MattM

Wouldn't they have had to guarantee his salary then? From the article it sounds like the game is to wait until after Week 1's games have been played because you don't have to guarantee salaries of anyone not on the team at that point. So if correct, and Walker was still on the team, the Bills would be on the hook for his salary even if they cut him if I'm following this correctly.....

I'd put the line at closer to 13-14, but that said, I think we all need to remember that there's a reason they play these games. The loss of Seymour takes their D down a few notches and our D is a better than average one, IMHO, especially if Maybin and Schobel can get some pressure. If Brady has an off night, or isn't fully recovered, then I think our D helps us keep this close and it's up to the to this point lifeless O to put some points up, ideally with some help from ST, where we do excel. That said, I can see why the spread is as high as it is easily. I'll just end by saying what I usually say before every Pats* game--I just don't want the refs to decide it. Too many times that team* seems to get a little "too lucky" in close games vis-a-vis largesse from the refs. They haven't needed it often against us in the past, but the times they have (the most recent being game 1 of the 2007 season when we got completely jobbed) they seem to get it.....

I think I read elsewhere that the personal matter is an operation on his daughter, so I hope she's alright. Kelsay gets ripped a lot on here (even by me on occasion), but let's keep things in perspective before people start ripping him for taking time off for something that might be a lot more important than football.....

Oh yeah, I forgot to add the obvious--this will weaken New England* this year mightily. Their secondary is suspect, half of their linebackers (if they stay 3-4) are "meh" and now they've gone from having perhaps the best D-line in football (behind maybe the G-Men and Stillers) to only an above average one. I suspect that above average O's may put up 30 points a game on these guys. A couple of breaks on D and ST in such a case and the Pats* will probably lose those games, even with Brady and Co. God help them if Fat Vince* were to ever get injured. Good teams would be putting 40 up on them is my guesstimate in such a case. Too bad we don't have the O to take advantage of this opportunity.....

Interesting move. While no one can predict the future and the future is when winners and losers from this trade will ultimately be determined, on balance I'd say this is a good move for the Pats*. They couldn't have afforded Wilfork and Seymour and the ton of other folks whose contracts expire after this season, including Mankins. Something like a third of their roster's contracts are up after 2009, IIRC (that number may change depending on whether 2009 is indeed uncapped and you get the 6 year rule for free agency, but even so they still had Fat Vince, Mankins and Seymour among others). This way they get something for the guy they were going to let walk. The saving grace is that (a) the Raiders may be a team on the rise, believe it or not, with youngsters like Russell, McFadden and Heyward-Bey on O and an always decent D and (b) the Pats* have pretty much sucked at the draft the last few years, even with Pioli and Dimitroff, both of whom are now gone. This week's cuts further confirmed that last part, as a number of former high to mid-level draft picks have been released or IR-ed (Crable and O'Connell, two 2008 third rounders come immediately to mind, as does Dave Thomas, who was also a 3 and who they got a bag of balls for this week). Still, it's hard for someone of Belicheat's stature to screw up the first round. All I can say is "GO RAIDERS!"......

The problem is that the big market owners (which also includes guys who bought recent expansion teams like the Texans and Browns since they paid such a high price for them) who think like Jones does (like Kraft, Snyder, Lurie, McNair, etc.) seem to have been the ones who chose Goodell and who have his ear. He knows where his bread is buttered and I strongly suspect who he'll side with here, to the detriment of teams like Buffalo, Jacksonville, Minnesota, New Orleans, etc.....

None did, but their second round pick Chung (who Pats* fans are talking up on their boards, or at least "were" talking up on their boards) looked pretty bad in coverage, getting burned for at least two of those TDs. Chung, as you may recall, was Byrd's secondary-mate at Oregon.....

After watching him get absolutely burned by Chris Cooley Friday night, I suspect he was told he'd be cut and given the chance to go out on his own terms before that. The Pats* are arseholes, but even they would probably give him that at least.....

Since RTS service was canceled in 2008 due to Laidlaw's lawsuit, does anyone know if anyone else is running buses to the games from Rochester this season? My dad has put me on the case to find out for him, since he hates driving to the games.....

I just finished watching the first half on NFL Network and recall seeing us send more than our 4 linemen only twice. Once was the sack when Corner blitzed and one other time when we got pressure but not the sack. I suspect they'll be a little less vanilla when the season starts. On the other hand, was it just me or did the Steelers seem to blitz a bit more than we did? Not an excuse, but just what it seemed like to me. Something else I noticed in getting ready for my fantasy draft tonight is that the 4 D's we've played so far are all in the top 12 according to my fantasy service. Pitt's No. 1, and GB, Tenn and Chicago were 10-12 respectively. As this list was from late July, I strongly suspect that GB is now up at around 4 or 5 after shutting us and Cleveland out and holding the AZ starters to 10 points. Not an excuse, but something to be considered in all the recent criticism. If you boil it down, our 1st team O has gone a little over one full game of time, scored 3 points, given up 5 turnovers and gained about 300 yards total against on average a number 5 or 6 defense and without our best offensive player for almost all of that span. Again, not an excuse (I'm still worried about the O and TE's lack of confidence), but those are all just facts to be considered before people jump off bridges here. My concern is that it all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of our O (and QB) getting its confidence shot, thereby having an even worse effect on our team.....

The whole "leaving the field early" thing that game was just weird. You can clearly see an NFL official (not a ref, but someone from the League office) going over to him telling him the game wasn't over as he trotted off the field, but he didn't care. He'd rather leave early and look like the a-hole that he is than have half a billion people watch him crying on national TV is my guess.....

Don't be so sure--I recall reading a quote this week from Brady saying they were treating this one like a real game, meaning film study and the whole nine yards. The Pats* seemed to play a lot of their starters well into the third. Their 1st team D-line was going against the Skins 2nd stringers in the third quarter. That said, they also seemed to blend in more second stringers in the second quarter as well. Maybe that's Belicheat's master plan this year--platooning his way to victory (along with the cheating).....

I recently read somewhere (here?) an article that laid out how many yards a pass traveled in the air last year versus YAC for each of the NFL's starting QBs. Guess what? Our buddy Matty boy there was second to last in yards actually thrown (FWIW, TE was 18th). Didn't surprise me in the slightest--he can't hit the broad side of a barn more than 15 yards out and a lot of "his" yards were YAC. Combine that to throwing to two Pro Bowl wideouts behind one of the better O-lines in the League and it looks to me like the Chiefs got major-league fleeced.....

Except maybe that floater pick he had. Looked like he didn't get too much into that throw......

Many thanks, John--as always, it's very much appreciated when you keep us up to speed with what's going on, especially with regard to stuff like injuries.....

That's a fair answer, IMHO.....

At the cost of needing to win so badly that cheating becomes part of his SOP? No thanks.....

I'm glad--I hope they really suck this year. I've hated them ever since my dad and I went out West to Denver to see the Bills-Broncos game earlier this decade. Their fans were just downright arrogant and obnoxious. We've traveled to a bunch of other places since then and they remain by far the worst folks we've encountered (although we haven't made it to Foxboro yet).....

Yet it does seem odd that Dungy is in Rochester, doesn't it? Could be a coincidence, of course, but the tailor thing seemed a little weird, too. I mean, who goes and helps their tailor celebrate? Tony must have dropped an awful lot on clothes over the years if that part is true.....

I got to meet Ralph at camp a few years ago and actually thanked him for not moving the team for more money. His reaction? He just laughed and said, "Pish posh [or some such], what am I going to do, sit around my kitchen table and count my money?" He gets a bum rap here by some for being cheap--he's not cheap, he's just smart enough to realize that playing in a small market increasingly makes it more difficult to compete in today's not really capped League. By "not really capped", I mean that the cap has come to have less and less meaning, as it's set high enough to allow large market teams to outspend small market ones, kind of defeating its purpose of a more level playing field. Let Kraft, Jones, Snyder et al have their way, it will be gone altogether and will go the way of MLB, which I haven't cared about personally in years.....

An interesting point, but there are all kinds of levels of "friendliness/unfriendliness" that one can show in that kind of situation. It's not "all or nothing." You want some exclusives periodically or the first crack at some good breaking news? What can you give us in positive pub for that? Or how about "Why should we talk to you any more than we need to as a general member of the press since you write such crap about us"? I've heard on Pats* boards no less that that team takes that approach to outlets it finds less than friendly. If you think this kind of stuff doesn't go on, I'd call you nuts as well. While it is a symbiotic relationship to an extent between the networks and the League in terms of access/exposure, now that ESPN/ABC have sunk over a billion I believe into their NFL contract, wouldn't that be like slitting their own throats? You also don't engage on my point about the business side perhaps butting it nose into the editorial side when the company's own interests are at stake--do you believe that never happens? If so, do you believe in fairies and goblins, too?

Could be either one, though, no? I'm willing to admit that, are you? You, Tim and I will have to agree to disagree on some aspects of this. I do think, however, that Tim's post above showing all of the resources ESPN devoted to Spygate last year reinforces my original point about it being an interesting idea for a story to look at all of that a year or so later and the impact it had on fans' attitudes towards New England to this day, again, rightly or wrongly. I'm not a journalist (nor do I play one on TV), so I'll leave that stuff up to you guys, but may mention the idea to some other friends in the field for a further reality check out of my own personal curiousity.....

That would be my take--including exploring some of the other accusations against them (like the stuff in the Times story I previously linked to or Ross Tucker's stories about things like letting IR players practice (which Pats players apparently believed all other teams did until Ross disabused them of that notion with his experience with other teams, including the Bills). News outlets with ties to the League may be willing to take a story so far for the sake of more eyeballs, but no farther for fear of damaging the relationship and their business interest in the League. May be a cause and effect timelag thing going on as well. For ex., Spygate blows up so the media outlet reports it, the League doesn't like the direction the story is going, talks to the media outlet about that, reminding them of the value the outlet has in the League and how things like access can be cut off to devalue that relationship. Some back and forth goes on behind the scenes and pretty soon the outlet begins backing off the story over time. Doesn't sound so preposterous to me. Why would ESPN, for ex., want you to devalue a billion dollar corporate asset? I understand how journalism is supposed to work in such cases--ethical walls between editorial and business, but I'm just a tad cynical that it always works the way it's supposed to. Again, Tim, nothing personal here intended--I generally like your stuff and don't mean to imply somehow that this is something you're personally involved in.

Many thanks for the response (and sorry for the late reply, as I just noticed this). What you cover is obviously up to you, but I do think that it is newsworthy that still a year later, any time there's Pats news either on ESPN or ProFootballTalk.com, etc. (basically anywhere users are allowed to post comments) you see a TON of anti-Pats cheating comments after the article and obviously it's not just Bills fans making those comments. One of my favorite current running battles to watch is between Steelers fans and Pats fans going at each other on PFT, for ex. Average stories may get something like 30 comments there--mention the Pats and it guarantees three or four times that as folks go back and forth on them. They are clearly the most hated team League-wide right now (kind of like the Raiders may have been in the 70's), but I've yet to see a story angle on that. As to your point about coverage, nothing personal, but from a pure conflicts standpoint, I also must admit that I find it hard to believe that the business side of organizations with NFL contracts don't impact the editorial/writing side. When there are billions of dollars in contracts at stake (giving outlets like the networks a stake in the NFL itself essentially), I suspect that certain stories are pushed and others are discouraged, but that may just be my middle-aged cynicism showing through.....

I'm sure Rodney's left some HGH for him as well, so he won't be playing like a 31 year old speed rusher.....