justnzane

This is in part because there is no place for talent development. You keep a minor league around and that 10year vet will probably make less (due to a restructuring of the CBA next time around) but have a job. The reason there is an escalator like that was to promote new blood getting in and keeping less players from earning their pensions.

It is bad PR when you have former pro athletes being destroyed at 23 and destitute later in life. Thus it is bad business when these players sue as they have no life skills and are drain bamaged to boot. What you fail to recognize is that these minor leagues aren't really designed for making big $. This is why quite a few minor hockey and baseball teams are owned by the parent club. The ones that aren't are given a certain amount of $ to maintain sustainability. Any minor league is supposed to be about talent development and not much more. For the parent clubs, you expect to lose money in the short term, with the long term promise that you end up with players that will contribute in the future. Soccer teams have subsidized local youth teams and built their own youth academies so that they have players from 8-18 in the grasp and groom them for the system. The vast majority of these kids end up not turning pro and are able to get their education going. Many of the 18-21 year old players that aren't quite ready to play on the big stage play for a reserve squad or are sent to a lower level team to get first team experience. Thus, the soccer teams realize the value of a good youth program as they either use the players in the future or they sell them to other squads in a manor that one sale can pay for the entire youth program for a couple years. Translating this to football where many players are not ready for prime time, a minor league to groom these players allows for the team to not put a player in a position to fail as quickly. It allows for the NFL teams to keep more vets on the active roster in depth and ST roles, thus raising the quality of game late in season after starters go down with injuries. The reality is the investment pays long term dividends by producing higher quality. WRT to the idea of the NFLN not making $ on these games, you could put a D-team of announcers together and allow ads all over the place like AFL does. Then again, it is not about making big coin on this, and the network will still get people to watch moreso than a rerun of A Football Life.

Who is Louis Riddick and why should care about his opinion? You can say that about any other ESPN AFC East blogger outside of Tim Graham when he did it.

This is exactly it. Viantieri, Kurt Warner, Brian Finneran, Dante Hall, Fiedler, Kitna, Jermaine Lewis, Brad Johnson, David Akers, Brandon Ayenbadejo, Fred Jackson, etc.... all got their feet wet in NFLE. Many decent to legendary players in that list. The who notion of chewing up 21 year olds and spitting them out seems like bad business as the NFL is the only pro sports league without a true development plan of young talent in place.

Guys $44 million, to ruin and pussify the game we love? For those of you justifying it by comparing it to other CEO's, don't you find it obscene that they make this much money as well? To me, it seems excessive as he is running a company that doesn't pay taxes and demands that taxpayers fork out billions of dollars for new stadiums. Furthermore, he encourages people to keep coming to stadia where the rate of ticket prices has been inflating at a significantly higher rate than the cost of living. If you got word than any government employee got $44 million last year, you'd be ready to torch city hall, Albany, or DC. How is it not any different considering the amount of public funding that is financing his salary?

A team that isn't healthy loses games? That happens every year, hence the importance of depth on one team and not overdepending on one player. You can have one conference stacked and another that is weak where 7-9 or 6-10 makes the playoffs. That isn't top tier IMO. Just like the 8th seed in hockey is usually a team that doesn't belong. You think people were pissed when Seattle made it at 7-9 just wait until a wild card gets in with that or possibly 6-10. You will have people questioning why they are in the playoffs. In the last ten years, twice 7-9 teams would have made it if it was your way and 16 team playoff.

The NFL is being greedy. There is no need for an 18 game season or 7 playoff spots per conference. It is something that waters down the game that much more with higher injury rates and lesser quality teams making the playoffs. I agree the previous poster that it is not broken, don't fix it. Goodell is ruining the league IMO

This. Depending on if Byrd gets tagged or not, the only other hole on D is upgrading over Moats/Bradham. I'd rather us address LG or RT in FA if possible.

Yes, he and Daunte Culpepper each had freakishly small hands and were known to have come down with cases of fumblitis

#2 is what makes a decent coach in volleyball, and Belicheat a legend in football.

I contend that is a little more difficult you make it sound. That stat is saying that they lost 6 games by 9 or more and won 2 by the same margin. Thus, you are asking for an 18 point swing in our favor. The games that you are losing decsively now, you would want to be closer in, and the games where you are close, you want those to be decisive W's. By citing that the Broncos were good in close games makes sense as they also had a much better record than the Bills in decisive games aka the Broncos simply were a much better team.

Winslow Jr. Rickey Dudley at 9 in 96 Raiders Kyle Brady at 9 in 95 Jests (aka the pick the jests faithful were booing because they could have had Warren Sapp) Junion Miller at 7 in 80 Falcons Ken MacAfee at 7 in 78 49ers (drafted ahead of Ozzie Newsom and Todd Christensen, and only played for 2 seasons) Charle Young at 6 in 73 Iggles Paul Seymour at 7 in 73 Bills (at least he blocked for OJ that year) Riley Odoms at 5 in 72 Broncos Jerome Barkum at 9 in 72 Jests Ditka at 4 in 61

Matt Stevens Patriots, their first Brady year. Antowain Smith same year.

It would be entertaining. I think it would be wise to raise the height of the uprights another 10 feet as many times the ball is kicked higher than them and it comes down to a judgement call from the officials that is unreviewable. There have been a couple times where the ball goes directly over the upright and it would be more entertaining to watch it hit it instead, The hashmarks would be better wider which would open up the running game more and make it harder to pass as well. This also would make the game more difficult for the kicker.

Colin Cowturd is the ESPN equivalent to Glenn Beck. Stephen A Smiff is there to make people feel intelligent as well. If you want ESPN to return to sensibility, turn that crap off let them fire these idiots.

That is just it, it is greed. For no other purpose than to milk more $ out of the taxpayers, the fans, and the TV networks. It would do the NFL some justice to have their-tax exempt status revoked.

I for one, am opposed. I do see this as a watering down of the playoffs a bit. 38% of the teams make the playoffs now, 44% would make it in this proposed system. It also devalues the regular season games as it more forgiving for mediocre teams. This will increase the likelihood of 8-8 or losing record teams making the playoffs as well. Keep it as is, and continue to reward the #2 team with a bye.

To the OP, I'd argue that passer rating will be skewed against our favor naturally due to the weather conditions that the Bills play in. This also was a positive factor for the defense. However, I think that as a fanbase, we need to have a little patience as opposed to running guy after guy out of town. Ideally, I would have loved to have seen Losman take the job from Bledsoe by beating him out, same with Manuel over Fitz. These jobs should be earned by the QB's not given as a royalty. We gave each QB of the future major headaches by mishandling them by not letting them work things out, pulling them for a backup. Consequently ruining their confidence, and the team's confidence in QB of the future. The only exception is Trent where they rushed him back from a concussion and he got another one soon after. This cycle needs to stop for us to have any chance.

You can be a great QB and not known as a deep ball QB. Montana and any other West Coast O QB relied heavily short and intermediate slants, drags, and zone flood rollouts. Edwards was looking very capable in a wide and conservative system. However, he was gunshy after multiple concussions between the Arizona and San Diego games.

Ha, you are kidding right? They went 4-12 the year he was locked up. This was after years of being mediocre to good under Ron Mexico.

I disagree here. https://www.youtube....h?v=g1xJ9mViojI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxphsrETDCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zMehnSmpGE

Err... correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't Miami one win away from the playoffs? At this juncture, I can't call them a bad team, and in part because they have drafted good lineman is why they were respectable on the field.

Richter was guard for the SB run. Hull was center. Freddy deserves the honor, imo. As someone who has interviewed two of the Wall of Famers, including Booker Edgerson the week he was inducted, Freddy plays old school football that represents the team very well. The WOF is not all about on the field contributions, but behind the scenes as well. Unless Freddy plays until he is 40 (you never know with him), he will likely wait behind some other Bills greats.

That is cool that you guys found a niche. But the reality is with schools this size, it limits the options of what kids can do. I believe in keeping options open for kids at the high school level as much as possible, and trying to get as much participation as well.

While watching the game yesterday, my first impression was why wasn't the Dolphin player penalized as well for unnecessary roughness? Post-play driving a player back 8 yards and throwing him down should be a personal foul. The club by Woods was good, but he should have borrowed his cousin Tigers' 5 iron instead.