Albany,n.y.

The Bills just cut a former NFLE MVP. Just goes to show all the JP lovers how meaningless some minor league stats are, and JP isn't even the best QB in a 4 team league. I've seen all his games except the game in NY after the Yankees game 6 came on. Same old JP, weaker competition. I'm sure JP also looks good when he plays sandlot ball with a bunch of kids from the block.

He's playing against minor league competition. That's not making strides, its called a drop in class in horse racing. He still makes too many mistakes, and holds onto the ball too long, which causes too many sacks. Last week after a play that JP got sacked, McGuire was practically yelling at him on the air for taking a stupid sack by not getting rid of the ball. Do you know what the UFL announcers have been commending JP for once in a while? -When he checks down-something Edwards has already mastered. The only reason that JP has the ability to get better is because he's so bad. That doesn't ever mean he actually will get better, just that there is so much room for improvement. I've seen him playing all year in the UFL & factoring in the drop in level of competition, I can say he's not one iota better than when he played with the Bills. As for Edwards, like JP, he's now a part of Bills' history and for all intents & purposes, totally irrelevant. The thing JP lovers who have blamed Bills coaches always fail to bring up is that JP had one of the most respected coaches for developing QBs in the business, Sam Wyche, and he couldn't learn squat from him and these idiots say the Bills coaching ruined JP.

Not really. Because of the Rooney rule they have to have open interviews, not zero in on a name like Detroit did when they hired Mariucci & the NFL slapped them for it. You can't do those interviews in season. The next team would likely get a much greater punishment than Detroit including possibly voiding of the contract like last year when the league voided the clause that Haslett had with St. Louis that if he won so many games he'd get the permanant job.

I play the guess which column is Jerry's game too. Wasn't very hard this week.

I tried to think back to the mid 80s teams & who was left from the bad squads when we got good. Using that as a guide, I could see these guys on a Super Bowl team down the road. Some guys, like Stroud, I don't expect to be around in the 2-3 years needed to rebuild. 31 Byrd, Jairus S 5-10 200 23 R Oregon 27 Corner, Reggie CB 5-9 175 25 2 University of Akron 83 Evans, Lee WR 5-10 197 28 6 Wisconsin 22 Jackson, Fred RB 6-1 215 28 3 Coe College 25 Lankster, Ellis CB 5-9 190 22 R West Virginia 67 Levitre, Andy OL 6-2 305 23 R Oregon State 9 Lindell, Rian K 6-3 233 32 10 Washington State 24 McGee, Terrence CB 5-9 198 29 7 Northwestern State 8 Moorman, Brian P 6-0 172 33 9 Pittsburgh State 89 Nelson, Shawn TE 6-5 240 24 R Southern Mississippi 51 Posluszny, Paul LB 6-1 238 25 3 Penn State 65 Sanborn, Garrison LS 6-0 240 24 R Florida State 20 Whitner, Donte S 5-10 208 24 4 Ohio State 95 Williams, Kyle DT 6-1 306 26 4 Louisiana State 70 Wood, Eric OL 6-4 315 23 R Louisville 60 Butler, Brad OL 6-7 315 26 4 Virginia 28 McKelvin , Leodis CB 5-10 184 24 2 Troy

In case anyone I know wants some. Plus by the end of the game, I knew they were just going to throw them out.

I went to the Florida Tuskers vs the New York Sentinals game in "The Rent" Rentschler Field E. Hartford Connecticut Thursday night. The final score was 24-6 Tuskers, but it was more the gameday experience than anything else that I came for. As far as the game goes, it wasn't up to NFL standards, but it was entertaining. The Sentinals actually kept the game close and were driving for a go ahead TD late in the first half. That's when QB Quinn Gray went out with an injury and was replaced by Ingle Martin, who quickly threw an interception and cost them any chance of a halftime lead. The Tuskers ran out the clock and it was 10-6 at halftime. Two touchdowns later in the 2nd half would seal the game. Haslett called off the dogs & switched QBs in the 4th quarter. Now for all you fans who criticized Dick Jauron for punting down 10 in the 4th quarter, Ted Cottrell out Dicked, Dick. With about 5 and 1/2 minutes to go in the game, deep in his own territory, down by 18 points Ted chose not to lose bigger & punted. I arrived early in the parking lot, paid my $10 and drove in. When I parked my car, I wondered if I was at the right game. The stadium was all lit up and people were in the parking lot, but the only thing they seemed to be interested in were their kids, the peewee players who were all dressed up in their uniforms and ready to take the field. I got to the ticket window and sure enough, they were selling tickets for the night's UFL game. I decided, what the heck, and bought a $40 ticket that put me in row 7 at the 25 yardline. I then went back to my car & waited until 6:00 for the gates to open. Upon entering the stadium I started looking around for programs, since getting a program is always part of my gameday ritual. I saw a bunch of unopened boxes behind a program stand and went to the people at the gate and asked if those were the programs. They didn't know, but since the boxes were addressed to one of the guys who runs things they gave him a quick call & got permission to open them up. Inside were the programs-they only have 4 pages -a cover with the team logos, the date, stadium etc; two inside pages with the depth charts and rosters; and the back had a summary of the Sentinals last game and a preview of the game that night. At the bottom of the back page was the logos of the UFL sponsors (StubHub!, Motorola, etc) but no advertising. It didn't have any photos of players, but for its size was efficient. There were literally thousands of programs in the boxes. The guy handed me one and I asked for a few more, I left with 3. I then went to find my seat. It turned out that I was on the Tuskers side of the field, behind their bench. I sat down in my seat Sec 102 Row 7 Seat 1. It was cold and I was the only one in my section, so I got up to walk around a bit. When I hit the bathroom, I saw a guy with Tuskers gear on and asked him if he was with the team. He said no, but his son is. It turned out he's Rob Petitte's father. I talked a little football with him as we washed our hands and wished him luck in his son's dreams to get back to the NFL. Fortunately, his son was a guy who I had heard of and I could say, I remembered his son's days with Dallas. He mentioned that these players are hoping that their coaches make it back to the NFL & bring some players back with them. I went back to my seat to watch the pre-game warmups. After the teams finished there was about a half hour before the game and the peewees I had seen in the parking lot hit the field. By that point I had thought the peewees were being held there until halftime to keep them and their parents in the stadium for the game. When the game started I was the only one in my row, which seats between 15-20 people. Some came into my section before the game, but the only real crowd was in the lower center seats. Those went for $50, but I assumed they were mostly freebies. There were some freebies in front of me in my section too. A guy came in with his two kids and stadium tags indicating he didn't have to pay. They sat in the front row. Pretty soon Todd Sauerbrun, the ex-NFL punter keeps coming over to talk with them. I guess he's friends with the father, because he keeps coming back. Then he started giving the kids stuff. They ended up getting gloves, and even a UFL football from Sauerbrun. I decided to do a headcount and calculate how many fans were in the stadium, which has a capacity of over 30,000. It wasn't that hard, because, except for a few scattered souls, nobody was in the upper decks or endzones. Earlier they had upgraded the folks in my side out of the upper deck, but a few people remained there, at least in the first row center. Since the majority were in the good seats and I knew there were 21 or 22 rows, with about 50 people per row per side, I figured that 22 x 50 x2 was a good start. That's 2,200. Since it was about 75% full on the Sentinals side and about 60% full on the Tuskers side, that equaled about 1,485. Add in the people from the other parts of the stadium and the most that could be there was about 2,000, it was probably around 1,700. In the next day's edition the Hartford paper said over 10,000 tickets were distributed but only 5,201 showed up -the UFL box score says 5,201-What a joke! I wish the UFL had the guts not to pad their attendance figures. I noticed on TV that there were well less than 1,000 at the Sentinals game the week before at Hofstra on Long Island yet they announced the attendance at over 4,300. Why not be honest with people? Worse, so far the only time I've seen the attendance figures at a Sentinals game questioned was when the NY Post, in a little story on the California -NY game at Giants Stadium where they stated the attendance, announced at over 10,000 was more like 1,000 in the huge NJ facility. The guy writing the story in the Hartford Courant had to know there were a lot less than 5,200 people at The Rent, but since Hartford is trying to get an expansion team for next season, he chose to cowtow to the UFL & go along with their story. The one thing he was honest about was the halftime exodus. The paper did mention the stream of cars leaving the parking lot at halftime. By the second half, maybe 500 to 600 people were left. By the 4th quarter there were only a few hundred souls left to bear the cold, empty stadium. If they dropped their prices & did some promoting, they might have actually had 5,200 people there. To make matters worse, they offered free admission to all UConn students. Unfortunately, UConn isn't that close to East Hartford and that night they were having a tribute to someone big at UConn that kept most of the students who might have gone to the game on campus. Since the giveaways were all on the Sentinals side (they were throwing free tee-shirts into the stands) I decided to move there for the 2nd half. At halftime, I noticed boxes full of programs and took about 40 more. The 2nd half went on and I was able to move around quite a bit. As the game became one sided, the exodus continued. I stayed until the bitter end. As I left the stadium I took more programs, I ended up with about 120 programs. I expect the UFL to last 1 more season, because they get TV revenue (they have a two year deal), then pack it up. Their paid attendance is virtually non-existant (I'm one of the few to actually shell out full price).

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. I'll delete my Sosa post.

I'm crazy enough to go. I'm heading off to Connecticut tomorrow afternoon. It's the matchup of the best team, the Florida Tuskers coached by Jim Haslett, versus the worst team the New York Sentinals coached by Ted Cottrell.

TO

Tom Brady & John Elway are from California.

I guess you haven't been watching Bills games this year.

Sterling still holds the record for dumbest remark ever made on ESPN. After the Bills-Titans playoff game Sterling said the Titans bailed out Wade Phillips (for his choosing Johnson over Flutie) by winning on homerun throwback.

Minor league football could succeed, but not the way the UFL is doing it. 3 of the 4 franchises are too close to NFL cities or in them. Why would anyone from SF or NY where they already have 2 NFL teams, go to a UFL game besides out of sheer curiosity? Orlando isn't far enough away from Tampa & to make matters worse, they schedule a game at St. Petersburg, right down the road from Tampa Bay. The only place that isn't exposed to the NFL is Las Vegas.

They announced the attendance as over 4,000. There were a few hundred people in the stands at best, and I doubt Phil Simms' daughter had to pay to see her boyfriend play.

The New York Sentinals have 3 home games. The 1st was last Thursday in Giants Stadium. Game 2 of the World Series was in NY that night. They announced the crowd over 10,000 , with the NY Post writing it was closer to 1,000. Tonight they play a game at Hofstra in Hempstead, that was relocated from Citifield to get a smaller stadium. Now it's game 6 in NY. Their 2 NY metro games both went head to head with the Phillies @ Yankees in the World Series. They would have been much better off moving those 2 games to Friday each week to avoid the World Series. Their 3rd home game is in East Hartford, Connecticut. On top of that the Sentinals are the worst team in the UFL. I doubt that any of this is what the UFL planned for their NY franchise.

Stephenson is not even close, Bullough is 2nd or 3rd worse, but the worst is the reluctant coach, Harvey Johnson. The worst coaches, not only in record order, but bad overall for the reasons stated: Harvey Johnson 2-23-1 he didn't want to coach, Ralph forced him to twice Jim Ringo- 3-20 he was so bad, Ralph opened up his wallet for Chuch Knox Hank Bullough-4-17 and he was winless vs the English language. Players hated him so much, Bruce Smith told the players in the D huddle in Hank's last game in Tampa Bay (paraphrased from Fred Smerlas quote): Any of you make any f'n tacles I'll kill you. Stephenson actually had an 8-8 record his 1st season, better than Jauron has ever done.

I'd like to see the the Bills have a winning season, but it's not going to happen.

Next week James Hardy will be added to the active roster and someone will have to be cut. While the logical choice appears to be Roscoe Parrish, I say be bold and cut TO. Here's why: The season's going nowhere, having TO around takes playing time away from Hardy & Johnson. Since Owens is gone after the season, we need to find out this season whether we have a #2 receiver in either Johnson or Hardy or need to dip into the draft or free agency again for a WR. Cutting TO actually can help TO as well. As the team heads for 10 losses or more, how will they keep Owens even remotely interested. If you think he's a little disinterested now, imagine him by week 14. Cutting him frees him to look for a team he can actually contribute to & win. Now there was no way anyone would have traded for him, but they might just be willing to take him in as a free agent, especially if they get an injury at WR this weekend. Cutting TO is a win-win for both sides.

What QB has Gruden ever developed? He had veterans wherever he went. The funniest thing was when he thought he could do something with Rob Johnson and figured out there was nothing he could do after 1 season with RJ as a backup. Gruden doesn't develop QBs he just has a carrousel of QBs and it always stops at some guy in his mid-late 30s.

I get so sick of people saying this Bills QB or that QB just needs better coaching. There are still some mentally ill ones out there who think all JP needs is coaching. It's the Bills scouts who keep getting us these lousy QBs who are the problem.

He was 1 row behind me & a seat or 2 over, and he never puked. He was tossed for being too intoxicated, he passed out a few times & was spitting on the ground but no vommit. One of the guys with him, or seated with him, said the cops were going to take him to jail. He tried to defend him by telling them he never did anything to anyone else. At first security came over & talked to the guy, saying that some people complained & just asked him if he was ok, then left. Security was more in my row than his because we had so much more room to access the guy. The part most people didn't know is he, or someone in his group, came with a David Carr Texans' jersey and the 1st thing they did was rip it & throw the half the jersey on the luxury box roof right near our seats. At first I thought they came over because he threw the jersey on the roof. It wasn't until after he was booted did I find out he was bombed-he really was quiet, as his defender had said to security.

My row was very weird (219 row 1). 9 seats in a row were up on ticket exchange & the only ones in any of those seats were me & a guy who moved down from row 2 for more room. Then the people in the two seats to my right left right before the faked punt & I mockingly layed out on all the empty seats & almost missed the fake.

Check your typing-Section 103 is in the endzone, per the RWS seating chart, the description sounds like section 113 you need to correct this if it's a typo. It looks like a huge buyers' market for this game. Ticket exchange has a ton of tickets posted at the minimum we're allowed to post them for & nobody's buying. If you really want to get rid of them, you may have to price them at half or below half price, especially those Rockpile seats where they can't even see the scoreboard from these seats without some serious rubernecking.

I've seen 3 Tuskers games on TV & on the internet & they're just a bunch of NFL castoffs who would be something like 1-15 in a 16 game NFL season. Brooks Bollinger is the best QB in the UFL-that has to tell you something about the league. Think about this, if the Bills had signed Bollinger before the season & named him the starter, this board would have exploded. The AFL had NFL talent because they were in direct competition for players for years & by the time the Jets won the Super Bowl there was a common draft. The UFL is not in competition with the NFL-they take their rejects. Now the Tuskers have Odell Thurman who is an NFL talent who got bounced out for off the field stuff, but he's about their only player who could start in the NFL. To think they could beat the Bills, who have 3 wins this year in 7 games, is ridiculous.