dave mcbride

Always liked him. A question: was the PI called against him in London (v Jax) the worst and most game-deciding call against the Bills since the late 1990s (Just give it to him plus Home Run forward lateral)?

I think Alpha is right and that a bad NFL team would utterly slaughter Bama or Clemson. What do so many top prospects in the league say in the midst of training camp? "Man, everyone here is good." Both Clemson and Alabama have weak spots on both sides of the ball that an NFL coaching staff -- which is far more prepared than any college staff going into a game -- will ruthlessly and repeatedly expose. Wallace was a starter all season in his senior year. He got better every year--which is kinda Alpha's point! He's a FAR better player now than he was at Bama. The coaching in the NFL is also far, far, far, far more rigorous than in college.

Depends on the sport and whether kids can play. A good friend of my son's (who is an elite baseball player) had offers from Duke, Vandy, and Stanford, but because the latter two had made offers to a ridiculous number of pitchers (not good for him), he chose Duke. In football, I'm sure Duke and Northwestern tell good players that their chances of playing are going to be higher at those places than Stanford. As for academic quality, they're all roughly the same.

Miles Jack disagrees with your assessment of last season. And I thought the reffing was perfectly fine in the SD game once you factor in that Gronkowski was held on nearly every passing play.

You think all those standford players are academic all stars? I am talking about admission requirements and which schools compete against which for talent. Stanford competes against Duke and Northwestern among big time D1 schools.

It's really not much different from Duke and Northwestern.

Another bearded bald guy!

I imagine many here will hate this, but it's hardly autotune pop. I think he's a weird choice for the SB (given that he's best known for acid rap), but then again Prince released some pretty crazy stuff over the years. It's not really my thing, but I have to confess that I think it's pretty good for the genre.

According to PFR, his best season was 2013 under Bill Sheridan (Schiano was coach). It was the only time he made all-pro and he had his highest AV that season. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/McCoGe99.htm I am in no way blaming McCoy for the entire Tampa D performance, but it is the case that his been really terrible during his career there: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/tam/.

My son actually attended this now infamous show at Terminal 5 in NYC. He said it was completely insane. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/arts/music/travis-scott-sued-concert-injury.html. I have to think that the NFL is aware of the rep of his concerts, but after all they had the Who perform a halftime show ...

? - He was banged up this year and struggled (although his stats were good), but last year Wentz would have been MVP if not for the injury. It's way too early to be passing these judgments.

that's a good point. There was blown call in that game (The Lewis fumble that was blown dead and which should have been a Miles Jack TD). Not sure it was him, though.

The Carolina game from 2013 - which Blakeman completely blew at the end by picking up a flag on a BLATANT end zone PI vs. Gronk - is driving this as well. I know we don't like the Pats here, but ... um ... https://www.businessinsider.com/ref-explains-patriots-panthers-call-2013-11 .

Agreed.

He is actually my son's favorite artist. He has seen him twice. It's not really my cup of tea, but he is good for his genre, albeit pretty experimental (and certainly more experimental than most super bowl halftime artists).

Meh. Williams's defenses are historically mediocre overall (and the numbers show this). If he has really good talent, they'll be ok, but if they have too many weak spots, they'll be shredded. At this point, he's about as average-generic a DC as the league has.

As a baseline, the opponent has to see you as a rival too. "Rivalry" conveys an antagonistic partnership, but a partnership nonetheless. No team in the NFL sees the Bills as a rival. Rather, they see the franchise as a longtime doormat and regard games against them as the ones they should probably win. When they lose to the Bills, such franchises are likely to regard it as a sign of their own weakness as a team. Cardinals-Cubs this ain't. Frankly, Wilson made a big mistake years ago when he held up the Miami rivalry as a reason to avoid joining a great lakes/rust belt division when realignment happened. No one in Miami cares about the Bills, and the franchise doesn't see Buffalo as a rival. They hate the Jets and Pats.

The Patriots have had only 8 losing seasons in the past 43 years, going back to 1976. The Bills have had 24. They were opposites in the 1989-1993 era, but otherwise the Pats have been a markedly more successful organization, at least since the beginning of the final quarter of the last century.

Calling the Jaguars a rival is an insult to the term "rival."

At this point, the Bills have no rivals as the term "rival" is currently used.

"Bear" is the first thing that pops up in my head.

Interesting:

That will definitely affect the game. One thing to bear in mind: NE's rushing stats (see my post above) and the following KC rush D rankings: 27th in yards given up on the ground 29th in rushing TDs given up 31st in rushing yards per attempt allowed Not good.

Just checked out the forecast: the high now is forecasted to be 13 and the low 5 on Sunday.