Rubes

I went back and looked at it again as well. I still think it's debatable, in that Stevie was not "pulled down," but rather had his arm hooked, and in my opinion the contact wasn't tremendous. The ball might also have been deemed uncatchable. Mind you, I think it was a good call, but I do think it's debatable. I've seen much worse not called, and much less called. A different ref could have called it very differently. The point here is not that Stevie was not interfered with, but rather there is no clear standard for the call, and different refs call things differently. That's where the debate is.

Well, you know, if a certain referee doesn't call a very debatable pass interference penalty on Luke Kuechly, there goes one of the wins.

Hi.

Welp...not Niklas.

Interesting. So, it's the fall of 1987. The Bills finished the previous season at 4-12 -- not quite last place, given the pathetic Colts at 3-13, but damn near close. Now they have an up-and-coming GM, a coach in his second year, a #1 overall pick from two seasons prior (though still not playing up to the level of the #1 overall pick), and they just returned from the player's strike, beating Miami on the road for the first time in like...forever. They have a new gunslinger QB and a team that is showing some life and excitement, but they still have a looong way to go. So the GM goes and pulls off the "trade of the decade", giving up their #1 pick the following season, and their #1 and #2 the season after that, along with an established RB, for one potential major impact player -- arguably, the second-best rated player in the draft, behind only the legendary Vinny Testaverde. Knowing how Cornelius Bennett turned out -- and he's not a Hall of Famer, for what it's worth -- do people think it was worth such a huge mortgage of the future? Remember, this was not a team that was one player away from the playoffs, much less the Super Bowl. This was a team that could barely get out of it's own way the year before. It was a huge price to pay. Huge. For one player. Yes, he seemed like a sure thing, but you never know. No #1 pick the following year, no #1 or #2 the year after that. Would you have done it? Did it prevent the team from making the playoffs? Or getting to the Super Bowl? Yes, yes, we all know -- we had our franchise QB. But there was no guarantee at the time that Kelly was going to continue to develop into a hall-of-fame QB, or that he wouldn't suffer a major injury, putting the team in a terrible position with no top draft picks for three years. Funny, I don't recall anyone bitching about that trade at all, or the high price, just excitement about the impact player they just got.

Todd McShay liked it. Is he an expert? http://youtu.be/Fxo1BK9mFUg

I believe the quote was, "He is a beast in the open field after the catch; one of the best I’ve seen in 36 years of doing this." Nevertheless, point taken. I'm glad we have him.

Cue jokes about which class you missed that day...

There is a famous guy who does the audiobooks for GoT by the name of Roy Dotrice -- the guy just turned 90 and recently was treated for cancer. Amazing voice work -- had to create (and consistently use) more than 300 different voices for the fifth book, apparently. Probably aren't many other people out there who could do the voice work for these books with such skill, so there are a lot of people out there hoping GRRM can finish these books soon so Roy can voice them all. Supposedly GRRM contacted Roy on his 90th birthday and told him to get ready for the next book, probably before the end of this year...

I have meetings every week with a group of people, some who have read all the books, some who have read some, some who have only watched the show, and so on. I'm constantly aware of possible spoilers, and I've been trained to dance around them with the skill of a water dancer...

Three stooges.

Yeah, I can't see them going into the rest of the ironborn until next season, but it would be hard to just ignore them completely. They already have Theon, Asha (now Yara apparently), and Balon, so they're set up for it. I'm guessing they'll need to off Balon either by the end of the season or the start of next season, which could kick things off with the other characters.

What, is it bad to point out where the TV show differs from the books, without going into what specifically happened in the books?

Yeah, it was at the inn. Sandor had too much to drink, which is why he had so much trouble with them. In the TV show there were five of them, but in the books there were only three -- Polliver, the Tickler, and a boy squire. Sandor removed half of Polliver's face, but not before he had taken a few serious wounds, including losing his ear. Arya took care of the Tickler, took back Needle from Polliver, and finished off the squire. She will most definitely end up at the temple in Braavos, I have to think -- they've already shown flashes of Braavos in the TV teasers, so we know it will be part of the storyline. True, good point. We never know for certain it was her wolf, but yeah, it was her wolf. I bloody well can't wait to see that on the TV show, if they include it. They'd better.

Crap, I forgot that part.

There is no chance the sale is already completed, as the Bills haven't even hired an appraiser yet. Also, the NFL owners can't sign off on it until the league meetings, the earliest of which are in October. That's probably what they thought was meant by everything being wrapped up "by October".

You mean Patchface? Haven't seen anything of him on the show that I can recall. I thought last night's episode was a little slow, but I liked it since many of the storylines got back on track -- especially Bran's. They took some liberties with that one, especially Bran warging into Hodor to kill the Bolton guy (Locke), but I thought it was well done. And now Bran and the group are free to get back to searching for the one-eyed crow. I think they're doing great with the Littlefinger-Sansa storyline, the Brienne and Pod storyline, and others. I don't know what they're planning on doing with Arya and the Hound...they already had the encounter at the Inn where the Hound was "mortally" wounded, but he wasn't wounded in the show. Not sure how they plan on getting Arya the opportunity to rid herself of the Hound.

I thought it was a great episode. Love the Littlefinger-Sansa storyline. I also like how the Bran storyline evolved, even though it was a bit different than the book. I'll admit, I was a bit surprised that the character sent by Bolton to the Wall to find Bran was offed by the Bran-Hodor combo. Totally not in the books, but well done!

Robey is the man. Something tells me Henderson will do some lobbying on behalf of the corner blitz. Don't give up on it just yet.

Oh he knows music, he just doesn't know good music. But yeah, happy birthday, and stuff.

I know, I couldn't get them to appear...

sammywatkins I truly think a team going to jump up n grab me who it may be i know 4/29/14, 1:08 PM sammywatkins All those teams in top 10 might draft me but I been thinking outside the box interesting phone calls 4/29/14, 1:13 PM Hmmm.....

The rape scene was definitely not like in the books, but the situation in the TV show was also different. In the books, Jamie had just returned to King's Landing after being away for so long, so he wasn't there for Joffrey's death. They saw each other for the first time while in the sept, and lustily went after each other. In the TV show, Jamie had already been back in King's Landing for perhaps weeks, was present for Joffrey's death (and was supposed to be protecting him), and he and Cersei had already been quarreling. So the sex scene in the sept took place under very different circumstances, and as such at least it makes some sense that Cersei did not consent (at first). Not that I agree with creating that scene, but that at least might explain it. As for Margaery's grandmother, it was the same as in the books -- although in the books, grams doesn't come straight out and admit it like in the TV show. In the books, it was still Littlefinger who orchestrated it all, along with the grams, by using Sansa and Ser Dontos to get the poison where it needed to be during the wedding. Coldhands. Yeah, that's basically the only person Bran et al met once they got outside the Wall, until they find the Three-Eyed Crow. But like someone else posted, I guess this is a way to introduce some drama into that storyline and to drag it out longer so they don't catch up as fast. Man, that would suck if the TV show catches up and surpasses the books...

That's hardly the same thing here. Ownership of an NBA franchise, which comes with its own bylaws and rules, is very different than just owning any other piece of property.

Selling the franchise and making hundreds of millions of dollars from it is hardly "stripping".