Utah John

The key I think is using Graham to cover Gates. Graham is almost big enough to be a safety and he obviously has great coverage skills. The key will be whether Schwartz can come up with a scheme to take this single piece out of the Charger's system. The Chargers have some high-effort RBs but no one in the talent class of ours. Stop Gates and you stop the Chargers. The Bills' advantage is there is no single guy you can stop and therefore stop the system. Three good WRs, three good RBs, one average TE trump a great TE and average other guys.

They must have a LOT of jerseys in the HOF.

I was wondering why I hardly ever heard Dareus' name called. In past years it would have meant he was dogging it. This year it means he's playing so well the other team can't afford to let him loose.

At one point the announcers confused Marcel Dareus and Kyle Williams. Granted they're both large men but their uniform numbers are completely different.

On Spiller's TD return, he caught the ball with 9:35 left in the quarter and crossed the goal line with 9:24 left (the time keeper let another second click off). 102 yards in 11 seconds, with him slowing down at the end, having had to make a cut when he crossed the 20, and wearing pads and a helmet. That'll do, that'll do. Also I commend Polish Dave on the most effective point-counterpoint I've seen on this board.

Exactly. Focus on beating San Diego, not on someone's perception.

This will be tougher than a lot of Bills fans think. Philbin is an impressive coach. The 5-2 used last week will force the Bills to use practice time this week to prepare, but there's no guarantee the Dolphins will start with it or stay with it. The Dolphins are injured at LB so quick shots into the middle of the D, or jet sweeps, should work and should negate the strong D-line. Also the Dolphins' offensive strength is their running attack, not passing as Chicago's is, which plays into the Bills' defensive strength.. Especially if we get Rivers back we should be OK on defense. I think the final score will be 17-14 but I don't know who wins.

Does anyone know what percentage of the Bills revenue comes from ticket sales and anything else related to home game attendance, how much comes from their share of away games, and how much comes from television? Of course the teams want to sell tickets and get money, but beyond paying for the privilege of getting in to the game, the other function the fans provide is a free staging and sound track. Imagine watching an NFL game on television, being played in a huge empty stadium. No fans in the stands, no cheering. No wall of sound when the home team does something right, and no blast of silence when the visitors score. No Elvis, no funny hats, no babes. The experience for the TV viewer would be cut way back, regardless of the quality of play on the field. I think the real reason for the blackout rule is to enhance the television experience by coercing more fans to attend.

The Bills D last year got lots of great stats against the pass but was gouged by the run. Enter Schwartz and Spikes. Teams that rely on the pass will struggle against the Bills. Teams with a strong passing attack will do well. Unfortunately for Miami, they match up very badly with the Bills D. Unfortunately for the Bills, they also match up badly with the Miami D. I think the Bills O line is better (less bad?) than the Patriots O line, but they need to be a LOT better to hold up. NE's line turned into Kleenex against the Miami D. If Brady struggled, what will EJ do? The biggest factor isn't players, it's coaching. Miami's Philbin is really impressive. He's been in his job longer than Marrone and his team, and he's making a series of innovations. The Fins D had the Pats completely befuddled last week. So this week, presumably the Bills will have worked out ways to attack what the Fins did last week. If the Fins pull another surprise against the Bills, will the Bills be able to adjust and find new ways to attack? To me that's the biggest question.

I get the strong feeling that Senator Schumer intervened in the entire process of the Bills sale to ensure they would not be moved away from NYS. That isn't an issue with the Pegulas, who have turned into WNY's Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and Tooth Fairy all rolled into two. But even the Bon Jovi crew was reported to be willing to sign an affidavit saying they wouldn't move the team. The only reason I can think of for that is league pressure, making it clear the team couldn't be moved, and the only reason I can think of for that is political pressure.

Watching the replay, I don't think any part of Jackson's body touched out of bounds until the ball touched the pylon. They're always saying the goal line stretches in both directions outward from the field to infinity, so I think it should have been called a touchdown.

I wonder why Fox is broadcasting the Bills game. Generally the visiting team determines which network broadcasts a game, with CBS "owning" the AFC and Fox the NFC. It will be interesting to hear the comments about the Bills from a crew that doesn't know much about them.

I've moved around a lot. Generally I don't care one way or the other about the local team, but when I lived in the Bay Area I came to loath both the Raiders and 49ers, largely because of the fans. When I lived near DC I hated the Redskins. In other areas where I lived, I wasn't quite so close to NFL cities and maybe the fact that I wasn't drowning in minutiae about teams I don't care about helped me just ignore them. I can easily imagine someone from another NFL city moving to Buffalo, and hating the Bills, just out of oversaturation. But who cares. Buffalo is Bills territory.

Incognito used to be on the Bills. Not sure why he wasn't retained.

All these posts assume the value of NFL franchises will continue to go up, indefinitely and rapidly, forever. Nothing does that. Sooner or later something will change. Perhaps concussions at HS, college, and pro levels will drive rule changes that ruin the sport. Perhaps some other sport becomes more popular -- if you asked people in the 40s and 50s if any other sport would supplant baseball, they'd have laughed. Who knows what will happen. So a billion dollar investment might only return a billion dollars 20 years from now. Or perhaps even less, at least factoring inflation into account. The point I'm making is not something prospective owners wouldn't have considered. They will have thought through all this and still decided to go ahead. Got to be based on emotion, not hard cold business sense.

I think there are a lot of ways to determine whether a player is a #1 receiver. What matters most I think is whether the opponents feel it's necessary to game plan to try to stop him. If the opponents watch the tape and figure their typical defensive package is enough to contain a guy, he's not a #1. If they scheme to take him away and he still dominates, he's a #1 and would be on any team. I see the point that there are by definition 32 #1s in the league. I just don't think that's a useful definition. I don't think we've had anyone since Moulds (not even the aged Terrell Owens) who was a legitimate #1. Watkins should become a #1. Williams and Woods are really good but will not dominate games. Goodwin is like CJ, great when his wheels are on, average otherwise. TJ, sorry, it hasn't worked yet and it isn't going to. I think both Hogan and Easley stay, in part for ST capabilities.

The Bears rotten O-line vs the Bills superb D-line. Cutler might want to get the flu on gameday morning. The Bills starting defense has looked great in both games. Losing Byrd and Alonso reduces the Bill's D "offensive" potential -- probably won't get as many turnovers -- but the schemes Schwartz has put in place seem to have increased their true-defense capability. Neither the Giant nor the Panthers had any success running against the Bills' starting defense. How long has it been since the run defense looked like a strength.

I think the joint practice is a great idea. The Bills defensive line is giving the O-line all sorts of trouble, and EJ has had trouble getting his confidence. Playing against a less-superb D-line in practices will give EJ more opportunity to practice with less potential for disaster on every play.

Maybe it would help if EJ got to practice against the 3rd team defense for a while, to get his confidence up. As it is he's going against possibly the best D line in the NFL, behind a patched up O line with two rookie tackles. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady would get the willies too. Let EJ work against the scrubs for a week and see if he doesn't settle down then.

Woods appears to be a very good WR and a very good slot receiver. It could be he's not one of the two best WRs and isn't the best slot receiver either. He is still a very good player and even if he doesn't start will have a lot of game time ahead.

I would have like to have seen the first unit D for one more series. They totally dominated the Giants, with a three and out and then the Kyle Williams sack fumble. I don't think any of the Giants runners got back to the line of scrimmage against our first unit D. And that was without Gilmore and McKelvin, not that the Giants have a serious passing attack. Eli got pretty good stats against backups, but not against our first unit.

Bills vs Raiders in the first years of Rich Stadium being open. Joe Ferguson hit Ahmad Rashad for the game winner in the left side of the west end zone. Most exciting game I was ever at.

Harbaugh said Rice made a mistake. No, a mistake is when you buy Cheerios and your wife wanted corn flakes. Rice committed a felony.

It was Modell's bad business decisions that led to the Browns moving to Baltimore. He got into a cash flow squeeze and the only way he could fine to fix it was to move. That took some doing, too, since the Browns fan base was as active and loyal as the Bills fan base is. But Modell screwed up, and the Cleveland fans got screwed. We can criticize Ralph Wilson for having non-football people (Littman) making football decisions based on being cheap, but Wilson's friend Modell showed what a really bad owner was like.

It was clear Mack was going to go before we drafted at #9. There had even been talk he'd be #1. Since he went #5 (and the Raiders clearly had a need for LBs), it was going to be necessary to move from #9 to #4, and the price to do that was the same whether we planned to draft Watkins or Mack. In my view they're both going to be great players and we would have been winners by picking either one. That said, I would have preferred Mack.