MattM

Tough break for him--almost always sorry to see a season-ending injury.....

I stand corrected--Vollmer and Edelman are the only two in that class who seemed to impress (at least me) last year. Brace didn't suit up for some games, and Chung and Butler didn't exactly set the world on fire, while Tate was on IR, IIRC......

Plus one--are there any FA's still available at that spot?

Try telling their fans that--I was reading one of their message boards the other day and they were already coronating this year's draft class (none of whom has ever played an NFL down) and last year's (uhhh, besides Edelman, did any of them even play much last year?) as two of the best drafts ever, I sh*t you not......

You hit the nail right on the head--I actually rooted for the Pats* in their first Super Bowl (I just threw up in my mouth a little with that admission), but it really didn't take too long for him and the rest of his mates to become bigtime douchebags (or perhaps they were always DB's, but the media just didn't cover them that way--ye olde chicken/egg phenomenon). Little did we know at the time that they were cheating all along.....

Yeah, and I'm sure that's what he meant--that's BS and we both know it.....

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/07/24-ty...f-libertarians/ Enjoy. My favorites are "the Island" and "Nepotist".....

....and BTW, what a non-story this is, as per the following from it: "To be fair to the president, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform was created after the Senate failed to pass legislation establishing a bipartisan panel that would have been able to force up-on-down votes in Congress on deficit reduction measures. He pushed for the stronger panel before accepting the current commission, which has no enforcement power. " The guy wanted to create a panel to actually force Congressmen to do something on deficit reduction measures, but, oh, no, can't have that--much easier to just criticize than actually make decisions you can be called on the carpet for (and that's directed at both parties).....

What's with the ghetto slang subtitle? He's never spoken like that in his life and you know it. Reasonable people can certainly disagree with the President, but I read that kind of crap and immediately tune out the message of the "speaker", since it sends a pretty clear signal of what their "real" problem with him is.....

I remember being at the opener against the Saints and I believe he had a sack on the first play of the season that game. For about a split second we all thought we'd gotten a steal. Of course, his career went down the drain from there.....

Just so that you know you're not alone, I also recall seeing flashes of good play from him his first couple of years, so was disappointed when he kept missing his "chance to step up" every year. At this point, absent a fantastic camp he's probably simply cut.....

On the first part, actually, uh, no, didn't Miami win the division two years ago? Expect a similar result this season, except it will be the Jets about 2 games ahead of the Pats*. Can't argue with you too much on the last part.....

FYI, I just booked a hotel room for my dad and I (his annual father's day gift--since I owe him for my curse of Bills fandom!), but they seem to be going fast, as there weren't too many places to choose from. A word to the wise is to book yours now if you want to go to this game. Also got some tix on Stubhub--the middle of section 121 for about $230 bucks each. Now I just need to line up the flights, but looking forward to spending a weekend at a true football shrine.....

I agree with you about what Pats*fans.com will do to anyone who doesn't toe the line to their orthodoxy--I myself was banned several times there in Jan/Feb. 2008 for simply asking questions about their views on Spygate. Part of me would still love to go back under a new name and resurrect my all time favorite Cheatriots thread "Who Else Here Smells a Blowout?" started two days before the G-Men handed their arses to them on a platter. I'm sure it's been locked down or forever deleted, but a guy can dream, can't he? That said, I am NOT in favor of banning people here--let folks like our friends above (one of whom claims to be a Bills fan, but his posts all say otherwise) post here and let us refute them. Simple as that.....

Based on the job he's done to date in KC (Tyson Jackson may be a bigger bust than Maybin, considering where he was picked), I suspect that people have given too much credit to Pioli and not enough to Dimitroff, who was their head of college scouting, I believe, and is now Atlanta's GM. Matt Ryan and Sam Baker turned out pretty well, and he's done a good job there of turning that franchise around. Either way, two of the three main guys who helped build the Pats* are now running other franchises.....

Yeah, a 10-6 team (that as we all know could very, very easily have been 9-7) now quite likely missing one of its best players (Welker) for about half the year or more, a year older (and not in a good sense) at key spots like WR (Moss), QB (Brady) and RB (all of their "over the hill/HGH gang"), with no obvious positive additions in FA and the loss of two starters on D (Thomas and Springs) really strikes fear into the hearts of opponents this year. Did I mention the beating they took at home to end their season? Again, fans, like many in the media, need to quit looking backwards and focus instead on the product actually on the field. If you look at them this way, the Pats* are way more than beatable this year, not that we'll cash in on the chance, but the Jets (and probably the Fins) probably will......

BTW, the Bills D gave up 20 yards a game more than the Pats*, while the Bills O gained 120 yeards a game less than the Pats*. I'd love to see a yards per play differential stat for the two teams, as I'd say that extra 120 yards probably translates to an extra 15 to 20 plays per game for the Pats* O versus ours. In other words, on a yards per play basis, our D was probably actually much better than New England*'s last year, despite not having the "defensive genius" of Belicheat at our helm.....

??? Who have they gotten to retool their D in the last couple of drafts? Jerrod Mayo, whose numbers are worse than Paul Poszlusny's, especially around big plays like sacks, ints and FFs? Chung, chosen several spots ahead of Byrd last year, but who really didn't seem to see much of the field, despite the Pats* having an average at best secondary? Maybe Ron Brace, Fat Boy Vince's supposed potential replacement, who didn't even dress for a number of games last year IIRC? Maybe it's the plethora of young corners they've taken (that's you, Wheatley and Wilhite), who also had a hard time cracking the lineup of their pass D over aging guys like Shawn Springs, who got cut this offseason? People need to stop looking at the Pats* in the rear view mirror of 4 or 5 years ago and recognize what the team is today--one on the decline.....

Keep telling yourself that. A key injury or two (I'd say to any of Brady, Moss or Wilfork) and this team is lucky to hit 8-8, IMHO. They've got one decent WR (we all know Welker won't be back before Week 8 or so, despite the recent grandstanding at OTAs) and a stable of RB's nearing 35 (hello Dr. HGH) and a disappointment in Maroney, all to go along with a D that's not getting any better most likely (having lost several players, like Springs and Thomas) and was absolutely gashed by the Ravens in the playoffs. I say not getting any better most likely since their drafts have stunk the last few years, so to count on draft choices in New England* would not be wise. To top it all off, you know have a disgruntled Logan Mankins making holdout noises. Yeah, keep telling yourself that.....

I was at a party with some work friends on the UWS of Manhattan where I lived at the time. They had the Knicks game on one TV and OJ on another--surreal is quite the word to fit that night. Being the only Bills fan at the party, I spent more time watching OJ than the Knicks and remember almost tearing up at one point realizing that my boyhood idol was in such bad shape, morally and otherwise.....

Are you on drugs? Did you see his stats against guys like Moss and TO? He absolutely shut them down....

First off, nothing personal meant--my comment on your screen name was, however, how I felt at the time I wrote it. As I stood ready to write more, it occurred to me that in some cases folks are just not likely to "get" the arguments I was trying to make based on their pre-existing mindset. Reflecting on your screen name brought me to that point, perhaps incorrectly. If so, I apologize. BTW, that comment was aimed more at the other Greek chorus of conservative voices (they know who they are) than at you. This is one of my first forays into the PPP board (I come to this site for football, where this thread started, not politics) and unfortunately it seems like a microcosm of our national political debate--people shouting the same things over and over again past each other, trying to score points with put downs out of Jr. High, saying in some cases shrill things I'd bet they'd never dare say to people face to face. (On a related topic, if you want to get really scared for our democracy I suggest you read the comments on Yahoo! sometime after a political story. I did that yesterday on a story about Michelle Obama--someone all reasonable people should be able to agree overcame a lot to become the successful person she was even before marrying her husband--talking to a HS graduating class and tearing up thinking about the sacrifices her parents made to help her and her brother and was stunned at the viciousness, racism, distortions and lies of many of the comments.) In terms of the topic at hand, I'm sorry but it's a fact that being born into an upper middle class family creates an easier path to material success. I don't think that's something that anyone can really argue against. As noted way above, an old sociology professor of mine once said that according to numerous studies your parents' socio-economic status had the highest correlation to a kid's socio-economic status later in life, higher than other measurables, including IQ (which is probably the closest measurable proxy we can have to other things folks think might equate to success, since one can't really measure persistence or gumption or the desire to work hard in any meaningful way.) I'm too lazy to google more recent studies, but I'd be absolutely shocked if they found anything different. The recruiter point was meant to illustrate that sacrifice in the form of military service is asked and expected much more from the working class than the elites in this society--again, no reasonable person can really argue that one either in my view. I always found it ironic that those who have the most are asked to sacrifice the least for our and their freedom, but that may just be me who grew up in a neighborhood that sent more than its fair share to places like Vietnam and now Iraq and Afghanistan. I get your point about 90 plus percent of inheritances going to adults and not kids, but will reiterate the point that kids growing up in households where they will stand to pay the inheritance tax in a meaningful way most likely benefited quite measurably from living in an upper middle class household in terms of life chances. In rereading your post, in some ways I don't disagree with you and you acknowledge what I seek to have my conservative friends (and I have quite a number) acknowledge--namely that the system is not fair. That's all that I can ask. Some of us seek to lessen the amount of unfairness in society, while others don't (often, I've found, since the unfairness inures to their benefit). One last word to the Greek chorus--most of the arguments you make seem to be applicable to regressive taxation in any form. Thankfully if you're truly against that, you're in a pretty small minority fringe as a practical matter. But if you are, you should remember that part of what the rich buy for their increased share of taxes is social peace and the perception it helps create of a fairer society that in turn legitimizes such society in the eyes of its citizens. Be careful what you wish for--if you got the libertarian, dog-eat-dog, Hobbesian society that you seem to want, you should understand that what may likely go with it is increased crime and social unrest if folks no longer have a social safety net and people can recognize more clearly that their life chances truly are somewhat more rigidly set at birth. Is that really the world you want? One where the rich need to hide behind walls and hire armed security to protect them, because taken to extremes, I suspect that's where we'd end up. Look no further than places like Latin America for society's that have those problems. PS To Messr. Adams--to my eyes, my struggle to get where I am proves not so much that poor kids can make it with some luck and hard work, but that we should try to remove the obstacles that poor and working class kids have to overcome to "make it", both for fairness reasons and for society's benefit overall. Isn't that better for society overall, to use the developable skills in people, or are you afraid of the increased competition?

I'm "hoping" they tank only if we are near the top of the AFCE. If not (as is likely to be the case), I'd much rather see them as AFCE champ than the Pats* or Fins, but that may just be me. Would be nice to see Ryan's D smash Brady again and again. Personally, I think the Jets are likely to be a 12-4 or so team this year, with the Pats* closer to 10-6, but we'll see.....

He always looked like he might take that next step after a slow start to his career, but never really did here, other than glimpses on third down. I met him once after a TC practice during an autograph session a few years ago and he seemed like a legimitately nice guy, so I hope he does well in SD.

Go back and read my post--it had plenty to do with the point I was making, but then again, maybe you didn't understand it, which would be no great shock. What I'm noticing from the last few posts from a certain direction is that it seems some folks don't actually bother to read any point of view that opposes their own, but instead simply twist what they want out of them in order to fashion their own straw men, over and over ad nauseum, rather than adding anything really constructive to the discussion. Kind of like US politics in a nutshell these days unfortunately.....