Hplarrm

I think it is simply a mistake on your part to assume some type of equivalency between time lost by the Bills each week as they practice the wildcat and time an opponent has to spend practicing in the week before the Bills game for our version of thw Wildcat. 1. The Bills will install heir version of the Wildcat once in pre-season, use a bit in the relative luxury of training camp and potentially run it a few times in pre-season games to the extent it makes sense in the vanilla O packages we display to opponents. In regular season, practice time for the wildcat for a particular team is likely far less time consuming than for an oppenent must devote for the particulars of the Bills O. There is simply not likely to be any equivalency between what is demanded of the Bills team to run their Wildcat they have already basically installed and what an opponent must do to prepare for a much different look than they see most of the season (the Wildcat is a potent set because most teams still do not use it because they do not have the versatility of players to employ it. The Bills doubled down on this as we force opponents to not only prepare for this odd set-up but they also mist prepare for two possible versions of it depending upon whether we are running it with VY or running it with BS and their differing skill sets. Gailey now has the potential (which opponents must prepare for each week as they attempt to prepare for the potential pecularities of the Bills different O line-ups and play calls) variations not only in basic O but of the players who might run them. The Bills advantage comes in that they will have the initiation advantage on what O scheme they will choose so they really practice one approach from the many they installed, while the opponent must prepare for several possibilities. The assumption you make of equivalency in terms of the practice time equivalency is simply wrong. 2. My guess is that the notable thing about the Bills will be that they actully show a lot of sets once in pre-season as this forces the opposing DC to prepare for many options while the Bills each week prepare to run one and a back-up chsnge of psce. 3. My GUESS is that Gailey shows looks where VY runs the wildcat and shows the willingness to pass, that BS runs the wildcat which we establish that he will throw more Iin fact we are advertising him as our #3 QB. However, we run player options where all three QBs are on the field at the same time and we then using motion decide whether the opponent is lining up to stop the pass (if they use the nickel or a third safety then we run, or alternately if they put in more LBs and line up a lot of guys in the box then we pass. I think the versatility we have with BS will likely be a hallmark of the '12 offense. We may not atually use him but we will present the threat and simply take what they give us.

I also like the direction that the analysis is taking in that it does answer the REAL question facing the Bills which is NOT whether Fitzy can ever be reasonably called an upper echelon QB. The REAL question for us is whether we can in fact win (though actually the real goal is to simply make it to the SB). In fact the actual real world goal to really produce substantial improvement in our team is to merely simply MAKE it into the playoffs, If the Bills simply were to make it into the playoffs in 2012, I would be quite happy with that improvement. I would not be satisfied with an early exit from the playoffs but would be quite happy we finally made it. The real question is not whether Fitzy can be good enough to get his team to the playoffs. While we must always keeo in mind the ultimate goal of winning the SB, back in the real world we need to recognize not only do we need to walk before we run (or we never will learn to run (amd the reasl fact is that we have to learn to crawl before we even walk. Is Fitzy really capable of even QBing this team to an SB? Nope. pretty doubtful. However, is he capable of QBing this team to a playoff appearance (and preferably a win). Yep, I think he is. In fact, I have more confidence in him doing this than I do Thigpen, Vince Young. Tebow or any of the readily available QB options. If you propose someone else then one needs to make that case and merely ragging on Fptzy os both easy to do and pretty meaningless unless the writer specifies a specific alternative whom they want to advocate is the player the Bills need and also is gettable.

Reasons for keeping Smith 1. He is a vet player who simply has shown the ability to play an unusal number and combination of positionspositions and be judged good enough by coaching professionals and the marketplace to be good enough to even merit a role as a starter at some of them. Sure, argue against him if you want claiming he sucks, but the simple facts are he was judged the Bill best capable of starting 5 games last year (mostly as a WR). Even if you want to argue that this was not due to Smith being an accomplished WR (he has not been in his 7 year career) but he was the best the Bills could do after we got rid of perennial NON-#1 Lee Evans. This off-season the Bills have not devoted the resources to acquire a good bet to merit the #2 WR posirion and join Stevie Johnson as a starting WR. Is Smith a great WR? nope. Is he even an adequate #2. Nope. However, might he like last year end up being the best option for the Bills at #2 WR? We hope not, but he easily might be. One hopes Graham may prove to be a solid player (the Bills traded up for him like they seemingly hope he will be). One hope that Easley will suddenly prove to be a good plan B if Graham happens to play like the rookie he is. One hopes that if hopes fail and both A and B do not work that Donald Jones will prove to be the player we have as a starter at WR on our depth chart (maybe this is actually plan A). However, it does not take much of a football brain th envision that the answer to the question which led this thread is that it is easy to imagine a world in which due to injuries and/failure to perform like a talented vet happens to the rookie Graham, the oft-injured Easley, the yet to perform in the real world Jones, or the young talented Nelson (we need chemistry with Fitzy to be the wildcard here) that the best the Bills can do at #2 WR is Smith. Doubtful, he will be good enough, but pretty clearly the plan D or E that might be the best Gailey can do. 2. Most amazingly and unusal to the point of being unique, this potential bad QB was productive as a kick returner as recently as season before last. You can argue if you want that he sux as a KR guy, but the facts still remain that he was second in the NFL in KR yardage in 2010 and scored 3 KR TDs. Even more outrageous, Smith routinely plays this diverse role led by his KR duties and has for the most part escaped injuries (he usually plays 15 or 16 games and 13 one year is the worst PT performance in his 7 year career. He is the ONLY player in ALL of NFL history to score TDs as a rusher, receiver, KR guy. He has even thrown a TD pass and add to that his actually completing passes as long as 45+ yards as a QB. Is he a #1 level starter at QB? NOPE! Does he preaent a credible threat that he MIGHT throw a nice pass on any given play unless your CBs and safties play back rather than pinch the line against the almost certainty he will run? Yep! You gotta be nuts to be a DC that does not at least play against the possibility that Smith will hit an uncovered receiver for a big play if you decide to instead pinch the line against his likely run. The main problem we had with the Wildcat last year was that the O was not productive enough to give us enough chances to use it. Smith, despite heavy reliance on him as a KR by the Jets in 2010 and by us as a WR last year made no fumbles for us last year and only one despite his productivity as a KR guy in 2010. I mean be honest and how many disaster QBs contribute to his team by being credited with 2 ST tackles. This is why the market rewarded him with the huge contract he earned from the Bills. Is Smith god's gift to football? NOPE! However, is his flexibility and producriviry a gift which can be easily refused by an HC/OC,DC, and STC. NOPE to that as well. 3. In addition to being not a bad depth player (plan B at KR, plan C at QB, plan B-D at WR depending how good his teammates prove to be, and even as a kamikaze tackler on ST) he also has shown in terms of real world production (#2 in the NFL in return yardage in 2010, same amount of receptions for slightly more yards overall than the guy who is a starting WR on our depth chart, an HC would really need to ignore a lot of real world performsnce by him to cut him. While he is NOT the starter you want to rely on at any position he does provide some hope of actually making his team more prodctuve at a number of particular positions. I am hopeful that he will be the potential threat which Gailey employs in order to make our O such a threat he makes standard plays work better. My guess is that at some point this season we see Brad Smith attempt (and likely complete) a pass to an uncovered Fitzpatrick or Moorman. Think about what you do as a DC besides hope your field general burns a TO when VY and Brad Smith both take the field on a 3rd and intermediate distance. If Smith lines up as the Wildcat QB but then goes in motion. Do you send an LB with him out wide and thus face a potential run by VY on a direct snap with a hole in your run D or instead do you let Brad Smith go wide alone as you keep your LBs in to guard against the likely run. Given his real world production in a number of roles as an NFL player and given his demonstrated ability to appear in 15 or all 16 games in a season despite his use in kamikaze ST roles AND his demonstrated reliability in not fumbling much (or at all many seasons an HC would simply be showinf stupidity unless he found a productive role for Smith in his offense. Given that I know Chan Gailey has forgotten more than I or most non-professionals will ever even learn about co-ordinating a successful NFL O I will am quite comfortable with the idea Smith is safe as a Bill. I doubt he will be perfect, but he makes our O easily. To propose there is no role for him here is merely a demonstration of how little most fans know about running an NFL O.

No hate. I think she is actually dead.

I don't know about you but as far as the real Mrs. Wilson is concerned she is dead to me.

As we saw with the antics of players like Jim Kelly one does not have a need to be a rocket scientist to be a very good football player. Add to this baseline fact that the Bills Daily (not perfect but as accurate as anyone about the draft crapshoot > 1) CB Stephon Gilmore, South Carolina 6-0 1/2, 190, 4.40 - Gilmore is a physical corner who can come up and stop the run like another safety in the box. He is a good mental player with great character and good ball skills to go along with his superior speed. Will likely step in and start from day one. Aggressive player in man coverage who has excellent awareness. Good as a blitzer off the edge. Has started since his freshman year and is very mature and experienced starting 40 games. I think he sounds fine.

+1 in terms of your assessment of Kelsay. Add to this him pissing off a lot of fans because he negotiated an extension which was for a great player when at best he was serviceable with a brilliant game here or there which vexed folks as to why he was not consistently briliant rather than show mere flashes. Add to this that there were some pretty clear side effects of him simply getting the best deal he could get. It really seemed to lead directly to Aaron Schobel, a much more valued player siting out OTAs and pouting until the Bills extended him in mid-contract to make his pay more equal that of the less productive (in the judgment of most) Kelsay. Add to that the Bills telling a bold faces lie in refusing to renegotiate the contract of Jason Peters mid contract when they had already done this with Schobel and even had done this with Peters when they he keapt into the starting RT role but was making near the minimum. When her leapt into the LT role the braintrust decided to hold him to RT money and so on and so on when he made first one then another Pro Bowl. Kelsay's contract though seemingly underserved by his play triggered the Schoble debacle and led to the Bills verbally refusing to renegotiate Peters (but then ironically they caved into give him exactly what he wanted as he scored the biggest LT deal ever from the Iggles. None of this was Kelsay's fault but clearly contributed to the bad feelings of many about him.

I also agree thst your perspective on this is spot on. Many folks (some of whom are professionals as they have found away to get paid for their blather) complerely misread NFL football situations. We saw this directly in how many folks completely misread the Terrel Owens contract with the Bills. Owens and VY are completely different situations (actually to VY's advantage in terms of judgments outside observers make about him as in TOs case he had developed a rep as a potential team cancer seeminly driven by his own self-promotional desire, while VY also is developing a rep as a potential cancer but this may be due not to simply ego but a suggested (by non-professionals) psychiatric disorder which made Fisher and others worry he might take his own life). At any rate, the one year contract at an incredibly low wage is the key for the Bills (again to the advantage of the Bills dealing with VY as his contract is insanely low for a former Pro Bowler (while TO's compensation was also low for a player of his real world accomplishments they still were orders of magnitude higher than the stake th Bills have put up for VY). The football ignorance shown by some alleged experts is that they do not seem to realize that before a player can divide a team, he MUST gain the adulation and worship of half the team or its fans. A player can only become a cancer after he demonstrates a year of production. If he sucks right away there is no cancer because everyone agrees that this player can easily be gotten rid of with little harm to the team. It was clear to any intelligent observer that TO or VY is going to have to fly right for his first year or its no issue for any of us. The VY contract is so good for the Bills in that we had to put up relatively little money for a player who likely will sit on the bench anyway (unless our plan A Fitzy goes south in his play or gets hurt) and the most difficult problem for us happens only if he performs so well for the Bills that an issue is created NEXT YEAR as to whether we resign him or not. Gailey is running an offense which MAY be perfect for us if someone with the talents demonstrated so far in his brief career as he gives us not only a back-up QB with previous NFL achievement but he provides a different threat than we normally do if he is our Wildcat QB

Face it Josh, there are two kinds of people who live in WNY, lucky one and smart ones. The lucky ones were born here (but too often do not realize how lucky they were unitl they were forced (usually due to lack of employment) to move elsewhere. It really is quite amazing here a significant # of people wish desperately to come back home after they experience the real world. The smart ones are those who for whatever reason choose to move to Buffalo and find a way to enjoy the significant advantages of living in WNY versus living in the real world. Make no mistake, there are certainly challenges to living here (high among them in terms of specific problems for many residents and for the prospect of keeping young people here is the lack of easy to find paying jobs (which actually is a challenge most places). However, when one stacks up the advantages such as am incredibly short commute times (when you get in a car in DC, NYC or any big town you need to figure on spending at least half an hour in your car even for trips to nearby locations (in DC for example even a short 10 minute drive usually comes with the drive being longer than 10 minutes due to traffic and more than that due to parking needs. In Buffalo, 20 minutes usually gets you about anywhere in WNY. Parking can be a challenge almost anywhere but it is magitudees worse in most big cities compared to Buffalo. There also is a significant cost difference to living in Buffalo in particular when one looks at housing. When I moved to Buffalo from DC, a friend asked me to compare the cost of housing in a comparable nneighborhood to DC. My response was first there are not really comparable neighborhoods in these cities with different economic bases. Second, there is a general comparison which one can make between houses which are in an urban context (walkable neighborhoods, easier access to public transportation, and more diverse relatively close by choices for entertainment, restaurants and the like which come from any urban population concentration or a more suburban car oriented culture of less reported crime and more of a sense of your home as a castle which comes with any suburban living. Though not wholy transferable for comparison sake, basically back in the early 90s you are talking about buy one and get one free to acquire similar neighborhood demographics in WNY vs. Buffalo. In fact as housing prices went up in DC consistently under Bush/Cheney it really was buy one get three for the same price as the DC metro area. Even with the downturn in general housing values we saw after the crash which began on the Bush/Cheney eatch and we have recovered some but not completely or fast enough for most under Obama/Biden though national product costs are relatively similar there is still a significant cost advantage for living in WNY for location specific pricing like housing. You simply get better cost issues (even with NYS taxes being higher this in no way equals and economic advantages of the cheaper housing and those taxes do pay for far better public schooling and other amenities in NYS rather than in #49 in most social measures found in Louisiana (thank gosh for MS or it would be #50). At any rate, I have lived significant time in the NE and also the MW (time in Chicago and in Sr. Louis for an extended stay. i also lived in SF for a while. Overall, I can remember at least passing through on the ground in 47 pf the 50 states so I have at least seen a lot. I have some bias in terms of liking urban living but I can easily say that if one can find the right work situation that life in Buffalo presents stark amd measurable advantages to life in other towns and areas! Reed may find more appeal in LA than in NY (though my sense is that he actually has one of the more skewed assessments of life since as a well-regarded football player his experience is further from the norm than almost anyone. One also sees the weather bias in his comments (although ironically Buffalo actually has at least a comparable if not better record of sunlight reaching the ground than LA. LA id closer to the equator so it gets more raw sunlight than Buffalo, but actually for a good chunk of the year, more sunlight reaches the ground in Buffalo as its days are measurably longer in the winter (though this is balanced by being measurably shorter in the winter. However, the national weather service will tell you more sunlight actually reaches the ground as the lake effect (a temperature differential) reverses for much of the year (about 7+ onths to 5- months when the average temperature is well above freezing. This effect breaks up lake evaporative cloud cover and more of the sunlight reaches the groud. It always amuses me to hear the complaints about Buffalo weather because it is far more climate than the Chicago I grew up in. The predicted hight temps dropped below freezing 32 degrees in November. The predicted high would generally drop below zero for a few days to a week in January. In Buffalo, the lake adds moisture which results in lake effect snows. However, the moisture also adds heat such that in the winter it is a rare day with any single digit temperatures in Buffalo. Even better the Lake provides an air conditioning effect that makes 90 a relatively rare temp in Buffalo most summers (in fact while the majority of the rest of the country was baking last week- with 120 temps Las Vegas and temps over 100 for several days in a row in Chicago, DC and even Minneapolis, Buffalo had its first temp over 90 (barely) two days last week. The windy city got that title from the bloviating Dick Daley politicians rather than the wind speed. However, the fact is that the wind comes sweeping into Chicago off the intermountain west plains and the temperature was simply much ruder in Chicago than what I find to be relatively pleasant temperatures (but some bad microclimate blizzards) in Buffalo. Personally, I was able to find an economic sweet spot where I got salaries equal a DC market while living with costs at WNY levels (different but similar results can be found in economic middles like working in the educstional sector or for NYS state guvmint or for national companies. However, if one can find such middles WNY is a far more tolerable place to live than Louisiana. Thus view is simply backed up by facts rather than Josh Reed's jaded views.

I think the actual argument that Bills fans are making is that the Bills braintrust which included the since vanquished coaches did FAIL not because the coaches did not give him every chance to make it (from getting PT in extensively in pre-season and even a few key plays in regular season). They failed in that the braintrust decided to waste a 1st round pick on a player without football intelligence. Personally, not only do I not fault the coaches for giving him a lot of personal training and every chance to demonstrate he had aborbed and was implementing this training Iand I do not even think it is worthwhile to blame the coaches because they are gone). However, it does strike me as worthwhile (to the extent that the businessman owner cares about satisfying the needs of his rabid customers which populate the web-world like TSW still complaining about Maybin) to complain about parts of the braintrust such as Mr. Ralph and Littman who are still here. They screwed up badly (and we fans are still paying the price in spending a first round resource on a player who ultimately turned out to be a bust.

Given his galactic level of performance by him in first few years performance in the NFL, 75% of that level of performance would be more than welcomed by the Bills. Clearly he should not be used so much he presents an untoward risk of reinjury. However, my guess is that what the Bills will want out of him is to get only a couple of outstanding plays from him which he may well be able to do at a 75% level (if the limitation is one where he can only play 75% of the time but even in short bursts he can remind of old Merrimen). However if him losing 25% of his old capabilities means he could play a full season but only at 75% speed then he is not worthwhile (though still might be better than what we got. If Merriman's primary value is that the opposing OC nust plan for each play as though this may be play he resumes his career. If so. it simply gives more one on one to one to work with.

The last question in this post demanding to know WTF he was doing is really the only relevant thing here. This situation is so unusual that it simply demands that a team ask this player who had shown the raw talent to be a much earlier pick as to what he was thinking? Was there some medical problem which actually caused him to sleep? Doubtful as deep sleep usually brings with it a loss of muscle control and if anything he demonstrated great control to remain stock still with so much action around him. Was this an act of willfully getting back at the coaches or qb on this play. Probably most problematic as he may have been most motivated by personal angst rather just playing football though there could be some explanation here which makes taking a talented player with a fairly usually meaningless final day pick a worthwhile flyer WTF was going on. Particularly on a team with a significant need for more talented players on the OL, its simply hard actually to justify not taking a flyer on a physically talented player who appears to have taken a mental vacation on one play,

There are a couple of items which should be kept in mind to really answer the question posed in this thread. 1. We do not know(and likely cannot or will never know)what may have neen said between SJ and Berry offline and during the offseason. The facts of this MIGHT happened or MIGHT NOT have happened (it is hard for us to know. Further, IF it did happen, it could easily happen in a such a way that any issues were solved and there is no problem OR the conversation MIGHT have gone badly and the problem is even worse. We simply do not know. IF SJ and Berry talked and had a good conversation where all agreed that there was no intent to injure (or alternately that intent did not matter but Berry forgave SJ) and this talk was communicated to teammates then the problem is solved and no retaliation is likely to occur. On the other hand, lets say they talked and a war of words ensued and having been called out the next Bills/KC game is merely chapter 2 (or 3 depending upon your perspective as to who started it) in this Hatfield/McCoy dispute. or on the third hand no conversation between SJ/Berry happened at all and we will simply see what happens next could also be the case. In other words, having now wasted a chunk of my Saturday morning laying out why we do not know anything, my conclousion is we have to wait and see what happens next. 2. Another issue which this thread does not raise well enough is that there is a real difference between the questions of whether there is a bunty on SJ this game? I think the answer is almosy certainly no because a the bounty which NO is beimg punished for is for giving a cash incentive for hurting another player. This has got to be the stupidest idea in the world and Gregg Willisms and anyone responsible for this idea deserves to be bsnned for life IMHO (but just because he deserves it does not necessarily mean to me it should be done). A bounty is not only so self-destructive as it is only a matter of time until one of your own players gets laid low by some other team which now uses the bounty system if it worked well for NO. In addition, it is only a matter of time until word leaks out publicly about the offering of a bounty when an NO player gets traded to another team and he tells his teammates when they play NO to keep an eye open in the back of their heads because of the bounty system the Saints use. I really seriouisly doubt there will be a bounty, but this is different also from whether given the chance some Chief hits SJ to retaliate for the SJ chop/cut block on Berry. We will see.

An unfortunate passage and great memories for me of his handlebar mustache! He did embody the bada^^ Raiders teams and as sad as it maybe that he is gone I am happy that his passage seems to prompt such great memories of him as a player. The mention several times of the Chiefs/Raiders rivalry reminds me of a Chiefs effort back in the day of putting an extremely tall player with a great vertical leap (the name Morris Stroud comes to mind but in my foogy memory banks I may be conflagrating this with a muscular actor of the 60s/70s named Woody Stroud). At any rate the Chiefs had lost a game to a strong legged kicker who barely scrapped a long field goal over the crossbar (remember the days when the goal posts were on the goal line and passes sometimes went incomplete when they hit the goalpost or players would use the goalposts (until manufacture advances allowed the post to be off the field completely) as a pick. It was also a staple of comedy (and even happened on occaision in real life ) of players knocking themselves silly or out running into the goalposts before they moved them back. Ahh good memories and the loss of Big Ben brings them back.

In addition to not being a very entertaining joke for off-season rambling, this survey seems to want to go with the typical over emphasis on position plsy and the football stupid non-emphasis on a big third of the game ST play. If I had control over a national forum for football opinion, rather than ask a question that produces the usual internet blather like who is most useless, I would have a pretty consistent question asking fans across the country who is the most useful ST player on the roster. A site can try (and try poorly in this case) to be funny in the off-season, but I as a fan in Buffalo have little knowledge or even access to knowledge about the good ST player in some different timezone like Seattle or Oakland. If a site existed back in the dark ages of the early 90s, such a question would have produced answers for the Bills of future HOF finalist Steve Tasker who was mostly pretty uselessly low on the WR depth chart (except in times where injuries forced us to rely om journeymen like Billy Brooks as our #1). By asking locals for ST input (though I suspect Bills hometowners would have been cagey enough and believe in conspiracies that they would not have tipped off opponents to wastch for Tasker until it was obvious to do so. However, even though the Taskers may become obvious to outsiders, it would be great if bleacher or others used their access to local knowledge to identify a player like Mark Pike who though he was virtually ignored by opponents made psychotic tring to block Tasker out of bounds it was Poke cleaning house who often racked up outstanding #s for tackles to his credit on ST. Still from the comments I saw in bleacher the over emphasis on position play seems to reign.

I for one would say that racism is most important not as an individual attitude (in fact our constitution is based on the fact that anyone can think anything no matter how stupid it is be they pretend-Naxis marching in Skokie, IL or Louis Farrakhan with his blather, a birther with their idiocy about Obama, or an NFL stakeholder feeling minorities lack certain talents due to their race. Anyione can be be stupid and has a right to do so under our constituion. However, these stupid people though they can think whatever they want must live under certain restrictions for how they act act toward others if they choose to enjoy the benefits of American society and citizenship. I do not care what any idiot thinks, but I do care alot about how they operate in public commerce in terms of providing fair and equalc access to public accomodations. Marge Schott can wear all the swastikas she wants but it simply is not acceptable for her to discriminate against hiring a HOF player like Barry Larkin simply because of the collor of his skin. Very entertaining American Michael Moore used to havea TV show called TV Narion (on Fox Broadcasing ironically of all networks) and one of their bits featured a well-dressed black guy (I think he used actor Yaphet Cotto) and a slovenly dressed white guy standing a few dozen feet further down the road with them both hailing cabs. As anyone with any awareness would expect, Moore had film of dozens of cabbies (both white and black) who buzzed by the well-dressed Cotto and picked up the white guy (whom it turned out had just been released from jail after doing a significant amount of time for manslaughter. Yep, there were black cabbies who performed a racist act denying public accomodations to a black man merely due to his outside appearance. Yet, the problem here is not the individual but the problem here is their furthering the societal discrimination against an American citizen completely contrary to reality. It is simply due to racism and stupid incorrect profiling that a black man cannot get a cab in NYC or a child is killed for the of walking around with Skittles and an iced tea in FL. Sure the perpetrator was simply wrong in the conclusions he reached, but the important test right now is what does society do about the fact that a kid is dead. The important judgment yet to occur about incorrect decision-making and protecion of individual rights (did American citizen Trayvon Martin deserve the death penalities for going out for some Skittles. It interests me a lot how society often tends to judge issues of racism, I really am not so concened about illegal aliens who run afould of the AZ papers please law, I am more concerned about legal American citizens who are forced to carry certain passes and documents whenever they walk the streets because some public authority chooses (incorectly in the case of my fellow American citizen) for some ID so he can merely walk or drive around. AZ's trangressions are not about illegal immigrants they are all about American citizens whom our country long ago decided we all should be able to live free and breathe. I think FL is simply insane to want to live in a world where Tryvon Martin's Dad needed to arm up and accompany his son on a trip to 7-11 so he can stand his ground and shoot some idiot who was quite willing to shoot his son because the idiot made a mistake and went against a police order that society did not need him to get out of his SUV and follow this kid who turned out to have Skittles. Racism is not about the individual racist it is about the American citizen if that racist chooses to act on their idiocy to interfete with the God-Given rights of an American citizen (or any human being that he has no real idea whether they are an American citizen or not). In particular I think all right thinking Americans (right thinking and right wing are clearly two different things here) would have serious problems with the heavy hand of guvmint being given not only the authority but in fact the demand that they harasss local Americans in some heavy handed search for illegal aliens who we are happy to pay low wages to come here and pick food and make-up hotel beds. Cheap pliticas seem to be getting cheaper everyday. I am glad the NFL actually seems to be leading the way in making sure that the 60+% of players at least get a fair shot at being an HC (if they wish). Ending societal racism simply means society performing better and actually walking the talk of American ideals of fairness!

Sure it is, but it has nothing to do with whether they call them blackouts or white outs. Like society the existence of racism has vastly improved (and in particular the role of racist thinking in our society has vastly improved in conjunction with the work so many in the modern civil rights movement as WWI drew to a close. Racism certainly still exists but is greatly reduced. The even better news is that such attitudes appeae to be far more prevalent in older folks and the good news is that in general older folks are gonna die first. For those who still believe racism is the same, from my point of view they are simply wrong. As an African-American born in 1959, when I was born my mother could not take me to lunch in a lot of Woolworth's but within an amazingly short period of time when I graduated from an Ivy League school in 1981 if I had access to the cash I could have. In 1989 when I actually had access to enough cash I could have actually even bought a Woolworth's I chose instead to devote my career to environmental protection as the experience I had gained hiking, canoeing, doing technical rock climbing, caving, etc cemented my love for the environment. Racism had greatly diminished in my lifetime, but was far from eliminated in society. A white woman friend of mine and I were leaving a NYC fundraiser and flagged two cabs as we were headed in different directions. I had to ask her if it was OK for me to take the first one we flagged (displaying her prominently) as it was pretty doubtful an A-A young guy was going to be able to get a cab at night in NYC. Generally, those of us A-As who life has happened to grace with achievements and access to cash can do well in a lot of living. However, on has only to look at the aggregate stats in a number of areas (incarcerations, legal punishment for similar crimes, even double blind studies of medical treatments offered to case descriptions where the variables given are pictures of racial types (itronically doctors not only prescribed the accepted cadillac treament for white patients more than these treatments for A-A patients with the same symptomatic decriptions, but they also tended to prescribe the best medical treatments less often to patients clearly female in pictures and also prescribe mental treatment and anxiety reducing drugs at a higher levels for a cohort of women patients than a cohort of white male patients. If you are a minority on this society, the studies pretty clearly indicate that you will be given less of a break or harsher treatment than a white male would get. Again going back to the NFL it was not long ago that A-A were simply not given jobs as HCs. Fortunately the NFL has taken tangible steps to reverse this fact and instituted a requirement that all teams ar least consider and do one serious interview with an A-A job candidate. This in conjunction with other efforts like the NFL minoirty coaching intern program has kept the pipeline fuller and forced owners to at least pretend they have no racial animus. These efforts have coincided with a fast and steady increase in A-A HCs, coincided with the first SB with two A-A HCs and generally demonstrated how stupid racism is. I have had a few discussions with folks wondering about the fact that productivity by US workers has increased drastically over the last life (60+ years) and continues to increase in troubled economic times. My answer is that it is pretty much my opinion that there are many factors for this but among them is the diminishing levels of racism and sexism in society. Kust prior to WWII we had a workforce virtually completely made up of white men. What has happened since WWII forced a lot of white guys over seas and in our society's desperation Rosie the Riveter entered the factory and minorities like the Tuskeeggee air men opened the door for leaders like Colin Powell, we have simply improved the quality of our workforce substantially. Even if racism or sexaiam still causes a biases leading to inefficiency and bias against individuals, overall lets say you the most talented AA's or women now enter the workforce. )Lets assign it the arbitrary number of 10%, if you system truly is egalitarian this new 10^ replsces the least competent white males and overall society's work and efficiency improves with an end to (or simply a diminishment in real life) racism amd sexism! I am certain in my lifetime that things have gotten much better overall for A-As as individual citizens and for society as a whole due to diminishing (but not complete yet) lessening of racism.

reading TBD upstairs while listening to your wife and visiting Mom cackling like schoolgirls talking downstairs!

This team really has a lot of what it takes to be very good on paper. Unfortunately the game gets played on the field and though its too bad we can celebrate the SB yet, this why the Bills will be very interesting to watch (and most important root for) the next few years.

The blackout rule is simply a stupid idea to anyone who realizes that the true market is where the money is. in the NFL, where the money resides is with the TV networks. The amount of cash generated from the TV contract deal far outpaces the relative nickles and dimes which come from ticket sales. Even when one throws in the realtive peanut and cracker jack level of money which comes from stadium refreshment, parking and on field advertisments, everything I have read says that the cash generated by TV sales not only far outgenerate the total ticket take but is simply ridiculously larger than the marginal benefit of selling a few thousand more tickets to avoid a blackout. By blacking out a game a team forgoes millions of bucks of advertising the product and its sponsors to the home TV market. Still some of the owners cling to a commitment to the old days when the marginal value of a few more ticket sales was a lot of momry when compared top the take from the CBA. Blackouts are financially stupid and the quicker we get rid of them the better.

One cannot take away from Lombardi that he was a great coach with the Packers, but he really is like the rest of the HC btood in that h was great with great players (many of whom were acquired ar his direction or to fit the style of a team he disigned so he deserves ample credit for that) however he was not so good in his DC stint. Lombardi was good but a couple of odd bounces and we would be calling it the Hank Stram trophy. This post also ignores the fact that Parcells also desersves a lor of credit for etting Belicheat his DC co-ord job. Bellicheat deserves credit for being a very great DC, but make no mistake he does not deserve HC credit being taken away. The jobs are so difficult that its not like Buddy Ryan alone did HC staff.

... because there are two types of people who live in Buffalo, lucky folks and smart folks. The lucky ones were born in greater Buffalo, and the other residents were simply smart enough to move here!

Lombardi is an interesting example to consider. He was a great cosch in Green Bay but he was not good and arguably produced poor results as an HC in DC. Marv is certainly an HOF talent for his Bills work but he simply sucked in KC. Even Billicheat who has simply done sm amazing things in NE that I would say are some of the best episodes of HC work I have ever seen, simply was mediocre in 5 years at Cleveland with one playoff game loss is all he has to show for it. When one adds to this his agreement to coach the Jets and sinmple reneging on the deal and also the taping episode, I would never want to see this cheater be called great. I think yeah sort of is the totally correct answer to the question in this thread.

I am willing to go on record (as much as the intetoob is actually on recordP and say one of the things Buffalo has going for it is the outstanding weather and there is actual objective evidence for this, namely: Buffalo gets more sunshine that any other standard metropolitan assessment area in the northeast for the year and more than many other cities in the country for about 4 months each year. The FACTS which underlie this is that Buffalo is further north than most US cities and just as Alaska is known as the land of the midnight sun necause on June 21 the sun virtually does not set at the north pole, around right now Buffalo gets more sunlight than most cities. The other climatological fact is the relative temperature difference between the Great Lskes and the land. In the winter, the water can only go down to 32 degrees and freezes the land can get much cooler. lake effect snow because the winds generally flow over the lake picks up moisture even from frozen water and then dumps it out as snow over the land. This effect reverses in the spring (the water temperaruew haS limits for how high it can get befor evaporating or moving downstream while the land temperature can keep rising. When the cloud cover comes in from Japan or Seattke everyone gets the solid cloud cover. howeverif there simply are light clouds they actuallt burn off allowing more of the sun to get through. Buffalo gets far more sun than much of the sunbelt in the spring, summer and early fall. If you refuse to believe some yokel on the web then ask the US weather service which keeps statisical measures of sunlight. They also talk about it being a Superman Day which is one where the overhead photos show broken clouds on the west of Lake Ontario continues down and moves east over Grand Isk Island but then the clound layer breaks west down Lake Erie forming a perfect S like Superman's costume. I find Buffalo to be so much more pleasant weatherwise than Chicago where I grew up. In Chicago's windy city the wind came sweeping in over the planes and delivers HIGH temps which do not exceed freezing come November. For a week or so in January the HIGH temp is around zero. Buffalo does get Lake Effect snow as part of the winter, but it simply plows this out of the way mostly. Moisture however does add warmth in terms of Lake effect snow and moisture means heat. Its a very rare single digit temperature day here. Add to that the convenience of Buffalo's steep population drop which makes commuting issues non-existent here. I lived in DC and when you got in your car you were commiting to at least a half-hour in it and probably more no matter how far you went )even parking usually took half an hour). Buffalo however is notable in that a 20 minute drive puts you about anywhere you want to go in the city or the suburbs. The weather and the commute simply make this a wonderful region!

To some extent this is a chicken and egg question as to whether a great QB makes a great coach or vice versa. I think the answer is yes and there are a couplel places to look for stark examples: 1. Great D teams which won the SB which points to great coaching but perhaps not lead QB importance. The 2000 Ravens with Dilfer but great coaching of their team and D and the 1985 Bears with inconsistent QBing at best from McMahon but Ditka coaching one of the best teams ever are examples. 2. In my view roughly 80% of HCs are about the same and can win with good teams and lose with bad teams. Of the remaining 20% rougly 3/4 of this group are Rich Kotites who can lose anywhere and a small 5% are Bill Parcells types who can win anywhere with just about anything. He won the SB with Phil Simms and with Jeff Hostetler who IMHO are mostly considered good QBs because Parcells handled his team so well. 3.There are other cases as well but nothing so stark a the cases above (Shula won with Unitas bur he also won with Earl Morall which is not a clear cut example but worth noting.