Cotton Fitzsimmons

The other day YE OLE was listening to Joe Marino's podcast and this idea of extending current players came up. He stated that Poyer's market value would be around $10 mil per season at this juncture.

This poll reminds YE OLE of that snappy little parody chronicling the trials and tribulations of our beloved Sabres in 2007. It was set to Arthur’s Theme and went a little something like this *clears throat*: When you get caught between Dan Briere and Drury... the best that you can do... is sign them both!

As many of you gents have outlined... the mechanism for executing the review probably won’t affect game flow all that much if the league keeps with the current number of challenges. What will be an issue is the reason the league didn’t make judgment calls reviewable when replay was reinstated. How many times do we all look at a PI noncall in slow motion and all agree that a case can be made for and against throwing a flag? YE OLE understands the league wants to respond to the Robey-Coleman debacle, but there are going to be countless calls that could go either way for every call that is as blatant as that. The consistency in calling and reviewing these sorts of noncalls seemingly is going to be all over the place. Now some of you gents who are much wiser than YE OLE say that this system works well in the CFL so YE will take this into account and reserve judgment.

CaptnCoke... YE OLE proposes we leverage our good friend 7 and 7 by sending picks 225 and 228 to Tampa for Gerald McCoy. The way the pundits tell it... we simply cannot “roster” 10 draft picks anyway.

Doc Brown, my good friend... YE OLE felt that Ivory was pretty effective last year and definitely our best RB. This may be an unpopular opinion, but that’s just YE’s 2 cents. That said, the overriding sentiment that we can plug and play a decent RB from the draft in the near future is probably accurate.

Gugny, my good fellow... are we talking Bosa here?

Promo, my good friend, you are spot on per usual! YE OLE has spent many an afternoon yearning for NFL/Bills talk on the radio... only to find Mike Schopp waxing poetic about the virtues of Baby Ruth, or how Butterfinger is a "good value" in the middle rounds of this Candy Bar Draft nonsense. And I know... people will say "But YE OLE... if you don't like it, just tune it out" and quite frankly YE does tune it out on days that are devoted to ridiculous topics such as this. But, with the exception of a few podcasts that several of the folks here have recommended, there is a real demand for decent Bills talk that seems to go unsatisfied.

YE OLE does not want McBeane to sign Burfict... however YE would be willing to lay down a few shillings to see Burfict step into the ring with Jimmy “THE BIRDMAN” Smith:

One day Coach McDermott is going to step on that podium, hoist the Lombardi Trophy, look Jim Nantz square in the eye and say “Hey Jim... it’s all about THAT PROCESS!” FACT!

YE OLE would indeed shoot the **** with said buddies. YE would be like “What’s good gents? What’s good? Let’s have a cold one for posterity sake.”

Come on WITHOUT come on WITHIN... you’ve not seen nothing like THE MIGHTY TREY (FLOWERS)

Goff is throwing some real ducks out there, gents!

Antonio, my good fellow, you make excellent points. YE OLE was in the same boat with this pick on draft night and completely hated it. YE OLE had, in fact, convinced himself that Baker was the superior prospect and when he was off the board wanted Darnold or Rosen ahead of Allen. As as we stand here today... as good as Baker was this year, I’m not convinced he will ultimately be better than Allen. That’s not a knock on Baker... he’s going to be very good. He might even be great in the vein of a Drew Brees type of passer. The difference to me is that nobody doubted that Allen going in to this draft had physically superior tools in every way, but was simply not capable of playing and may even need 2 years just to sit and watch if he was even going to have a remote chance of success. I was fully expecting him to sail balls into the hospitality tent a la EJ and have no ability to fit the ball into tight windows. When he had to play so early I was excited to see him, but braces for complete disaster. I was completely wrong... he wasn’t completely overmatched by the level of competition and he can zip the ball into really tight windows. He’s probably going to always miss a few throws a game, but he can obviously make plays that very few, if any, other QBs in the league can make. If he puts it all together and begins to think and understand the game at a high level, I believe he will be better than Baker.

Excellent special teams all the way around today... top notch, gents!

What the hell is going on out there?!

This Jordan Phillips character has been a really nice addition as well. Murphy has been pretty good when healthy. As to the OP’s point... we heard a lot in the offseason about how Star wouldn’t be a huge presence on the stat sheet, but would make everyone better around him. That’s pretty much what we’ve seen. Star has been very effective in his role.

YE OLE will not argue that the QB situation has been badly mishandled. A veteran like Anderson should have been brought in sooner. And you probably won’t get much argument that Peterman should have been cut after week 1. But, specifically for this game, I don’t think much could have been done to avoid disaster. Any team in the league, when down to their 3rd QB is probably trotting out someone from their PS a la Alex “Trick Shot” Tanny or someone like Matt Barkley. Maybe you get lucky and catch lightning in a bottle like with this Mullen’s joker last night, but it’s not likely. As bad as Peterman has been at turning the ball over, there are some throws he can make. It’d be nice if they can get him faking some of those out routes and lob some shots over the top like the one he dropped into Zay for the TD.

YE OLE tends to agree with this assessment of young Nathaniel. He lacks arm strength and will never be able to consistently deliver on deep routes to the sidelines. That being said he has made some nice throws into tight windows and at some point if he continues to play he probably will have a good game. Could be Sunday... or he could throw a bunch of picks again. YE OLE doubts we will see a middle of the road game manager type game from him though. He will try to sling it all over whether he should or not.

It looks like the 2000 Browns scored 161 points that season. That’s the worst output for a season going back 20 years. We’re on pace for 174, but given the trend it’s hard to say we won’t have a solid crack at <160

YE OLE is with you on the Daboll front. This offense is worse than anything Dick Jauron could’ve put together. The offense isn’t loaded by any stretch of the imagination, but this system is making them worse. And there’s little doubt that if we get more talented playmakers we’ll render them ineffective as well with this nonsense. This defense is great... but no defense can withstand this. 35 points scored by this offense in the last 5 games! This is the 4th game we’ve scored 6 or less points this year... that’s almost an automatic 0-4 no matter how good your defense is. Daboll has had no success as an OC in this league and this looks like the second really bad hire McDermott has made on that side of the ball. As divided as we have been on Allen at times, there’s almost no chance he’ll have success with this system.

We could also sign COACH BUDDY STEPHENS to the staff. He can run up and down the sidelines yelling “THAT A BABY!” as Chad dominates play after play.

Josh Allen hurdles JJ Watt at the goal line for the game winning TD and Marv Albert makes his way to the booth and says “Josh Allen with THE FACIAL!”

As in John Butler? Cue Edith Baines Bunker voice: Those were the days... you knew who the Bills were then. Every year the wins were more than 10! The offense sure could use a man like Reed or Lofton again! Didn’t have no botched field goal fakes... the offense always pulled it’s weight. And gee old Thurman ran great... THOSE WERE THE DAYYYS!

It’s a very peculiar trend in that the team doesn’t always lose... sometimes McDermott’s team shows up out of nowhere and lays the wood like in Minnesota. Last year after getting ass paddled by the Jets, Saints, and Chargers in consecutive weeks, YE OLE was convinced they wouldn’t win another game all year. And they were losing in such magnificent fashion that you actually had to at least start to entertain the idea that McDermott might get canned after only a year. Then they went in to KC and won. Under McDermott, the wins at Atlanta, KC, and Minnesota are all as impressive as the blowouts have been ridiculous. It’s easy to say this is the worst team in the league and start piling on again, but I think the truth is they’re still a middle of the pack team that rarely plays that way. They either play way above or below that level on any given week. What will be concerning moving forward is if this roster is built out and gets significantly better, will they still have these wild swings under McDermott? 20+ games into his tenure here, it’s hard to say all of this is a fluke and not a trend at this point.

One time during the 2008 season YE OLE wrote a parody of “PINBALL WIZARD” entitled “FOOTBALL WIZARD.” It was a catchy little ditty about Trent Edwards. If memory serves... it went a little something like this: He stands like a statue, Becomes part of the machine Feeling all the pass rushers Always keeps his jersey clean He plays by intuition, The secondary falls That “TOUCHDOWN” TRENT EDWARDS Sure throws a mean football! Trent is a football wizard Belichick said “It’s got to be a twist” A football wizard S'got such a supple wrist