TimGraham

15 of 16 ESPN power rankings voters, including myself, picked the Steelers No. 1 in the most recent poll. So your theory that the media favors the Patriots is a little silly. As for a what if article, I just wrote an article about LeBron James playing in the NFL that was one of the most popular stories in recent ESPN.com history. So a lot of people care about those types of stories. Clearly you have no grasp of what regular people care about or how Las Vegas works. On the former: You put Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Terrell Owens, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant or Tiger Woods on TV or the cover of a magazine, people respond. Ben Roethlisberger? Not even close. On the latter: The odds are set based not on who really is the favorite on paper but how people are going to bet. The Patriots will generate more action than the Steelers and more people are going to buy futures tickets with the hope the Patriots win the Super Bowl, not the Steelers. That's what odds mean. It has nothing to do with who is supposed to win. It's about making sure Las Vegas gets an equal number of dollars placed on either side.

All of those anonymous phone calls I used to receive when I was covering Joe Mesi couldn't compare to that. I was convinced for a while there I was going to come home one day and find a brick through my front window or my dog dead.

Should I go back and delete all those Terrell Owens posts in the days after he signed with the Bills so that way I can even up the coverage for the other teams? Tom Brady has been THE NFL story this week. You better believe an exclusive interview for the first time in nearly nine months is going to land him and the Patriots on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And do you think I should have gone to New York to speak with Thomas Jones yesterday or been in Foxborough for Brady's first on-field appearance since he got hurt? Believe me, a lot of people out there already are sick of T.O. and the Bills and Mark Sanchez and the Jets, too. The Patriots are the standard business model in all of sports. It was the Forbes cover story recently. Sports Illustrated recently rated the top owners in sports. Bob Kraft was No. 1. As for measuring coverage league-wide on who gets how much ... You're completely guessing and clearly have made up your mind the Patriots get a lot more than the others without anything more than an assumption. I think you're wrong. I also think you probably notice Patriots coverage more often because it upsets you more than Steelers coverage. The Bills play the Patriots twice a year and you follow all the games within the division. The Bills play the Steelers once every few years. Stands to reason you'd absorb more Patriots information than Steelers. And NOBODY gets more national attention than the Cowboys. If you're sick of hearing about the Patriots being good, maybe it's because you're more sick of your team being worse.

I've always found the headset stuff interesting, but I doubt the NFL lets them get away with it just because. As for the rest of your post, I'm sorry. I've covered sports long enough and have gotten into more philosophical discussions that I can count, but when "league-wide officiating conspiracy" gets injected into the discourse, the conversation is over for me.

I'm as neutral as a guy can be when it comes to sports. I root for nothing other than a great showdown. I root for games to come down the final drive and playoff series to go seven games. But I have to say -- because I see so much of it in so many different places -- all the whining about the Patriots makes me sympathize with them. Let go of some of that bitterness, folks. The entire universe didn't exactly embrace the Bills when they went to four straight Super Bowls. Let's give credit where it's due. They're a great franchise, top to bottom. They're the standard not only for the NFL but for all of sports. They do it right. As for the tiresome cheatriots talk, they went 18-1 without video help. If you recall, many believe they ran up the scores in 2007 as a response to the Jets turning them in. They proved they could win just fine without the tapes.

Bills: O-line Dolphins: WR Patriots: OLB/right side of O-line Jets: QB/WR

Things are not going well. The housing market in Buffalo is hot, with properties getting multiple offers days after they hit the market. With me being so far away, I don't stand a chance. By the time my agent alerts me to something and I would have a chance to take a look at it, it's sold. That's a great sign for Buffalo, a bad one for me.

When you say available, do you mean simply on the market, or would the player have to be interested in Buffalo as well for the sake of this discussion? If the former, I will say center Jason Brown because of his youth over Matt Birk. If the latter, and we go by the players who visited, none of the ones they missed out on do much for me. Had they not signed Terrell Owens, then my answer might be Laveranues Coles.

I don't recall him being available at any point this offseason. But maybe I missed when the Patriots waived him.

Ellison is a serviceable player and, I assume without looking up his money, affordable as a late-round pick. I would be shocked if the Bills cut him.

That's no rumor.

Thanks, Beast. I was surprised at many of the responses I received.

No, that's what he said. And it makes sense to me. If that type of player didn't come around every so often, he'd never arrive.

Shhhhhh ... Leave him alone. He's deep-thinking.

I had a lot of fun writing it. I didn't think the topic was bad at all. Not one of the people I interviewed told me it was ridiculous or laughed at me: Randy Moss, Bill Parcells, Jets scouting veep Joey Clinkscales, Patriots defensive coordinator Dean Pees ... I'll admit I was apprehensive when I started making the calls, but the more people I talked to, the more I learned how highly LeBron was thought of as a football player.

I think the original song was the Steelers, but pretty much every team adopted it and inserted their name. I grew up listening to the Browns version of the same song.

That's not atypical. The thing with the Bills is that on a few of these cases they interviewed the player first. If a player wants to explore his options, he won't be making any commitments whether a contract is offered or not. Don't view it as a snub if Buffalo necessarily.

* Because training camp doesn't take place in the winter. And teams do sometimes move inside because of the heat. The Dolphins hold half of their training camp sessions in their bubble. * Because buildings with roofs high enough to allow for full practices cost serious money. When the Bills built their field house, it was the only one in which balls could be freely kicked without obstruction. It might still be the only one, but new ones are built every year, so I'm not sure. St. John Fisher doesn't have an NFL-caliber indoor facility, but the Bills have used the gymnasium when it's raining. * Because indoor practice facilities keep fans (i.e. potential season ticket holders) from watching at training camp. You're reaching farther and farther in a desperate attempt to make your argument. I realize you're heavily invested in making your case, so I'll let it go from here because it's a topic that has dragged an far longer than it deserves to. But, for the record, nobody on this thread ever came close to claiming "indoors is always the best use of the players and coaches time." You're injecting a red herring into the discussion. The whole point of practicing inside isn't because outside is worse or inside is optimal. It's about getting out of the elements when they exist. You clearly think it's more important than some NFL coaches do. You're entitled to that opinion. Let's move on.

Bad news. It's at 4 p.m. today.

I might get pushed back to 4 p.m. I'll keep everybody posted.

This is a guy who gets it.

So you think it's better to prepare for a handicapped version of your opponent's playbook and not the entire array of possibilities? Interesting approach.

It was talked about in the America's Game series on NFL Network.

No. "While away" is an actual phrase. You might while away a summer's afternoon in the hammock. http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/phra...while+away.html

Not for nothing, but "What's too tough for them is just right for us" was a Levy saying inspired by hot-weather fatigue.