akm0404

Defense wins championships these days about as often as bad quarterbacks do. This is a quarterback's league, son.

People get upset When their team loses yearly. Lash out at reason. Too many crayons, you have eaten. Haiku need not rhyme. So sayeth 10th grade English.

My grades: Quarterbacks: D Trent Edwards, as one poster has written, has shown "flashes of competence". This pretty much sums it up for me. When your best quarterback looks competent every once in a while, you are in trouble. Big trouble. This is the most important position on the team, and yet you would have to scrape to find TWO other teams who might trade their quarterback for Trent Edwards. Unacceptable. Not just below average, WAY below average. Running Backs: B+ The Bills have a very much above average stable of NFL-caliber running backs. Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that Lynch and Jackson are elite NFL running backs - they put up solid, middle of the road numbers in terms of yards and touchdowns. Average to slightly above average between the two of them, but adding C.J. Spiller puts this unit over the top and makes them the strength of the team. Spiller could be special, if he finds a way not to be consistently hurt and have his carries limited with some sort of modified "Joba Rules". Offensive Line: D+ We all hope that Levitre and Wood become the backbone of this offensive line. Wood comes off a devastating leg injury that killed his rookie season, so he is essentially a red-shirt freshman this year. Levitre struggled at first, and played more solidly as the season progressed. There is reason to be cautiously optimistic about these two. Unfortunately, they are guards and not the ultra-super-essential tackles that sets the average lines apart from the elite. Our tackles are not good. Everyone on earth knew that the Bills two big needs in the offseason were quarterback and offensive tackle, and neither were addressed. So, we have one unproven (well, he has proven to be pretty darn not great) left tackle and a journeyman castoff at right tackle. Ouch. Our center, while not a total liability, isn't anywhere near above average. By all accounts, the line and quarterback play are the weaknesses of the team. Unfortunately, the line nerfs the Running Backs as well, who might all be superstar A+ players behind a competent group up front. Wide Receivers: C- Lee Evans, while not nearly an elite NFL receiver, is a solid player and would make most rosters as a #2 receiver (and all of them at #3). He is above average, for sure. Maybe he'd be Jerry Rice behind Joe Montana, or maybe Jerry Rice would have been Jerry Rice anywhere. Nobody knows, but we know for sure that Lee Evans puts up yearly productivity in the range of below average for a #1, but well above average overall. The cult favorite Steve Johnson is an absolutely unproven commodity, who didn't even register a blip during preseason. This is troubling. Roscoe Parrish is being heralded as the second coming of who-knows-what, but he only made a couple catches in the preseason and has gotten some lip service that indicates that he might be used more. It seems highly unlikely that he'll turn out to be a superstar so many years into his career. David Nelson has showed the ability to make catches in the preseason. We all hope he turns into an NFL force, but it is unlikely that a rookie NFL receiver, let alone an undrafted one, will have anything more than an average season. It's a bit rough out there at WR, as the majority of NFL teams can field 3 receivers that are much more proven than ours. Tight Ends: D Very, very, very far below average. With all of the good tight ends out there (Gates, Witten, Celek, Finley, Davis, Clark, Gonzales, etc. etc. etc.), it is difficult to believe that the Bills can never find a tight end that can play. Endlessly injured and consistently underwhelming is the motto of this part of the team. And now we can throw in substance abuser into the mix of negative adjectives to describe Bills tight ends. Maybe Nelson will turn out to be ok, but we certainly can't bet on it. Stupar is a good story, but he moves at the speed of sloth and could never be confused for a playmaker. Whatever other waiver wire scrubs they bring into the mix will be more of the same. Not NFL competitive at this position. Defensive Line: C Average might be a stretch for this unit, but it isn't outside of the realm of possibility and I'm feeling optimistic about this group. Kyle Williams is underrated, though he isn't a consistently dominating force. Above average, definitely. Stroud is at the end of his road, but can hopefully give us one or two more seasons that approximate average. He probably wasn't even average last year for starting defensive linemen, but he slimmed down and could play better. Dwan Edwards is also an average player, with a good pedigree coming from Baltimore. He did play next to a a legitimate dominating force in Ngata, so hopefully we will find that wasn't what opened up things for him to succeed. After that, we have to rely on rookies for our upside, and I saw limited flashes from Troupe and Carrington. They won't see the field or contribute enough this year to pull the D-Line beyond mediocre, middle of the road, average, C. Linebackers: D Unfortunately, the switch to the 3-4 mandates that our linebacker corps be the dominant unit on defense. And they aren't. Not even close. This collection of cobbled-together third rate players will, in my opinion, prove to be the downfall of the team this year. Even in preseason teams could run wild on this defense, and misdirection plays befuddled our linebackers. Though Steve Tasker would try to paint a happy picture calling them a fast-flow pursuing group, it is clear that they are physically and mentally over-matched. The Bills defense was historically futile in stopping the run last year, and the switch to the 3-4 and its emphasis on strong nose tackle and linebacker play should make things worse in the short term. Long term, we can hope that someone from this rag-tag bunch steps up. Posluszny gets controlled at the point of attack and has brittle bones, but is still young enough to develop into a competent player. Secondary: B+ While I'm still not sold that this unit is among the best in the NFL (statistically #2 in yards allowed via pass last year), they are certainly the strength of the team (with the running backs). I have a sinking feeling that the yards allowed statistic was directly related to the abysmal performance of the team vs. the run, but the players in the secondary still figure to be above average. McGee is aging, but is a solid #1/#2 cornerback in the NFL. He would make every team's roster, and has been a solid contributor throughout his career. He has become injury-plagued of late, but we can hope that will not continue this year. Drayton Florence was a solid pick-up for the Bills, and he is a competent NFL caliber cornerback. He even seems to have a strong passion for the team and winning, which is a rarity among the majority of the flat-liners that make up the rest of the team. McKelvin is faced with a make-it or break-it year, as he has been pretty much a bust thusfar and has even been beaten out for the #2 job by a free agent cast-off. That is a very bad sign for player picked so early in the draft. Compared with Rodgers-Cromartie, he has been a huge letdown, but there is still optimism that the light bulb may go on this year. Youboty and Corner are marginal depth, and may be average at best league-wide (not that this is terrible for your 4th and 5th corners). Byrd has the potential to be great, and while skeptics can point to fears of injury-proneness and the chance that several of his interceptions may have been opportunistic, he is one of the brighter spots on the team moving forward and could be a stud. Special Teams: C- Might even be giving them the benefit of the doubt here, especially in light of the terrible job that the unit has done on kick and punt coverage in the preseason. Though Moorman has been on a slight decline, he is still solid to above average, and Lindell is a dependable kicker who brings the average up as well. I fear that we will miss Bobby April's stewardship of this unit, as it may give up a ton of big plays throughout the season. Overall Rating: C-/D+ My biggest fear is that the Bills will continue their middling, mediocre ways and finish 5-10 to 7-9 this year, which I believe is certainly possible. Anything better than that would be a huge stretch, and I'm afraid that the team will play hard for their new coaches and find a way to win a few games that they shouldn't. We have a long road to travel before the talent stockpiles are refreshed enough to compete consistently with the better teams in football. And, we need a quarterback in order to have a hope at long-term success. Final prediction: 4-12.

I think people might be skeptical about Jairus Byrd for a couple reasons. First off, he missed a third of the season due to injury. Combine that with missing all of the pre-season due to injury, and you have reason to be concerned. Second, from watching the games it really seemed like a bunch of the interceptions that he made were served up on a platter. Granted, you need to "be in the right place at the right time", but some could argue that he might have gotten unusually lucky. It's obviously too early to say for sure about either of these things, but its also too early to say that they aren't causes for concern. Hence, the skepticism and desire for many to see him have another solid campaign and solidify himself as "the real deal".

Well, if you're asking what the ideal season would be, then the answer is 19-0 SUPER BOWL BABY! But because you used the words "be reasonable" in the thread subject, that I guess I'd have to agree with much of what you said. Someone posted that their ideal season has Trent Edwards scraping together enough of a TD to INT ratio to keep the Bills from drafting a QB #1. Holy crapola is that a nightmare waiting to happen. My realistic best case scenario for the season would be for the Bills to win JUST enough games to secure the drafting of the best QB in the 2011 draft. Perhaps that'll be 2 wins, perhaps it'll be 4 or 5 - depends on the other bottom feeding teams and their needs. After that, I'd like if maybe, just maybe, some young player would develop into anything close to an NFL superstar. Jairus Bird has a chance. So does C.J. Spiller. Maybe McKelvin. Because really, it's been a long time since the Bills had a superstar. Anyhow, without an elite quarterback, your team is relegated to the group of also-rans that wishes for a miracle season that they can beat the odds and win without the best player on their team being their quarterback. I want a quarterback that is elite, not one who you hope can throw just enough touchdowns and just few enough interceptions to not be replaced by a rookie draftee. I'm willing to suffer through any number of bad seasons to hit the quarterback lottery, because when you have one, you can count on a decade of upswing and a real chance at winning a Super Bowl.

Um, people are really debating why the Bills lost something like 20% of their season ticket base? This isn't rocket science people - the reason that fans are dropping like flies is because the team is devoid of talented star players, plays a brutally unwatchable brand of football, and has the long-term stability of nitro-glycerin.

Without an elite quarterback, all you can hope for is some miracle lucky season. Which bodes well for the Bills, since Ralph Wilson is such a strong believer in luck being the necessary ingredient to cultivating a winning franchise. I wouldn't worry about having your quarterback be the best player on your team. Heck, once a decade some team gets it done with a fat lineman as their best player.

The Buffalo Bills Decade of futility One going on two.

To all of the posters who endlessly whine about how the Bills get no respect from the national media and are ignored in discussions of the AFC East: They are ignored for good reason. They are irrelevant in every sense of the word. Perpetually mediocre, overwhelmingly boring, and completely devoid of any superstar, recognizable, or even interesting players. Same reason you don't get a ton of Cleveland Browns in-depth analysis or a bunch of sportscasters breaking down the Seahawks. As an aside, I love how everyone calls bringing in highly productive star free agents "splashy pickups". Yeah, signing Brandon Marshall would really have been a splashy gimmick. Lol, he'll probably out produce our entire WR corps, but hey, that didn't make them extend their chasmic talent advantage or anything. Because we have a coach nobody knew was still looking for work and a stable of boring, bottom-of-the-league quarterbacks. The Bills might not finish last in the AFC East, but it isn't the media pundits' fault for the Bills irrelevance and mediocrity - that was and is firmly established at the top.

Know what else is a danger of picking a QB in the first round? The chance of turning your franchise around from a consistent loser, to a consistent winner. But yeah, since there is a chance you can bust, I'd just go ahead and not ever pick a QB. Who needs em.

LOL - Aside from our retread coach, a new defensive scheme that we don't have the personnel to run properly, terrible offensive line, and nearly league-worst quarterback situation, we'll be GREAT! Also, 'doosh'. As an aside, it always cracks me up how people talk about weathermen always being wrong. Seems to me like they pretty much always peg the weather just about right. Which isn't bad for telling the future and all. Also, it's pretty much just computer modeling anyhow, not some guy with an Ouija board.

BTW - that stat is really misleading. Jackson had a good year last year, but absolutely not anything near historically great. Almost half of his total yards came on kickoff returns, where he was merely average. He ranked #15 in the NFL in yards per kickoff return. He also ranked #15 in rushing yards and #12 in receiving yards by a running back. I like him and stuff, but just wanted to offer a bit of perspective on that surprising stat.

Sorry to make you feel sad, but that is the reality that I see as a fan of this team. You don't have to agree, it doesn't matter much to me. I think that my diagnosis of the failures of this team are founded on reality, and it is my opinion that a coach and a quarterback are nearly always required to find success in the NFL. It is also my opinion (and I don't think it is really a huge stretch to say this, objectively) that we are severely lacking in both regards. The pre-season IS the time to try to figure out what the season will hold. Most respected NFL analysts are doing just that, attempting to analyze how teams will fare in the upcoming season. They are usually more right than wrong, and unfortunately, I think they are probably right about this team. It doesn't make them buzzkills, or negative nellies, or not "true fans" to look objectively and prognosticate how teams should fare based on their composition. It doesn't pre-determine the season - very rarely a team generally expected to do badly will over perform. I desperately hope this is the case, as it makes me happy when the Bills win and sad when they lose. But, what I really don't want to see is for them to over perform to their usual 6-10 record, thus preventing our ownership from being "forced" into drafting a quarterback with the #1ish pick in the draft. Because as I said, I feel that you can't win consistently without a top-flight coach and quarterback. Do you think that Trent Edwards or Ryan Fitzpatrick or Brian Brohm are likely to be top-flight quarterbacks in this league? If yes, then I'd postulate that you aren't watching a lot of football. Because they are terrible. Seriously bad. Very sub-standard quality. Do you think that Chan Gailey is going to suddenly become a top-flight head coach in the NFL? History suggests that he won't. The things I've seen with this team suggest that he won't. Maybe we'll be surprised, but I'd rather invest in a proven winner rather than hope for a different outcome the umpteenth time around.

See original post, particularly the "in my 31 years on this earth". 31. I was only vaguely alive during the decade that the Dolphins clowned us for 10 years straight. But, we're working on a decade of Patriots ownage, so I might have a little perspective. Also, it is really strange how people will disregard your honest appraisal of the team as not being one of a "true fan" when you have negative things to say. It is very insulting to suggest that someone can't be a "true fan" of a team unless they enter every single season with blind optimism overflowing. I am a true fan of the Bills, and frankly, nobody gets to decide that other than me. Yes, it is frustrating when they disappoint year after year after year. Yes, I wish they were better. I really, really, really wish they were. Yes, I think they are going to be abysmal this year. Yes, I will enjoy watching them, and will enjoy talking about how talentless they are. You may not understand how one can be a "true fan" of a team without blindly praising every move they make, and being blissfully optimistic for every season. But again, I decide that, and not you.

What other color would you propose them to be colored? I assume they should be colored appropriately based upon performance, right? I can't really imagine a "blacker" time for a franchise than the one we are mired in right now (and the last decade). Irrelevance, futility, hopelessness. The assertion that you can't be a fan (note how you put fan in quotation marks, implying that they aren't true fans) while objectively evaluating the position of the team relative to other franchises is insulting. I can be a "fan" of the team, watch every single play of every single game, every single year (as I have for my entire 31 years on this earth, granted some of them were radio games due to blackout, and others were unremembered due to being a baby and whatnot), and still provide my honest evaluation of the condition of this franchise. Black.

Patience indeed. We must patiently await the arrival of the two pieces that nearly always must be in place for a team to be successful. Wait for it...drumroll... A coach and a quarterback. Right now, I suspect we have neither. Look at how hilariously simple it was for the Redskins to turn from a team that was somehow WORSE than the Bills last year to a team that can thrash it, with hope abundantly leaking from every orifice. Bring in a big name coach like EVERYONE wanted (except the coaches, because NOBODY wants to come to Buffalo), and bring in a respectable quarterback (no _good_ free agent quarterback with options would come to Buffalo, so the draft is the only option there and you know how we feel about that). Two pronged attack for guaranteed respectability and relevance in the NFL. We are zero-pronged. Instead, we promote from within (the fungus among us, so to speak). We roll out the same guaranteed fail re-treads. We cheap out on a coach who nobody who follows the league even had a CLUE was a candidate for ANY job. But hey, things are changing! We're doing things DIFFERENTLY now. If by different you mean roll out the same scrub players, run a fail offense that, even if it somehow manages to succeed will still make you want to drive a rust-covered icepick through your eyeball, run by a coach who will run some dumbass fake snap into last timeout of the quarter to punt the ball away. Channeling his inner Jauron, one might imagine. I remember a Georgia Tech student who posted on TSW when Gailey was hired, who to paraphrase said something along the lines of, "Expect more third and long draw plays and more punts from your opponents 35 yard line than you can imagine". I believe it, and it's been but one game. So, we shall endure yet another meaningless fail of a season, mired in the same stagnant mediocrity and irrelevance that has plagued us for a decade. Savvy fans will hope beyond hope that the team will somehow find a way to lose enough games to strong-arm the team into drafting a quarterback, instead of another corner back or running back. Fortunately, it looks like the quality of players on the team should be enough to seal that fate. I still fear enough overachieving to lock us into another worst-case-scenario 6-10 season. Do you think I want to root for the Bills, the team of my youth, the only NFL team I could ever watch every single play of every single game, every single year, to lose all of their games? Hell no. You think I want this? Do you really think I want it to be this way? We are all stuck in an abusive relationship with the Buffalo Bills. Every year they slap us around, and we get real upset about it, we call the cops. But we don't press charges. We can't. We'll be back. And they'll still be the same. Until real change happens. Not promote-from-within change. Not fire-some-useless-coaches-and-bring-in-some-new-ones change. Not our-owner-is-so-old-and-thinks-that-luck-is-the-most-important-factor-in-consistent-winning change. Change can only happen when the Buffalo Bills fall under new ownership. New, dynamic owners with dogged determination to win. Young, vibrant work-a-holics who understand the climate of the modern NFL. An owner that understands the one simple tenant of consistently winning in this league: A coach, and a quarterback.

How is what I do with my life at all relevant to an evaluation of Ralph Wilson's success? Would my status as a gigantic failure make Mr. Wilson's institutionalized failure make him look better? Worse? I don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that when the rocket blows up, the scientist stunk.

Ok, we'll dumb this down then so we aren't both cherry-picking certain facts and excluding others and get back to the brass tacks of this thread: Do you feel that Ralph Wilson is a good owner, and why. I feel that Ralph Wilson is one of the worst owners in professional sports history because he consistently has missed on hires, run good staff out of town, spends less on coaching salaries than other teams, and sells competitive advantage to other teams for cash considerations. His record speaks for itself. Furthermore, I feel that his advanced age (which is certainly no fault of his) makes him unfit to run such a complex enterprise as the one he leads now. From watching press conferences etc. I have formed the opinion that he is not lucid enough to make the tough and timely decisions needed to succeed, leaving the team to suffer. This has also led the Bills to be a bit of a laughingstock, as the impression is that the organization is run by a miserly old man. I wish he was not the owner of the Buffalo Bills. I feel that they would be better with a younger, more dynamic owner who was willing to take risks and spend competitive dollars to field a consistently winning team.

Mind you, the defense we ran last year had GAPING HOLES at DE, DT, and OLB. So really, it's kind of just a problem of having really bad players. Now we have bad players playing different positions, *fingers crossed*!

Wilson certainly had enough money to buy the Bills when he did, but (without being able to look at his balance sheet of course), I'm speculating that the vast, vast, vast majority of his personal wealth stems from the Buffalo Bills. As for the handful of examples you have of the Bills paying "top dollar" for talent, you too are just handpicking a couple examples out of a much, much, much larger pool. Watch any NFL game, and you'll see former Bills making it good somewhere else. Clements, Winfield, Williams, Greer, Peters, the list goes on. But even more so than the talent that the Bills have lost over the years, think of the talent that they have not added for financial reasons. Every off season, you can pretty much just pencil in the Bills as being the losers in free agency. Yeah, they signed TO to a tiny 1 year deal (relative to the free agents that sign real multi-year contracts). You can point out an example or two of teams that overpaid for a free agent, but you can't ignore the HUNDREDS of examples of teams who have added key personnel via free agency that have propelled them to championships. Except not in Buffalo, because we don't really do that. Look at the number of players this year alone that could have helped the Bills that signed elsewhere. Probably a combination of us being such a terrible landing spot for anyone (which Ralph Wilson is largely to blame for), and not being willing to open our wallets despite there being literally NO SALARY CAP. Yes, that is being cheap. Also, placing the blame for our countless free agent departures and non-signings onto Donahoe or some other employee is silly. Ralph put him there. Ralph has the final say on player contracts. Come on now. On to the CBA. The owners opting out of the end of the CBA is absolutely not an indictment of Ralph Wilson's opposing vote in 2006. That is ludicrous. The deal was signed in '06 with every intention that it would be opted out of this year. Everyone knew it. Everyone expected it. On to Toronto. Saying that the Bills are so terrible that they wouldn't have even won at home only serves to validate the point that I made - that it is more likely for a team to win with home field advantage than without. Willfully giving up this COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE for cash considerations is shameful. Frankly, it seems almost unethical. You didn't answer my query as to whether or not you feel that it would be a bad move for an owner to sell losses to other teams for cash. What if the Bills were willing to forfeit one of their games against the Jets for 100 million dollars? I mean, that'd be great for the organization. That's a ton of money. How can it be acceptable to purposely place your team at an increased chance of losing for cash money, but have it not be ok to sell losses? This is still really crazy to me. Ralph Wilson isn't the lone miser in the NFL. There are several bad owners that doom their teams to futility and irrelevance. How does the existence of other bad owners make Ralph's terrible performance more acceptable? And finally, I'm glad you aren't moving. I don't live in Buffalo, but do live in a declining community. I like it here too. Having whatever personal respect you have for Mr. Wilson is great. I simply just can't see how anyone can defend his competence with regard to fielding a consistently winning product. Or perhaps you, like Mr. Wilson, place all of the stock in just a whole bunch of bad luck.

Man, I find it seriously creepy the way he consistently refers to him as "Mr. Wilson". Oh well, I'm sure it's just some way to show how hip and respectful he is of his elders, or some such. So yeah, you "refuted" my arguments as to why Ralph Wilson is a total failure as owner of the Buffalo Bills, and is a laughing stock around the league. But yet you did it without really providing any content. let's go point by point: -- Ralph Wilson was rich before he established the Bills, and would've been rich without them. Complete speculation. I say he would have been a space alien if he didn't found the Buffalo Bills. The Bills certainly did make him wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of most "regular folk". -- Never been willing to pay top dollar for coaching talent, sure. But he's paid big money on players. So how does that make him a miser? So you are agreeing that he is a miser, and has never paid top dollar for coaching talent. The suggestion that he's paid "big money" on players is really not true, though. We can list off myriad examples of former Buffalo Bills who landed large free agent contracts because the Bills wouldn't pony up "top dollar". While the Bills certainly are not the Kansas City Royals of NFL payroll, neither are they amongst the top spending teams and haven't approached the salary cap in many years. They also do not fully take advantage of every available salary cap dollar (see Cash To The Cap below) as some teams do. Does a large payroll guarantee success? No. But you simply cannot argue against the assertion that Ralph Wilson is frugal at best, and a greedy miser at worst. Collecting a monstrous annual salary while not being willing to pay top dollar for coaching talent. That just screams of a man who wants to win at all costs. -- Buddy, I don't know what lunatic fringe you're talking about, because, in retrospect, most of the owners have moved to Wilson's so-called fringe. (Hint: It's why there might not be an NFL season in 2011). See 6-Year Collective Bargaining Agreement signed in March 2006. Only Buffalo and Cincinnati voted against it, with Ralph Wilson providing these memorable quotes: "I didn't understand it," said Buffalo's Ralph Wilson. "I'm not a dropout ... or maybe I am. I didn't understand it." -- The deal the Bills brokered with Rogers is proving to be a huge windfall for the Bills, and a deal I think Rogers might not have signed based on their failure to meet their initial high hopes. I mean, hell, $9 million a game is a steep price. Sure, you make the claim that it's for money, money which the team can't generate out of cash-dry Western New York. Huge windfall for the Bills, in terms of money going to line Ralph's pockets. Just above you concede that Ralph isn't willing to pay top dollar for coaching talent (read: isn't willing to put full financial resources into making the team succeed), but yet is eager to willfully accept a COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE by forfeiting home-field advantage for 12.5% of each seasons' home games. Shameful. Other owners might be misers, but at least they don't obviously sabotage the success of their team by giving away home games. This is just one step beneath selling one game a year to the highest bidder and taking a forfeit. Would that be acceptable as well? -- If Mr. Wilson invented the phrase "cash to the cap," then he should've patented it, because there's a lot more teams nowadays following that "cash to the cap" lead. Well, if other teams wish to follow the example of one of the historically worst performing franchises in major sports, I guess they are free. We should be proud that we coined a new miserly term! -- Third-tier city? That's a little tough, isn't it? You said yourself how depressing it was driving through the West Side. Buffalo is drying up and population has been declining for decades. Perhaps Third-tier is even sugarcoating it. Let us not be blind to that fact. The fact of the matter is that by any objective measure of ON THE FIELD success, the Buffalo Bills have been a complete failure under Ralph Wilson's ownership. If we move that discussion to "Mr. Wilson's" business acumen, he is by any account a resounding success. We have fueled that success with our loyal patronage of the Buffalo Bills. We also bear the burden of their competitive failure. Owner gets rich, fans suffer through decades of terrible product. If this isn't the true measure of the success of an owner, I can hardly imagine what is. But hey, at least he didn't move the team! Then he might be a billionaire, instead of merely a better-part-of-a-billionaire.

I'm pretty sure that dumping cigarette butts on the sidewalk is littering, and you can be fined. But shrug, people smoking isn't really that big of a deal.

Jeez, looks like he had a little thin skin there. How is saying something like, "Hey man, it isn't my call on all that stuff" or "That guy is a buddy of mine, so I'm not even going to address that" not the way to go? Looks like he had a hissy and took his ball and went home.

Seems fine to me to allow smoking outside. Banning it inside the stadium is understandable, but outside in the areas that are not in the concourse (concession areas) seems ok. Open air areas at the ends of the stadium is more than reasonable to me.

Well let's see. Last year, Lee Evans ranked #61 in receiving yards, and #88 in catches. In contrast, there were 10 tight ends, and 1 running back that gained more reception yardage. 18 tight ends caught more passes, and 11 running backs caught more passes. The year before, he was #33 in receptions, and #19 in yardage. Great year. Only 5 TEs had more catches. Unfortunately, tied for 61st in TDs. In 2007, he was 45th in the league in receptions, and 32nd in yardage. 36th in touchdowns. As for his salary, Evans' cap number was $ 6,577,182 last year. For the 61st/88th best receiver in terms of yardage and catches. That is the 14th highest salary for a receiver, by the way. "But wait! This isn't fair!", I hear you saying. "He doesn't have a quarterback!" Here is a sampling of some other pass catchers that out gained Lee Evans last year. Brandon Marshall T.J. Houshmandzadeh Vernon Davis Kellen Winslow Devone Bess Santana Moss Calvin Johnson Zach Miller Steve Smith (Carolina version) Mike Sims-Walker And the list goes on and on. Some need a good quarterback, some seem not to. Don't get me wrong, I think Lee Evans is a very good NFL caliber player on a team with few NFL caliber players. But let us not kid ourselves thinking that he is somehow Jerry Rice trapped in crappy Buffalo. He is good, not great. And got himself a very, very rich contract for relatively little productivity. Could he be better with a better quarterback, on a better team, in a better system? Absolutely. Is he an elite receiver in the NFL? Hardly. The numbers speak for themselves.