Lori

Remember when Takeo partially tore his Achilles in practice, and decided to play with the injury instead of having surgery? Remember how long he lasted? Didn't make it to halftime of the first game. Be very, very careful, Mr. Merriman.

Buggs and Costanzo over Spragan, Youboty over James. Those are keeping in line with the Bills' youth movement, although I think James could contribute here. Massaquoi over Courtney Anderson? That one I'm not sure about, but he's seen the team far more than I have. Neither one would be here without the injuries to Schouman and Fine. And I'm in total agreement with him about keeping both Jenkins and Steve Johnson.

I think (hope?) he's flat-out wrong about Ellis, based on his competition for that fourth DE spot. But Corner? I believe he's made the team, but if they decide to keep both James and Youboty ... I also think there's no way in hell they can sneak Corner onto the practice squad if they do release him. Someone -- Cleveland, perhaps, which was desperate enough to trade for bust Travis Daniels -- would take a shot on him.

Hahahahaa. They changed the picture to one from the scoreboard end zone at the Ralph. Thanks for stopping by, ESPN... Man. If they'd wanted a "Bills fans know how to tailgate" shot, I could've gotten them one from the Pinto last night.

But he wasn't the coordinator. As we've previously discussed, some coaches are better off when they have one part of the team to concentrate on, rather than trying to run the whole show. I believe GW has proven he's on that list. Did they need the benefit of good field position that day? Before Angelo Crowell recovered Jason Campbell's fumble late in the third quarter, the Bills, playing against a defense rocked by Sean Taylor's murder, had managed three punts, a lost fumble, and a single field goal. I think it's safe to say that Campbell's turnovers -- not any failure on the part of the defense -- cost Washington that game.

To update this, there's nothing from Leo Roth on the D&C site today. I repeat: gotta wonder, and maybe it's time I followed up on this. On the News side, they had Gleason's column, Gaughan with the gamer, Wilson with the notebook, and David Briggs live-blogging and writing a feature on hometown kid Jon Corto. Typical for an evening home game, although I suspect Rod McKissic would have been there instead of Briggs if UB hadn't had a game the same night. Skurski did a notebook for the Gazette, but they used John Wawrow's AP gamer. Haven't seen Olean yet -- trying to get stuff done here before packing up the laptop and hitting the road -- but I imagine Chuck will have the gamer/sidebar/notebook trifecta. No, come to think of it, J.P. Butler (Vinny Pezzimenti's replacement as the backup Bills writer) probably made the trip north, so he might have a story in there as well. Guess we won't know any changes for sure until the Bills head to Jacksonville in two weeks. Edit: Wrong about Olean. Chuck's column, Wawrow's gamer. Today's Friday -- normally a thin section for them, because they essentially do two entire newspapers (Friday PM/Saturday AM) in roughly 18 hours. Plus, our prep football season starts tonight. I should've known better.

The caption on the photo above the Bills review is hysterical. "It's December, it's snowing -- hey, this must be Buffalo, where fans must be hardy." Too bad that picture was taken at the Cleveland game. Unless someone managed to sneak a big honking boat into Lot 1?

Psst ... Williams never served as DC here. And I forget; did the Redskins D allow a touchdown in that game last year? Bills needed drive starts at the Washington 39 and 24 (via turnovers) to get back into the game. Gregggg was an arrogant tool as a head coach, and I've heard nothing good about him from his former players here. That said, the Redskins were a playoff team in 2005 and 2007, and not because of a prolific offense.

Simple: we get a discount by buying the season package. Always been that way.

Oilers/Titans 1990-2000. Titans were No. 1 overall in yards allowed, second in points allowed in his last year there. Hired as Buffalo head coach, 2001-03. Redskins DC 2004 - 07. Washington was 25th in yards allowed, 24th in scoring in 2003, the year before he arrived. 2004: 3rd yards, 5th scoring 2005: 9th, 9th 2006: 31st, 27th 2007: 8th, 11th So. Three top-10 overall rankings in his four years in Washington, and the 2006 dropoff can be at least partly attributed to injuries. Williams has held exactly two coordinator's jobs in his 19-year NFL career; he left the first one to accept the promotion here, and left the other one when Snyder and Cerrato pulled their four-interview BS for the head coaching job there. That resume doesn't exactly scream "journeyman" to me, but I've been wrong before.

And thanks to you too, Tim: http://myespn.go.com/blogs/afceast/0-2-150...ely-to-sit.html Way cool.

Section 241 -- that's Rockpile. No plastic seats.

By all means, nitpick. If I mess something up, I want to know about it. Ah, I see what I did. With all the HTML required to make the pages look pretty, I've been working from copies of previous previews, deleting the text but keeping the code. That was the date of the last regular-season Pittsburgh game, and since the Steelers were the last "home" preseason opponent, I used that one as a template ... ... and obviously forgot to change that line. Thanks, Scott.

You'll be in Hammer's by dawn for the opener anyway, correct? Yes, Big Tree is 20A. And since I park in Lot 1 (for all but the opener), even when I'm heading south from Amherst, I normally take 219 to the 20A exit. Next question: is California Rd. clear? If so, 219 > Milestrip > California > Big Tree is another option.

Lions vs. Bills

Make that, per the Baltimore Sun: I liked Leonhard's grittiness, and he made some plays while he was here ... but hard work only takes you so far.

I moved it from the Wall. To be honest, I appreciate the kind words, but I'm also a little embarrassed when someone does this. Guess I haven't yet learned how to deal with ego-stroking ... John, thank you for the compliment. And Steely, he meant no harm.

Oh, dear Lord. Are you serious? Here, I'll help: Michael Marot is the Indy-based sports writer for The Associated Press. The AP is a not-for-profit cooperative owned by 1,500 daily newspapers across the country, including the D&C. They pay for the right to use stories like Marot's, and rewrite them (when necessary) to add information of local interest. THAT'S HOW WIRE SERVICES WORK. Some newspapers, but not all, include the AP writer's byline. If they don't, you'll see an (AP) at the end of the dateline. Looking at the full story in my print copy of the Times Herald -- yes, they ran the piece as well -- it appears the D&C editor added two words: "... in Indy," while editing out most the Colts-related quotes and content. Again: THEY'RE ALLOWED TO DO THAT. THIS IS WHY WIRE SERVICES EXIST. Plagiarism? Only if it appeared under a D&C staff writer's byline, which this obviously didn't. If that's your 'proof', you owe Sal Maiorana an apology.

I'll echo that thanks, and pass along a frightening rumor that plays directly into what you're talking about, Rubes. Scuttlebutt around Gannett has them essentially blowing up the newsrooms at some smaller papers (not Rochester, thank goodness), and repackaging a limited amount of their content as a 'wrap' for USA Today. If I wanted McPaper, I'd buy McPaper. Two things, Tim. Before I use Sunday's game to judge overall Bills coverage, I'd want to ask Allen, Sal, and Leo why they weren't there. The first two should have been; if their absence was determined by budgeting issues, that's something the readers might want to know. Looking through the D&C archive, Leo hasn't written much on the Bills lately. (As I recall, Sal had every byline in the camp guide.) Is this just for the preseason, or does it mark a significant change in their coverage plan? Gotta wonder. And to be honest, I can't remember the last time Chuck traveled for a preseason game. Maybe Pittsburgh, but certainly nothing as far as Indy. Thinking it's been longer than six or seven years since he gave up the West Coast games, too, but I'd have to ask him about that. (Not until after this weekend, though. Their tab should be done, but ours isn't ... which makes me wonder why I'm killing time here instead of doing actual work ...) Simon, that's what you get for reading the columns instead of the beat coverage.

In his blog (linked under resources on the TBD home page), Sal mentioned sneaking in his last couple of vacation days during camp. That won't be an option after this weekend, and it's a long grind between now and January. I wonder if Allen Wilson was doing the same? (He's back, on today's BillBoard ...) Far as I know, both the News and D&C post 100 percent of their print edition on their Web sites. (The mind boggles at the thought of giving all that away for free, but I digress.) The locals weren't getting any more coverage than you were, unless you count WKBW-TV's brutal postgame show. If'n you want that, I can probably burn you a DVD ... Spokane wants to do it without waiting. Don't blame them, if AP is going to start charging extra for 'premium' services ... in other words, everything that isn't breaking news. And although AP is the 800-pound gorilla, there are other wire services out there. [/threadjack, before this turns into an APSE conference]

Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Rosenhaus.

Must be the bank called, and the check cleared?

Whoa. They also put O'Callaghan on IR and Neal on the PUP. O'C was a backup, but the right side of that o-line could be in trouble. (And I'm not talking about Nick Kaczur's legal issues.)

I don't believe I implied that he was. Graham's a good reporter, and I'm not just saying that because he decided to show up here. No, I meant precisely what I typed: if Peters' teammates are grumbling in his general direction (wherever that might be these days), I'd love to know which ones.

That video left out a few things. The fact that he scored the touchdown with 11:20 remaining in the third quarter, and managed just 2 yards on four carries after that. Or the Ravens' last drive -- second-and-1 from midfield, and Boller throws three straight incompletions with No. 23 nowhere in sight, because Brian Billick had already figured out that McGahee sucks in short-yardage situations. He'll never have to worry about a nickname that involves the words "clutch" or "fourth-quarter." Don't hate him, but I also don't miss him.