hondo in seattle

It's kind of weird. The Bills have been a high-profile team since McD and Josh came to town. And yet Milano - despite his superior play being pointed out by announcers - hasn't seemed to have gotten the respect nationally that he deserved. Good to see that changing.

To clarify, the Bills played in the 1948 AAFL Championship game, not 1949. (Though we lost again to the Browns in the first round of the playoffs in 1949). We had a decent team in 1948. Halfback Chet Murtryn totaled 1,617 yards from scrimmage that year and tied for the league lead in scoring with 10 TDs. But the Browns overwhelmed us in the title game, holding Murtryn to 8 yards. Our QB in 1948, George Ratterman, was also pretty good. He threw for 22 TDs the previous season - establishing a rookie pro football record that lasted for more than 50 years. In 1956, Ratterman played for the Browns and became the first QB in pro history to have a radio receiver in his helmet to receive play calls from the coach.

It's all moot if we win a Lombardi. Which I think we will eventually with our HC-QB combo. And if I'm wrong... well, life goes on in a grayer, less-cheerful kind of way. In either scenario, Cowherd's words don't matter.

It's just due diligence. Beane and his staff continue to scout players by bringing them in for tryouts. The more Beane does that now, the more he knows who to sign when we have injuries later in the season. Particularly, in this case, if Harty gets hurt.

Interesting point about Reid being better than Belichick. And maybe he is. But I think about this. In their glory days, Brees, P. Manning, Rodgers, and others were producing the same statistical excellence as Brady. But how many Super Bowls did those Head Coaches win? Not as many as BB.

I take a lot of talk about the Bills' tough schedule with a grain of salt. I joined the Bills Mafia back when Jack Kemp was still the signal caller. And over the years, I've heard a lot of preseason chatter about the comparative difficulty of the schedule. And many/most preseason prognostications end up wrong because there are always some opponents that are far better than expected and others that are worse. Having said that I do think the AFCE will be tough this year. With Rodgers, how can the Jets not be better? And the Fins gave us some tough fights last year and will likely present some problems again this season. And the Pats don't have a loaded roster, but they still have Belichick. I think 3 of 4 teams finish with winning records. And the Bills get another AFCE crown in a closer race than last year's.

Similar. My mom used to take me grocery shopping sometimes. Like the Bills, we were on a tight budget, so she'd buy the cheapest meats, cereals, etc. But she'd tell me she was buying the best stuff and I believed her.

Interesting trend, Chaos, but I'm not sure what the take-away is. So if I'm a GM or HC and I take this idea of offense-wins-Lombardis to heart, then I'm going to build a really good defense to stop my opponents' offense from beating us. Paradoxically, if offenses win, then you have to build a defense to counter a team with an offense. So defenses win. No offense plays in a vacuum. It's always an Offense vs Defense struggle. Ignoring ST for a moment... If our O is better than their D, and our D is better than their O, we win. O and D are equally balanced.

I feel bad for the kid. And while the RB room was crowded, I did think he'd get some reps on offense and make a contribution with his speed and pass-catching ability.

Yep. While an average team has a 3% chance of winning the SB, I think the best teams have something like a 10 to 15% chance of winning it all. I think the Bills are one of those teams. But just one injury - if it's to Josh - could drop our chances to near zero.

Last year was hellish. It began with a neighborhood shooting. While we didn't have a ton of injuries overall, we suffered a number of damaging injuries to our key players. Josh played the second half of the season hurt. And, of course, there was Damar... If we just have a normal share of bad luck this year, we'll be better. But I also believe Beane has done a nice job of incrementally improving the roster. Edmunds's loss will hurt but we've gotten better in other position groups. Yep, the AFCE looks tougher. The Bills won't dominate the regular season like we've done in recent years. But we'll end up in the playoffs with a better squad than the one that reached the playoffs last year.

In the old days, teams with the best coaches and biggest budgets would often stockpile the best players, thus creating dynasties. In the 1940s, Paul Brown's Cleveland Browns won the AAFC championship all four years, including a 49-7 whipping of the original Buffalo Bills in the 1948 title game. Then the Browns joined the NFL and won 3 of the next 6 NFL championships. The Browns played in championship games for a remarkable 10 consecutive years. In the 60s, Lombardi's Packers won 5 of 7 championships, including the first two Super Bowls. The score wasn't even close in those Super Bowls. But then in the 90s, the old, weak equalizer of the draft started to tag-team with its new friend, the salary cap, to create a funny kind of parity. It's not "parity" in the sense that every game is a 50-50 proposition. But dynasties were dead in the NFL. The good teams tended to trade places with the bad teams every few years. And there was no One Dominant Team anymore. Every year, there is parity at the top of the league with several more-or-less equally matched teams, each with something like a 10% or 15% chance of winning it all. But the Belichick-Brady Pats were a weird and unlikely aberration - the one extraordinary outlier in the post-salary-cap, no-dynasty reality. In a span of 18 years, they won a bucketload of games including 6 Super Bowls. It wasn't Brown-Lombardi level dominance, but it was arguably against better competition and a very special accomplishment. Do we give all the credit to Brady? Statistically, Brady was never head-and-shoulders better than the other elite QBs of his era: Brees, Manning, Rodgers, et al. Maybe the Pats executed at such a high level because they practiced, schemed, and executed better than their opponents. Maybe Belichick deserves some of the credit.

Well, coaching matters. But so does talent. A good coach can make a QB somewhat better but can't transform a toad into a prince.

Harris is the 30th-ranked RB in Madden. Not very impressive. Our 'best' back is barely rated a starter. Yet I think we have a decent overall stable of backs for a passing team. It would be great, though, if we could one day draft an elite running threat.

Weirdly, a long time ago, a friend of mine was attending law school. He showed me a paper he wrote - the first twenty pages of which were written in crayon. He received an 'A.'

Some rookies buy their moms new houses. Some spend $200k+ on a new car.

During the Pats' Reign of Terror there was a lot of chatter about "The Patriot Way." Supposedly, the Patriot Way was different than "The Process" in Buffalo or any of the other systems and philosophies of team preparation practiced elsewhere in the NFL. Then Brady left, the rings stopped coming, and nobody talked about the Patriot Way anymore. In the minds of some fans, the Patriot Way was merely a mirage and Brady was the only actual thing that differentiated the Patriots from the rest of the NFL. But Edelman recently said something I find interesting: "I swear if I didn't play New England I'd still be playing because we practice so goddamn hard. That's honestly why I retired: I couldn't practice. I was getting three reps of practice and then I go get in the pool because my knee, you know, like I was fu**ed up... You build your confidence through practice… [A team that practices hard] is a dying breed and that's why football is getting sloppy." I think many fans overrate game-time decisions and underrate all the other stuff a coach does to build a winner. Edelman's quote makes me think about that other stuff and wonder if McD is practicing the optimal amount. www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/julian-edelman-reveals-how-playing-for-patriots-forced-him-into-early-retirement/ar-AA1e512N?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=5d3d7a4baeb245c9bc7b95da3e34f212&ei=50

I really don't care what the talking heads say but I do find this amusing: The four analysts on ESPN's "Get Up" show predicted who would win the AFCE. Louis Riddick and Domonique Foxworth chose the Miami Dolphins while Harry Douglas and Mike Greenberg picked the New York Jets. No one picked the Bills. The schedule is tougher. The AFCE competition is tougher. But I still think the Bills have a somewhat better chance at the Lombardi this year than they did last season. www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/four-espn-analysts-predict-afc-east-winner-zero-pick-the-bills/ar-AA1e5ffW?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=cb493f972a2c402bb17b007d2da65c7f&ei=72

We won DPOY two years in a row with 2 different players.

Glad I'm not the only one old enough to remember those times! Though I don't clearly remember the Heidi Game. I may or may not have been watching. But my best friend at the time (and still a good friend) became a duel Raiders-Bills fan when Lamonica was traded. So, he was fumed that he didn't get to see the exciting finish that included, as you know, two Raider TDs in the final minute. He was still fuming the next day. That I do remember. I think if I ask him about it now all these years later, he'll still spit out a few angry words. I also remember that in my house we happily watched the Heidi movie that evening without any angst about the finish of the game. My mom had been looking forward to Heidi and I didn't care about the Raiders or Jets.

Holy crap. I didn't know/remember this. I didn't see the first Super Bowl because the army had other plans for me that day. I never watched a replay because it would be too painful.

BOGO: Two random players in the same story: Min Max Anderson and the incomparable Preston Ridlehuber. When I was 10, the tv announcers reported that OJ's backup, Mini Max Anderson, was taken out of the game because he had broken some teeth and swallowed his tongue after being hit so hard that his facemask broke. I asked my mom if it was even possible to swallow a tongue. When she said 'yes,' for years I suffered a deep and irrational fear of swallowing my own. With both OJ and Mini Max out with injuries, third-stringer Preston Ridlehuber came in. Ridlehuber's main claim to fame was scoring the winning touchdown for the Raiders the previous season on a fumble return with 33 seconds left. But no one in TV Land witnessed the greatest play of Ridlehuber's otherwise dismal career because the broadcast had been preempted by the television presentation of "Heidi." In Buffalo, the Ridlehuber magic struck one last time. Late in the game with both his quick and exciting backs hurt, Coach Rauch drew up a halfback option in the dirt on a third-and-short situation. It was supposed to be a short pass to the TE but Ridlehuber heaved a pass downfield to Haven Moses for a 45-yard TD to win the game. Ridlehuber never touched a football again.

I agree with this. I think Saffold's replacement will be an improvement. We also seem to have better depth at guard this year. I don't agree with: "Brown makes a significant jump at RT" from your earlier post. I want to believe that but can't really justify such a belief.

I'm usually an empirical kind of guy. Facts sway me. But something about Dorsey's performance last year - particularly during the second half of the season (yes, when Josh was playing hurt) - that worried me. His game planning and play calling seemed off... predictable... unimaginative. I'm not ready to condemn the guy but I'd have trouble rating him in the Top Ten. Let's see what he does this year. I hope my misgivings are wrong and he coaches the offense to a stupendous SB victory.

Last preseason, I was confused by all the SB hype because I didn't know how we could overcome our crap OL (among other concerns). Then we started scoring like Wilt Chamberlain on a Friday night. For a while, I thought Dorsey was a genius to cover up our offensive front weaknesses. I think this year's line will be better. It might even be average. I don't expect it to be good but 'average' will be a significant improvement over last year.