Rubes

Seems like we hear this question every season...

Ah, good ol' Chastity Rheingartner. Team just hasnt been the same since he left.

On replay, the defender swats down on Chandler's arms before the ball arrived. It was definitely interference, although at full speed it's probably very hard to catch. But to me, it just makes the catch even more impressive.

Wow, he did a nice job. Should be great at the game!

I don't know...was it not a nice reply? I don't think this thread is related to any others, but then again, my sarcasm detector hasn't been working lately...

Bills report only club seats remaining for next three home games

Fortunately, we have the luxury of being able to have patience with Kouandjio, at least insofar as we can keep our starters healthy...

You guys will probably blast me for this, but I think one of the best play-by-play announcers out there now is Mike Tirico from ESPN. Too bad we'll never be on MNF to get him...

Sweet, thanks. I found me and my cousin. Pretty cool.

Ain't that the truth!

At the game, the hit that seemed to get the biggest crowd reaction was the Woods hit. From my perspective, it just looked vicious -- the guy with the ball was running one second, then just suddenly disappeared.

Completely nuts. We arrived at our parking area around 9:45 and we were one of the last to get there. These guys never let RVs park in their lot, but there were dozens of RVs in there, since there were no places left for them to go. Crazy atmosphere in the stadium -- we were in the lower bowl and rarely sat down, and my voice is still scratchy and hoarse. Awesome day.

This is true.

Well, if any of you happen to be at Danny's South tonight, I'll be there. Since I don't know what any of you look like, I'll be wearing a white long sleeve Bills shirt with the red standing buffalo in front and blue stripes on the shoulders. Come by and say hi if you see me.

So true. I hate that Pats* as much as anybody, but it's hard to communicate just how much hatred there has been and always will be for the Fins. It's like its genetic or something.

I'll be there! Also, I'm at Papa Jack's right now for the fish fry (very apropos!) and this place is hopping. Can't wait!

Revisiting an old thread because...well, I'm in town now, and wondering if any of these good folks are thinking of Danny's South tomorrow night.

As I arrive in Buffalo for the big game and settle in, I happened to come upon an old file in my laptop archives: the text of a classic article by Larry Felser from 1999 that I saved because I knew someday it would be great to revisit. Given all of the time that has passed, and the fading of the bitter rivalry between the two teams (more Buffalo than Miami, I imagine, but still), as well as the importance of this weekend's game, I felt this would be a good time to finally get it back out there. The young'uns out there need to be reminded how important this rivalry is, and why they should continue to carry on the tradition. One caveat: I know it is against board rules to reproduce articles in full, but this is one I couldn't find anywhere to link to, given its old age. I'm even an online Buffalo News subscriber, and I couldn't find any available online archives that have it, even for purchase. But, if it's still a no-no, feel free to delete it and give me a spanking. Without further ado... Tale of the bitter Bills-Dolphins rivalry begins with a rout in 1966 By LARRY FELSER 11/14/99 Ah, the young. They have such curiosity. "How does Santa Claus get down the chimney? ... Can I run away from my shadow? ... Does the stork really bring babies? ... How did the Dolphins-Bills rivalry become so bitter?" Climb up on my lap, young ones, and I'll tell you about the Bills and Dolphins. It started in 1966, when Miami entered the old American Football League, of which the Bills were two-time defending champions. The Dolphins were a foreign legion of rejects, rookies and fringe players. Mercy was not on Buffalo's mind when the new guys came to War Memorial Stadium. Miami was pounded, 58-24. It was the most points ever scored by the Bills in their 40-season history. Worse, it was 14 points more than any team poured on Miami that inaugural season. Six weeks later Buffalo scored a 29-0 shutout in the Orange Bowl. Most professional athletes don't have an institutional memory; they forget old scores. Not the fans, in this case the Miami faithful. They didn't have to wait long for revenge. The next season when the Bills visited the Orange Bowl the Dolphins were on an eight-game losing streak, but they upset Buffalo, 17-14, as Jack Kemp was out-quarterbacked by some rookie named Bob Griese. In 1970, the Dark Ages of Buffalo football descended. Miami hired Don Shula as its coach and the Bills went zero-for-the-decade against the Dolphins. The unkindest loss of all occurred in 1975. It was during a back-and-forth game in Miami. Miami's Mercury Morris fumbled and the Bills recovered in favorable field position, but there was a flag on the play, dropped by head linesman Jerry Bergman. Bills defensive end Pat Toomay, racing to recover Morris' fumble, had shoved Bergman out of his path. Bergman flagged him for "interfering with an official." Miami kept possession and went on to win, 31-21. The NFL supervisor of officials was unable to find an instance where the penalty had ever been called. It's never been called since. Long-time Bills' fans still get indigestion when the Toomay penalty is brought up. Mass indigestion in Buffalo subsided when Marv Levy began his first full season as coach of the Bills in 1987. The Dolphins found Levy's Bills almost as frustrating and difficult to beat as Shula's Dolphins of the '70s had been for Buffalo. From '87 until Shula's retirement at the end of the '95 season, the teams met 21 times and Buffalo won 17 of them. It wasn't quite the 20-0 humiliation of the '70s, but it still drove Dolphins' fans nuts. It was during that period that the pregame ceremonies in the Orange Bowl and later Pro Player Stadium would include a clergyman preaching a pregame homily to a stadium full of Dolphin fans, many of them wearing "Bleep Buffalo" T-shirts. Adding to the bitterness was the presence of thousands of Bills fans, having made a mental-health trip to South Florida in late November or December and whooping it up in the den of the enemy. The unkindest cut for Dolphin fans occurred in 1989, when Jim Kelly smashed his way into the Dolphin end zone to victory as time expired. The scene on the field was bedlam, with most of the Bills piling on Kelly in congratulations and the Dolphins walking off in disbelief. Tom Olivadotti, the Miami defensive coordinator, staggered off with an expression of biblical anguish on his face. Meanwhile, the Bills' Cornelius Bennett raced into the opposite end zone, stopped and threw a massive bump-and-grind at the sorrowful Miami fans. The hard feelings haven't subsided yet. That was also the period in which the teams began meeting in the NFL playoffs for the first time. Buffalo won all three meetings with Shula teams. It was also the era of Bryan Cox in Miami. Cox, the erratic and sometimes out-of-control linebacker, charged that he had been called racist and obscene names in Buffalo. Considering the well-documented heinous behavior of the lunatic-fringe in Ralph Wilson Stadium, that's not hard to believe. Besides, these were the same intellectuals who once raced to the stadium tunnel, surrounded, stoned and rocked the Miami bus as it delivered the Dolphins. But Cox threatened some sort of retaliation days before he came to Buffalo for his next visit. Cox's first entrance came just after the gates opened and there were only 2,000-3,000 fans in the stadium. Out of the tunnel came Cox, dressed in a T-shirt from the waist up so he had no identification. The fans didn't know who he was. All they knew was that some guy was circling the field on the warning track, flipping the bird to them. It was a memorable day. Then there was the incident over Russ Salvatore's annual party for a few thousand of his friends in Fort Lauderdale the night before the Bills' games against the Dolphins. A local columnist on a Fort Lauderdale newspaper wrote an insulting piece about the party and the Buffalo people who attended it. Salvatore asked for an apology. He received more insults. "So we boycotted Florida for a couple of years," said Salvatore, proprietor of Salvatore's Italian Gardens in Depew. "The first season afterward we rented the Buffalo Convention Center and brought Miami to Buffalo." Salvatore returned to hosting his party in Florida a few years ago, "but now it isn't as big; only about 1,500 people. We used to get Miami people at the party and everyone got along beautifully. Now, the columnist is gone from that paper, but because of what he wrote Miami and Buffalo people hate each other. Bills' fans are afraid to wear team jerseys in the stadium when they go down there." Sadly, Shula's coaching career ended in Buffalo in 1995. Buffalo won in a rout, 37-22. But wait, young'uns. The story isn't over. It gets tougher. Jimmy Johnson entered the rivalry. You want bitterness? J.J. produces bitterness. Not only is Johnson a good coach, he is one of the few people who can strut sitting down. His heavily sprayed hair is now a symbol of jock evil in Buffalo. Last year he coached the Dolphins to their first playoff victory over the Bills, then stomped on a box of "Flutie Flakes." Last month, when the Bills handed Miami its only loss of the season in a Monday night game, Wade Phillips said he considered stomping on a can of hair spray, then thought better of it. Does that explain how we got to where we are today? EDIT: As a follow-up, this was written on game day. The Bills won the game later that day, in Buffalo, 23-3.

Now THAT made me LOL.

RCW pre-game tribute ceremony will begin at 12:30PM.

The thing I'm trying to figure out in my head is, what is the message here? What I'm hearing is, "if you're going to commit domestic violence, just make sure there's no video evidence." I mean, the description of the event, from what I recall, was pretty much what was shown in the video. Sure, the video is shocking to actually see, and you can get a better sense of Rice's apparent indifference to what he had just done. But what specifically about the video makes this an entirely different scenario? It's not like Rice or his fiancee did not admit to any of the events or actions shown in the video. What Rice did was heinous, even before the video evidence came out. Why is Goodell saying, "Two game suspension! Wait, there's actually a video showing you doing this? !@#$ it, you're suspended indefinitely!"

Now if we can just win the game, too...

Two page thread already

Amen, buddy. Amen.

Okay, it was a bit of an understatement.