San-O

A healthy Shaq and a healthy Wade, Pistons are watching on TV.

Yeah, and he's looking for REAL murderer right now.

Trade TH for a cat? Why not just take the fourth in 2006 from Tennessee?

BillsDaily.com is reporting Titans offering a fourth round pick. Why not take that?

Yes, someone please clarify. I hadn't anything odd from WM. Sure hope not.

This concerns me also, however most on the board seem to think everything is OK. TD and McNally must know what they are doing. I am skeptical as always.

OK, and this is not a problem? Gandy is the answer? We'll see. What if he can't cut it? You shift Teague, who hasn't player LT in several years over from center, and now you have a really screwed up line, not to mention a rookie Qb back there taking snaps from a backup center?

Exactly. Buffalo depth chart currently has Gandy starting: http://www.nfl.com/players/playerpage/235212 Barely started for Chicago last year. Was this due to injury?

Do you know who is going to start?

In addition, if we do get a left tackle, will be a backup or free agent that couldn't make it on another roster as depth. What does that say about the Bills current O-line situation?

I know this has been gone over again and again, however the more time passes, the more I believe we are going into the season with a big question mark at LT. No team is going to trade away a left tackle after training camps start. Just not going to happen. You can plug in a RB, like Henry, but you are not going to let your left tackle go. Maybe someone trades a 2006 pick for him.

Nice. Reminds me of the "ex" of about 17-18 years ago. How do you know that is Posh?

I never liked the fact he never admitted he had to scramble to make plays and had great difficulty throwing over the middle, getting a lot of balls batted down. This was due to his height. Look at the tape.

Disagree. ===================================================== http://www.billszone.com/mtlog/archives/20..._usefulness.php History of the Blackout Rule The seeds of the blackout rule were planted in the early 1960’s as television became more popular. Then Commissioner Pete Rozelle feared that football would become a studio game, where fans, if given a choice of coming out to the stadium, or watching on TV at home, would opt for the comfort of their sofas, in effect, killing the sport. This line of thought seemed reasonable at the time. Baseball was still our number one past time, and the NFL was competing with the AFL in different markets for its fans. Rozelle knew another thing as well, and it was that television was a double-edged sword. On one hand, it was a new medium, and not everyone owned one. On the other, football, with its slow paced high drama, was tailor made for television, and certainly was an opportunity to grow the sport that was not to be passed up. So Rozelle compromised. He would allow every team’s road games to be televised back to the team’s home market, but would allow absolutely no local broadcasts of home teams. That’s the way it stayed until 1973. In 1971, the Washington Redskins hired Head Coach George Allen away from the Los Angeles Rams. Allen had great success in Los Angeles throughout the 1960’s, and instantly turned the fortunes of the Redskins around. This of course, sent interest in the team skyrocketing, and being in the nation’s capital, the Redskins became a hot ticket with the politicians who set up residences there. Unfortunately, 55,004 seat RFK Stadium wasn’t large enough to accommodate the demand. Those without tickets could not see them play. Period. Demand reached a fever pitch in 1972, when the team went 11-3, and earned themselves a spot in Super Bowl VII. The natives were angry. The best season in the Skin’s forty-year history, and most fans were blacked out for half the season, as well as the playoffs. Congress immediately went to work, and threatened to pass legislation that eliminated blackouts completely. Upon meeting with politicians and hearing their intent, Rozelle capitulated and instituted the seventy-two hour rule, which would take effect in the fall of 1973. That meant that if a team sold out their home game seventy-two hours before their scheduled kickoff time, the blackout could be lifted, and the game broadcast locally. This is where the NFL has stood for thirty-two seasons. Buffalo’s Blackout History How ironic is it that the NFL instituted the seventy-two hour rule just as the Bills were leaving dilapidated War Memorial Stadium, for Orchard Park in 1973? Wilson and the league both felt that WMS was not suitable for NFL play. With the 1966 merger, the NFL instituted a rule that all of its stadiums need seat at least 50,000. War Memorial fell short at 46, 206 but had other problems as well. It had an antiquated boiler system, resulting in little hot water for the players, poor lighting for night games, an inadequate press box, was old and crumbling structurally, and was smack dab in the middle of one of the roughest neighborhoods in all of the city. Truth be told, it was an embarrassment. Hence, there was never a blackout lifted, or a Monday Night game scheduled while the Buffalo Bills played there. With the move to state of the art Rich Stadium, the league wanted to showcase its newest sports palace. When the 1973 schedule came out, it noted that the Bills would host the Kansas City Chiefs, on October 29, 1973. While it was wonderful for Buffalo to finally get national exposure, it was also unfortunate, as Buffalo’s first foray into prime time, was blacked out locally. 76,071 attended, and saw the Bills win in convincing style…thousands in the western New York area were forced to listen in via radio. Now the outcry began. Why did the Bills, one of the NFL’s smallest markets, have to sell out 80,020 seats in advance, while those in cities like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, with much larger populations, only had to sell less than 60,000? The question has been asked for thirty plus years, and the only answer ever given has been that a large stadium was necessary for a small team market to compete with the big cities. A logical fallacy if ever there was one, due to the revenue sharing system of the NFL. In the NFL, gate revenue, although split with the visiting team, is gravy. The television money has always been shared equally, amongst all the teams. Buffalo receives the same share as New York, who receives the same share as Dallas. It’s one of the principles that the merger was founded on, and why the NFL continues to dominate the business of professional athletics. In 1975, International Cable of West Seneca, tried to challenge the NFL’s blackout rule, and announced that they were going to broadcast via cable, a preseason game from Rich Stadium against the Los Angeles Rams. They planned to pick up the Syracuse affiliate that was showing the special ABC Monday Night broadcast, featuring local hero Ron Jaworski, then quarterback of the Rams. At the last minute, the FCC ordered International to pull the plug on the idea to which they agreed. In the Chuck Knox era, NFL football became quite popular in Canada. So popular in fact, that the CBC began to show NBC and CBS feeds of games. Those lucky enough to live in border towns, like Buffalo, Detroit, and Seattle could actually get a blacked out game broadcast right into their living room, provided they had a powerful enough antenna. By the middle of the 1980’s, the NFL put the squeeze on those channels too. A person could still go over the border to watch a blacked out game on satellite, (different country, different rules) but it wasn’t broadcast on any local Canadian affiliates. Around that time, satellites and sports bars became popular. Most bars had some type of dish, and could tune in local blacked out games. Once the NFL got wind of this, they began to hire plain-clothes detectives to investigate bars where this activity was alleged to be taking place. Steep fines were levied, and it became a personal choice for the owner of the bar. Will the money made, outweigh the fine paid? It pretty much ended the practice. With the advent of DirecTV and NFL Sunday Ticket in 1994, blacked out fans figured out a new way to watch their favorite team. Simply register your account at an out of town relative’s address. That lasted one year. The following fall, DirecTV required a land based phone line be connected to their unit for all sports subscriptions, including the NFL. On August 5, 1998, The NFL dropped a bombshell on Bills fans. They informed the Bills and their faithful that all Bills home games would be blacked out in the Syracuse area, because a tiny portion of the seventy-five mile radius from Rich Stadium overlapped into Yates County, New York. Since Yates County is in the Syracuse television market, another seventy-five mile radius had to be established, thus taking Bills home games off TV for most of Central New York. Fans were indignant. Not only did they have to sell out one of the larger stadiums for years, now they were getting double the blackout zone of most teams. Protests fell on deaf ears, and even attempts to cede the overlapping part of Yates County out of the zone failed. All has been quiet on the blackout front in Buffalo since the Yates County incident. With the reconfiguration of Ralph Wilson Stadium in 1998, the seating capacity actually dropped from 80,000 to 75,000, making it easier to sell out. In fact when you deduct the luxury boxes, and premium seating, which are all prepaid five years in advance, Buffalo merely needs to sell 63,000 regular seats in order to achieve a sellout. Not terrible, considering their season ticket base averages between thirty-five and forty thousand per year. Conclusions So why does the NFL, especially in this day and age of satellites, and subscriber only NFL Sunday Ticket still cling to it’s antiquated blackout rule? It’s difficult to understand the rationale. It certainly does nothing to improve attendance, as evidenced by the 49ers, and Jaguars. San Francisco has been terrible, yet continues to sell out, while Jacksonville, a relatively new and successful franchise, continues to struggle to sell tickets. So the question remains…why does the NFL consistently try to limit the exposure of its product by applying a blackout policy, that has varying levels of unfairness to different clubs? Don’t the owners realize that by limiting exposure they’re tuning out the next generation of fans? At the very least, they’re cutting deeply into their own merchandise market. What must be considered, are the economics of the blackout. They’re very short term. Yes, the fan in the stadium will buy the seven-dollar beer, and the five-dollar hot dog. Unfortunately, in-stadium advertising is only seen by those actually in attendance at the game, resulting in pro rated ad fees, and the team losing out on much needed revenue. The same goes for the ads on television. Rates are pro rated due to the uncertain number of games that will be telecast on the local affiliate. Broadcast a game locally, and the local companies line up to purchase ad time. There are also intangibles to think about as well. In today’s instant gratification society, if you’re not on the tip of everyone’s tongue, you’re very easily forgotten. Madonna and Britney Spears understand this, why doesn’t the NFL? Like Madonna, television is an ad medium in its own right. The game should be it’s own marketing tool. Show how much fun it is at one, and people will want to go. Showing Elvis in the stands, or showing the group of guys dressed as lady hogs, is a better sales pitch than any marketing person could ever dream of. =====================================================

I think the fans kept the stadium full.

'96 and '97 were good years, after that went down hill. 1996 New England Patriots 16 16 623 373 59.9 4086 6.56 84 27 15 30/190 45 3 83.7 1997 New England Patriots 16 16 522 314 60.2 3706 7.10 76 28 15 30/258 47 12 87.7 http://www.nfl.com/players/playerpage/1041 76.6 career QB rating.

Enough about the salary cap already. He purged the roster, plain and simple and the team went from 9-7 to 3-13 on one year. How tough was that to figure out?

3-13 and 6-10 That was the price for getting out of salary cap hell. It was paid for.

Agree. Bills don't make the playoffs, again, and that is it.

Wow. Great photos. Thanks for the links. You can really see the athleticism of these guys. Couldn't help but notice JP has both feet off the ground. Did Drew Bledsoe even HAVE two feet?

Good point. Also, the ability of the LBs is also very dependant on the D-line being able to keep O-linemen from getting to the second level.

Holding all the cards? Every week that passes, TH's value is diminished. Every GM in the league knows Buffalo would like to get rid of TH, or it is going to be TD's problem. TH may not even show up for camp. No move during the main free agency period. No move prior to the draft. No move during the draft. Now we are moving into the summer months hoping someone goes down on another team. Do't think this really hurts the Bills much, however were're not going to get much for him now.

Sorry I continue to offend you. I realize I am probably over critical, however I really love my Buffalo Bills. Grew up in Hamburg, about 5 minutes away from the Ralph, and believe as probably some others on the board do that we have had a subpar O-line for too long, and believe a good team should be built around the linemen on both sides of the ball. Current management doesn't seem to place a high value on drafting linemen: I am starting to think this is never going to happen. Not a GM, just a fan who wants to see our team moving forward with solid O-line and D-line drafts. Hope I am wrong. GO BILLS!

Doesn't really matter, as long as it's very very small

Getting a lot of SQL server errors, mysql fetches/gets.