Albany,n.y.

Sunday night in bed she'll be calling him 2019 retiree.

Peterman may get another shot at beating out A.J. McCarron. I still think the criticism of the Bills for sending AJ to the Raiders after he played himself off the team in preseason was always unjustified. The fact that Beane got a 5th rounder for a guy who was worse than Peterman was pretty impressive.

Tasker-made big plays in postseason including a blocked punt in the Super Bowl and a huge 57 yard kick return vs the Raiders in the AFC divisional playoff in Jan 1994. The 4 HOFers each had post season meltdowns: Kelly-too many INTS, Reed-penalty vs Washington in Super Bowl after he threw his helmet and being kept in check by the Giants, Thomas-lost helmet vs Washington & 2nd half fumble vs Dallas in Atlanta that changed the whole game, Bruce-sitting out Pittsburgh playoff game with the flu. I can't think of Tasker doing anything bad in the playoffs or Super Bowl.

I still remember when he returned from the USFL and got so disgruntled about having to rejoin the Bills that he took tape and put it on his locker to represent prison bars. One time at work I got really mad at my boss and copied Cribbs using correction tape. Only Petrino knew what I was doing.

I hope you didn't bet $500,000 on it, but if you did you may be ok after the fumble.

The decision is made in NY by the network, but the local stations can ask for a change. The Albany stations usually do if there is no Giants or Jets game available. I have no idea what goes on in Syracuse and why the station didn't appeal to Fox like our stations in Albany would have done. I'm sure all Sunday ticket bar owners would like fewer home games in Albany, but we'll end up seeing 9 games at home this year. The last 2 weeks won't be on locally, this week the Giants are on ch 6 and they're going to show Jets/NE (because of the Jets, not NE) the last week instead of Bills/Miami. Also, I don't believe the post that lists the Patriot fans cities since it doesn't include Hartford, Ct. Hartford and all of Connecticut is Patriots country, except the southern portion which is Giants country. The Patriots almost moved to Hartford in the 1990s and we're expected to believe there are more Patriots here fans in Giants country than Hartford and even more in Schenectady than Hartford. Insanity.

There aren't many openings for backups to get a starter's job next year. The most likely 2 QBs on the market who can get a starting job are Foles & Flacco. Other than those 2, I doubt any other backups will be able to get starting jobs. Let's look at teams looking for a new starter next year, there aren't many. Washington-If Smith is done and Jacksonville, That's about the only teams who will be looking to sign a new starter via free agency. Teams like the Giants will be looking to have a rookie who will sit in what will most likely be Eli's final season. They won't be signing another team's backup to replace Manning. The following teams have no interest in signing a new starter via free agency: Bills, Jets, Patriots, Dolphins, Ravens, Steelers, Browns, Texans, Colts, Titans, Chiefs, Raiders, Chargers, Cowboys, NYG, Eagles, Bears, Lions, Packers, Vikings, Falcons, Panthers, Saints, Cardinals, Rams, 49ers, Seahawks. That leaves only the following teams after Jacksonville & Washington: Cincinnati if they decide to try to improve on Dalton, Tampa Bay if they've had enough of Winston, however they're more likely to be drafting a QB than signing a FA, Arizona-if they go the route that Marrone went with EJ & give up on a 2nd year QB without giving him more time-this is a highly unlikely scenario. So, it will be very slim pickings for FAs looking for a starting job. Teams with older QBs like the Giants, Saints and even NE may go for a rookie to be a backup for a year or 2. They won't be in the Flacco/Foles market. Good news for the Bills is Barkley won't be getting a starting job anywhere.

If the Bills had Darnold rated higher than Allen, we'll never know. It's pretty obvious the Bills had Allen rated no worse than #2 on their QB board. From Beane's pre-draft talk, he was not interested in Mayfield due to his size & chose Allen over Rosen, so we know Rosen was behind Allen on the Bills board. The Jets guaranteed themselves no worse than their 3rd rated QB, while the Bills could have been left hanging if the Giants had taken a QB at 2 instead of Barkley. I thought the Jets outmaneuvered the Bills getting the jump on them by trading up to 3. The problem the Bills had was that Indy wanted Nelson & didn't want to drop to 12, so the Jets at 6 had a huge edge in any trade talks.

The 3rd Patriots game will be in Buffalo because the division winner gets the home playoff game, not the wild card team. I wonder if we'll be in contention for the Thanksgiving game in Dallas. If not that has MNF written all over it.

More proof that QB ratings, whether they are the traditional ones or QBRs are trash. You can't take QB play and reduce it to a number. There are so many factors that can only be accounted for by watching the game. Josh Allen's play translates a lot better on film than any QB rating system number.

Funny that you didn't mention Albany County, which has the largest population in the area. I've lived & worked here for 30 years. At work there were Bills fans, most with some WNY ties who either were transferred here by the state or went to college here & stayed. There were no Patriots fans in my building, although there were some Red Sox fans. Years ago, some of the people I worked with had Patriots seasons, none of them were Patriots fans. The 2 I knew were fans of Arizona & KC, not NE. We're a lot closer to the Meadowlands in time & around 35-40 miles closer in distance than Foxborough. I know a lot more people who go to and have seasons to the Giants & Jets than NE. There just aren't many eastern Mass transplants in the Albany area, while there are WNY transplants. Mass residents don't go to the colleges here in the numbers WNY kids do and none get transferred from a state job in Boston to a state job in Albany. We get around 10 Bills games a season on home TV, I have to go out to see the other 6 games. I see Bills fans at the satellite showings but no Patriots fans. If they're in the immediate Albany area, they certainly aren't making their presence shown.

I'm getting them from the priority of TV stations broadcasts. The Giants get priority over everyone and have Albany included in their area that is permitted to show all preseason games, then it's the Jets who will always be shown over the Bills unless it's late in the season & the Jets are hopelessly out of it & the Bills are in playoff contention. This happened last December, but it's very rare to get a Bills game over a Jets game these days. The Bills get 3rd priority right behind the Giants & Jets. The Bills preseason games were shown on ch 23 this year for the 1st time but we don't have a radio station. That could be because the games are always available on-line. The Patriots get shown only when the other 3 teams are not going head to head with them. They get some play because they play more 4:30 national games, but they are clearly 4th choice at best among the TV stations. They do have a radio station, which among the top 4, only the Bills don't have. The TV stations have a lot of advertising $ invested in these games. They study the market better than we fans do & would not be putting up games that they thought could be ratings duds. Their hierarchy is clearly a top 3 of Giants-Jets-Bills in that order. For the most part, the Patriots are an afterthought.

The advantage we have with Fox televising the game over other NY State cities is that the owners of Albany's Fox station also televise the Bills preseason games. I'm guessing the Bills preseason games aren't on the Fox station in Syracuse. Even though the Jets have a bigger fan base than the Bills, only the Giants & Bills had their preseason games on TV in Albany. Even with all their winning seasons and being a lot closer than Buffalo, NE is still a distant 4th in the market here, but they did con a radio station into carrying their games while the Bills haven't been on Albany radio in years. At one time the Bills were carried on Albany's strongest radio station that you can get pretty far along the east coast. As soon as we start winning again, Bills games will return to Albany radio. The ranking of fans in Albany is: 1) NYG 2) NYJ 3)Bills 4) NE 5)Whichever team is in vogue to jump on their bandwagon. The reason the Bills rank 3rd is even though we're influenced by NYC, because there is a combination of students & state employees who came here from WNY (and some of the students stayed) we'll always stay ahead of NE in the fanbase because there aren't a lot of New Englanders in Albany compared with WNY refugees.

Albany is Bills territory. Obviously Syracuse is not. The local stations know that on a week like this one where there is no competition from the Giants & Jets on the network the Bills are on, they better show the Bills or their switchboard will be bombarded by Bills fans. You just don't have that level of fandom in Syracuse, otherwise you'd have the game. It makes perfect sense that Albany gets the game to those who know Albany-you are not among the people who know anything about the fans in Albany.

Marty has Alzheimers. He can't coach anymore and may have been showing signs after his UFL stint:https://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/vahe-gregorian/article126264229.html

The only protest I remember came from Sam Wyche in Tampa. Christie signed as a plan B free agent. Back in those days teams would put their kickers & punters into the plan B pool in order to save roster spots of regular positional players. Christie signed with the Bills after he had promised Sam Wyche that he wouldn't be leaving Tampa. There was no Buffalo exemption in Christie's promise as was stated above-if that was the case Tampa would have protected Christie. Wyche was PO'd saying Christie lied to him. I'm close to 300 miles away, so I can't say for certain that there weren't protesters, but I used to read the Buffalo News every day (we used to get it in Albany in the days before papers were available on the internet) and there was nothing I read in the paper about pro Norwood protests. I'm calling BS on the 1,500 protesters. I do recall some wiseguy writing a letter that was published in the Sunday News sports section where he joked that Norwood was asked about his time in Buffalo & replied "I can't kick".

This offseason the Vikings were guilty of something the Bills, to a lesser extent, have been doing for years: Taking a mediocre QB drafted in one of the mid to late rounds and handing him the keys to the franchise & overpaying him. When Cousins became a free agent there were Bills & Jets fans who were each begging their team to bring him in. Fortunately for both teams management (or in the Jets case possibly the luck of him signing elsewhere) decided to do the right thing and bring in a highly touted rookie to build around. We've tried what Minnesota did, giving big money (albeit after an initial cheaper contract) to mediocre QBs like Taylor, Fitzpatrick as well as the ridiculous Rob Johnson trade & big $ signing as well as taking the option on Bledsoe when they could have dumped him sooner rather than later and it cost them big dead cap $. Minnesota dumped all their QBs from last year to bring Cousins in. They might have been better off just re-signing Bridgewater to a similar deal that the Jets gave him prior to his trade to NO and/or paying less for Keenum to return with a deal similar to his Denver contract.

I'm listening to Bucky & Sully on 1270 via the internet and Maiorana is about to join them on the air & has a regular Tuesday spot with them.

To put things in perspective look at Jack Kemp's stats during the Bills 2 championship years of 1964 & 1965: He passed for around 45%, had an average around 2,300 yards & threw almost twice as many picks as TDs. The game and QB stats was very different back then & a QB could win championships with low completion percentages and a TD/INT ratio that had more INTS than TDs. For his time & what he meant to the NFL, Namath is a HOFer.

What many people seem to misunderstand is there is a huge difference between a fan rooting for losses and a team trying to lose. We as fans can root for losses and better draft choices because it is not our jobs to try to win every game. It is the team members and management who need to try to win every game. If a fan wants a higher draft choice instead of a meaningless win, that's the fan's right to do so. If a team tanks, they are disrespecting the game. Nobody who is rooting for a lose out wants the team to go in the tank. If you can't tell the difference you are blurring the line between player and fan. I know I'm not on the team and I have no direct connection whether the team wins or loses. I can root as hard as I want for a win or loss and it means nothing to the actual result.

If the Pats playoff position is locked in, they tank the last game by resting the starters & screw the Jets draft. Win-Win for NE. Half these guys won't even be on the team. There were players on the Super Bowl teams who hated losing because they lost so many games in the mid 1980s. This building a culture of winning by winning games when you still finish under .500 is BS.

They'll be picking around 15th, no reason to trade down-take the best OL, WR or TE. The OP still is thinking we'll be drafting in the top 10-look at the schedule-we won't. I'm almost never in favor of trading down other than getting 1st or high 2nd rounders. You trade a known commodity for an unknown. Fortunately, Beane understands that trading up gives the team an advantage of taking a player the scouts have as worth it who you wouldn't otherwise get if you stand pat.

Sammy Watkins over Khalil Mack was also Whaley's choice. The fact that only John Miller & Shaq Lawson remain from the Whaley drafts has shown Whaley is not GM material. Bengals shooting to be #1: In the 2020 NFL Draft.

It was only a very cold day to a Floridian? It was warm enough that when there was a mist it was rain & not snow or freezing rain. I've been to a lot colder games.

At the game. I still have the program & ticket stub