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I kan too reed. (My point was it was a meaningless cut-off of 5 rounds and looking at the entire draft and comparing to the NFL long term average was much more insightful in terms of the Bills tendency to draft WR's in relation to the rest of the league.)

Don't confuse people with accurate data and contextually sound reasoning. It takes away from their ability to argue whatever point they wanted to make. Come on man, look at our Presidential candidates in the two major parties! They aren't tied to facts and reason so why should we be?

Can't say the guy doesn't produce.

I think I posted on page 3 of this thread, stayed away for a day, and now it's on page 24. Holy sH*t! Do I need to go back and read the next 21 pages? Can someone summarize please? I feel like by the time I read it all another 20+ pages might have been created.

I will answer since you took the time to make such an insightful and logically sound response. I don't know the answer to Watkins true condition and neither do you. So I have to go off observations and the data at hand. The guy has had approximately 8,327 injuries since entering the league and this past Sunday missed his 4th game in 2.3 seasons. This would tend to indicate he is relatively tough and endures pain enough to play while injured. (Note, the games missed number is correct but I am just guessing on the number of injuries). In terms of observation, he clearly has played at less than 100% or outright injured in the past. The first two weeks he looked my my grandmother running on that sore foot but at least he gave it a go. There are numerous examples the past two years as well. So if you have an alternate set of data or observations relating to the NFL as opposed to your High School track team, please do share them. Although I do enjoy a good high school track yarn now and then...

Also experts in injuries, pain tolerance, and what it takes to play in the NFL. I guess the board is populated with former NFL players who are now medical doctors. Who knew there were so many?

Someone above asked what 'RPI' was RPI = Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Very unusual for an NFL coordinator to have attended and played football at not only a Division III school but one that is highly selective in terms of being a high end science and engineering school. I.e. a bunch of geeks. And yes, I am an alumni and yes I realize him going to RPI is no way indicative him being a great head coach, but I'm allowed to be a homer here.

None of them attended the finest Engineering school in New York State as Patricia did. None rocked that level of beard either. I think it's easy to see the differences here.

This. Bills could use an RPI guy.

It's stuff like this that keeps me coming back. Self infatuation much?

I'd say first overall is looking like a definite potential for the Buffalo squad this year!

I agree, except for EJ Manuel as opposed to his evil Nordic twin, Erik. -Just wikipedia'd and of course his frickin' name is Erik. How could I not know that?

The guy is always injured! Do we have any reason to think he's faking it? I think it's the contrary - he pushes himself to get on the field even when he's far below optimal. To me he looked like a guy with a really sore foot out there on Thursday. His 2+ years he's always looks like a guy with a leg or torso issue. I think we've seen him 95%+ healthy maybe twice. So, as a Bills fan this sucks. But I don't know why all the hate for Watkins. Are we mad at him because Whaley gave up too much to get him? That's clearly not his fault. Are we mad because his body seems to be failing him and suffering injuries at an above average rate for an NFL wide receiver? Are we mad at him because he tries to play though injuries and clearly can't perform at his best? If it's just the tweets then I really don't get it. He's a young guy tweeting stuff...I already forgot about that. The whole team is a dumpster fire right now so it's easy to pick out Watkins and criticize the performance but we could do the same in most areas of the team. How about those CB's last game? Where is Charles Clay? Offensive line with Ravens? So many to pick from and we aren't even talking about coaches yet.

I get the sense you feel twice as strongly about this as most people.

Thanks for the in-person write-up...always a different angle then on TV, subjected to the Wisdom of Solomon. My only comment which is contrary to some I've seen and the OP is that I have no problem with the 1st half challenge. Challenges are about risk/reward. Given what we could see on the replays, it was possible the call would be overturned and called a TD. Call it 1/4 or 1/5 chance. Now if it were 2nd half or even 1st quarter, I might say don't challenge as the risk of losing the timeout outweighs it. But in that game situation they probably weren't going to need the time out anyway so it's worth taking the shot at getting the call and de-risking having to get it on 3rd or 4th down. I don't know about running the same play again as they tried before the challenge...some might say that's the last play the Ravens would expect!

I think what happens is if the perception that the Bills will make the playoffs is say(for example), 25% or 33%, then that means it's 67%-75% that they won't. So if 39 out of 40 sportswriters simply 'play the odds' in their predictions, they won't pick the Bills to make the playoffs. But that doesn't mean the Bills are 97.5% likely to miss the playoffs with only 2.5% chance to make them. The underlying probabilities are still 25%-33% chance to make the playoffs. Same argument for teams considered likely to make the playoffs - even if the underlying odds are 80% likely, close to 100% of sportswriters will pick them to make it.

Not Bills related but football season related (for week 1): School back in session Kids productively busy I’m very relieved

I thought that was Gisele Bündchen

M&T Bank is listed as 510 (they actually go past 500). Corning Inc is 313 down here in the Southern Tier.

You know the prayers do nothing? Wow, sounds like you are God.

This is exactly what I thought when first reading this.

The Jim Carrey movie "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109040/involves a kicker who missed the big kick in a Super Bowl. It's the Dolphins not the Bills but I always thought the kicker was inspired by some weird version of Scott Norwood. Buffalo 66, to me, is the prime example in this genre with Bruce Almighty leading in the Sabres reference category. More to the point, OJ Simpson was a co-star in the first Naked Gun movie, in addition to his otherwise not so illustrious pre-White Bronco chase career.

So one starting tackle just had a kidney removed the other has Crohn's disease. Wow. I can't recall any similar situations off the top of my head in terms of two teammates playing the same or similar positions both having those types of non-football illnesses. I certainly wish Cordy the best and really hope that by continuing to play football he is not putting himself at risk for grave complications down the road. Can only assume he has good medical advice I guess...pragmatically speaking this has to affect his price in Free Agency. He's higher risk no different than someone who has had knee or concussion issues, for example.

I didn't like the Ryan hire at the time and now we are stuck with him for at least another year. Bad decision by the Pegula's. I do agree that the path the Sabres are on gives hope that the Bills can get going in the right direction, eventually, under Pegula management. Just pointing to the Sabres record is missing the point. That franchise now has a PLAN with a competant architect who is executing the plan. It may or may not lead to a championship as there is a lot of luck involved to get that far. But losing was the plan the last two years and now building it back up is the plan this year. Moving from dead last in 30th to 20-25th (where I think they'll end up this year) is a big step in the right direction given that they are doing it with key contributors all under 25 years old and generally locked up to longer term deals, and with a very good salary cap situation to retain and add talent later. Whereas the Bills have a relatively older roster and no salary cap flexibility, which is due to Whaley's incompetence as a GM in that area. The team is a tire fire and I don't see much hope for a turnaround for at least two more years, assuming a new competent GM comes in this off-season and then Rex is replaced following next year's likely follow-up debacle to this year.

This. There are two constraints in terms of building a roster in the NFL. Money under the salary cap (for free agents and retaining your own players) and number of draft picks to add young (and at least initially, cheap) talent. Both of these are scare resources. Whaley has demonstrated his lack of understanding of these constraints in both the McCoy extension (tying up that much salary cap in a non-franchise QB) and the Watkins trade (Excess number/quality of picks for one player who isn't a franchise QB). Look, Shady and Watkins are great players, I am not questioning that. And Kiko for Shady was a fairly good deal. The extension is the problem.