transient

As much as I hate the idea that *NE may have drafted the likely successor to Brady, I think this is probably accurate. The thing that often gets overlooked is that athletes, like everyone else on this planet, mature at different rates. Mallett can have all of the talent in the world, but put him on a team that is expecting him to be the starting QB now, and he's likely to crack under the pressure. *NE and other teams with established QBs that can take the time to groom a guy like this are the most likely to actually help him realize his potential, whereas the Bills as presently constituted (bad team with an offense decidely not befitting his strengths) would have probably prematurely annihilated his confidence and career before he ever got the chance to establish himself.

71 yards, a sack and a pick against backups is hardly worth the optimism you're sporting. And your manner of self righteous, unsupported, chest thumping is most offputting, as is your overuse of .

I think you just made the fans of two big ten rivals very angry.

If you're insinuating that I'm not a Bills fan because I have a sense of humor, I'd argue that in order to follow this team a sense of humor is a prerequisite to maintaining your fandom AND your sanity.

How about... "Miss-Fires Fitzgibbons and the Three 'n' Outz" or maybe... "3 Play D-breather" or possibly... "Fourth and 10"

I was thinking the same thing. For all those saying we can't replace Evans as a deep threat with what's on the roster, we have a running back who's built the same, only faster. One that Gailey admitted he couldn't figure out how to use last year. Motioning him wide out of the backfield every now and then and just letting him run straight down the field is more versatile than lining up a receiver every play whose one and only trick is that, no matter how good Evans was at it.

Maybin... Brown... Howard... get over here and show camp fodder, here, how a real benchwarmer does the wave!!

While I don't dispute for a second that repeated head trauma leads to degenerative brain disease, I'm not so certain that Mackey's was due to this. Frontotemporal dementia can occur sporadically or run in families, and the onset is typically in the 50s, which fits in his case. Aside from the fact that he played football and was famous, there is nothing unusual about his circumstances to suggest that head trauma was the cause, at least from what I read in Pitoniak's article.

THEIR, THEY'RE, ITS NOT SO BAD WHEN ITS RIDDLED WITH DYSPROPER GRAMMAR, NOW, WRITE?

I think it has dual meaning - First, the author is pissed he has to travel to New Jersey to watch yet another of his home teams, and second, this cut-rate hack thinks if he mentions an NFL team his editor will reassign him from covering high school football. I just love it when someone thinks that pissing on someone else's foot will make him feel better about wearing old beat up sneakers with the hole in the toe

Or the beginning of the Tom Donahoe era where over 1/3 of the cap was John Butler's "dead space."

If you've ever frozen a limb and yet refused to leave before the end of the game, you might be a Bills fan. If you're solution to keeping your hot chocolate from freezing in the cup in your hand was to add more alcohol to it (which, in retrospect may have accounted for the above stupidity), you might be a Bills fan.

Looks like he may have bulked up some after the skin bleaching.

He reminds me of the kid in Bad Santa.

Unless our D-line and LBs are improved, what difference does it make? No one will throw at us if they can run the ball down our throats for 250 yards a game. We won't know what we have in the secondary until teams actually need to test it. Just my opinion.

Every time I see mention of Fitzgibbons I laugh... even though I recognize the ridiculousness/stupidity of it. Maybe that is ultimately why I think it is funny. Boo, me.

And he's never been fully committed to bringing in someone to be THE caretaker for his organization so he could sit back and enjoy the results... and the first time he truly tried, the Donahoe disaster bit him in the ass. IMHO.

Welcome. I'm not a Ralph apologist, but I hate the conspiracy theories and the idea that he is too cheap to win. Fact is, it is a small market and he is NOT infinitely wealthy compared to some other owners. Had he thrown the money at the team that some want (probably people who think anyone with money should spend it their way) not only would he have run the team poorly from an organizational standpoint, it also would have been less financially viable, and therefore more likely to move. I don't begrudge Ralph his ownership, and I applaud his loyalty to the area, even if it meant banging the drum for assistance from the locals every now and again to keep the team there. Just my two cents. I think they're finally headed in the right direction... but I thought that at the beginning of the Donahoe era as well.

I would guess it was an unintended "affect" of Gaughan's writing, because the Stache speaks for itself.

I don't think you can really look at the win-loss record of last year as an indication of Gailey's abilities in and of itself. The first 5-8 games pretty much were an assessment of which players could be serviceable in new schemes over the next several seasons and dictated what direction we needed to go in this year's draft, and the rest of the season was more toward getting youth some playing time. By that measure, they were 4-7 after a 5 game "real-time" assessment (if preseason performance meant anything, Edwards would still be here), with 3 OT losses and a 3 pt loss to Chicago in there before they puked up the last two of the season (which, btw, landed us Dareus, so...). I guess I'm saying I see some light... time will tell if it's finally the end of the tunnel or another trainwreck of a head coach.

Actually, I get the feeling that both he and Nix are straightforward with the media, and if they're saying it to reporters, it's probably already been said to the player in a less subtle way. What I like is Gailey also takes the blame that you know he should take (e.g. his remarks about how part of Spiller's lack of production is on the player and part on the coach). He acknowledges and corrects his mistakes quickly (e.g. Edwards) instead of trying agonizingly long to prove he's right before making the changes.

Amended. Loved the mentality of that SOB.

It was an achilles, which also brings to mind Takeo Spikes.

I never ceases to amaze me how many people confuse cheap with misguided. Ralph is not cheap. Time and again Ralph has allowed money to be spent foolishly on this franchise (Dockery, anyone). He's attempted to bring people in to right the ship (Donahoe ring a bell?). And he didn't fire Polian over money, he fired him because he was a canterous bastard (Polian, not Ralph) who thought he could say anything to anyone because he is incredibly good at what he does. Ralph saying Buffalo is a small market is stating the obvious... at least obvious to anyone that doesn't get their panties in a bunch because of their huge area driven inferiority complex. Pittsburgh is over twice the size, and Green Bay operates under a "grandfathered" model, so the comparison isn't valid. The truth is financially, Buffalo sucks. The real estate values suck, the economy sucks, and despite that Ralph cannot use that to "sell" Buffalo to players by saying "I'll pay you less, but hey, you can buy more for less here" like he could if he was in some other business that you can account (for some degree) for cost of living. He also can't charge top dollar for tickets, or sell a bunch of luxury suites to make up the difference. On top of that, the Jerry Joneses of the league would rather he move the team and maximize profit for the good of revenue sharing instead of trying to continue to make it work in Buffalo. Despite this, Ralph has kept the team in Buffalo. Think what you want of regionalization, but it probably offsets some of this. And as some have suggested, not continuing to fund 401ks makes financial sense during the lockout. It's not like he's taking them away... they're still there, they'll just stay the same size until this mess is fixed. And it has NOTHING to do with why the organization is where it is. The thing is, none of the financial issues have ANYTHING to do with why the Bills are in the situation they're in. Ralph doesn't have to mismanage the team in to financial ruin to move them and make more money, he could have done that when the lease was up. And if it was just about the money to a 92 year old man, then sell the team to make the asset liquid. As it stands, the Bills may be a 700+ million dollar entity, but it's no different than the 25,000 investment to Wilson unless they're sold (aside from whatever yearly profit, obviously). They're in the situation they're in because because Wilson is an owner who's a fan and who thinks that his input in matters of day-to-day team operations is a GOOD thing (obviously not to a Snyder-esque level, but Ralph's input in the war-room on draft day with Jauron and Levy? C'mon). They're in this mess because of personnel decisions gone awry, be it coaching, GM, free agents, you name it. You can hold his feet to the flame over the state of the organization, but recognize that if the financial part of your argument was true, you wouldn't have an NFL team in the city to B word about.

"lopes gracefully across the turf" What I remember of Metzelaars goes something like this: (voice of Van Miller) "Kelly hits a wide open Metzelaars at midfield... (10 second pause) He's at the 47... (10 second pause) He's at the 45... (10 second pause) and he's brought down just inside the 43 yard line."