NewHampshireBillsFan

Knowing a defenses signals is a huge advantage because an offense can then run a play to take advantage of that. After a game in 2001 the Patriots offensive coordinator complimented the opponent's DC, I think it was Tampa Bay, and told him that the Patsies had known all their calls but they still stopped the Patsies and won the game. The Patsies coach considered that very impressive. Now whether video taping is the only way to learn the calls or not is open to question, but the Patsies sure made a regular practice of video taping. But I don't think anyone is implying that is the only or even the main reason they won. It could have been just that little edge they needed to win crucial games. Anyway, Senator Spector, when the Senate held some hearings on the NFL a few months ago publicly reprimanded Goodell for destroying the taped evidence it had against NE. Spector, a former prosecuting attorney, understood that was never the way to handle evidence. Goodell's action made it certain that no one would ever be able, like the US Senate, to look at the evidence against NE again, and possibly draw more damning conclusions. And Goodell's reason for doing so was totally idiotic, that he was afraid the tapes could somehow get in the hands of another NFL team and help them against opponents. You can't just lock them in a vault!!!! And funny as his explanation was, it seems to admit inadvertantly that Goodell (who had watched all the tapes) considered the tapes quite valuable for a team to get a hold of to help them against opponents.

Your thinking is logical but here is my take on these issues. The NFL is a single institution and the legitimacy of its operations is paramount to the teams being valued at nearly a billion each. Cover up is probably a bad choice of words, esp. as you point out this was all over the news. Damage control is prob. the right word for what the NFL did. Goodell had to acknowledge that Bellicheat had done something illegal and should be punished. But he and the other bigwigs at the NFL tried to get the whole thing finished and over with as quickly as possible, even destroying all the tapes that they obtained from NE! The thing they tried hard to do and succeeded at was to limit the damage so that most fans would not think all of NE's superbowl wins were now seriously tainted. Reports came out shortly after the punishment was announced that some teams, esp. the NFL east teams of Buffalo and the Jets were very disappointed with the light punishment. But when teams and team officials were contacted by the media shortly after that they all stated that this issue was now over and it was time to move on, etc. The thing is the NFL closed ranks to inhibit potential damage to the league. The media at first, esp. in NE, expected as one talk show host in Boston said "this thing is not going to go away". This was after the initial penalty. They expected further trouble of Bellicheat, but then the whole thing died shortly after that. Bellicheat never seemed worried and seemed annoyed that the media even dared to ask him about the situation after the first week. On the Marv Levy thing, it is not illegal to try to figure out the opponent's signals (steal signals). It it illegal to do so in ways that NE did. Clearly videotaping the signals was a big advantage because otherwise why would Bellicheat continue to do so after he was told specifically several times not to do so before all this happened. For example in a game against Detroit at NE, NE videotaped the def. staff making the signals. Detroit approached the officials and asked if this was legal since they saw it happening. The official told NE to stop and they did for a while. Later in the half they were found to be doing it again and Detroit again spoke to the officials and they made NE stop again. So Bellicheat clearly thought it gave him an important advantage, and was persistent, even against a team like Detroit in Foxboro!

The Cowboys games were bad, but the Giants game could easily have been a win if the Bills had just run one more play before the field goal. The officiating was horrible in the Washington game and was a major factor in the loss. The officials decided they weren't going to call holding on offense against the Skins or pass interference on defense against the Skins. This killed the Bills because without any holding calls the Skins were able to run the ball down the throat of the Bills. Cornelius Bennett was called for a personal foul because he became so frustrated with the blatant holding and Bruce Smith also complained. And when Andre Reed was badly interfered with and no call was made he got frustrated and threw his helmet down. The official didn't see it but a Redskin player ran to the official and told him about it and the official saw Reed picking up his helmet and called a personal foul on him!!!!! Eventually when the Skins were comfortably ahead the officials did call several off. holding calls on the Skins so the final statistics don't show the extent of the problem. The thing is that game the Bills were horribly screwed by the officials. That was Tagliabue's first year as commissioner and he had previously worked for the Redskins. I don't think he was behind any of this but I think the referees were much more intimidated by Washington, partly because of that. I say the officiating was a major factor in the loss because when a team is allowed to hold on several drives in the first half and gets some TD's and meanwhile the refs refuse to call pass interference and the Bills have to punt it gave the Skins a nice lead that they could hold onto later. They were a good team but the the officiating really helped them out big time and neutralized the Bills.

I wish it was true that some day this full extent will come out, but I am not confident about it, or that it will matter if it does come out. During those heady couple of weeks when the Bellicheat cheating was first exposed and the Patsies were deprived of the #1 draft pick and some cash, there was the feeling even on the Boston radio stations that this was just the tip of the iceberg and that more cheating allegations would soon come out and that Bellicheat might be forced to resign and possibly Kraft would even fire him. How disappointing the next few weeks were when the league did an amazing cover-up and dismissed any further allegations and Bellicheat was able to arrogantly state that he had simply misread a rule and it was no big deal. After that big letdown, and realizing that Bellicheat was a total lowlife crook who was going to get away with it, I realized that the NFL was an even bigger lowlife in letting him get away with it to protect its image, etc. So after 20 years I doubt any big new revelation will come out or that people will even care about at that point. If we suddenly found out something about Walsh cheating in the 80's would it really matter? Most people would just say it wasn't the major reason he won the super bowls. Fans don't want their bubble burst about the NFL that they love so much. On some level it is NFL fans who bare blame for Bellicheat getting away with this. If the NFL suddenly felt that most fans no longer believed the NFL was a fair league after the Bellicheat scandal they would have been forced to deal with it more. But no big outcry occurred and the sports media minimized the whole thing after a couple of weeks when they realized the league wasn't going to do anything major to Bellicheat or the Patsies.

Regardless of how good govt. services are or are not in any area, I think a rational analysis of the taxes and fees for businesses and individuals in one place versus another would conclude that the Bills are definitely screwed by the present arrangement compared to most other NFL teams. WNY is a depressed area that most businesses would not think of relocating to or starting in and many businesses that started there eventually have moved away or are trying to move away. So the base for corporate support for one thing is very limited. And it was not always that way. At one time, not that long ago (1960 census) Buffalo was one of the 10 ten metropolitan areas population wise in the country and had plenty of major corporations, especially when you throw in Rochester. So someone screwed that situation up and the Bills have suffered for it. A good start for blame is the state and local governments in NY. And it was not the weather, because all those companies came to Buffalo and started there with the same weather, and many places that are doing well or fairly well have cold weather and snow (Boston, Minneapolis, Denver, etc.).

I totally agree with you. The trouble is the Pats fans I live around minimize the cheating and in fact have totally forgotten about it by now. The only question they have is whether Bellicheat is the best coach ever or not and they have decided he IS the best coach ever. Makes you want to give up as an NFL fan sometimes. The league, the media, and most people feel like they have to totally suck up to NE, heck even Jauron feels that way. Anyway, I think I'll stick around for a little longer to see if the Bills can at least stick it to NE a little, but I have totally lost my respect for the NFL with the way they handled the cheating of NE.

Thank you. At least Jauron doesn't make statements like this, even if he is not a very good coach.

I think Pisa is an OLB version of London. I would hope if we sign him the overall linebacking for the Bills would play up a notch and that we'd see more big plays in general. I think it does matter where a tackle is made, esp. for the Bills because our D has had so much trouble getting off the field. I think the tackle for a loss stat. is a key stat for assessing a player because so often when a tackle is made for a loss it seems to make it much more difficult to get the first down on that series of downs. I would love to see a stat. that shows first down conversions on a series where on one of the three plays a loss was recorded. Penalties would not count since you get the down over.

Thanks for the pleasant reminder! Although the Dolphins used to be the team I hated most during the Shula era, it was nice to see Parcells and company outwit NE. If Jauron could only have the intense desire to beat Bellicheat that Parcells and his group have. If I was Jauron I would plan specific plays only for use on NE so that they couldn't prepare for them. By the way, I forgot one other reason the Patsies win so much--the officiating. Almost always they get the benefit of the calls. I remember an offensive pass interference call against Eric Moulds years ago when the Bills were driving for the winning TD at NE. Gino Capelletti, the color man on the NE radio broadcast, and a former great receiver and PK, after seeing the replay just laughed on the air. All he could think to say was that was not how they called penalties when he used to play the game, because the call was totally bogus. When you get offensive pass interference called against you, you know you are screwed. The Bills get screwed and the Patsies would never get a call like that against them playing the Bills. Also, what about the Patsies never getting offensive holding called on them. Anyway, somehow this year we beat NE, I can feel it in my bones. Possibly even Monday night.

I live in NH and have to hear about him every day and everyone here just thinks he is a genius. Here are some reasons I think Belicheat wins, besides Brady. 1.) Cheating is his modus operandi. We will never know the full extent of it and the league has tried to hush it up, especially WNY's own Goodell! What about the former Pats video employee now living in Hawaii. He made it clear that he knew stuff about Belicheat and the league did NOTHING to try to get him to talk. So the NFL is fully complicit in Bellicheat's success. 2.) He is creative in his thinking and spends a lot of time thinking about what will work and what doesn't work. This I must give him credit for. 3.) He works very hard and looks at little things, like all great coaches do. Before NE played in that incredibly windy game for the final game of last year at RWS, Belicheat looked at the whole NY Giants game in Buffalo from a previous season where there was also a lot of wind to figure out what would work and wouldn't work at that specific stadium under those similar conditions. And because of that NE actually was better adept at handling the weather, esp. against the wind than our home team Buffalo! Do you think Jauron looked at windy Bills games or tried to plan for the wind. No!!! He just ran the ball every time against the wind. Although Jackson got 136 yards the Bills got no points. I was there to see Jauron get out coached. Not just letting the clock run out at the half, but the whole game he was out coached. So in summary Bellicheat is a consummate unethical, cheater. He also is creative and willing to put in the hard work that Jauron seemingly will not. Home many times have Bills players said they didn't expect or weren't prepared for something in a game. How many times do NE players say they weren't prepared. The answer is never.

I love Buffalo and growing up there gave me much of what is positive about me. I have met many people from Buffalo and they most always are tough, capable, and very likable people. The state and city governments are terrible however in Buffalo. The people are total saps when it comes to government. The first rule of thumb should be for all of NY state north of NYC to vote the exact opposite of NYC. If NYC votes dem then Buffalo should vote repub and if NYC votes repub then Buffalo should vote dem. National politics should have NOTHING to do with Buffalo's vote. The point is the rest of the state has to oppose NYC politicians as a single bloc and fight like heck for fair allotment of resources. A child could understand the logic of this but people in Buffalo never learned this simple lesson. Dems in Buffalo want to be NYC dems. lap dog and get a few bones tossed from the table to them. So what is the end result of all this. NY state helps pay for new stadiums to be built for NYC teams and will watch and wave goodbye when the Bills move after Ralph dies. Remember when Cuomo told Ralph he should move the Bills to NYC since the Jets and Giants both played in rival NJ? I have lived in 7 states since I left Buffalo and have never seen any place that had a worse govt. situation than the people in Buffalo have with NY state. I have met people who moved to Buffalo from somewhere else and they all were horrified by the NY state rip off of Buffalo taxpayers.

Besides the bad game day coaching, the thing that most annoys me about Jauron is that he says things like "its hard to win games in the NFL". How does that help young players feel confident! It doesn't seem to be hard for New England to win games, even when Brady goes down for the season. Also, Jauron is way too polite in talking about New England, for example, before and after losing games to them. How about saying we will do anything it takes to beat New England after losing all these games in a row. At least give New England the impression they are going to get really smacked around by the Bills. I wonder how somebody like Buddy Ryan would have dealt with losing to New England 16 out of 17 times. There would have probably been a bounty on Brady's head. Anyway, the Bills love to talk about how various players they draft have a nasty streak. Jauron needs a little bit of a nasty streak himself, especially against New England. This team needs to learn to punish teams that repetitively beat them.

That's the thing. Backups at least should not lose a game for you on the field. Also, backups are expected to do everything they can to help the starter. Hamden did that for Edwards not Losman. No team wants to bring in a backup whose main goal is to prove he should replace the starter that the coaches of his new team believe should be their starter. Losman was given a lot of starts in Buffalo, more starts than most unproven QB's ever get in the NFL. I wish he would have taken all that interest in helping the community and spent all that time learning how to read defenses. With a slightly more capable QB Buffalo would have made the playoffs in at least one of the years that Losman was the primary starter.

At least Cortland apples are the best. Hard to get good Cortland apples in most of the country. Just saying.

I live in New England where Brady is obviously idolized and I have to admit that he has done extremely well. Don't we have to at least wonder what effect it had that New England, going back to 2001 according to some reports, often had decoded the defense's signals. Therefore the play called by New England would have been designed against a defense it knew the defense was going to run. That is a huge advantage and I think in evaluating QBs Brady should not get off scott free as if it gave him no benefit that NE was able to cheat under Bellichek in this way.

Why not just enjoy (hopefully) what TO brings to the Bills in 2009 and think about 2010 after this season. If everything goes great this year with TO and the Bills it might work out that he would be back.

Your points 2 and 4 contradict each other. But I agree with your hope that you are wrong and I think you may get your hope.

I remember that Bruce Smith played as light as 257 lbs. in Washington. I think his thinking was that it was more important to stay as fast as possible as he got older. I agree that Maybin is a different type of build, etc. and other player comparisons make more sense for Maybin.

I'd bring Williams back to compete for LG and I'd bring Donahoe back to scout division III for us. Make them work to pay back for all the misery they caused us.

Quite true. I think the problem with GM's like Donahoe is that they always want to try to show how clever they are.

A big difference is that Fitzpatrick was willing to come in and be a backup to Trent Edwards and not expect to have any opportunity to win the starting job. Fitzpatrick mentioned that his role would be to be a help to Edwards. Also, one thing that was mentioned when Fitzpatrick was signed was that the Bills thought he progressed in his game during last year when he was able to start for many games. The thinking is on the Bills side that he has an upside and they obviously don't feel at least in Buffalo that JP has an upside. I'm sure JP could have benefited from better coaching but the Bills give him quite a few opportunities and tried to work on his game. Sam Wyche, the first year that JP started, spent a huge amount of time with him. I think that JP was never able to read defenses and locked onto a receiver too much was a big undoing for him. Here in New England, on the Boston sports station, WEEI, even in the early days when JP showed some promise as a starter, the sports hosts, including former Patsie players, never had any respect for JP. One time, when JP's stats looked pretty good, they used him as an example of how stats don't really tell the story of a QB in the NFL, in that JP was not a good QB in their eyes. It used to make me mad because I thought JP was showing some potential and I was hoping they would have to give him some respect as time went on and he proved himself in the NFL. Now I realize that they maybe understood him better than I did as a biased Bills fan. So now I'm thinking is it really inadequate coaching for someone like JP or is it that teams like New England, with great coaching, can see fairly early on that he is not going to be a great NFL QB. He doesn't have the intangibles. Of course Belichek before games against the Bills would always talk up Losman and pretty much the whole Bills team as being great. When you win 16 or 17 games why give any motivation to Bills players by deriding them.

I realize this whole thread is meant to be taken lightheartedly, but I think JP did not manage his situation well at all, especially last year. It is not that he was a bad teammate or a disruption. It is that he did not make himself that best backup QB he could have been. Edwards considered Hamden a real help to him in preparation, etc., not JP. You can't blame JP that he didn't want to be Edwards's big supporter, but what team would want to pick up JP to be their solid number 2 guy when he has not shown a penchant for being a big supporter of the #1? And no team would project JP to be their near term #1 QB at this point. So JP is left to wait for a team to have a serious QB injury or two and sign him out of desperation. To have to wait for that is no way to manage a career. Of course, it doesn't also help JP that when he got on the field last year he played at times like a novice even though he had been a starter previously.

Tim Graham until recently said that the Bills would be lucky to get a first for Peters. Now he says that NFL insiders have told him a first and third is reasonable. Thanks for providing the more recent information (since I was not up to date on that) and I am certainly willing to accept what Tim Graham feels is the case concerning Peters. Personally, I hope we do get a first and third if we trade him. Although Peters is definitely a big talent, considering his injury issues the past two years I would still be pleasantly stunned if a first and third materialized for him.

Impossible that it would be for similar to Cutler. Because Peters thinks he is worth 12 million a year he has some fans in Buffalo believing other teams agree with Peter's assessment of himself. Also, although LT is clearly a crucial position on a team, top LT's are not traded for the same value as top or potential top younger QB's. If the Bills HAD to trade Peters and got a number one pick for him, even a low number one, I would consider it a great trade from the Bills point of view. Expecting anything beyond that is ridiculous and will never happen.