Albany,n.y.

Does anyone know? The story on the front page said Bell missed practice, but didn't say who took his place.

If Andrew Luck plays like a #1 pick & comes out of Stanford they have to take him. Unless you're a total screw up you should only get the #1 pick once in a generation. If a franchise QB is available you have to take him because at #1 you have to be thinking of drafting a player who will be the face of the franchise for the next decade, not just looking to solve a temporary problem. Next year, odds are the team is still drafting in the top 10, so you can get your impact D player then. Ex-Bill Martin Mayhew did it right. He went QB when he had the #1 pick & picked up Suh the next year. Rebuilding is not a 1 year project to attain mediocrity. Fitzpatrick is ok at QB-a great team needs great at QB, not ok. You have to go for it all if the right QB is there. On the other hand, if Luck stays in & no other QB is worthy of the top pick, then you can try to get the next Bruce Smith at #1. The key is you can't draft by position without knowing what players are out there & only after all the scrutiny which hasn't taken place yet. If the franchise QB is there, like P. Manning or Aikman, you have to take him. But, you don't elevate Locker or Mallet to #1 just because you need a QB & you're picking #1, unless one plays like a special player in his final season. So far neither one has done so & would be a risky pick at #1.

You can always make a case for a 2 win team to have won about half their games. I tried to show that after the NE game using the back to back 2-14 seasons of 1984 & 1985 but most who responded didn't get it. We're a bad team-bad teams are competitive in at least half their games but only win a couple of those games out of 16.

It probably has something to do with the proximity to New York City. I can go to professional sports pretty easily from here. Yankees, Mets, Knicks, Nets (before the Newark move), Jets, Giants, and 3 hockey teams. (I can even go to Boston for more if NYC isn't enough) The closer you get to NYC, the more professional sports trumps college sports. I grew up in the NY metro area & I don't think I ever watched a college game in high school. I had too many pro teams around to care about college sports. There is no major college football team around NYC. Rutgers & Hofstra are about the only ones I can even think of, hardly big time programs. The Ivy league schools don't draw a lot of attention from a casual fan.

What a message to Maybin. He has his friends & family at the game & Gailey lets him know he's not good enough to even put his uniform on in front of them. Why even carry him on the roster any longer?

I don't have a clue about Syracuse's following. I know one guy who is a big Syracuse fan, but that's it. The next 2 weeks, CBS has the doubleheader today & NE will be the 4:15 game, next week NE is on Fox at 4:15. For whatever reason, probably because the state via SUNY & state employers has transplanted more people from WNY, the Bills are a lot more popular here than the Patriots. Ch 6 slants their programming more to the Albany area than Western Mass. The Bills, Jets, & of course, Giants are on the radio here. It's been about 20 years since the Patriot games have been on the radio here. If there were enough Patriot fans, the Patriots would be on. There aren't & they're not. The last time the Bills played NE, the Giants were on CBS & Albany didn't have the game. So far this season, I haven't had to go to a bar yet because I went to the NE game & all other road games have been on home TV through the KC game next week.

No. Especially considering the Jets fans will be watching the Jets on Fox the same time the Bills are playing. The Jets have top priority & the Bills 2nd priority in this market. When there isn't a conflict with the Jets, we usually get the Bills. I already looked at the extended listings on WRGB's website so I know what they're showing through next week's games.

The Raiders tried to do both in 2007, drafting a 300 pound QB. It doesn't work.

I picked us to go 3-13 at the beginning of the season & even that looks unattainable.

Why do some people assume we have better coaching? There's no evidence that Gailey & his staff are better than what we had. Think about this-If Fewell had stayed instead of Gailey replacing him do you really think Trent Edwards would have had any chance of starting the 1st 2 games? Fewell was a big Fitzpatrick guy. When all is said & done, Fewell & his staff will be looking pretty darn good. Also, Jauron wasn't nearly as bad as some of you think. Gailey has done nothing since his arrival to make me believe he can get more victories out of the same players as either Jauron or Fewell. With the exception of OC, last year's staff was better.

It looks like Albany has the next 2 Bills games. After that it will be tougher to get Bills games in Albany. Here's how the November & beyond schedule looks for Albany tv: Nov 7th-No way, Jets are at Detroit the same time. Nov 14th-Decent chance. Game would be on Fox & they have the doubleheader. The only game they could put on instead is Minnesota @ Chicago. Nov 21st-No way, Houston is @ Jets. Nov 28th-No way, Jacksonville is @ Giants. Dec 5th-Decent chance, unless the Bills are so bad Ch 6 wants to show the 4:05 Oak @ SD game to avoid direct competition with the Giants. Have to hope the favre hype puts us over the top. Dec 12th-? NE is @ Chicago the same time & the Bills/Cleveland game may only be showed in Cleveland. Dec 19th-Looks good, all competition is from other geographic area. Still have to overcome the network's urge to show Peyton Manning instead of the Bills @ Miami. Dec 26th-No way, Jets @ Chicago same time-only hope is if the game gets flexed (The Jets, not the Bills silly) Jan 2nd-Definite, @ Jets.

Maybin is going to be doing that. I expect to see a play where Heap catches a ball around the 5 yard line drags Maybin into the end zone & right after they cross the goal line, Maybin tackles him, then does a celebration dance & becomes the 1st defensive player ever to get called for excessive celebration in the endzone when the offense just scored a TD.

Trent Edwards was a 3rd rounder. Now we know why they are so happy to have him in Jacksonville. One man's trash is another man's treasure, until you find out why he was the other guy's trash. We're collecting a roster of other teams' trash.

Root for Carolina, Cleveland, SF (not this week because they're playing Carolina) and any other team that by losing would cost us the #1 pick. Also, root like crazy for the Raiders because New England has their top pick.

Really bad teams also lose close games to good teams. You never know how a game will play out, just that the bad team will find a way to lose sooner or later. If it's sooner, it's a blowout, if it's later the game appears to be close.

I see you're in Massapequa. Is LI safe from the bedbugs or are they out there too?

Somewhere on a 49ers board, someone is posting something like this: Do you believe that we traded up to get Anthony Davis? Look at what the Buffalo Bills did. They picked up a guy, Cordaro Howard, as an undrafted free agent. Take a look at the Bills depth chart today - Howard is their starting right tackle!!!! Grass is always greener...

Who runs Bleacher Report-a bunch of Browns fans? There's still enough time for Lee Evans to be a piece of the puzzle on a good Bills team 2-3 years from now. There's no way that fat slug Rogers would be a Bill by the time the team got good. Trade Lee for an injured, out of shape slug- No Thanks!

Levitre has been helping him, pretty soon Wood will be there too.

Anyone who thinks the Panthers will pass on a 1st round QB because they drafted Claussen in 2010 are sadly mistaken. They must start winning some games with Moore so that they are behind us in the draft. Go Panthers!

We've all seen him play. You just keep making BS excuses because YOU haven't seen him play enough to satisfy YOU. Meanwhile all the NFL Coaches & GM's who know tons more than you & I after reviewing all data when a guy hits the waiver wire agreed he's a bust. Soon enough, you'll learn what I already know-the NFL talent evaluation is sophisticated enough that when a high profile player busts, it is evident to everyone in the league. For some reason there are people who have such an overinflated idea of their own ability to scout players they refuse to believe the professionals have a degree of competence that they can actually cut players & make proper decisions on players that never get to play in an NFL game. Instead, they think they MUST see him play against NFL starters to actually trust the competence of the professionals, when just about every time the professionals are correct. I know the people in the NFL know a lot more about player evaluation, have files and tapes on all the high profile cuts & are making an informed decision that I cannot possibly make. Some people just ignore the facts and live in a dream world that they know more than the guys who are employed by the NFL.

If you think Mike Williams was a bad pick, do you remember who we would have taken if he hadn't been drafted 1 pick earlier by Detroit? Joey Harrington. We were in a total lose-lose situation with the draft board put together that year.

Bad teams are always going to have a number of close games that the fans will point to for optimism. However, the bottom line is the bad team will lose those close games most of the time because they are a bad team. Even the back to back 2-14 teams of the mid-80s could have been 8-8 with 2 or 3 extra stops per game. They were 2-14 because they lacked the talent to get those 2-3 stops, same as this bad team.

That's only because you think the team will still suck a year from now & you won't want Ralph there.

The curse of lousy drafts.