Niagara 66

I went at the start of the 4th qtr after the lights were back up, judging by the state of the floors and walls I don't think people were very concerned with what they were hitting....the place was damn near flooded.

After the Lynch TD put us up 19-14, why did we kick a PAT to make it 20-14 instead of going for 2? That seems like the obvious choice there. Maybe poor communications due to power outage?

Just got my answer from the Rivers press conference...he said the Back Judge (not field judge) would flash the 10 second warning (both hands up) Given that both Rivers and Edwards are likely out of practice with this technique, only one delay penalty each isn't too bad....

One thing I noticed was the ref talking to Trent before we started our first drive sans play clock. He was pointing down field towards (I thought) the play clock. We soon got called for delay of game. The flag was thrown by the, I think, Field Judge....the guy in center field behind the safeties. The Chargers took a delay penalty, too, and the same center field ref threw the flag. That got me thinking... Does that official (Field Judge) keep the playclock on him (stopwatch?) And I was wondering if he was supposed to maybe give a signal that time was running out, like maybe raise one hand with a clenched fist to signal "5 seconds" or something. I wondered if this arrangement 1. existed and 2. is what the ref was pointing out to Trent before we started blackout play. Overall, I thought it was pretty cool having the power out. Seemed much more like a football game and less of an "event"

One I penned years ago under a different name, actually got it pulished in SHOUT! as "Post of the Week"...ahem: I Hate Miami God, But I Hate Miami I Hate Miami *sniff. Elegant in it's simplicity, no?

WHAT? Any RB in the NFL could have easily scored that TD. It was a well designed, perfectly executed play. He had a wall of three (at least) blockers out in front against maybe 3 (2?) defenders. He followed them over the goal line untouched. A great play, to be sure, but by no means due to individual Lynch effort. Watch Lynch turn 2 yd losses into 1 yd gains. See Lynch move the chains on 3rd and four and remember back to the days of Willis "4th and a short 1" MaGahee's sorry ass.

Happy Birthday Mr. Wilson...Thanks for the Bills!!

Lotsa good stuff in here. SD is rightly a little pissed that for the 2nd time in 3 weeks they have to fly across country and play a 10:00AM (for them) game against a team coming off a bye (MIA 2 wks ago). I can imagine the conniption fits and conspiracy theories around here if that was us!! Plus they might be looking ahead playing NO in London. Oh, well...sux to be them and GO BILLS!! No quarter! That's a very good scouting report format they have, though, and the video interviews are a nice touch.

That's right. It featured the Royal play, a 60 yard TD scramble from V. Young through the entire defense, and ended with us going for a TD (quasi - Hail Mary style) even though we were well within FG range and down by 1, except for the wind. Yeah, now I remember......

I was at that game and, to tell the truth, LT ran like a man among boys and seemed to get stronger as the day got longer. I was very impressed with him as the difference between him and other backs I'd seen recently was stark....this guy is for real. It will be very interesting to see how our revamped front 7 and especially Stroud-POZ-Mitchell hold up over four quarters. The '06 Bills run D ran out of gas in the 4th on that day. BTW - Was this the game we still shoulda won if Royal hadn't monster-stepped out of the back ofthe EZ? Or was that a few weks later vs. TN? Man, was that bad.....

This is the Bills biggest game of the week! Seriously though....these Chargers are gonna be tough. I definitely think we will find out a lot about where we stand as contenders. We can win, especially at home, but I don't think there would be shame in getting beat by SD's "A" game, as long as the Bills bring theirs, fight to the end, and .... F that!!! Go Bills!! We're 4-1 at home coming off a bye.....let's kick their asses!!!

For the Chargers game, scalping may be an option.....there was a thread on it recently and I've done it lotsa times with no trouble and paid reasonable prices (maybe $10-20 over face, if that within an hour of kick off). Stick to the guys on Abbott closer to the stadium, and have a seating chart with you. Lower end zone (first 10-20 rows), particularly at the scoreboard end, is a rocking place to be and is where I recommend for a 20-something guy looking for the experience. I'm "old" now and have seasons in the upper deck.....great view and it gets going, but nothin like the lower end zone scene.... That Browns game will be a tough scalp so you're better off if you already have tix in hand.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008...ed-cocaine-dea/ Don't know if the link works. Says he had 11 lbs. when busted. Was trying to collect on $40k in drugs stolen from him, threatening to kill people, etc. SEE ya.....

Peters cleared out their linebacker #51 that sprung Freddie Jackson for his TD. Beautiful run blocking. We're 4-0!! Every player made good and less good plays. Why are we looking so hard for something to B word about.

Is Warner drunk? I mean, these picks are just incredibly bad.....

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I've scalped a bunch of tix before I got seasons last year (best move I've made since coming back to WNY). Never had a problem. I always went to the guys on Abbott Road, near the intersection right by the stadium. The ones further away from the stadium seemed a bit dodgy. It was always my understatning that a "Need Tickets" sign means "Selling Tickets". "Selling" is "illegal" (or at lest it was) so don't advertise. I've never heard of scalping laws being enforced, but there's no reason to rub the cops' noses in it....

Plus, all the gold-digging bimbos that you KNOW are throwing themselves at these young, lonely millionaires have to get through smart (Math teacher), attractive (collegiate athlete), Shelby who as a woman will spot those fake tramps a mile off, whereas Trent might fall for it. He can trust her, she's his sister. That's gotta be big....

"Nah, we do it because they're fun words to say.... " Tha's part of it, sure...but for many in the 35-55 age group, everything they knew about us came from Irv.

I've found that many Canadians, and especially Torontonians, got their entire image of Buffalo from Eyewitness News as kids. To them, Buffalo is a dark scary place inhabited by "pistol-packing punks" and buildings that spontaneously combust every night into "three-alarm blazes". They love to say 'Lackawanna, Cheektowaga, and Tonawanda". They will all but piss themselves laughing if you mention "Irv Weinstein". Hell, even the Bare Naked Ladies, when I caught them at Artpark last year, went into a Tonawanda-Lackawanna-Cheektowaga bit...

Not only that, but with Stroud, POZ et al, we now stop the 3rd & 2 as well, where last year that would've been 1st & 10. It's great to see.

Well then, with 45, 37, 47, 36, 38, 36, 42 and 37 our defenses were within 4% of one of the best defenses ever in 5 of 8 seasons......guess this wasn't really a problem? In another article it says that the Bills focused on 3rd down defense all off season, understanding that teams tend to run limited routes, etc. to prevent QB injury, etc. The early results are in...we're better!

I'm sold, too.

Hmmm...I'm actually doing t-distribution analyses for normally distributed populations with a sample size of less than 25. If I get around to it, I may try to run some forecasts over 16 games, but i doubt it. I agree the sample size is small, but to me it does indicate a trend or perhaps more accurately, I WANT the trend to be there, so I find numbers that apparently validate it....bottom line, our D is noticeably better at stopping 3rd down conversions, and that's probably a key contributing factor to us winning games. BTW, what are considered "good" numbers for 3rd down stopping percentages? Where could I find that?

From the article on Whitner's absolutely justified late hit that sparked our comeback comes this quote: "the defense is permitting only 18 percent conversions on third down, compared to 45, 37, 47, 36, 38, 36, 42 and 37 in the eight seasons since Buffalo last made the playoffs." THAT is huge. And is the reason we can stuff the run in the fourth quarter, etc. etc. etc. I'd never seen the percentages for previous years, but I knew it was high because I was always pissed off that we couldn't get off the field...even on like 3rd and 12 and sh-- like that, we always seemed to give up the 1st. Not THIS year.