hondo in seattle

A couple thoughts... PFF is bunch of number-crunching, sabremetrician, analytics geeks - and I mean that nicely. Their forte is examining numbers, not real players in live action. I'm not sure why they do camp visits other than it must be fun for them. I notice that they don't show Fred Jackson in the starting line-up and I wonder about that. Hackett has said on more than one occasion that he's going to put his five best skill players on the field. That would include Jackson. Contrast PFF's proposed starting line-up to this comment from Pat Kirwan: "The Bills are going to be a very dangerous "20" personnel team (two running backs. three wide receivers). Expect to see a lot of Fred Jackson and C.J. Spiller on the field together with Stevie Johnson, Robert Woods and probably T.J. Graham. Spiller can split out to wide receiver, Jackson is a willing blocker if they want to run power and there's lots of speed on the outside."

Here's what Pat Kirwan had to say about the guard position: On offense the Bills must find a left guard to replace Andy Levitre. Colin Brown is getting the first shot and Doug Legursky is threatening to take the job, but I get the feeling Antoine Caldwell could be the man in the end. Caldwell had 19 starts for the Texans, never has been called for holding and has yielded only five sacks. I think, btw, that you can find a starting guard under your couch or any other piece of household furniture is just a little bit silly. Ideally, we'll have studs all across the line. Guys who excel at guard (or any NFL position) are hard to find.

You may be right but look through the lens of an outsider. We have a new head coach. A new OC and offensive scheme. A new DC and defensive scheme. A new QB, probably a rookie, and several new starters. How often does all that up to a playoff contender? Conventional wisdom says this is a two year (or more) rebuilding project.

Is it my imagination, or are the Bills signing more small-name, kick-the-tires FAs this year than they have in the past?

Niagara Falls goes without saying - but I said it anyway. Otherwise, it depends on what you're into. You might try this: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g60974-Activities-Buffalo_New_York.html Have fun!

Like some others, I think it's a combination. Jauron had Perry Fewell as his DC and Bobby April for ST. The defense and special teams did not have bad coaching. They just didn't have enough good players. The offense, however, lacked both a good QB and good OC. "Psycho" Greggo might have been a wacko but he'd still be a DC somewhere, if not a head coach, if not for the Saints scandal. Wanny, on the other hand, deserves to be out of the NFL, not due to rules violations but because of basic ineptitude. But with Chan as the de facto OC, the offense wasn't terrible despite Fitz for a QB. With both coaches and players, we've been hit or miss. And judging by our won-less record, it's been more miss. Hopefully Whaley-Marrone turns out to be a winning combination.

Welcome! And thank your parents for raising you right. My own daughter, who's about your age, was raised in Northern California and became a Raiders fan much to my chagrin. Well, at least she's not a Fins, Jets or Pats fan. Your fanship has lasted through some pretty lean times. Hopefully, you'll soon get the experience the joy of rooting for the Bills in a playoff game.

So the sack leaders put up a lot of sacks in just a couple games while other defenders don't pile up sacks in any game? Hmmm. Which is better? I still prefer the sack leaders. You might also notice some other things: 1. Sack leaders often lead in QB pressures as well. 2. Sack leaders often get a lot of offensive attention, including double teams. Coaches do read stat sheets. I'm sure you could devise a more comprehensive statistic to measure the effectiveness of DEs but sack totals are simple and a fair indicator.

Especially if they also administered a sobriety test.

Thanks for the recommendation. I've tried a number of non-surgical modalities over the years including chiropractic, massage, cortisone injections, PT, yoga, meditation, electric stimulation and various programs from books similar to Sarno's (though never Sarno's spefically). For me, nothing worked. The disc between my L4 and L5 vertebrae was basically gone and my L5 was way out of alignment so I finally went with the surgical option: Transformal Lumbar Interbody Fusion (I think Troup had the same). Now I'm running 12 miles per week with no back pain and will push that up to 50 as I get in back in shape. So I'm happy with the operation and hope Troup is too.

It's a stupid message for the GM to send to the team, "The Head Coach is not in charge."

I only learned of it recently and was surprised he went from a national media gig (NFL.com) to a local job that is more PR than true journalism.

I had the same surgery as Troup - or a very similar one. My surgeon didn't let me run (or do much of anything) for 7 months. So I turned to my next favorite hobby - eating - and become a fat couch potato. Disc fusion surgery usually entails a pretty lengthy recovery. With better coaching and a healthy back - we'll finally see what Troup can do this year.

From the Sports Xchange… Tight end Mickey Shuler and offensive lineman Chris Scott were cut by the Buffalo Bills Saturday, even before they had a chance to take part in the team's first full squad workout at St. John Fisher College in Pittsford, N.Y. http://www.sportsxchange.com/tsxfiles/?page_id=211&max_colums=20&story_id=56950 Chris Brown posted this about Scott: “We just completed our conditioning test, which is part of our physical about where the players are,” said Marrone. ”They’ve shown that they’ve done a lot of work in the offseason. We did wind up releasing a player, Chris Scott. It’s just unfortunate in this profession. We have expectations as coaches coming in and we didn’t feel that Chris fulfilled his expectations to us, his teammates or the coaches so we let him go.” http://www.buffalobills.com/news/article-2/OL-Chris-Scott-released/fdec7c79-242d-47e7-8571-b4b3ea5ddccb I’m guessing Shuler was cut for the same reason as Scott. It seems like Marrone isn’t going to fool around with players who show up out-of-shape.

I remember when Vic Carucci was writing good articles about the Bills during the Levy-Smith-Kelly-Thomas-Reed-Tasker Golden Age. Then he graduated to the national media, writing for NFL.com and coauthoring books with a number of retired NFL stars, including Jim Kelly. He also published a book about the Bills' first Super Bowl season. For a while he was the President of the Pro Football Writers of America But now he's working for clevelandbrowns.com? What happened? http://blogs.clevelandbrowns.com/category/caruccis-call/

Jerry Jones says not one, but two, current NFL teams could be moving to LA in the near future. "The owners don't mess much up ... but we haven't gotten this one right. There's people, there's locations, there are people that are interested, a lot of people that can help us put this thing together. And as it turns out that we have at least two teams ... that could move to this area... There won't be any expansion,so it will be teams that move." http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000220639/article/jerry-jones-two-nfl-teams-could-move-to-los-angeles Any guesses which two he's talking about?

I always envisioned college as a place of education, and football (or any sport) as a diversion students pursued in their free time from studies. I know reality has already tarnished that image. Nonetheless, count me amongst those disturbed by these proposed changes.

The clip is from Football Game Plan: "Where football makes sense." True to their tagline, here's the write up on the Bills who are power-ranked #3: #3 Ranked Wednesday Mar, 2012 11:46 PM | by admin | NO COMMENTS Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorperLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper http://footballgameplan.com/3-ranked/ Translating Cicero from Latin into English (and completing the passage): But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing of a pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.

You seem to have both the qualifications and the passion. So if I were you, I'd write Russ Brandon an email much like your post here. And then I'd write Doug Whaley. I'd even write Chris Brown and ask for his help & suggestions. If you look hard enough, you'll figure out how to contact all these guys. And, btw, even though the Bills are not actively hiring statisticians for their supposed analytics department right now, I think you should write the emails anyway to start a dialogue that could lead somewhere. You'll never catch any fish if you don't throw your line into the water. Good luck!!!

Yeah, I like Marrone. I like his resume. I like the messages he's been sending. But the Crossman hire stinks of cronyism. Here's an excerpt from a recent BN article about Marrone and his coaching history: That led to a job as offensive line aide at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, coached by Bill Schmitz, who had coached with the Monarchs. “He offered me the job, and it might have been $7,000 a year,” Marrone said. “I took it. He was shocked. He made me sign a napkin. That was my first coaching contract, on a napkin at some restaurant in New London, Conn.” Marrone immediately cut his salary in half, giving $3,500 to good friend and former Monarchs teammate Danny Crossman to join the Coast Guard staff. Crossman is now the Bills’ special teams coach. http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130713/SPORTS/130719545/two-bills-drive-1004 Crossman and Marrone go way back and maybe Marrone feels he owes Crossman a chance. But as the old saying goes, the best predictor of future success is past success. Crossman doesn't have a lot of past success and it won't excite me to see him on the Bills sideline.

Any predictions or worries based on the track record of the "past 13 years" are spurious. We have a new GM, HC, OC, and DC. And as San Jose points out, there's been huge changes to the roster. I'm not sure yet what this is, but it isn't the Bills of old. And I don't get how on paper the Bills look like a "disfunctional [sic] mess." Other than the big question mark at QB, they look a lot like most other NFL teams: some good players, some not-so-good.

+1 Well said.

If he's good, he gets his first HC interview 2 years from now and departs within 4 or 5 years. If he's bad, he gets fired within 2 years. If he's merely mediocre, he lasts 3 or 4 years. Some of this depends on Marrone's tenure. If we get a new HC, Pettine probably gets replaced at the same time. Too many variables.

I guess your point is that even if Kolb excels in preseason, we should still start EJ. If we don't, it proves our coaches don't have balls. I disagree. Never forget - JaMarcus Russell was a first round draft pick. I don't think we should hand the job to EJ just because he played well in college and got picked in the 1st round. Just like preseason, that proves nothing. Lots of collegiate stars crash and burn in the NFL. When Marrone said it was an open competition, I think he was honest and I think he was right. I don't want us to pull an Al Davis and start EJ for 3 years just because we used a high pick on the guy. I want EJ to earn the job by beating out Kolb. If he can't beat out Kolb in a fair competition it probably means EJ just isn't NFL material. On top of that, EJ won't earn the respect of his teammates if he's just handed the starting job. They'll rally around him, though, if he earns his starts.

Kevin Kolb has only 21 NFL starts and has been injured much of his career.. Effectively, he's a NFL sophomore. I don't think, given his paucity of playing time, we can yet assess his ceiling with absolute certainty. I think he's done enough good things in his limited experience as a starter to at least suggest the possibility that he's capable of more. EJ is a rookie. Like any rookie QB, even 1st round rookies, his chances of NFL stardom aren't great. But there is a chance. Kolb and EJ - combined - give me something I haven't felt in a while: HOPE. We knew what we had in Fitz. We knew his strengths and we knew his weaknesses. Unfortunately, so did our opponents. We really don't know what we have in Kolb and EJ. Maybe both end up failing, who knows? But I'm beginning this season more hopeful in our QB play than I began last season. And for that I'm grateful.