Albany,n.y.

I think the Ravens' loss helps us more. A win would have kept Baltimore in contention for a 1st week playoff bye. The loss probably gets the Ravens closer to being locked into the 3rd seed. With a playoff game the next weekend & no bye, if they're locked into #3, they're more likely to rest their players than the other scenarios. I don't think we'll make the playoffs, because I can't see a win this week, but 9-7 is achievable & a springboard to a very good 2007 season.

While you might not be able to predict an individual player's success based on where he was drafted, if you did a study on the success of players by round picked, you'd find the % of successful players drops per round. I once heard Charlie Casserly say a player picked in the 6th round has a 10% chance of success.

Here's a simple solution: If you want to be an A-hole & stand when everyone else is seated, buy your seats in the last row of the section you sit in and then you can stand as often as you want. Otherwise, please stay home so the rest of us can enjoy the game. Have you ever tried watching a play through binoculars? One idiot gets up in the middle of the play and all you get in your binoculars is his friggin' back! Fortunately, my seats are in the 1st row, but with 1st row seats comes the responsibility of NOT standing up at the wrong time. I always look behind me & make sure the people behind me are already standing before I stand for more than a second or two after the play is over. Also, people don't know how to return to their seats. If you have any brains, you don't go by seated people when a play is taking place. You time your moves: Leave your seat at the end of a play and return at the end of the play. Use the huddle up time for transit to & from your seat. When I'm ready to return to my seat, I crouch down in the isle next to the row of seats & wait for the play to be over-that's the right thing to do!

After they fire Green, before they officially hire Mariucci, they better interview Green for the job.

A-hole post of the year.

I think you have single header games confusing you. We've had Bills games at 1 & WRGB has chosen a 4:05 Jets game in its place on CBS singleheader weeks. So in those cases, you may have chosen watching the Giants instead of going to a bar to watch the Bills.

I received an e-mail from a friend who was critical of the Jacksonville kickoff in the last minute of the game, here's his e-mail & my response. Del Rio should have tried an onside kick. It would have gone the same distance. What a bonehead decision after their kicker was kicking them out of the end zone earlier. That's what makes it so hard to gauge if the Bills and JP are really any good. Too many gift wrapped victories from stupid teams and stupid coaches. Totally wrong conclusion because you needed to be there to understand why he didn't try a conventional kickoff. The wind was blowing west to east, it was strong enough to affect the kicking decisions. The kickoffs that were touchbacks were all in the east end zone (my seat). He was kicking west at the end of the game (towards the scoreboard). The reason it worked so well for the Bills is, once again, the brilliant special teams coaching. Instead of the 1st guy grabbing the kick, the team waited until a guy who could be close enough to lateral it to McGee got it & then it went to McGee, the guy they were trying to kick away from. It was actually agonizing watching the ball pass the guys without them picking it up, all I could think of was how are they going to get the yards back that they're giving up by not having one of the up guys take it. It worked out because the Jaguars didn't expect the Bills to have a plan to get it to McGee. The Jags can be faulted for being outcoached on the planning of the kickoff, but the fact that their kicker was kicking it for touchbacks, with the wind, in the east endzone, should not be used as a reason for trying to get a touchback against the wind in the west endzone. Here’s the NFL.com play by play of that kick: J.Scobee kicks 49 yards from JAX 30 to BUF 21. S.Williams (didn't try to advance) to BUF 21 for no gain. Lateral to T.McGee to BUF 40 for 19 yards (D.Webb).

He cut himself against the Colts, but was saved by the short week. Plus, Gramatica wanted to be home for Thanksgiving with his other unemployed kicker brothers, proving you are what you eat.

I just looked at the schedule and the Giants@ Carolina game is at 1 also. So one of the 2 games had to be moved, since whenever the Giants & Jets both play on Sunday afternoon, 1 of the games is at 1:00 & 1 is at 4:05 or 4:15.

Per WGR

PFW reprted last week that things between him and James Harris (yes, that James Harris) are not so great & if Jacksonville crashes late, Del Rio could be gone.

The upper deck corners were empty. The good news is very few people left the stadium before the game ended.

Maybe McNally should stick around after all. He's developed Peters from an undrafted TE into a budding star LT, and has a 7th round pick ready to start by midseason.

Get Ace Ventura to kidnap LT, might as well take Turner too. Seriously, I think this game is the only one of the last 5 that the Bills have very little chance of winning. The next 3 after that we should expect a win, and if Baltimore has their playoff seeding locked in, & is resting key players, 4 out of 5 wins to finish 9-7 is a real posibility.

One more nail in Kevin Everett's NFL career coffin.

You sound a lot like a guy I work with who bet his brother that Michael Jordan would never win a NBA championship with the Bulls. After a few years and 3 head coaches later, he thought he was going to win the bet, then

1. is valid, when I defended the punt during the game, I told the people I was watching it with that if they wanted to go for it on 4th down, then they would have run the ball. The fact that they passed on 3rd down, indicates they were always going to punt it. Fact is they trusted the D more than 1 play by the O. Houston is not Indianapolis. When Houston gets Indy's running game, O-line & Peyton Manning, then you can have a better argument why the Bills D can't be trusted to get the ball back-against a team a lot less capable of controlling the clock than Indianapolis. Know your team, know your opponent. We'll never agree, but the results provede me right because what Jauron did, after looking at the odds of success was correct. Jauron's decision was like a gambler who spreads his bets (ie more downs to succeed) as opposed to the guy who goes "all in" You advocate the all in approach, I'm saying with this Bills team against that Houston team, multiple chances at success was the right way to go. I wouldn't be so adamant if I didn't go through this with Petrino during the game. He wanted to go for it & my 1st response was they didn't run on 3rd, they can't go for it 4th & 4. The decision was made on 3rd down to get the 1st down or punt.

It was absolutely the RIGHT decision and if you don't know why, you don't know this Bills team! 1-The odds are better that we can stop them and get the ball back than getting 4 yards on 1 make or break play, that even if we get a 3 & out, we're pinned too deep in our own territory. The Bills needed more than 1 down to put this game on the line. See 2 & think about down & distance. 2-The O-line is a weakness. 4th & 4 is a passing down. That means the O-line has to hold up in an obvios passing/tee off on the QB play. To trust this O-line over our D & our punter's ability is absurd. 3-Our punter is Brian Moorman, one of, if not the best punter in the league. In order for the Bills to have a shot, they needed field position. If they fail on 4th & 4, they're dead. However with Moorman punting, if the D does their job, the Bills have a shot & don't have to go 90 yards in less than 2 minutes. 4-The team needed to score a TD, no matter what. If they go for it, they have 1 down make or break. If they try on 4th 2 things happen: 1-they don't get it, and for all intents & purposes the game is over. 2-they get 1st down, and they still have to score-no guarantee they score just because they got the 1st down. So now by punting, it's Houston's ball, but they have no urgency to score, and your chances are better to get them 3 & out when they're more concerned with clock than scoring. Now imagine if we get the 1st down & score quickly, now Houston has the urgency to score & we have to stop them. Our odds of a 3 & out drop & Houston has a chance to tie or win. Under the scenario we played, we had enough time to win with a 3 & out and would leave Houston with no time to come back at us. The odds favored punting. JP & our O-line would be better served trying to win it with multiple downs (after getting the ball back) than putting it on an all or nothing play. If we had Peyton Manning at QB or Tomlinson at RB, then maybe the odds would have favored going for it. But with THIS TEAM, the odds favored punting. A good coach knows how to put his team, with the players he has, in the best position to win the game. Jauron did that because one size or play call, doesn't fit all (teams)

Paul Hamilton is blaming Houston for bailing out Jauron's terrible call (his words) for punting near the end of the 4th quarter. Hamilton lost all credibility by comparing Houston's play calling to Mularkey & clinging to his position that Jauron made the wrong call. For the record, I was for the punt since if we don't make it on 4th down, we're conceeding the game, while if we punt-recognizing that our punter is a WEAPON, and we don't trust the D, we might as well pack in the season right there. The guys who were watching the game with me didn't want to punt. I brought up the fact that if they didn't plan to punt, they should have run on 3rd down. Bottom line is if WGR can say a call is terrible that contributed to us winning the game, they're just being moronic.

He just missed his 2nd kick of the game. I don't think Parcells will give him another week.

When Houston was punting & Parrish was back there waiting for the kick & Criqui said Terrance McGee is one of the league's best returners, all I could think was Criqui should have retired with Van.

Bush thinks he's doing a great job. Every time his disapproval rating goes up, the people around him who keep him the bubble-boy white out the letters d i and s and they show him the poll. He thinks he's the most beloved President in the history of this country.

This is what I'm rooting for right now-a sign one way or the other that JP will either be the impact player that can sometime in the next few years, lead us to a championship, or enough evidence that he is a bust, so that we can move on. If JP can wake up, show some definitive improvement in the last 7 games the wins will come. If he's a bust, then the wins won't come and then I hope we can get a QB who can lead us to a championship. Like it or not, the season is all about JP, one way or another.

You just gave some of the worst examples of why the draft is a crapshoot. Just because 3 teams were stupid enough to draft the players you mentioned too high, doesn't make the draft, especially in the top 4, the crapshoot you think it is. As for the 2 QBs, both were drafted too high because of the desperation of teams. Teams often take a QB, who is not the top QB taken, too high. Best to not reach like those 2 were. For example: Ryan Leaf showed major signs of immaturity at the combine, coming in overweight, treating the Colts with no respect etc. He was also an underclassman, which account for a very high percentage of QB failures among high draft picks. Leaf was not the 1st QB taken, Manning was and is a major success. Akili Smith was the 3rd QB taken in his class, here are his red flags: A record of off field troubles, choosing baseball 1st out of high school-virtually no QB has succeeded who chose baseball over football and then went back to football, he was a one year wonder, which produces a very high bust rate among QBs and worst of all, he had no ability to read defenses. A decent scout would have never recommended Smith. Let's go to our whipping boy, Mike Williams: Huge red flag-over 350 lbs in college. Look at the guys over 350 in college & the bust rate is sky high. It's because a weight problem as a hungry collegian only gets worse as a well paid pro. A stupid selection! Now it really depends on the strength of the year's draft. But when a star who does not have red flags and is at an impact position such as QB, OT, DL is available around the top of the draft, you better hope your team is picking high enough to get him if your a constant loser. RBs, WRs, are a dime a dozen and should never be top 5 picks with few exceptions. If there is no impact player at one of those 3 positions, having a top 5 pick is a curse, not a blessing-all depends on the year. Lets look at recent drafts since 1995 at those 3 positions: 2006, which is probably too soon but: 1-Williams, 3-Young-red flagged for underclassman QB and style which might not translate to NFL, 4-Ferguson. 2005: 1-Smith-red flagged for underclass QB 2004: 1-Manning, 2-Gallery(possible bust, no red flags) 4-Rivers (emerging superstar) 2003: 1-Palmer-one of the Bengals brightest stars, 4-Robertson 2002: This was just a bad year, just our luck that we picked high in a draft with only 1 talented player in the top 5. 1-Carr 2 Peppers 3-Harrington 4-Williams -red flags above 2001: 1-Vick-red flagged underclass QB, 2-Davis-red flagged over 350 lbs 3-Warren 4-Smith 2000: 1-Brown 3-Samuels 1999: 1-Couch-red flagged underclass QB, 2-McNabb 3-Smith-red flags above 1998: 1-Manning 2-Leaf -red flags above 3-Wadsworth 1997 1-Pace 2-Russell 1996 3-Rice 4-Ogden 1995 2-Boselli 3-McNair My conclusion-If I'm looking to turn a team around, if I can get a top 4 pick when there is a QB or OT with no red flags, the odds are I'm going to get a difference maker. DL is a little dicier, too many busts to rely on getting a difference maker, but if you end up with a Peppers or a Bruce Smith, you're golden. Players like Tony Boselli, Steve McNair, Jon Ogden, Orlando Pace, Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Carson Palmer, Eli Manning, Phillip Rivers and D'Brickashaw Ferguson just aren't available if you win one too many meaningless games in the last two weeks of the season.

Potential Presidential candidate? As much as JP is the potential Super Bowl XLI MVP. Edwards was a total dud as a VP candidate. No way he should ever be taken seriously as a Presidential candidate. During the campaign, he was on Meet The Press, Russert chewed him up & spat him out-it was an embarrassment.