BRH

I think the key to the next 3 games is to win on Sunday and worry about the other two when we play them.

Yeah Vic, they're both 7-6 but the Vikings (who are 2-5 in their last seven) are better than the Bills (who are 6-1 in their last seven). Right.

Run along now.

Are we above or below the half-latte mocha frappucino from the Montclair Starbucks in King's rankings? And have we jumped ahead of his daughter's field hockey team yet?

I thought Lamar Hunt has had the Chiefs since their inception?

Amen. Think of the eight original AFL teams and ask yourself how many have remained in their original location, more or less, since 1960. The Dallas Texans moved to Kansas City. The Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee. The Oakland Raiders moved to Los Angeles for more than a decade. The Los Angeles Chargers moved to San Diego. The Boston Patriots moved to a Providence suburb. The New York Titans moved to New Jersey. Only the Denver Broncos and Buffalo Bills have remained in their original cities since their inception. I suppose if you wanted to be technical you could say that the Bills' move to Orchard Park is equivalent to the Jets going across two rivers and the Patriots moving to the boondocks, but I disagree. The Patriots and Jets made it much more difficult for their original fan base to get to their home games, but the Bills didn't.

What a novel football concept!

Who wrote that article, Fake-Fat Sunny?

You threw Twizzlers?

I heard that! :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: Al Michaels. The graphic (part of an AFL retrospective) showed Kemp as the Bills' quarterback but then Michaels just said "Jack Kemp was the first quarterback of the Los Angeles Chargers," and moved on to Sid Gillman. :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: Michaels again.

Care to share the details of the ugly little incident?

So true. Notice we aren't complaining as much about getting !@#$ed by the refs when we win by 37-7 and 38-9 and things of that ilk.

Don't forget that Bledsoe said he would retire before he went to Cincinnati.

You agree with the rest of my post, though, right?

Here's what pissed me off about the review of the punt. Our guy goes out of bounds and is the first to touch it. I admit that. You can't do that. I admit that too. But the ref missed it. And I think the Browns missed it too. Only after Tasker harped on it constantly both before and after the game went to a commercial break did Robiskie finally throw the flag. Now I'm sure the replay guy for each team has the game feed on in his booth and is listening to what the announcers are saying, because every little bit helps. I'm almost positive the Browns wouldn't have thrown the red flag if Tasker hadn't talked about it in such excruciating detail. That doesn't bother me so much because it was the right call in the end. What pisses me off is that sometimes there'll be a play just as blatant, but the announcers don't notice it, or won't talk about it, or they don't show any replays, or they don't go to commercial and give the !@#$ed-over team a chance to review it. Like, say, Travis Henry's touchdown that wasn't called in the Raider game. Which, in the end, could determine whether we make the playoffs.

No, both the 49ers and Buffalo Bisons played in the old All-America Football Conference (AAFC) in the 1940s and early 1950s. The 49ers, Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Colts all joined the NFL when the AAFC folded (which may help explain why the Browns and Colts were put in the AFC after the NFL-AFL merger).

I think the Bengals will have a hard time matching the 28 points they scored against New England's depleted secondary. All I hear is Chad Johnson blah blah TJ Houshmandzadeh blah blah. Chad, TJ... I'd like you to meet Nate Clements, Troy Vincent, Lawyer Milloy and Terrence McGee. My only fear is that because it's in Cincy, the zebras will be quick to call illegal contact and pass interference on our guys.

Madden says a lot of dumb things.

Good lord these are good. No Penfield, Fairport, or Brighton Barbies?

I don't think the "updated", "up to the minute" stats will be out until tomorrow. They need to play tonight's game first. If you multiply 289.5 by 12 you get 3484. Add 17 to that and you get 3501. Close enough to 3493, with rounding, to bear out that they haven't yet updated the stats to reflect the 13th game. I'm not sure what the Stillers and Skins gave up yesterday but there's a chance we could be #1.

We were 7-7 after 14 games, 6-7 after 13 (so, yes, Mularkey has posted a better record after 13 games than Greggo ever did in Buffalo). That year, you'll recall, we were 5-3 at the halfway point and talking playoffs. Then Brady smoked us at the Ralph (he probably smoked some other things too but I digress), we lost at Arrowhead by one point, and we lost to the Jets in the Swamp to go to 5-6. We beat Miami to get back to .500 and then the Patriots kicked our asses again. Beat San Diego to go to 7-7 and then we had that debacle in Green Bay. I forget what happened but we lost 10-0. Weren't we down 3-0 and driving late in the game when a tipped pass was picked off and returned for a TD? If I recall right, a win in that game and the next week (which we got, against the Bengals) would have put us in the playoffs.

I think Barry Sanders was an annual leader in carries for losses as well. The important thing is that Willis is such a load that he eventually wears down opposing defenses. Those big runs that he ripped off at the end of both Miami games were crucial.

The difference is that Travis hits his guy in the shoulder while Willis hits him in the helmet.

I forgot to add that this play descends directly from a Dallas gimmick in the 1960s, when Don Meredith lined up behind center, started calling signals, and then yelled "Shoot! Ah clean fergot the play!" He walked toward the sideline; the opponents started laughing. The ball went right to the halfback (Dan Reeves?) who busted it for a big gain.

I'm not sure. On the play Bledsoe jumped and twisted as though the snap was over his head. Sure faked me out. Snap went directly to Freddie and he got a first down. Another trick play took place when Bledsoe started hollering "What? What?" at the sidelines with the coaches frantically trying to get his attention, and then walked disgustedly away from center and threw up his arms. He didn't call time and the ball was snapped directly to McGahee, but the Browns were ready and Willis got only a couple of yards. I recall the Bills tried this same play a couple of weeks ago in Seattle but ended up having to call timeout as the Seahawks looked like they weren't fooled. Might be time to toss that play. If a Freddie pass is in the playbook, I bet you see it on a fourth-and-short or a two-point conversion try.