RJ (not THAT RJ)

Jeez, has this conversation gotten out of control! No one has said that anyone needs to kiss the Patriots' asses. This all started with a sensible comment that we can root for the Bills and dislike the opposition without having to start multiple threads attacking the Pats. It makes Bills fans look like classless whiners, just like those Pats fans who chant "Wide right" or other such nonsense have no class.

Bill, I respect your expertise, but I do wonder: are you saying that it is impossible that anyone will ever consider MW to be a good pick? If so, I would like to borrow your crystal ball to check next week's Lotto numbers....

Oh I do not deny them. In fact, I know that "just give it to 'em" and the Hail Mary were the same game.... The conversation is drifting from the good point that started this thread: It is fine to dislike the opposition, but there is no need to have countless threads on how the Pats cheat, or are gay, or whatever. It makes us look like whiners, not winners.

I might have to look that up... I certainly know we spent our time in High School questioning the manhood of guys from St. Joe's.... (A little something to stir up the old-timers out there...) But I had hoped that we would have outgrown that by now...

....which is another good reason not to emulate them.

I hate them so much that it sickens me to see otherwise sensible Bills fans lose themselves in idiotic discussions of Tom Brady's sexuality or carping about the officials. I hate every other team in the NFL, and every player who does not wear a Bills uniform. I root for the laundry, and do not waste my time attacking anyone else... That's why I do not understand the troll phenomenon, nor do I understand the TD-phobia that crops up, nor do I mourn the departure of players from the Bills. In the end, I am a Bills fan, and my love for the Bills overshadows any hatred I might feel for any other team. Saecula saeculorum.... Go Bills!

Whoa... no one is saying not to hate them on game day, and no one (I think) is saying that you have to talk about them at all except when it relates to the Bills. What I oppose is the idea that we have to clutter a Bills board with a lot of whining about the Patsies this and the Patsies that. We are Bills fans, we want the Bills to win, and we should have enough dignity to avoid excessive whining about the enemy. Nothing PC about that.

Amen! Fans on the board should drop the hate, and focus on their Bills! To do otherwise is to act like a troll in one's own board, don't you think?

Yeah, we cool. Seriously, I did not want to appear condescending, but was reacting to the often-condescending implications of the argument made by many on this board [and, to be honest, implied in the aggressive "Face it, folks…" title to the message that started this thread] that "realism" is automatically smarter than optimism. In the fantasyland that is sports, I think such assumptions do not hold. (Whether that assumption holds in the real world is another story...) I can be as gloomy as the next guy when it comes to a lot of things, but I look to sports for enjoyment, and felt that it was necessary for someone to make the case for optimism as intellectually justifiable. But hey, if the Bills win, we can all be happy, whether we agreed on our predictions or not. I hope that all of us will be happy at least 10 times this season. I can't see the future, and I do know there are potential weaknesses on the team, but I will hold to that hope for as long as I can. Go Bills!

Thanks... I'm glad somebody read it.

This is not an attack on you, BB, but in general I think the term "realist" is overrated on this board and in all sports discussions. I have made this argument before, but this thread has made me want to jump in again... Sports are the toy department of life, one of the least "real" things that any of us will ever have to deal with. We choose to follow sports because it brings us some sort of pleasure. That being the case, and given the reality that no one knows how things will turn out, why in the world would someone choose to take a bleak view of things. If things turn out badly, then you can be bleak with the rest of us. But if one would prefer to apply one's detailed "realistic" analytical skills to a problem, there are plenty of real problems in the world that do not involve 20-something millionaire glandular cases in funny costumes that should command our attention. To choose to be grim and gloomy in advance about something that has no actual bearing on one's real life is not realistic. In fact, it suggests a disconnect from reality. To go further, and to claim that it is a badge of honor to run around castigating people for failing to be gloomy for no reason as well, is even further detached from reality. Of course, as Bills fans, we are all intimately acquainted with disappointment and gloom. If we were "realists" we would have stopped this form of self-abuse a long time ago (in favor of more pleasurable forms of self-abuse, perhaps...). That we are here, again, breathless with anticipation about the new season ahead, is a wonderful example of "un-realism," and it pains me to think that people want to deny themselves that pleasure.... Go Bills!

Indeed... My Dad was a huge Lamonica fan, and spent most of the 60s and 70s hating Ralph Wilson for that trade.... Between that and the fact that he was a NYS employee and Democrat, you can imagine what he thought of Jack Kemp....

And it was a constant problem for Lou Saban. Man, if there had been TSW back then.... *shudder* It is a bad idea, though it has been tried (Dallas did it with Craig Morton and Roger Staubach fpr a while). The result is always a divided team.

I dislike FL teams as much as the next guy, but a little historical perspective is needed here. Between 1975 and 1980, every Bills home game was blacked out. The first time I ever saw Rich Stadium (as it was then) on TV was the Raiders game (4th of the season) in 1980. Even then home sellouts were rare until 1988. Bills fans might be a bit spoiled by the recent wave of sellouts... I for one would not want to make that the sole criteria for keeping a team.

Hey, I resent that! Oh, and could you pass the bread, my chains are too short to reach....

I know just what you mean about Moulds... and am pleased to know I am not the only one who remembers that incredibly unfair grounding call.. ugh...

Good point, though it was not quite the end of Kelly's career. Collins started the last game of 1995, against the Oilers. He played poorly, AVP came in the second half and threw 2 td passes, but the Bills lost 28-17. In 1996 he started for Kelly against the Cowboys and the Bills won a defensive struggle 10-7. Collins won another game in 96 against the Colts, and Kelly lost his first game back against Miami (the infamous Terrell Buckley interception TD game for those who remember), and generally looked immobile for much of the rest of the year, which is one reason why so many folks thought that it was OK for JK to retire after the 1996 season. Ah, hindsight... If my memory serves, the only QBs to win their first Bills start were Joe Ferguson (the 1973 opener, against the Pats, when OJ ran for 250 yards, and Fergy actually was pulled briefly in favor of Dennis Shaw); Frank Reich (the 1989 MNF game against the Rams) and Doug Flutie (the 1998 Jax game; he had come into the Indy game the previous week when RJ got injured). I will not count 1967, in which Tom Flores started the season opener, but Jack Kemp came in late to lead the rally that gave the Bills a 20-17 win over the Jets... Unless someone who goes further back in Bills history than I (or who has their copy of Relentless in front of them) can remember other examples of QBs winning their first start with the Bills. Of course, as much as the youngsters around here may forget it, for much of the Bills History between 1967 and 1980, the Bills didn't do much winning at all.... Go Bills! RJ

Jeez.. you guys won't let up, will ya? The TD Ego Mythologizing continues....

Thanks, Mr. Crusader! I think the "TD Ego" issue goes back to that (in)famous quote from an unnamed NFL GM that the McGahee pick was "arrogant." I am still trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean, though I think it was sour grapes from a GM who was hoping to snap McGahee up in a later round. The TD hate was then played up by our friends from New England, who felt the need to attack him as a way to work out their fear and loathing of Drew Bledsoe. Why they felt the need to attack TD or the Bills rather than simply celebrate their team's triumphs is a question I leave for their psychologists... I for one know that if the Bills won the super Bowl I would waste not a second on some other team's message boards, but that's just me.

Please please please stop with the "TD ego" thing. This is the second time someone has said it in this thread and the nth time people have said it here, and it has no basis in fact. TD had no problem cutting Drew when it served, nor did he resist firing GW when it was clear he did not work out. He has not shown any reluctance to cut other picks and signings when it served. I agree that Lindell must go, but to attribute this to TD's ego is old and tired and flat wrong. Go Bills!

Nicely put, Kelly.

WHAT??!???

They speak English in What?

*LOL* Same here.. That was my first season as a Bills fan. I actually saw Fergy's last full game that season, a 31-13 loss to Baltimore... then watched Marangi struggle... and struggle... The best thing, of course, is the realization that for much of 1974 and 1975, every time Fergy threw an INT the crowd would chant "We Want Marangi..." Be careful what you wish for....