Albany,n.y.

Frank Reich could use the top talent around him to win, but couldn't carry a team like Eli Manning can do in the final moments. Eli Manning does it week after week, Reich never had the opportunity, but was a great backup, just like Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick's W-L record speaks for itself. He's the best QB on a 2-10 team. At the beginning of the season I was defending Fitzpatrick because he was never as bad as a lot of people thought he was. Now I find myself trying to explain why he isn't as good as some people now think he is. He's always been somewhere in the middle of the 2 extremes. The fact he was the main QB in 5 of the 6 wins last year shows he isn't the bum some people made him out to be. At the same time, he doesn't elevate a team to the next level, as evidenced by the fact the Bills have only won 2 games this year and he continues to make critical errors at key points of games, week after week. Fitzpatrick can be here for another decade, but he cannot be the starter for the next decade if the Bills want to win a Super Bowl. There's no such thing as a perfect QB. All QBs take heat from their fans. All one has to do is think back to how many times Bills' fans got on Jim Kelly's case. Some wanted to bench him in favor of Frank Reich. Because Albany is Giants country, I hear more & see more about Manning than any non-Bills player. I know the Giants fans who think he sucks. I also hear the comments on sports talk as to why the Giants management feels he's so valuable. Fitzpatrick is not in Eli's league and never will be. That doesn't make Fitzpatrick a bum.

You're a moron. I've been to more Bills games in person than you could dream of. Just STFU you idiot.

If you watched Eli Manning, you wouldn't be saying that. The big difference between Eli Manning & Ryan Fitzpatrick is their ability to dig deep when the game is on the line. Eli Manning is clutch, when it's on his shoulders to get the team the win, he delivers game after game. That's why the Giants pay him the mega-bucks. Fitzpatrick is no Eli Manning. When has Fitzpatrick carried a team on his shoulders for a game winning drive? Eli Manning has come through in the most important game there is. If they were both free agents, Manning's contract offers would dwarf Fitzpatrick's, and rightfully so. This is almost as ridiculous as the posts years ago saying JP Losman was better than Eli Manning. Eli Manning has consistently won games from his second season in the league. Ryan Fitzpatrick reminds me a lot more of Frank Reich than Eli Manning.

It's not about the team tanking games. This team won't tank the games. The debate is about the fan's right to root for winning 1 game each week versus the FAN rooting for what he feels is better for the long term. That's what has fans divided. I don't think you will find 1 FAN who doesn't wear a tinfoil hat who will want this TEAM to tank a game. On the other hand there are many of us who look at the big picture who don't mind seeing a group that needs an infusion of better talent lose naturally. Fans who quote Herm Edwards saying "You play to win the game" are truly bluring the line between a player and a fan. I don't PLAY at all. I pay my money & root for the team until the season becomes meaningless, then I root for whatever is best for the long term interests of the team. Not only have I rooted to lose the final game of the season to move up in the draft, but I have also rooted against the team when I wanted an incompetent coach fired. Never have I advocated the players or coaches doing that, but once I pay my money to go to the game, I have the freedom to root for whatever outcome I decide I want to root for. Now let's examine the mindset of winning every game, as Herman Edwards stated he believes, versus the attitude that you don't have to win meaningless games. In my opinion there's no difference between a game that is meaningless because you've clinched your playoff spot and a game you are playing after you've clinched last place. They're both meaningless. HOF coach Marv Levy didn't play to win every game. Take a look at those season finales where Marv thought it was more important to keep his players fresh & healthy than win a meaningless game. Future HOF coach Bill Belichick does the same thing once the Patriots have locked up their seeding in the playoffs. Last season Jim Caldwell chose resting his players over winning a meaningless game against the Bills & made it to the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Herm Edwards with his philosophy, is working for ESPN instead of coaching in the NFL because his teams may have played to win the game, but didn't win often enough for him to keep his coaching job. Then there are the fans who say you have to win meaningless games to change the culture of losing. To them I say just look at the handful of players who survived the 2-14 seasons with the Bills. Guys like Darryl Talley had no problem going from losers to winners. Players on the 1985 2-14 team included Talley, Bruce Smith, Andre Reed, Jim Ritcher, and Frank Reich. Did it destroy their ability to play as winners, did they not all learn to hate to lose? No. What turned around the culture of losing was an infusion of better talent like HOFers Jim Kelly & Thurman Thomas. Once the team got more talent, everyone hated losing, yet they still could realize the difference between a meaningful & meaningless game and didn't demand to Marv to play in meaningless games at the end of the regular season.

That's what the players do. To turn an often quoted phrase by Trent Edwards around: I'm not a Bills' player, I'm a Bills' fan. As such, I do not delude myself into thinking I have to approach every game with a player's mindset. Just as Trent Edwards tried to tell the fans that he did not have to take their mindset into a game, the same is true for us who are able, because we are fans & not players, to look at a bigger picture. The players have to try to get to 4-12. As a fan, to me, there is no difference between 4-12 and 2-14. It means the team is far away from being a contender until we get better players than the ones who are currently playing to win the game and continuously failing week after week in achieving that goal. The players play to win the game one week at a time. The fans who were here before these players arrived (and in cases like mine, before they were born) want to see championships and are not satisfied with a game that gets the team closer to a 4 win season. It's not as simple as you make it out to be. Any fan, who is delusional enough not to see that he is not a player, and therefore can use his own judgement as to when to root for what's best for the team, has no right to tell other fans they're not fans because they'd rather win 12 games 3 seasons from now instead of 12 games over the next 3 seasons. Ask the real Indianapolis fans if they would have been happier WATCHING (since they weren't playing in those games) the Colts win a few more games in 1998, or having Peyton Manning these past 13 seasons.

The fact that we're in a total rebuild means just the opposite of your statement. If we were a player away from being a contender, your statement would be more valid. Since we're a lot of players away, if Buddy decides he's a franchise QB, this may be the best time to get one. I'd rather see us draft a QB who will sit at least part of next year & be our leader in the Super Bowl in 3 years, than get a LB, DE or RT who starts on opening day 2011, and still be a QB away from anything in 2013.

The Thruway is $25.70 or $24.42 with EZ Pass for the round trip from Exit 23 to the Depew toll booths. Gas is in the mid $80s or less depending on MPG Save $10 on parking by walking half a mile. Don't eat as much. Don't stay overnight Bet correctly & you can afford a laptop and pay for the rest of your Christmas presents. If you went to last year's game, have bragging rights for life that you were at the 2 worst games ever played in the NFL-PRICELESS!

Unless procedures have radically changed in the 28 years since I had my appendix removed, how can Cassel play on Sunday? http://www.profootballweekly.com/2010/12/08/chiefs-qb-cassel-undergoes-appendectomy

Because the people who live here don't always check the TV listings and may want the information. Not everyone on this board lives in Rochester.

You think that's bad, just look at what NY State has done to some gamblers on their taxes. Any NYS resident who ends up gambling online can end up like these people: http://www.nysdta.org/Determinations/822130.det.htm http://www.nysdta.org/Determinations/821982.det.htm

I have season tickets to the Bills & go to every game. In fact I had a streak from mid 1990-mid 2007 where I never a regular season home game, playoff home game or any of the 4 Super Bowls. I'm not any type of Giants or Jets fan. I'm not originally from Albany, I'm from LI & went to college at Fredonia & lived in WNY a few years after I graduated. There's snow on the grass in my yard right now-we got an inch in Delmar yesterday.

The forecast is for a combination of rain, sleet & snow. That's not lots of snow. Lots of snow is what parts of the Buffalo area got last week.

It has always been the Giants' market. Since the Giants started training in Albany, Albany also gets all preseason Giants games on local TV. Here's the story on the Jets. 2 years ago CBS channel 6 chose to take the Jets as their primary team. This included showing Jets exhibition games, which before that weren't shown around here. This past preseason, the Jets games weren't shown like 2009, I don't know why. A few years ago when CBS 1st got the AFC from NBC they were doing the same thing our local NBC station was doing & having us vote for the Bills or Jets. We won a good percentage of the time because we had a better organized voting bloc than the Jets did. When the Jets got good & the Bills continued to miss the playoffs, CBS Albany went Jets 1st. Back in the NBC days when we were Super Bowl contenders every year, we won a lot of those voting contests. It also didn't hurt that one of the guys who was making the programming decisions at NBC's channel 13 was originally from Buffalo & was a Fredonia grad.

The Bills have a radio station here & have been shown on tv 7 or 8 times out of the 12 games they've played. That's why Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati doesn't make a lot of sense. I could have understood New England @ Chicago over the Bills, but showing Pittsburgh kick Cincinnati's @ss is ridiculous. As recently as last year or 2008 the Bills weren't being shown one week when the Jets weren't on & there was such a protest that they changed their schedule & showed the Bills. I guess those of us who still want to see the game are either attending it or just resigned to it not being on home TV. Or, after watching last year's Browns/Bills game, nobody wants to watch anything involving those 2 teams ever again.

I'm going to the game, so for me it doesn't matter, but how bad is the Browns @ Bills game being thought of by the CBS network guys & the local Albany station that Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati is being shown here in Albany? I can't imagine why anyone in programming would choose showing any game the Bengals are involved in over the Bills in Albany. Originally they were planning on showing NE @ Chicago but the NFL moved the game to 4:15 so now Albany gets screwed twice because instead of showing the NE game, Albany now gets Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati at 1 & the Miami @ Jets at 4:15. The good news is it's not too late for everyone in Albany to buy tickets & watch the Bills try to avenge last season's 6-3 loss.

This has to be one of the worst ideas ever posted. You don't just pick any QB. All you have to do is see what Donahoe did in 2004. He tried desperately to trade up for Roethlisberger and failed. So using your theory, he decided that he could pick another QB in the 1st round and ended up with JP Losman. That's the same JP Losman who is thrilled to be Seattle's 3rd string QB. Locker a great QB worth a top 5 pick?

If we wanted a TE from the Buffalo area, we should have drafted Gronkowski before NE did.

I wrote this back in April. Since I don't think there's any chance we'll catch Carolina, I have mixed emotions. But I was pretty accurate in my assessment of our team approaching next Sunday: http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/111851-next-december-12th/page__p__1827396__fromsearch__1#entry1827396 Posted 20 April 2010 - 06:39 PM On Thursday we will be drafting our 1st round pick. By the time we pick, the best players at our biggest positions of need, LT, QB & NT will be off the board. We'll have to settle for a 1st round talent who is not likely to be the impact player we need. Now, lets remember those meaningless games that we won late in the season-for all those who felt so good when we won them, now enjoy watching the best players go off the board by pick nine. My point is that this team sucks & when you suck it's better to lose those games in November & December if you have any hope of getting the type of player that can finally end the years of losing. Do you think we get all of those 4 AFC championships without Bruce Smith? Now let's fast forward to next December. Odds are pretty good we're not going to be in the playoff hunt. In fact odds are pretty good we'll be in position for a top 5 pick in the draft. When the home game against the Browns on December 12th is here, try to remember that empty feeling we're having this Thursday as Okung, Bradford, Suh, and the guys rated 2nd best at LT & DL go flying off the board long before pick 9. Now some of you will be rooting hard for win #3, 4 or 5 of the season, but please, don't get on the cases of the people like me who will be remembering this Thursday & would rather not experience the "good feeling" of seeing the Bills win their 4th game at the expense of losing out on a player who could be instrumental in turning this franchise around for the next decade.

Is that a knock on Fitzpatrick?

See what happens when the NFL blacks out games

He was better after he left the Bills, signing with SD as a plan B free agent. He became one of the leagues most feared receiving RBs with SD. Here's his career stats: http://www.nfl.com/players/ronnieharmon/profile?id=HAR215150

I was in the other endzone. As soon as the ball hit his hands I lowered my binoculars & jumped up cheering. Then I went to high five the fans around me and the guy sitting behind me told me he dropped the ball. I couldn't believe it, I saw the ball go in his hands & I thought the game was over.

I think he's just yanking the chains of the members of the grammar & spelling police. What's your badge number?

They were originally the Los Angeles Chargers.

The schedule looks as tough, if not tougher than this year. We have the NFC East and an improving AFC West as the variable divisions we play. 9-7 may be a dream.