BuffOrange

I think your posts are just about always dead on, but WTF? In their primes I'd rank both Spikes & Cowart ahead of Paup. If you take away one season (1995) Paup was just a solid player on par with maybe Daryl Talley.

Hopefully my college/pro teams win more than a combined 6 games this year When does SU hoops start?

Smokin, I think the problem is that you're picturing 2 teams in a vacuum. Compare Illinois to Army for 10 seasons and yes - Illinois is likely to be the superior team more often than not. The problem is that you can't compare these teams in a vacuum because ND isn't in a conference. Ohio St. is in a conference and they will always play an "Illinois" who can't beat Navy. It won't be Illinois every year; it might be Indiana, Northwestern, or whoever. This is even more true about the Pac-10 and Big 12. Navy's chances against ND are no worse than Baylor's vs. Texas - and that's not an anomoly, it's typical. Not to mention, you don't see the Irish playing Division II intrastate "rivals" like Fla A&M or Southwest Texas St. Tech. Anyway, I've argued too much about something I don't care about.

This is pretty sound in theory but it just doesn't carry a ton of weight in practice IMO. These teams from the MAAC or whatever beat Big 10 type teams or "teams that played Duke tough twice" every March in basketball and when you look at the point spreads a lot of them aren't even considered upsets by the experts. That's not to say Army wouldn't lose to Ohio St. by 50 points, because they would. But when you compare apples to apples I don't think Illinois would've beaten Navy last year had they played on a neutral field. Perhaps I'm wrong about that, but Air Force did beat Washinton.

As you pointed out, every team has that many cupcakes and most have many more (Texas last year? LOL). The fact that all 3 teams are service acadamies is pretty arbitrary, don't ya think?

Good point. This is why Vegas is smart too. During the season, average fan looks at the previous 2 weeks and thinks "OMG how are the Bills favored over the Rams? Bet the mortgage" They don't take into account desparation, intangibles, homefield, Mike Martz on the road, etc. 2 points wasn't nearly enough as that game in 2004 was my lock of the season. Both Dallas-Philly games last year were good examples as well. Dallas destroyed Philly and Joe Gambler in Game 1. In Game 2 Joe Gambler lucked out when Roy Williams picked off a McNabb floater after Philly dominated the entire game. This part is a matter of perception and this is also where I disagree. You think people undervalue these things. I would say "Mularkey being gone" falls under your previously mentioned "inflating and overstating the positive" category. It is the third time in six years Bills fans on the internet have thought a coaching change meant 3 more automatic wins. We know how the previous two instances turned out. It sounds good to say Jauron's experience makes this instance different, but remember for every Bill Bellicheck there are about a half dozen Dave Wandsteadt's. You're right about #2 and hopefully the defense will return to '04 form. I agree, Willis needs to play harder. Keep in mind we had a top 5 defense and a bunch of guys on offense in 2003 and in 1997 and we lost 10 games each year. The offense as per usual will be the key to this team's success IMO.

Can't decide - DL, QB, OL - only the three most important positions.

I agree that each individual game is winnable. That's the case for almost any top 15 team as long as they don't have multiple brutal road games against top 5 teams. The point is though, it's going to require quite an unlikely parlay to run the table.

Yeah I've posted this many times over and I actually like Brown & Culpepper. Their winning streak last year was done against lesser competition than the '04 Bills in far less convincing fashion to boot. Based on a lot of the predictions I've seen I would say they're the most overrated team in the AFC and NE might actually be the most underrated. Still, they're just about impossible to beat at home in September so I'm not getting my hopes up for that game.

OMFG seriously? You JP fanboys are incredible - you make up like 90% of the board and yet manage to cry woe is me like you're in the minority, while at the same time blaming the other 10% of fans for JP's poor play last year. Just classic. As an echo of what Albany said, I was at the Chiefs game and the crowd was overwhelmingly pro-JP even before he tossed the first TD.

That sums it up pretty well. I mean, I was going to make a "tank the season so we can draft Quinn" post but this thread has shown me the light.

I agree but I've always liked Ramsey for some reason. I think Spurrier really hurt his confidence by getting him killed with the fun&gun and a change of scenery might be good for him.

I agree. The only thing I don't like is his analysis of individual games during the season. He's the ultimate 20/20 hindsight guy and it makes him sound like a 12 year old kid: "That trick play was a terrible call because it didn't work" or "going for it there was a great call because it worked". I think his general big picture articles are usually pretty close to dead-on though.

Wait you mean people are expressing opinions on a message board? WTF the nerve

Another similarity as that the Chargers OL was regarded as one of the worst in the league. The same could be said for the 2001 Pats. Of course for every one of those teams there are dozens of teams who were supposed to suck and indeed ended up sucking.

When I said "positions" I was referring to QB/OL/WR/RB/DL/LB/DB's, not individual players. While Schobel is above average the DL as a whole is not.

I've come to the conclusion that I like the current red & black but not the whites. I say just use the old home jerseys as the current away jerseys and keep the red & black for home games because the blue sweater with gold lettering is ugly....but I guess too late for that.

Yeah, it shouldn't be surprising - it's really depressing though. If he turns out like Cowart that's enough to make me vomit. I mean without him we're no better at average at any position save from CB and maybe RB when Willis feels like playing.

1 year isn't enough? WTF. Is there even a 30% chance he returns to his old self?

I agree. Slightly disappointed they didn't wear them once in the playoffs. Should've worn them for Game 4 vs. Carolina after they lost the previous two Game 4's in white & black.

That is a good show. I was watching last night about Marvin Haggler. I never realized Sugar Ray was such a little B word

I'm not positive but I think the Chiefs promoted their OL coach to OC. In any case it's not like Herm brought Paul Hacket with him. I've always liked them both in real life, so I may be a bit biased. But seriously, Leftwich & Ben?

Alexander - Plays 6 games against lousy defenses right in his division. OTOH, he just signed a fat contract and has no shot of duplicating last year, though he doesn't necessarily have to to be worthy of #1. LJ - In an awesome offense, don't see how he doesn't rack up yards & TD's with the best of them. Hasn't played a full season. LDT - In 2003 he was in a horrible offense and averaged a sick 5.2 or 5.3 yards per carry and caught 100 balls, so he should be fine without Brees. It's a tough call. I'd probably take LJ and make sure to grab the Chiefs backup (whoever he is). I think the difference is negligable enough so that I'd prefer the #3 pick though. #4 pick sucks.

Agreed, this would make me happy if I were a Colts/Jags fan; or even if I were a fan of a team in the East and just hated the Titans.

Miami entered that game 2-1 with wins over Denver & Carolina albeit at home, but they did not enter the game "playing horrible". Granted they played terrible that day with a plethora of turnovers & penalties, but if just one of our 1st half TD's had resulted in a FG instead we likely lose that game 17-16. I digress. Bottom line is people are overrating the impact of how the kid's progress was stalled by the coaches last year. Maybe you would feel more confident going into Foxboro September 10th if JP had started 3 more games last year; I doubt I would but that's me. I'm willing to write of this year and give JP a break if he plays poorly early. Assuming he is the guy for the whole year, can we at least agree that it is reasonable to expect and/or demand significant progress from him in November/December this year not withstanding any coaching decisions you disagreed with last year?