Mark Long Beach

Ooooooooh BABY! taking advantage of mistakes!

LOL "that offensive play was so bad that not even the defense was ready"

O didn't look so hot, but trent sure didn't have much of a chance there. got crunched both times he tried to throw.

poz sure looked a step or two out of place on that series.

I think his heart just hasn't been in it. Pro football is brutal on the body. He wanted to play for at most one more year, but he's demonstrated that he hasn't really wanted to play this year. It clearly hasn't been about the money since he could have collected a crapload for taking a physical back in March(?) and a lot more if he just mailed in this season. It's tough to retire from something you're good at and have devoted your life to. I think that if Houston has a rash of injuries at DE in the season he could be coaxed back to play for a few games... But that's just a total guess.

(copied from Buffalo Rumblings) John McClain of the Houston Chronicle is reporting that former Buffalo Bills defensive end Aaron Schobel has decided to retire. Twitter link: http://twitter.com/McClain_on_NFL/status/21327695498 But, But we should have TRADED him! Nevermind that he has a huge contract and stated many times that he would play for the Bills or retire. No GM (not even Matt Millen) would have traded for someone who was that likely to retire.

Disagree. He's absolutely NOT a lock. At some point you have to move on if you don't think the player will improve significantly. There is a new GM and a new coach neither of whom have any loyalty or responsibility towards Hardy. There's also been several reports about Hardy making the same mistakes over again and not learning well... If true that doesn't bode well for his future. Don't get me wrong, he's got a good shot to make it because we have a weak, young WR corps. But this is his third year from a previous regime and he is by no means a lock.

and if you were willing to wade through it, it was pretty good. Looooooooong, but good.

I think that they mentioned a couple days ago that he came in as #4 corner to be nickel back and Drayton stayed outside instead of moving into the nickel slot like he usually does. The implication being that DF is better on the outside than RC. Also interesting that they've felt that DF is better in the nickel than LM who comes in and goes outside pushing DF inside. I think Reggie is ahead of the two pretty decent corners behind him: Youboty & Lankster. It may be because of his better skills at the nickel position. Shrug.

Excellent post! I very much agree. Keep it up. I think that it's important to remember that we have a new set of player evaluators in charge. New people with a new philosophy. No more mediocre to poor free agency signings at an inflated salary (hopefully). I REALLY won't miss John Guy. The draft day decision makers are also different with Nix in charge. Finally the SCOUTS have the final say as to who the best draftee is. It looks like this regime drafts the best available player more than the previous ones appeared to. I hope that they're right! Also that some of our young guys step up and develop into quality players.

Only if he was on the roster at the start of the season.

Good article. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writ...ight/index.html Excerpt relating to olden days: Personally I agree that most training camp fights are harmless or can be even good. Tucker says essentially the same thing.

It's worth watching. A very well done documentary. And Olivier, glad that you got a chance to see it over there. We get a couple posts about it whenever they re-run it here. They pretty much all say good things about it! After the last wave of these I searched it out and watched it on utube or something and really enjoyed it. Good to hear from you!

I admit it's frustrating that there's a vocal chunk of posters that are so blinded with frustration that they lash out over any of the teams decisions that doesn't match their own expert opinion on how an NFL franchise should be run. But many of us are here for the information, (rational) discourse, and good perspectives by people who also care about my beloved Buffalo Bills. I won't psychoanalyze the foaming-at-the-mouthers here, but I understand that some of it is frustration over a long stretch of not-so-good teams. What I don't understand is the complete over the top loss of sense that they seem to show. Shrug. All I can say is to avoid those people for your own sake and enjoy the good parts about the board and the good posts about our Bills and the players and coaches who comprise the team.

Blah Blah Blah. Go away.

Yup. Being on the other side of the country means I'll never be able to make one of these. I can't tell you how much I enjoy your write-ups. They are very well done, and very much appreciated. Thank you.

Most retarded award show ever??? You clearly haven't watched many different award shows. Agonizing.

sure. But He may even be the best coach they ever had. He was up-front, honest, smart, organized and a host of other good qualities. He also wasn't good enough on the NFL level. Quite different things were being said about Nick Sabin.

Yeah, "don't confuse them with facts, they've got their mind made up". Funny thing is, my memory says we basically had the same post last year about how we were actually in the top quarter in player salaries for the previous year. But don't forget, Ralph is cheap...

Cheap = not spending money. It has nothing to do with HOW wisely you spend your money. You can complain about not spending money wisely, but as the facts show, he spends money and a lot of it therefore he is not cheap.

This one is from Whitner, but we've heard this refrain before. taken from: http://www.buffalobills.com/news/article-3...43-dcbed0b3d719 I thought that we did mix it up a bit more, but that's not Donte's memory. Probably a result of our coaches getting too conservative and predictable last year. No real surprise there. I guess that I'm just surprised to hear (again) that we would spend a fair bit of of precious practice time for something that we wouldn't use or use enough during the game. I think Dick Jauron is a good man, but not a good head coach. He was able to get us to play hard (which I liked) but not effectively (which I didn't).

An excellent comment. I don't often agree with you, as you tend to interpret the state of the Bills a little too pessimistically for my taste. But I agree that most writers currently have us being near the bottom. But recognize that this makes sense for writers to do. They're trying to predict the future and naturally they're going to rely on past performance or rely on selling hope via splashy changes (like free agency signings). Our past isn't exemplary but isn't as bad as they are generally stating, and our free agency wasn't splashy. But most importantly, IMO, we also ignored the "common wisdom" of what the media said we needed and didn't draft a QB or LT. So we're getting punished for ignoring their wisdom. So you can't put TOO much stock in what the talking heads say, especially when we've given them an easy reason to not like us.

present: Has Promise Future: Superbowl Contender

Nice work! It's tough to say what it really means, other than it's not so rare to be still in most of the games. Perhaps it does mean that Skins are close! Of course we ALSO changed our coaches and staff, our GM, our offensive and defensive schemes, etc! I think that it shows the margin for a "strong" winning season like 10 games and losing 10 games isn't that much for a lot of teams. Some of the difference is luck, but some of it is due to a fundamental flaw or set of flaws on the team that get exposed over the course of a grueling 60 minutes of football. Both us and the skins have plenty of flaws that got exposed just enough to let the other team win, but not necessarily walk away with the game.

I don't know anything about the guy. Maybe he's worth a looksee. But don't believe that he doesn't cost us anything. He does. We can only carry 80 players to find a final roster of 53, and we have a LOT of open positions. Since inevitably people get hurt in camp that's also a few less bodies that we will carry. I'd say the biggest reason to pick the guy up and give a look would be if the coaches were really disappointed in Levi Brown and had a high grade on RJ.