BRH

Worst trade: Lamonica. Hands down. Best trade: Sending OJ Simpson to San Francisco in 1978. The Juice was washed up at the time, but we managed to get SF's 1979 first-rounder for him. That turned out to be the #1 pick in the whole draft, which we used to select OSU's Tom Cousineau -- who promptly bolted for the CFL. But when he returned in 1983, we sent his rights to the Cleveland Browns in exchange for their first-rounder... which we used to select Jim Kelly. So the deal was basically a washed-up HOF running back for a young future HOF quarterback. Not a bad deal if you don't mind waiting eight years for the payoff (Kelly didn't come to Buffalo until 1986).

It was the Orioles who pissed US off, not the other way around! Angelos destroyed that franchise.

And the irony there would be that a team called the Americans is awarded a trophy that is supposed to go to the best team in Canada.

No MNFs. Again. Two warm-weather teams coming up in September (Houston and Atlanta). What is it with the New England night game?

Although I have to admit it does make sense. Losman played at Tulane, so what better way for the league to hype his first start than to have him open in his old college town?

A guess? Or a fact?

Nooooo please. I need more time than that to accumulate enough wifepoints to be able to go!

I do the regular maintenance myself on a half-acre lot. I usually farm out the spring cleaning and the last bit of fall cleanup because we have some very old and humongous maples and oaks here. Six huge maples in the front yard alone; two huge oaks and two more maples in the back. You can imagine the leaf work. I had to buy a rider mower just for that the first fall we lived here; otherwise, I'd still be using a walk-behind. Walk-behinds are better for the grass anyway.... it's harder to vary your mowing patterns effectively on a rider. Out of 21 houses on our street, we are one of only four or five that don't farm out our regular yard work, and three of them are retired and spend their entire summer working on the yards. There are yardwork trucks on our street every day all summer. That's one big difference that I found between Penfield and Pittsford.

Road games at Kansas City and Pittsburgh aren't on our schedule this year, are they? That's two opportunities the NFL lost to screw us with night games. Of course, there's always New England. I wouldn't mind a Monday Nighter at Pee Pee Park though

Isn't that the truth. I like to listen to his show just to see which player's name he'll completely mangle tonight. When he and Freddy Smerlas are on together, you need a translator to make sense of the proceedings. As a writer his laziness makes him the original model for today's self-styled online sports pundits. I have it on good authority that prior to the onset of the Web, Matthews regularly could be found at World Wide News on St. Paul Street buying all the out-of-town papers to get material for his columns. Now, of course, he doesn't even need to leave his desk for that. I think Scott Pitoniak and Sal Maiorana are decent reporters. Leo Roth always seems to have an axe to grind. That said, all three of them are more talented at stringing words together to form simple sentences than Matthews... which I guess isn't saying much.

If it was a Rochester commercial it would be better than Buffalo's.

All the same, I wouldn't mind it one bit if someone here who had the NFL Network would post the schedules as they come up.

The only thing worse than a factually incorrect article is a poorly written and factually incorrect article. Jonas' pass blocking "isn't very well"? Did it have a fever or something? And what will happen if we make that "hugh" trade? Are we getting Douglas?

Except for one game; they'll probably lead off with the first game of the year which the Patsies will host.

I noticed that too!

83, dude. I'm completely shocked. Imagine if I, like, worked out and stuff.

If I recall right, what usually happens is that teams get the information ahead of time and start releasing THEIR schedules on their websites throughout the day... but the Bills never do this. Which usually makes for a pretty neat exercise in triangulation all during Schedule Day. Should be fun tomorrow.

And how much do you want to bet that the shot gets digitally "enhanced" so that the swoosh is horizontal and not vertical as it was in the actual shot?

I have such great memories of those three games, especially. * Winning the division against Miami. Kelly was out for that game, having sustained an injury the week before against the Giants. If I recall right, loudmouthed Dolfelon CB Tim McKyer said something like "The Bills without Jim Kelly are like a hand without a thumb." Reich made him pay for that. * Beating Miami two weeks later in the divisional round. Kelly was back, and so was McKyer, who said, "I challenge Jim Kelly to throw my way." Bad move. Kelly's first TD pass -- on the first drive of the game, as I recall -- was to James Lofton, who beat McKyer like a rented mule. * Oh, man, that Raiders game. We all knew it was over when the Raiders called timeout on the Bills' first possession. We'd been using the no-huddle all year but the Raiders actually looked SURPRISED to see it. Then, as they jogged off the field at halftime with the score 41-3, I turned to my buddy and said, "I think we're going to the Super Bowl," to which he merely replied, "I think we are." Then we just sat there for the rest of the half with big smiles on our faces, saying nothing and just savoring the moment. Aside from the Comeback, that was the high point of those years, no question, that moment right there when we KNEW we were going to the Super Bowl.

Wasn't David Greene the quarterback in School Ties? One of the best movie-ending exchanges of all time, IMO.

Ditto for Thanksgiving weekend. In fact, I think the NFL should consult with me and ascertain my travel and holiday plans before making any decision on the schedule.

Why? So he can register www.stadiumsportswearwasntregisteredsoiregisteredit.com?

My turn to show off. It was 214 yards and they took Thurman out midway through the second half, otherwise he probably would have broken what was then still Payton's record.

I think we knew in retrospect that the season would be special when we got our asses handed to us by Miami in the second game of the season or thereabouts. If I recall right the score was 37-10 and Louis Oliver had a monster game. But the memory I have is of Bruce and Biscuit yelling at Marv on the sidelines in the fourth quarter after they were removed from the game to avoid needless injury. Most players would have just packed it in in a game like that, but the fact that our leaders were so highly pissed to be pulled from a seemingly hopeless game said a LOT about their competitiveness. They never thought they were out of ANY game, no matter how little time was left. They proved it later in the year against Denver and the Raiders, and again and again in future years (Beebe chasing down Lett in XXVII, the Comeback Game, etc.) That attitude IMO came straight from Kelly and filtered down through the whole roster. I don't think Jimbo thinks he ever lost a game in his whole life... he just ran out of time on a few occasions is all. THAT attitude is what got us four Super Bowl appearances and THAT attitude is what we need again.

As usual, George Carlin provided sage advice on his album titled, ironically enough, "What Am I Doing In New Jersey?" That said, hey, it's your civic duty. Do it.