Grimace

I don't want to make any argument to the quality of the guy's play, but rather ask a simple question: Why is the word "bust" becoming so incredibly overused? I never heard the term before watching the Ryan Leaf fiasco in San Diego. It seems relevant when a team puts all their chips in on a guy who is supposed to carry their team for the next decade and he never makes a play in his career. Once a player who's considered an "average safety" (which would rank him as approximately 16th best in the NFL by definition of average) that's drafted as a #9 talent is qualified as a bust, we are speaking in hyperbole. This is comparable to watching Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, where everything is described as "awesome," "radical," or "excellent." Just like a garage band isn't "excellent" and repetitive visits to waterslides don't count as "radical," an average player shouldn't constitute a "bust." If he belongs in the same category as Ryan Leaf and Jamarcus Russel, then so be it, but please don't make average = bust. The draft is a lottery. A "bust" should be a "sure thing" that became the complete opposite.

Its hard to take a guy's history of opinion into consideration when you can't stand listening to him. Every time I turn on his radio show for 5 minutes before changing it out of frustration, he's either bumbling through painful banter or having a complain-fest segment. Accuracy of comments will be pretty high if you take a team in a long slump and complain about them. This does not make him interesting or intuitive. In my limited exposure, he does the same thing with the Sabres despite their relative success. Comprehensive criticism of a team can be made without sounding like everything is wrong with the world. He might be right, but I can't bring myself to care.

If the ball was thrown perfectly so that Nelson was the only one who could catch it, and Nelson made no attempt to catch the ball, then no one else would have been able to catch it. The pass was intercepted. Fitz played a great game, and I'd rather see gambles for big plays than easy passes and punts, but the throw was far from perfect.

If Fitz made no mistakes in the game, the team could have won. If the defense had been able to stop the run on many, many plays, the Bills could have won. Fitz is not exonerated for his performance, but to say that the defense only 'needed' the stops they made is putting a heavy bias on the blame.

Playing any sport to a level that gains national recognition requires a lot of time, effort, discipline, and ability. Having said that, I'm surprised at how quick this list dropped off. The list goes pretty quickly from Rhodes scholars and ability test geniuses to Peyton Manning's 1030 SATs with a major in communications, or Grant Hill who is simply described as graduating from Duke with a major in history. Did they not dig that hard to put the list together? Is it biased toward known names to try to get reader interest? Are there really only four athletes worth naming who scored above a 1400 (very doubtful)? This list makes me feel smart. Bad at sports, but smart.

The guy managed 9.7 yards per completion in crappy enough weather to make it hard to hold a beer. Also, no sacks given up that game. It wasn't the best game for judging a QB considering all the circumstances of the day (42 rushing attempts for 248 yds on the stat sheet, only 25 pass attempts, weather, limited motivation from Indy, etc), but a respectable performance nonetheless.

Something doesn't add up. Roosevelt is on the cut list, but he's also listed as the second punt returner on this depth chart.

FWIW, I've been lurking here for about 2 years to get insight on the Bills when I'm out of the country. If time zones work out well, best case scenario is that I get to "watch the game" on the NFL Game Center animated box score. If not, my way to follow the game is go back later and read game day threads. Life is not all about me, but if a vote counts for anything, I'd like to see game day threads continue. P.S. Another type of thread I very much enjoyed was BillInNYC's "Thoughts about the game". This would be a decent substitute for a gameday thread to me, but only when a poster takes it upon himself to provide quality content.

Do you mean to say that Lynch and Jackson will get 30 carries in the first half, or the game? I presume the game, but it reads like the first half.

There was only one hurricane in town, and its name was Ditka.

Very good article. Its hard to give an insightful comment on this in comparison to the source.

Adding an extra bye week per team would be a good way for the NFL to stretch the season, while offering the players extra time to get healthy and play a better game. The big winner would be the fans, not the owners or players, which makes me skeptical of it happening. Giving more teams an outside chance at the playoffs is an entertaining idea that appeals to the underdog mentality, but it would have more consequences than adding one more fun game to watch. The top seeds would be sitting and gaining rust for an additional week, while the 6 seed team takes an extra beating. Also, if expanding to 7 teams per conference, why not just take 8? Even numbers make simpler brackets. Adding more single-game nights during the week is not something I want to see. They get put on national channels, and local markets don't get to watch them. I don't just mean Thursday night games - I don't have cable anymore and don't get to watch Monday Night Football either. Besides, if there's football on that many nights of the week for a longer season, the part of peoples' lives that doesn't revolve around football will disintegrate. I don't need more encouragement to watch tv and drink.

Does this mean his shorts were dirty from laying in the ditch or that he had a bad case of the Labatt splats?

I'd like to think its something like this: 1 - General approach to doing things. Attitude of the locker room, everyone gets their chance to compete to contribute, unified front office, etc. 2 - Dedication to winning. You can't be considered "first" at anything but the draft if you don't have this. 3 - Current state of the team. Everything from the public perception of the team name to condition of the stadium and facilities. 4 - History to the franchise. Not just a collection of rings, but also historic moments, great players of the past, established non-bandwagon fan base. In reality, add to the list that it is something that players are encouraged to say when they sign with a new team, and the paycheck probably helps them to mean it.

This is a Madden franchise strategy I tried when I was 12. Simulate a horrible season overnight, and the next day build a better team. This is also a video game where the probability of player quality doesn't have a lot of variables at a given draft position. Back to reality. None of the people who watch the games want to see a losing season. (edit: not just know that it happened, but sit through every painful game) The probability increase of drafting "a Peyton Manning" at pick 1-2 vs 10-20 is not worth intentionally tanking a season. There are other reasons to be expanded on that explain why this is not worth the downside (marketing, locker room morale, potential league ethics issues, etc). For me, having to watch an intentional losing season is enough of an argument.

Just to be clear, I didn't say how I thought the team would perform. I wanted to point out other teams that have earned the honor of 31st or 32nd in the last few years, in order to guide the conversation toward a new topic - compare the team to the listed bad teams of the last few years. Instead, the thread turned into page after page of pissing contest.

I agree with the post. I just hope this part is in no way the deciding factor. In the end, we're hoping that one of our 3 QBs rises above the others and leads our offense to success. None of these three would be a guaranteed starter in another team. If they want to prove themselves, there is no better scenario than this one to accomplish that.

The article that inspired the OP is about how Evans could potentially be an NFL star, but has been on a Bills team kept that from happening. Link in the OP.

There is some truth to be taken from what he said that explains the contradiction you mention here. Suppose TO's NFL career started 3 years ago, and all the antics that earned his reputation happened in another league far away from the media. His team and locker room presence of those 3 years would not make him a team captain, but it would not be enough to earn him descriptions like "cancer". At the same time, his production from that period would earn him a roster spot on a lot of teams looking for one more weapon at WR to make a playoff run. Back to reality. He had years of major team controversy, and that reputation will hover over his head for the rest of his days. The added media attention from his reputation makes minor issues out of nothing, and major issues out of minor things. This black mark appears to be tipping the scales so that teams do not want to sign him. His defense is that his recent character would not be an issue with a team, but the media hype about his character creates the problem.

People collecting cans from recycling bins for deposit will make hundreds of dollars in the following week.

If I crapped a brick, hours of laughter would not ensue.

The source I'm about to use is going to be flamed as an idiot, and I can't argue with that, but citing a bad source doesn't mean the point is wrong. It just means I didn't think of it myself. I often eat lunch in my car, spending the hour flipping between Jim Rome and Colin Cowherd to fill the silence. Cowherd frequently rants about the idea that national sports analysts only have to follow the teams that are popularly covered on national broadcasts. In baseball they need to know the Yankees, Red Sox, and a few more teams. In basketball its the Lakers, Celtics, Cavaliers, etc. In the NFL, its the Cowboys, Giants, Patriots, Colts, etc. They prepare to talk about these teams for 75% of their total sports coverage. They don't equally prepare to talk about the rest of the teams that don't produce national headline stories. I don't personally know every analyst that was polled for this ranking, but I'd be surprised if they all defied this theory. There are regional sportswriters and analysts who cover the rest of the teams in more detail, but it is not the norm for an analyst to spends an equal amount of time looking at all 32 NFL teams. If they did, it would be very tough to have a better grasp of a low-media team than a well-studied fan of that team. There's only so much time in the day.

To be 31st in the league, we'd have to be at least as bad, relative to the rest of the league, as the following teams of the last few years: 2009: Rams, Lions 2008: Lions, Rams 2007: Dolphins, Rams 2006: Raiders, Lions Maybe there will be more parity this year than in the last four, but it will take an epically bad Bills team to finish among that list.

I thought this was a typo. Can't believe he's still playing. And he got a ring last year.

I don't have the caliber of home that Michael Vick has (ability to entertain, security, etc), so my frame of reference. Having said that, the scenario may not have been better if he had the party at his home. If I have a party at my house, and an uninvited former acquaintance hears about it, its possible that there will be a confrontation when he is asked to leave. If I have a party at a bar (not a club person), the exact same scenario is possible. Either way, this guy clearly heard about the event, knew he was uninvited, and showed up with the intent of making a scene if he was told to leave. Granted no one would be shot if they were leaving my house or a bar I'd go to, but I haven't heard any report say whether the shooting involved any of Vick's friends. If Vick's friend shot him, it doesn't look good. If a bouncer shot a guy that just hit a wealthy patron with a cake, its pretty blameless.