Just in Atlanta

Ralph paid Jaws only $1,000 to say these things. He's so freakin cheap.

Can't wait till September! Assuming Merriman is half-way healthy, our entire 4-3 defensive line starters would need double teaming on most plays. That only leaves three guys to make plays against seven other guys. In all seriousness, it's going to be fun watching our front four wreak havoc this fall.

Surprise, surprise, surprise. The user who published the photo was "UpstateNY85". He did it in April 2012. If the 1985 is the user's birth year, it would make him 27. Guess it's not Fitzpatrick--he was born in 1982.

Too funny. Way to go Fitz! Either the writer is a Bills fan or he just selected someone at random. Very cool.

Like I said, I don't doubt Nelson's effectiveness, but Welker is short, not a stick like Nelson. Welker is pretty stout looking actually. Well said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=190iqepL-G4 Put the toys on: Innovative plays. Chop the wood: Playing tough, each and every day.

Nelson looks like a twig. Not saying he's not an effective target in the middle, he was last year, but don't seam guys generally have some TE-like heft to them since they're taking more shots from LBs?

Yes. If Fitzpatrick starts playing corner.

Take it back!

Holmes: "Boo hoo hoo, my pus*y hurts."

They skipped the 2s and 4s.

I agree till I see otherwise. The people who say he's a backup at best see something completely different than I do.

They will be the best tandem.

Too funny. Yes, your avatar is disgusting.

Like I said, I'm not saying it's great. I'm simply saying it's mega silly to have such a hard-lined stance against it. When I was a rookie reporter, my stories, by the logic exuded on this board, were more credible than a subject-matter expert non journalist writing about the issues I wrote about. Having recently read some of my stuff from back in the day, I can assure you that is not the case. I can also say that recent stuff I've written as a non professional journalist were better than some stories from "real" reporters. For the record, I think the insight provided on this board is far, far better than the insight provided by most professional news organizations.

The ESPN blog is mostly one guy's opinion. Rarely does he have exclusive insight, or interviews with news makers. That doesn't mean I don't read him. But it's a blog, and I don't see it as much better than BR. As for BR being akin to this board, it's not. It's semi professional. Hardly a fan boy of it, but the hard-lined attitude toward the site is kind of silly.

Good grief, enough with the BR bashing. It is what it is. A fan site for fans. Some stories are good, others bad. We serious fans don't have enough "real" news sites to satisfy our cravings. So Bleacher serves a purpose. I read it several times a week. It shouldn't be the pariah it is on this board. Is it really worse than the AFC East blog on ESPN? No need to apologize for posting a BR story, if it's a good one.

Remember when the X Files' Smoking Man admitted that a shadowy government agency had a mission to never to let the Bills back into the Superbowl? Laugh...but since then, we've only been in one playoff game. And that game was decided at the last minute by what was really an illegal forward pass but ruled a legal reverse pass. The only other time the Bills were close? A game against the Steelers in the mid 2000s. All the Bills had to do was win, and they'd likely make it to the playoffs. The Steelers were guaranteed homefield advantage and played third-stringers. They beat us. With ease. The Bills also have the curses of Doug Flutie and Billy Joe Hobert to deal with. Oh, you've never heard of the Curse of Billy Joe Hobert? Legend goes, he hired a practitioner of voodoo when he moved to New Orleans to play for the Saints after being cut by the Bills for admitting he never opened the freaking play book. The witch doctor summoned an evil spirit called a Baka to, you guessed it, prevent the Bills from ever making the Superbowl. Baka spirits take the form of animals. Their favorite? Buffalo.

I'm shocked at your analysis, senator.

We have a guy named Tank. How bad can the LBs be?

You have 100 M&Ms, 32 people. 10 of those 32 people have 60 M&Ms. The remaining 22 have only 40. That is meaningful. I know it's not perfect, but it's a quick analysis. I measured top and bottom, because it's logical to assume, more often than not, that good teams will have top 10 stats in seemingly important categories and bad teams, bottom 10. You're more than welcome to measure top 15 and bottom 17. I didn't have enough time for that. I agree, it would be interesting to see a couple more years, too.

I agree, but it doesn't explain why a seemingly important stat--yards per run--had the more yards you ran, the less chance you made the playoffs.

Hardly. You're not looking at it the right way. There are 32 teams. Of the top 10 of any category, a 60 percent stat is substantially meaningful.

It's amazing that most available running stats really had no seeable correlation to making playoffs last year. Am still surprised that top 10 average yard per run actually has a negative correlation to making the playoffs. (Why is this?)

Thanks Astrobot. Source for all data: ESPN NFL stats. Source for playoff percentage: My brain.