Lori

As previously noted, the Clements-Holt hit was a cheapy. Clements' excuse was "you did it to me first", to which Holt supposedly said that on HIS cut-blocks he was going after Nate's lower leg, not his knee. Groce got rolled up on when someone knocked Tucker down on the INT return. Fisher was injured on the Moulds end-around. If anyone has a tape, I'd be curious as to how those plays looked.

Just so you guys know - I talked to Harv in Lot 1 Sunday, and Petrino was skipping the game to take care of a serious medical emergency in the family. For all I know, he may not even be back in Albany yet. No joke. Hope everything's OK, John.

Actually, the founder of Empire - John Rigas - is kinda busy with other things right now. I could be wrong (since most of the people I knew at Adelphia aren't there any more), but I get the impression the new management is just biding their time until they can get rid of it the way they did WNSA. Anyone here think Bob Koshinski wanted to fire the NSA staff when the station was sold? I have to think if he could've found any way to keep Simon&Brinson on the payroll and on the air, he would've. Once upon a time, ESN had everything from the official Ted Nolan and Marv Levy shows to several hours of viewer call-in programming - anyone remember when FanTV (Jim and Howard), Fan Forum (Bob K.), Sportsline (Paul Maguire), the Russer Hot Stove Diner (Art Wander and Larry Felser), and Hockey Hotline (Brian Blessing and Mike Robitaille) were all on the schedule at the same time? Josh Mora's "Taking Aim" series did some darn good work, too. Add in the Sabres games and Little 3 basketball, seven-days-a-week Sports Report, plus picking up Bandits and Bisons games and signing up with Fox Sports Net, and I'll submit that Empire matched up against ANY regional sports network on the air during the mid-to-late '90s. The way things used to be....... Alas, things have changed since then.

Probably not, rt, but at least they'll chase the rats out of the Aud.... Hey, at least somebody's trying to do something on the waterfront. Long past time that happened. VA, the Bass Pro "superstores" are like hunting/fishing/outdoors stores on steroids - we're talking something in the area of 130K square feet, devoted solely to outdoor sports. A lot of the sportsmen I know actually see them as tourism destinations, and set up bus trips to visit the ones closest to us (currently Reading and now Harrisburg). One article I read said these stores draw in an average of two million visitors each year... and right now, especially with no Sabres, that's two million people the downtown area wouldn't mind seeing. Josh Mora just did a good "Empire Presents" program on this. Will it cure all that ails Buffalo/Erie County? Probably not. But it can't be any worse than letting the waterfront continue to rot, can it? EDIT: They'll be replaying that "Empire Presents" show several times in the next few days - 1:30 tomorrow, 6 and 10 PM Friday, if anyone wants to see what the fuss is about.

Kasper, remind me to never sit by you. You're bad luck.

According to WGRZ - which actually did a "breaking news" lead-in for the story about half an hour ago - official announcement to come next Monday morning.

Unstudded B.F. Goodrich Winter Slaloms all around for me. Just switched 'em over last week; the "performance" skins go back on next April. Had pretty good luck with them the last four winters, including more than a few trips up through "ski country" to Buffalo and back.... PIZ, if you're driving a FWD car (like my Grand Prix), you absolutely positively want to put snows on all four wheels. You're still down around St. Marys, right? Just stay off Boot Jack Hill and all will be well ....

Seems like I remember most of the old players' shows being taped at bars. Hmmmm....... wonder if there's any particular reason for that.... Think I'll try to catch the Anthony Solomon show Monday night. That one's at a bar, too -- Randy's Up the River in Allegany. Not quite the place you'd normally expect to find Fr. Monti, Fr. Tuttle, and the Franciscan crowd... but the wings are some of the best you'll find around here, and Randy and his employees do a great job. [/free ad for Randy's]

Just out of curiosity, have you ever directly asked the moderators to do that? (Don't look at me; I don't have a set of keys to the place.) Don't just assume they read every thread.... SDS is probably kinda busy right now, but you might drop a PM to one of the other mods listed in the board index and see what they say.

He had some really good plays in the tape of the first Pats game, too, including that almost-INT in the endzone. I don't think he's a horrid player - I just think that leaving him in man-to-man as much as they do is putting an awful lot of pressure on the kid. That's the one part of Gray's scheme I wouldn't mind seeing less often; when the blitzing safety gets to the QB, great... but if he doesn't get there in time, more often than not it gets ugly. And against Bruce and Holt, that could be really, REALLY ugly.

Errrrr..... this IS still a Buffalo Bills board, correct? And there's a game tomorrow? Just checking. Number of the week: #24 (for Terrence McGee) will do, I suppose. As I posted in another thread - if MadMikeMartz has seen the tapes from the last couple of Bills games, he'll go after McGee early and often. Now, I'm not trying to pick on McGee here - for a fourth-round pick out of a Division I-AA school, trying to become a "shutdown" corner on a team that blitzes as much as Buffalo does is a lot to ask... as is going up against two Pro Bowl receivers, Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt, in only the ninth start of his career. Now combine that with a rookie UDFA making his first-EVER start at FS, and things could get interesting. Bottom line: the passrush had better make life uncomfortable for Marc Bulger.... or else. Ah, but Bulger's been sacked the same number of times as Bledsoe, so maybe that's not just wishful thinking. The Rams running game could keep the d-line on their heels, though - Marshall Faulk is averaging a gaudy 4.8 ypc, and their talented rookie Steven Jackson is even better (5.2). St. Louis hasn't scored fewer than two touchdowns in any game this season; we'll have to see if the Bills defense can break that trend. Question is, can the Bills score enough to keep up with them? That leads me to an even bigger question -- one I have no idea how to answer, and the reason I'm not making any predictions one way or the other this week: Which Bills team will show up tomorrow? The one we saw in the last couple of home games - efficient, not making the stupid mistakes that cost them games earlier in the season? Or the team that got their hats handed to them Sunday night? Drew's horrid performance was a major factor in that game, to be sure, but the defense didn't exactly impress anyone by letting the Patriots score on five of their first six possessions - including drives of 81, 91, 75, and 70 yards. If those were the 'real' Bills, then St. Louis will win by double digits tomorrow. On the other hand, the Rams defense does have weak spots that the Bills can exploit, IF they come out ready to play. The St. Louis defense ranks in the bottom 10 in just about every significant statistic; for all the complaining we do about the lack of sacks/turnovers the Bills are forcing, the Rams are worse in both departments. One more thing to mention - the Rams have a pretty good kicker in Jeff Wilkins, but the Bills have a distinct advantage on punts/kickoffs. Rams are LAST in the league in punt returns, not much better (29th) on KRs, and their coverage units are just as bad - 27th for punts, 31st on KO coverage. Meanwhile, the ST coach the Rams fired after last season has the Bills #1 in the league at covering kickoffs, and both PR and KR averages rank in the top 6. Kudos to Bobby April. So how do all those numbers add up? This week, your guess is as good as mine. If the Bills can get a couple of early stops on defense and stick to the run-first/clock management gameplan, I like our chances. OTOH, if the Rams' aerial circus gets rolling, it could be a long day out at the Ralph. But hey, that's just my opinion....

It's Monday nights at 7:30, but they've taped it at a couple of different places so far this season. I'll try to find out where the remaining shows are going to be at, and get back to you on that......

Don Coryell's there, and Jimmuh Johnson isn't. Maybe there is a God.

Because up until now, they didn't think they had any other options? The fact that they didn't try Matthews in any of DB's bad games tells me all I need to know about the staff's opinion of him. And JP's just now getting healthy. Something tells me from this point forward, if Drew throws another stinkbomb of a first half out there, things will be different. But hey, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong....

Beauty. Another "Hawk" sighting, and a reference to Namath's 2-fer game to boot. (Namath completed more passes to the Bills than to the Jets that day, 3-2.....)

What makes you think Martz will target Baker? If he's looked at any gamefilm from either New England game or the second Jets game, his passing chart will begin and end with wherever #24 lines up on defense. Hopefully Jerry Gray figures this out at some point, and gives McGee a little help over the top? Leaving the kid out there by himself on practically every play is going to start messing with Terrence's confidence, if it hasn't already. JMO....

Looking at the weather forecast - 56/showers, and wind is only supposed to be 13mph. More than inside a dome,certainly, but nothing like the 20-40mph for the last three games. It is coming out of the west, though - that means the scoreboard-to-tunnel windtunnel effect should set up nicely....

Tell me. Wonder if Littman's still around? EDIT: Yup - still listed as "Treasurer" in the '04 media guide....

Don't be too sure about that. Bill Polian was fired four days after a Super Bowl, remember..... (and after the season in which the Bills set their season-ticket and total attendance record, to boot....)

Answer: no.

Nope, that was Giles Corey. Agreed, though - ouch....

Ouch. Got a point there.

Hey now... the Burrows side of the family is still just a bit touchy about that whole deal.......

Where the %! have you been, Des-demundo?!?!? Loooong time, no see.....

That's an interesting idea, Dan. Throw the kid into the deep end of the pool and see if he sinks or swims? I must ponder this further......