Archives for September 11, 2003

‘Bills President and General Manager Tom Donahoe reports the Bills are willing to host a Monday night game. I was surprised they didn’t get one this year, after their improvement last season.’

‘” He has taken a shell of a football team and in a relatively short period of time turned it into a contender,” Wilson said. ” He is as hard a worker as I’ve ever seen and he is as good a judge of talent as we’ve ever had. Every move in this business is a gamble and he’s pretty much hit on all of them. He’s done a remarkable job.”‘

‘” Definitely, I want to go down there and get a victory,” Shaw said. ” You never want to go play against your old team and not come out on top. It will be a big thing where I’m hoping we can get down there and produce a big win.”‘

‘”The crowd was big, man, very big,” Spikes said. “Myself, I am a very emotional guy when I’m out there on the field. I love to talk and see the fans get into it. I don’t think a lot of people know that it helps defensively. It is big.”‘

‘Although the Bills have Drew Bledsoe at quarterback and like to throw, the Jaguars won’t be surprised if the Bills call the toss sweep several times with Travis Henry, who gained 86 yards last week in a 31-0 victory against New England.’

‘The Jaguars home opener is Sunday. Unless the four people I saw in line outside Alltel Stadium on Wednesday bought about 2,000 tickets each, the Jags came up about 9,000 tickets short of averting a TV blackout for their first home game.’

‘Reich, who started his new job July 1, has more than some incredible comeback stories to inspire his students and faculty members. He is fond of reminding listeners that he followed the Houston thriller by setting an inauspicious NFL record just weeks later, losing three fumbles in the Bills’ humiliating 52-17 loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XXVII. “(God) was with me that day, too,” Reich said as he led a visitor down one of the seminary’s tree-lined paths on a summer morning. “Both games were tremendous experiences and I love to talk about them. But you need to talk about the whole package.”‘

‘“They brought us here for a reason — to get better,” Adams said. “If we aren’t any better, then they made a mistake on us. We worked hard together, gelled together, learned the defense. We came out and executed today and that was very important.”’

‘He caught only one pass, for 5 yards, of the seven thrown his way. And most discouraging, Reed dropped the easiest one, off a perfectly timed flea-flicker, that had him wide open inside the New England 20 with a clear path to the end zone.’

‘"I think our team spoke it very well in the locker room on Sunday, on how they handled the opening win. It was a good game, but again they put it in perspective and you have to focus week in and week out in this league. You have twenty-four hours to enjoy a win, you have twenty-four hours to suffer a loss. There are no easy games in this league. Our focus has been outstanding in the locker room immediately following the ball game. When they came in on Monday and as we graded the film it was very good focus. We have a lot of things to improve upon, a lot of things we have to work on. Our attendance yesterday on their day off was amazing. They were all in here watching film and getting ready for knowing the Jaguars as well as they know someone else in their division."’