Albany,n.y.

If I needed a #1 receiver, like the Bears looked like they needed last night, I would look to trade for him. Any team that needs a top receiver would want to trade for him. Other than showing up a day before opening day to get his paycheck & already having a signed contract, off the field, what has Jason Peters done that is significantly different than Crabtree? The Eagles couldn't wait to give Peters a boatload of money & the Bills draft choices. If you answer Peters was proven & Crabtree is unproven, what has Crabtree done differently than Corneilius Bennett did to Indy in 1987? Do you think Bill Polian, one of the all time great GMs, thought he was a headache? Polian sent 2 1s, a 2 and Greg Bell to deliberately acquire Indy's "headache" Too many people in this thread are letting their emotions cloud their vision in what is totally a business decision by all parties involved. Eventually SF will sign or trade the guy because it is a sound business decision, and there will be receiver light teams knocking on their door once they realize that promising 4th rounder can't hold Crabtree's jock.

Or some meaningless exhibition games, especially against the same team that was catching Cutler's passes last night or the friggin' World Champions who made Tennessee's O look pretty bad on Thursday night.

I'm amazed you people who are speculating where Crabtree will go in next years draft actually believe he'll be in next year's draft. There is no way he's in next year's draft. He'll either sign with SF or he will be traded away by the 49ers at some point before the draft. We've seen guys miss a few games, McKinnie missed quite a few before the signing deadline but got it done, & of course we've seen Indianapolis give up on signing Bennett & trade him. We've even see guys sit out their whole rookie year, then sign or get traded in the offseason before the next draft. There's 0% chance the 49ers will just throw the pick away. I guarantee he either signs or gets traded before next year's draft.

See ya

He reminds me of when his father got to Arizona & said "You've got a winner in town". Needless to say Buddy left Arizona with a pink slip and not a winning record.

If DJ is as exciting at home as he is at 1 Bills Drive, you might be able to say the same thing about Gail Jauron.

The real lock is tommorrow. The over/under is 47.5. There's no friggin way it goes that high. If the Bills keep it close (our only chance of victory), it will have to be a low scoring game like 20-17. If the Patriots blow us out, chances are our offense will be offensive & not score more than 7-10 points. I don't see the Patriots getting close to putting 40 points up on opening day-they'll get better as the season goes on, but not tommorrow. Highest score I see is something like 35-10. There's nothing close to tomorrow's over/under lock today, but I think Cincy will roll it up on Denver & the spread was only 4 last time I looked. In suicide I picked New Orleans, but there are no points involved. PS: The Bills & Patriots wouldn't have covered tomorrow's over if you combined both of last season's games. The total points in 2 games were New England 33 Buffalo 10.

If Trent fails it's all on him. Teams can lose games with poor coaching, but individual player failures are virtually never coaching related. When 31 teams other than the team that cuts a former 1st rounder want nothing to do with the guy, there's a pretty good chance that their scouts know it wasn't coaching that caused the guy to fail. Guys can't cut it in the NFL every day, anyone who blames coaching for a guy's failure, especially in JP's case where he had a top QB mentor in Sam Wyche, is just not seeing the truth. I think Trent will have a fine career, but if he doesn't nobody should blame the coaches. 31 other teams let Trent fall to the bottom of the 3rd round where the Bills drafted him, so it's not like he was a flawless guy coming out of Stanford. In your line of reasoning, Cincinnati's poor coaching ruined Akili Smith, the 3rd pick in the draft. Never mind the guy was illiterate when it came to reading defenses & couldn't cut it in Green Bay or even the CFL. QBs who are football mentally deficient (like Akili & JP) can't be helped or ruined by coaching, they just can't react well on the field and no coach can change that. Look at what we tried with Bledsoe with the stop watches-the guy just didn't have the internal clock & nothing could help him. That's why Bledsoe never was anything better than good-even Belichick couldn't make him great & dumped him as soon as he realized Brady had the inate smarts, that no coach can teach, to play the position at a much higher level than Bledsoe. In 1986 Felser wrote a great article on QBs who make something out of very little. It was about what Jim Kelly would face in Buffalo. Here's a key sentence from the article, which appeared in the 8/11/86 Sporting News: "If he plans to translate those claims into reality in the record book, he will have to make something out of very little for the Bills, because that is what most of the great quarterbacks have done." Nowhere did Felser express any fear that the Bills, who were very poorly coached by Hank Bullough & company, would ruin Jim Kelly.

JP could have been coached by the ghost of Vince F'n Lombardi & he still wouldn't have been any good. When are you going to get it that a million $ arm & a 10 cent brain =an uncoachable player & a bust at QB? He had Sam Wyche, a man who proved to be a very good coach of QBs as his QB coach his 1st 2 seasons and he couldn't learn anything from him. Proper coaching? He had "proper coaching". Just because you fell in love with a bum, don't blame the coaching he got.

Before anyone gets so confident that the Bills won't cover, last year the Bills were never in the game in NE. NE went up 20-3 and the Bills scored a meaningless touchdown to lose by 10. Also, NE is not that good on opening week. Here are the Patriots last 6 openers: 2008: Beat a dreadful KC team 17-10 after the Brady injury. 2007: Pound Jets 38-14 2006: Barely beat JP's Bills 19-17 2005: Beat Oakland 30-20 2004: Beat Indianapolis 27-24 2003: Lose to BILLS 31-0 They may have covered 2 of the last 6 openers-bettors beware.

WGR, who has employed Joe DeLamielleure, is running a commercial for M&T bank, where the announcer mispronounces DeLamielleure. Worse, Joe is in the commercial saying something abou M&T. I guess they didn't let Joe D listen to the rest of the commercial before they aired it. For the record, the last syllable is pronounced lear, not lure. I know this because I've heard him pronounce his own name on the radio.

When the Bengals hang the big 40 on the Broncos, nobody on the Broncos D will be put up as an example of a guy another team made a mistake getting rid of. In other news, Ko Simpson will soon be starting for the Lions. There are worse Ds than the Buffalo Bills'.

I feel like I did in 1986 (I didn't have seasons then, but managed to go to 3 games at NYJ, NE, & Mia @ Buf when living in Long Island). I know we're starting the season with a coach on the way out, and there are probably about a dozen players who don't belong in the NFL, but we've got some good young players who will be around when this team is championship caliber and I'm going to enjoy watching this team get better. The Bills lost all 3 games I went to in 1986, but they were competitive in at least 2 of them and were headed in the right direction. It took a mediocre season the following year, but two seasons later they won the division and were in the AFC championship game. I don't feel I was wasting my money then, watching 3 of the team's 12 losses nor do I feel that I wasted my money the year before when I saw 3 of the team's 14 losses (@ Jets, NE, @Phil). That year I saw a future Hall of Famer playing his rookie year. NFL tickets don't come with a money back guarantee if your team loses. You can choose to be a fair weather fan, just don't complain when you can't get playoff tickets when the team gets good,

John Butler, our GM at the time, was on record that he would have drafted Ryan Leaf over Manning. Which explains one of our key problems in finding Kelly's replacement (we're now on 13 seasons). The Bills scouts don't know how to evaluate QBs. Look at places like GB where Favre, Brunell, Warner & Detmer were once in the same camp, they have since developed Hasselbeck & Rodgers (and found a 7th rounder better than their 2nd round mistake last year). Now look at the Bills-2nd for Collins, 3rd for Hobert, 1st & 4th for Johnson, 1st for Bledsoe, 1st, 2nd, 5th for Losman, free agent deal for Nall. The scouts may know corners, but they don't know QBs. PS: The guy who pushed for Flutie has a pretty good track record in SD (except for picking coaches-but then again, the Bills aren't exactly leading the way in picking coaches)

How do you expect Ralph to "knock his @ss out? It was a lot easier for Ralph to fire Polian than to take him on physically. Ralph ain't knocking anyone on his @ss. Plus Ralph is a little too smart to get physically violent, even when he was in his 70s he was too old for such nonsense.

Edwards is smarter.

AFC: East: New England 13-3 Buffalo 8-8 Miami 5-11 NY Jets 5-11 North: Pittsburgh 14-2 Baltimore 10-6 Cleveland 6-10 Cincinnati 5-11 South: Tennessee 13-3 Indianapolis 12-4 Houston 11-5 Jacksonville 3-13 West: San Diego 10-6 Oakland 7-9 Kansas City 4-12 Denver 1-15 Playoffs: Tennessee over Houston Indianapolis over San Diego Pittsburgh over Indianapolis New England over Tennessee New England over Pittsburgh NFC: East: NY Giants 13-3 Dallas 10-6 Philadelphia 10-6 Washington 8-8 North: Green Bay 13-3 Chicago 10-6 Minnesota 6-10 Detroit 3-13 South: Carolina 10-6 Atlanta 9-7 New Orleans 8-8 Tampa Bay 3-13 West: Arizona 10-6 San Francisco 9-7 Seattle 4-12 St. Louis 2-14 Playoffs: Arizona over Chicago Carolina over Dallas Green Bay over Arizona NY Giants over Carolina Green Bay over NY Giants Super Bowl New England over Green Bay

Feeley was so great with the Dolphins

Jauron is from Massachusetts-the same state that brought you John Kerry's "I voted for it before I voted against it" It must be something in the water.

Because nobody wants him for opening day.

I caught the 2nd half on my cable. Why is it every time I watch UB, I think I'd rather have Turner Gill as the Bills head coach than Jauron?

If not having a "real" GM is wrong, Ralph might not want to be right. Take a look at the last 2 drafts & they are starting to look like the type of drafts that help build championships. Last year's draft might not yield any superstars, but it is looking solid top to bottom. By next year, 2 of the 3 7th round picks could be starting (if not sooner). This year's draft is looking pretty good too. All but our 6th made the team. Once again this draft looks good top to bottom. We're looking at this draft yielding 5 to 6 starters by next year. Contrast these 2 drafts to real GM TD's last 2 drafts-only Lee Evans & Roscoe Parrish are still in the league. In his 5 years Donahoe's day 2 players were basically milk carton guys. Only Bannan, McGee, Aiken & Preston (who sucked) had any type of NFL careers. Since he left, day 2 players unearthed include: K. Williams, Butler, Ellison, Wendling, Schouman, Corner, Fine, Bell, Johnson, Nelson, Harris & Lankster. The 7th round is no longer a throw away.

I've learned not to question Vic Carucci, or read into what Jauron says.