills.com/2009/09/14/b...-by-fire-alarm/ Security is tight at team hotels, but it doesn't mean that there wasn't a Pats fan behind it.

I hate Bill Simmons, but not because of this. Heck, 2 is practically the over-under on the season around here.