Stranded in Boston

Lol, don’t be put off by Boston accents at The Harp. Lots of those kids were raised by Buffalo expats (like my boys) — and hate the Pats with every fiber of their being. Accents are acquired traits, but Bills fandom is genetic, apparently. 😎

Tom Cousineau. 🤬 Moses Malone … oops, wrong sport

Just get well, #23 … (Now, what’s Bill Simpson up to?)

Loved that rock-ribbed 99-00 defense. Rolling out Ted Washington AND Pat Williams on running downs wasn’t even fair (wish we could bring those guys back against D. Henry next week!), along with relentless Sam Cowart and (underrated) John Holocek at ILB. Add Antoine Winfield, scrappy coverage guy and maybe the best tackling CB I’ve ever seen. But, good lord — Rob Johnson had TWO blindsides …

That was fun … Gilliam, Saffold, Knox, Dawkins really shined against quality front seven. Great scheming and execution. Knox drove his guy 10 yards up the sideline on one of those highlighted plays.

LMAO Maynard … Josh would actually look even scarier with some blue paint daubed on his face.

Good stuff, RocCity, Gabe also reminds me a lot of Moulds, with incredibly strong hands -- and even in his deceptively fast, flat-footed running style. But Moulds was angrier with the ball in his hands. It was like he would deliberately search out safeties to destroy after a catch!

I actually hurt my back from laughing ...

Didn't we also do that with Peerless Price years ago? It seemed like a good idea at the time, LOL.

My brother is a bona fide, real life NASA engineer … I BS you not. In fact (ahem), he may (or may not) have been the one who placed a secret “Go Bills” message on the Mars Perseverence Rover. I will check with him on this. 😀

I forgot about Brooks - thanks SteveO. But he had more than one good year: he tacked on 11 receiving touchdowns in ‘95, the year Andre Reed blew out his hamstring on that dirty hit OB against the Jets. I think Brooks still holds the Bills single-season record.

Wallace Francis — a real burner who put up gaudy numbers as a rookie kick returner in ‘73, including at least a couple TDs that I recall. He was gone a year later, but caught on with Atlanta, where he was a pretty productive WR through the 70s. I always thought the Bills gave up on him too soon, but back then Lou Saban insisted on big receivers who could block.

Yup, McAdoo was before his time, but there was one thing he could do way better than Durant - rebound. I think he averaged 15+ /game along with 30+ points in ‘74, his MVP season. The guy was relentless on the boards; so fun to watch!

LOL Shaw, one of my boys is a big NBA fan, and I’ve been telling him for years that I’d put 1970s Big Mac up against KD any day of the week. Naturally he doubts his old man, but I’ll show him your post … 😎

Thanks, Chan! What a way to end that season. I recall that Washington had already clinched a playoff spot, so they sat star halfback Larry Brown, the NFL rushing leader going into game 14. The "Over the Hill Gang" was thus fired up to stop OJ --but he still shredded them for 100+ yards to win the rushing crown by 30 yards. ... Plus your guy, #81, high-pointing that TD against Detroit !! 😆

Before the Harp (80s-early 90s), the "Bills Fan Club" was at The Fours, right across the street from the old Boston Garden. We just outgrew the place. In 1991 when we put up 52 against Pittsburgh (the game Don Beebe scored 4 TDs), I showed up late with "a date" (non-WNYer), and we ended up sitting in the window well smashed up against the plate glass by the crowd. At one point when we scored yet another TD, the scream was so loud that I swear I felt the glass buckle; I thought we were going to end up on Canal Street. She was not amused ...

LOL, poor Kiko. How many times did Josh blow by him in that video?

Thanks Chan! I had to work that day for some reason — although we had the game going on the radio — so that’s the first time I watched it in 42 years! Great ending, but I also recall that game as the one that effectively ended Jeff Nixon’s promising career. What a ball-hawk: he had something like 5 ints in the first 5 games in ‘80, but he never really recovered from that knee injury. Rod Kush had a career game as his sub (what a hitter!), but was a liability in coverage, so Chuck brought in Bill Simpson. ... I was too young for the Bills AFL championship run in the ‘60s and suffered through the 70s, but man, 1980 sure seemed like the year we were going to win it all … 😕

Thanks SoCal, I was surprised how long it took before someone mentioned that game! These TBD young'ns ... 😉 OJ busted a sweep 80 yards for a TD in the 1Q, and the o-line was a juggernaut, with 2nd-year man Reggie McKenzie and rookie Joe DeLamielleure pulling all day and annihilating Pats LBs and DBs. FB Larry Watkins added another 110 yards on the ground. The Pats knew the Bills would run every down, and still couldn't stop it ... What a game!

Wow, FRB, I forgot how bad those drafts were. Tom Ruud and Bob Nelson?? Did either of those guys even get on the field for the Bills?

The Bills 1971 squad had Briscoe (who had averaged 18 yards/catch in 1970 as half of a dynamic duo with rookie Dennis Shaw), Haven Moses and rookies JD Hill (4th pick overall) and Bobby Chandler-- plus OJ and rookie Jim Braxton in the backfield. All that offensive firepower was wasted: the o-line was a complete sieve that year, and the defense bad as well (excepting my man Robert James!). The Bills started 0-10 and finished 1-13, their worst-ever season. But Briscoe still has his moments, and his trade to Miami netted Joe DeLamielleure in the '73 draft. Briscoe ended up with two super bowl rings in Miami; win-win I guess! ... RIP, Marlin the Magician ...

Thanks for that, Chan! I forgot that Butch Byrd briefly overlapped with (my man) Robert James in the same defensive backfield 😃 ... Also, while Norm Bulaich had a solid but unspectacular NFL career, it seemed like he always killed the Bills!

Thanks for that, Muppy! I remember it well. On top of the slick move by Rashad, the ankles being broken on that play belonged to hall-of-famer Willie Brown -- no mean feat!

Yeah, guys. I haven't looked at the article yet (maybe check out on PubMed later today), but without a control group, the results are impossible to interpret. Not to wonk out here (too much), but short of a matched cohort (which might be tough to assemble given small N) this is exactly where you'd need to apply some sort of nested multiple regression or proportional hazards model including ALL NFL players to first account for variance (in subsequent # years played) that is attributable to non-ACL factors like age, position played, previous injury history, previous # snaps (for non-overt related wear and tear), etc. -- and only then add the ACL/non-ACL factor to the model to see if it explains any residual variance. Pretty sloppy oversight if they didn't do that ... (They're lucky we at TBD didn't review their paper! 🤓 )

LOL, c’mon Sal … and I’m mad at my wife, so I made an emotional decision to go out with Gigi Hadid.