Lori

Dude. He may pronounce it the way you spelled it, but his name is Wawrow.

http://www.huntershope.org/site/PageServer...ename=radiothon Last year's thread, with a little more info: http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/index.php?showtopic=69961

I had to laugh at the game, watching him focus on the cheerleaders. Dad has apparently taught him well.

Hey ... Correct. I should have specified, this Jay: http://twitpic.com/bzr0z

Won't be me. I'm laughing too hard.

Really? Jay said October 17. Hmmm. Guess I'll check in Sept. to make sure, then go from there.

No, because I know how many of my own mistakes the desk has caught. (Or hasn't caught; believe me, I've crumpled up a few papers in disgust over the last year or so, with nobody to blame but myself.) You know what he told me when I was bemoaning one particular typo, shortly after I started? "Welcome to the business." Their deadline is 9:30 a.m. I guarantee he was cussing about the mistake before 10. But you know what? There's another newspaper due out tomorrow, so you try to get it out of your system and move on.

Could work, and I don't have any better ideas at the moment. Who ya gonna call?

But if Maybin isn't tweeting and Chafie isn't talking -- and we know how the Bills are about disclosing contracts -- that doesn't leave too many other sources, does it?

Couldn't agree with you more. For the last year or so, the "journalism topics" board on the sportswriting website I hang out at has read like the obituary page -- layoffs here, buyouts there, furloughs everywhere. (Not that this is confined to print media; just about everybody's hurting right now. It's just more obvious when familiar names and faces disappear from the local paper or TV station than when yet another factory padlocks its doors.) And don't get me started on how they kicked Scott Pitoniak to the curb.

Heh. When I first talked about applying for credentials, one of the veterans on the beat -- not Sal, by the way -- thought it was a grand idea. He told me, "Why should you be spared the boredom of watching practice?" Caught up to him after one of last week's sessions; when he saw me, he shook his head, chuckled, and said, "You really need to find something better to do with your free time." Not sure very many of them are thrilled about hanging out in Pittsford (or making the drive there) to watch camp fodder. Some just hide it better than Sal does ... A little background: not only is he the lone man on the beat (other than Leo's columns for home games), he also gets to join the Twitter revolution. Over 250 employer-mandated tweets since the beginning of June, most of them since camp opened, including a running commentary during the Bears game. (To compare, BuffNews normally has Gaughan, Wilson, a columnist, and at least one other guy in the box at the Ralph.) I saw him on three separate occasions at SJF, and every single time, he was headed to the workroom to take care of that -- not supposed to tweet from the sideline -- before writing his stories. Blog's way down that list.

Workout warrior -- our Viking hero set a bench-press record at the combine. Too bad that didn't translate to football skills. Believe he's now boxing in Europe ...

From the cutline of the accompanying photo: "Kyle Williams, who is 6-foot-1, 306 pounds, proves that size isn't everything in the NFL." That takes care of the current weight. And to be completely honest, I care more about how he plays than how much he benches. Unless we'd like to see Leif Larsen make a comeback? He wrote a 524-word feature, not an in-depth bio. Perhaps the story was slotted for 15", and no more?

From a friend's Facebook page:

Yeah, because player weights and ticket sales are comparable, even though one has to be reported to the league (for purposes of divvying up gate revenue) and the other doesn't. Thanks for wasting 10 seconds of my reading time with that response.

Thank you. That's EXACTLY who I was thinking of.

Actually, Lester stays because he's a master at breaking down game film. Or so I've been told.

Did you get to watch the Bears game? Could you hear the boos as Lindell trotted onto the field? I'm still swearing about it three days later. It's PRESEASON, for cryin' out loud. A shot at the end zone? Please? (Add: I should probably apologize to Tim G. here. Because it's easier to send an e-mail than post on TBD from the CrackBerry, he got the brunt of my displeasure with both that playcall and Langston Walker's performance. A quote from same: "After a nice drive, 3rd-and-long handoff into the line to set up the first Bills FG: Jauronball 101.")

No guarantee of that. Redskins were willing to do a deal with Orakpo (following a short holdout of his own) even though the pick ahead of him, Denver's Knowshon Moreno, didn't sign for another week.

Not on a cold (wind chill below freezing) and breezy November night at the Ralph, kicking toward the scoreboard. And as previously noted, Norwood's kick was 47, not 37 ... but on that night, Levy had no other options. Jauron did, but CHOSE to run the ball into the middle of the line on three consecutive plays.

No offense taken; I think we agree on your definition of "the media." I wouldn't write about Favre, and I doubt anyone reading our small-town paper gives a hoot what I think about him anyway ... That said, I think LaPlaca does have a point. Should Wilbon and Kornheiser be forbidden to talk about a certain subject because the ATH gang covered it in the preceding half-hour, or something's going to run on SportsCenter a few minutes after they're done? Now, does the *BREAKING NEWS* live coverage go over the top at times? I wouldn't dispute that ... but I also think it's merely a byproduct of a network with a 24-hour news cycle devoted entirely to covering sports. Chris's quote: "Television can only create interest so far -- it has to be there to begin with." Why do they hype up the NFL draft so much? Because previous years' ratings prove people are watching. Perhaps that level of interest isn't always a good thing -- see Britney Spears and the like atop the Google search ratings -- but their advertisers pay dearly for those ratings points. FoxSports' Mark Kriegel pointed out that guys like Tom Rinaldi are doing some great work for the WWL, but "they don't pay the bills. You have to pick your battles." He continued, "There's no great shame in giving people what they want. There are worse things than over-covering Favre, Kobe, etc., if it allows you to do stories like Rinaldi's."

For what it's worth, some of y'all can bash "the media" all you want -- but when the NFL's career passing yardage/TD leader, a three-time MVP with a Super Bowl ring, comes out of retirement to play for one of the Pack's division rivals, it's newsworthy. Chris LaPlaca (Bona grad, and ESPN's Sr. VP/Communications) brought up Favre during a recent discussion on how television networks view and cover sports. Someone asked why show after show seemed to cover the same topic, from NFL Live to Around the Horn to PTI to Sportscenter. His answer: we can't assume that people are going to sit there for two hours and watch every one of those shows back-to-back. Someone who watches NFL Live for the news factor may not enjoy the talking (yelling?) heads on ATH, and vice versa.

True only in the sense that if he's on the roster for Game 1, his eligibility will be delayed for a year. Not only is Favre an absolute first-ballot lock for Canton, he may well be a unanimous selection.

Likewise! 1 XL for me, please and thank you.

It gets better: at practice today, while the team was stretching, they chanted "Cable bumaye!" (Taken from the Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire. Bumaye apparently translates as "kill him." This per Jerry McDonald, who covers the team for the Bay Area News Group, a newspaper chain out there.)