gobillsinytown

This is my worst nightmare. Not because he's going to make the Jets into a Super Bowl contender, but because all other AFC east stories will now be buried under the never-ending pile of Favre hype. As another poster mentioned, history is littered with egocentric older players who think they're bigger than the team. And this is in the NFL, where they can have the best of both worlds. You can be an individual star, yet still play what is to me the ultimate team sport. But it's still not enough for some of these guys. Joe Montana is the most recent example. In fact, his last game as a pro ended at the Ralph, with him sitting on the sidelines after getting knocked out of the game. I'm sure Bret's a nice guy, but he's delusional. He hasn't had any meaningful practice time at all, he's going to a new system, (even though it's a similar system, it's still new) and he's out of shape. It takes a lot of time for an offense to gel, and they don't have it. Good luck. And good luck hearing about any other team in the AFC East in the national media. Just wait until Madden gets behind the mic. Ugh.

I've been to the Ralph for about 40 games when I had season tix from 1988 to 1996. Consistently the loudest from start to finish, but I only have two other stadiums to compare it to, which were the old Browns stadium and the old Steelers stadium. The old Browns stadium was too open and it allowed the noise to disperse a little too much, even though they had 70 thousand plus. Except in the end zones, where it could get really loud. In Pittsburgh, the odd seating arrangements made for loud zones, but overall fairly quiet. I also thought the fans tended to lose focus as the game went on. Not at the Ralph!

How much does being an earwax-covered lawn gnome pay?

And he's definitely no Rae Carruth either.

When I had season tickets, I went to all the preseason games, with binoculars and a roster. Now, I watch the entire game if I'm lucky enough to get it. In a way, it's actually harder to watch regular season games, because in the regular season, something is on the line. With a preseason game, you can relax and focus on details. I have a tendency to get really worked up during the regular season games (goes back to having season tickets), and can't sit still in front of the TV. So preseason actually seems to be a little more fun because there's no stress. I know it's weird, but with a preseason game there's no emotional investment.

The CB position is one of the hardest to learn for a rookie. In college, there's a lot less emphasis on disguising coverages. In the NFL it's elevated to an art form. The other big leap is in film study. Corners have to do a lot of it to get any advantage they can. Another thing that a rookie corner has to learn is that he can't play sloppy or make up for mental mistakes with athletic ability. In college they can get away with it. In the NFL it's a touchdown. So I'm sure he's pretty overwhelmed right now. He probably won't really come into his own until next year.

A great discussion here! Lots of interesting point, counter-point. The only thing that I might chime in on is the "personal" aspect of it, meaning that I doubt that it's as "insulting" and "personal" as some might think. With the amount of money being potentially thrown around here, there's going to be a lot of posturing. Whether it's really "personal" in the fan's sense of the word? I doubt it. Jason is a professional athlete with a pretty good agent. He understands that this is ultimately a business and that he's only one play away from no longer being able to do this for a living. Jason's agent is trying to get as much money as possible for his player. That's his job. Brandon's job is to try to make a deal that's as reasonable as possible for his team. And while it's true that Ralph will more often than not come down on the "cheap" side, very few NFL owners have limitless amounts of money to throw around. Some history to back up my points: The now legendary negotiating tactics between Bill Polian and Jim Kelly and his agent. Bill is notoriously emotional, and goes to extremes to prove his point. But in the long run, Kelly got his money and Bill got the concessions he wanted. It worked out pretty well. More recently: Lance Briggs in Chicago. At one point, Lance was on record as saying he would never play for the Bears again. He's still there, he got his money, and the Bears got some of the conessions they wanted. I'm not saying this will automatically happen with Peters, but chances are that they'll work it out. GO BILLS

Plus, we'll probably get on the cover box of Madden 2010! And Madden would probably move to Buffalo to be near his boy. Sh*t, I'd bet the NFL would reschedule the Thanksgiving game so we'd be playing. Maybe even Mort would finally forgive us for firing Donahoe. All solid reasons to sign Favre NOW!!!

I hate this stuff. On the one hand, I don't think it's bad for Peters to hold out (at least for a short period), because the offensive playbook isn't going to be changing much for him this year. So there's no chance of a freak injury in practice. On the other hand, he's under contract and he should be in camp. Plus, the number of pro/anti Peters rants on this board will now explode.

Just goes to show what the letters that spell "P-a-r-c-e-l-l-s" will do to sports reporters. Just mention that name and they're automatically in contention.

Thank you. I'm sure Brett is a nice guy. I'm sure he's got a nice family. It's not him that is aggravating so much, but the obsessive, relentless coverage. Sports radio, TV, print and internet is now going to be saturated by hours of mind numbing speculation. Brett seems like someone who really loves what he does for a living, but I'm beyond sick of hearing about it. Just imagine what's going to happen as soon as Madden gets behind a mic. Hours and hours of mindless Brett Favre talk......I think I'll pass.

No no no no no no. Please please please not more of this! I guess it's time for ESPN to host a couple of special "Is Brett coming back?" shows.

Here's my elementary (and badly thought out) equation: Giants + Parcells in 1991 = Burning hatred Giants - Parcells in 2007 = respect +painful distant memory Patriots of 2007 = disgust + plus burning desire for karma to strike Patriots Superbowl loss = supreme vindication Giants - Parcells in 2007 + Patriots of 2007 + Giants + Parcells in 1991 - Pariots Superbowl loss = relatively satisfied Bills fan

I don't think we're going to really see what he can do until his second year. It usually takes a year of play for a rookie DB to really come into his own. Expect him to get torched a few times and learn from the process.

I live about an hour from Cleveland, so I get to hear about Winslow a lot. I think Browns' fans are resigned to having him on the team, since when he's motivated he's pretty good. But you are absolutely right.....the guy is an absolute pinhead. Whenever someone starts talking about football like it''s a "war" and that they're "soldiers", you can assume that they're just a little too full of themselves. Kellen Jr. pretty much kept his mouth shut last year, as long as they were winning. But most Brown's fans expect that to change, especially with Rosenhaus as his agent. That's a bad combination for any team.

I'm sure this was just one of a ton of proposals the Bills were swapping back and forth with other teams, but I'm glad it didn't happen. I just don't see any sense in paying first round money to a WR, since most of the time they won't be able to contribute until their second year. There was a lot of speculation in this year's draft that a lot of WR talent would be taken in the first round, but most teams stayed away from that. Detroit seems to be the only team that's consistently taken WR's in the first round and it hasn't exactly panned out for them.

That's interesting, because I clearly remember Mike and Mike engaging in some pretty juvenile Ralph bashing right after the CBA was voted on. In fact I emailed them on a couple of different occasions about it. I'm guessing lots of other Bills fans did too, because they mentioned the huge volume of emails they got from Bills fans. I see they're backtracking now. I agree that Clayton is the least offensive. The idiot that Bills' fans should be slamming is Mortensen, who clearly allows his personal friendship with Donahoe to affect his reporting. At one point last year, the guy was actually shilling for Donahoe on his blog. But Mort, why is it that Donahoe is still not only unemployed in the NFL, but in the broadcast booth?

I'm sure Kevin's immediate treatment was paid for, but the long term effects of his injury will still be expensive. He's made an amazing recovery, but there are still long term neurological issues that will need long term treatment.

You're right. This is not a typical injury case, so I think the team is going to out of its way to help him. Also, Ralph has been donating a lot of money to the foundation that funded the "body cooling" research, so he's going to have a personal connection there as well

I think they kept Kevin on the active roster for financial reasons.......not for the Bills, but because staying on the active roster would provide additional financial benefit to him. This is just a guess, others here probably have more knowledge, but I would guess he was still getting game checks every week by staying on the active roster.

This is also another key aspect to the Cover 2, or any effective defense. The old cliche 'it all starts up front' will always be true. If a D can bring consistent pressure with its front four, and stop the run with the front seven, then you'll have a very good defense. The Giants beat the Patriots in the Superbowl for this reason. They were able to bring consistent pressure on Brady with 4-5 rushers, almost every time he dropped back to pass. Everything else flows from there. As far as releasing Williams: I think one of Donahoe's roles was to get the salary structure of the team fixed. He did do that, but he got rid of the wrong guys.

That's not how the Giants won. They were getting pressure on Brady with 4-5 guys. I know that seems like splitting hairs, but there's a big difference. Rush 6 guys at Brady and he'll feast off the open seam all day.

One of the guys on ESPN radio said that in the AFC teams are passing almost 70 percent of the time now. That's not going to change anytime soon, so defenses are going to be in nickel packages an awful lot. I know some of the 'tards on the board think we should draft 3 DE's and 2 TE's each year, but we're not going to be competitive that way. Just ask Miami.

In the latter part of the day, I thought Mort was turning into quite the b*tch with Young. I liked it though. Seeing Mort all cranky is entertaining. I also liked the four layers of pancake makeup they have to put on him. Looks like Leona Helmsley.

...and Bret Favre.