Buftex

Not really sure what to expect from EJ Manuel. I just hope that people aren't getting a little too far ahead of themselves with this...you know what happens to rookies in Buffalo, if they struggle at all...they are automatically "busts". Love what I have seen, but those are only highlights. Experts (for what that is worth) seem a little more skeptical that he is going to be ready to go out of the box, so-to-speak, but most agree that he has huge upside. For me, that translates to mean that we are going to have to be patient... I suspect Kolb will be starting the first few games...at least.

Don't know why, but in never imagined Lindy migh end up coaching the Dallas Stars, but it appears the Stars might be interested. http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/dallas-stars/headlines/20130527-report-dallas-stars-gm-jim-nill-closing-in-on-naming-coach-had-contact-with-lindy-ruff-alain-vigneault.ece It appears that Linday, and former Canucks coach Alain Vigneult are the final choices. Not sure how I feel about this...other than the fact that I have two Stars fan friends who always tease me about Lindy the whiner..."no goal" and all... I like Ruff... when he was fired the rumor was out there that he had passed on the Tampa Bay job, in hopes of getting the Flyers job. Ruff coaching the Flyers was unsettling to me...never even had the Stars on the radar. If he does end up in Dallas, at least Nill did him a favor and got rid of Derek Roy ahead of time!

Paltrow > Coldplay

I think we are defining it by how much somebody else, who actually read your post, hates what you like.

My point was Cashs' bad stuff was every bit as bad (and some way worse) than anything Elvis ever did. And, beside, it is my Mt Rushmore! It seems the criteria here is, "I like them, so they aren't underrated..." It is pretty arbitrary. You really owe it to yourself to listen to some Charlie Rich...it seems like you are missing out on something there. Pick up his Smash records collection...he was the white Ray Charles. Mixed r-n-b and country (as they should be) as seamlessly as it has ever been done.

Sinking Feeling

Holy smokes...we agree on something! She is one of the handful of people I "follow" on Twitter...but I never check it. When I have though, I have found some funny things. Yeah, she was on Voyager, one of the few really good episodes, a two parter. I was only aware of her, peripherally at that point, but that is the point I really started noticing her...and then her role on "Larry Sanders" etched in her in my memory for good. On the early days of the Jimmy Kimmel Show, when the two were still toghether, she did some really amazing stuff...when Kimmel couldn't get A-list guests, that show was almost as good as early "Letterman".

Funny...everyone always forgets Charlie Rich....IMO, the ranking goes Elvis, Charlie Rich, Perkins, Jerry Lee and then Cash. If it is a Mount Rushmore, Cash is the one I leave off. I think Johnny has benefitted mightily from the hipster makeover over the last 15-20 years. If you go back and really listen to his catalog, it spirals every bit as far into slopiness that Elvis' ever did..he just lived long enough to be saved by the young turks. That doesnt' mean to say I don't like him...

Funny....I feel the same way sometimes. I have a buddy who has a music collection that rivals mine (4000+ CDs/vinyl) and one day, why hanging out at his place listeing to music I started talking to him about the live Faces album "Coast to Coast and Overtures"...he said he had never heard it...in fact, he told me, has almost no live albums in his collection...I couldn't believe it... I love live performance stuff. I like studio stuff too, but a live performance can give you a whole different feel for a tune.

Agreed...I have loved her for years, but I really didn't like her tv show much...I always got a laugh or two, but some of the scatilogical humour got a little out of hand... I have seen her a few times live, and have rarely laughed so much...I think she is really bright, funny, and yeah, pretty hot! BTW- i was sure everyone was going to say how much she sucks...normally what happens when her name is mentioned.

And I think that is silly.

104 opportunites for a head coach to win a Super Bowl. You know how many have won one? 28 different coaches have won at least one Super Bowl. 21 different guys have earned an opportunity, only to come away empty handed. I wish I could find out (easily) how many head coaches there have been in the NFL during the Super Bowl era...I am sure it is in the multiple hundreds. Its' not as if it is the easiest thing to do. I understand your point (and the 1990's were not my favorite times as a Bills fan!), but the attitude that the only thing that validates greatness as a head coach is a Super Bowl ring is kind of sad. Was Barry Switzer a better head coach than Marv Levy, Dan Reeves or Bud Grant?

There are 22 coaches in the Hall Of Fame. Fourteen of them (by my count) spent a substantial amount of their career coaching during the Super Bowl era. Of those 14 Marv Levy does not have the worst winning percentage (Sid Gillman and Weeb Eubanks says hello) and he is not the only one who hasn't won a Super Bowl ring (Bud Grant & Sid Gillman says hello again). Levy's career win percentage (.561) is not worlds below that of other HOF coaches (Parcells .569, Chuck Knoll .566), and better than Eubanks and Gillman. 22 head coaches in, what? 93 years of the Pro Football? Of course, somebody is going to be at the bottom of the list.

Yeah, I think Levy was fantastic. I choose to ignore the Marv as GM years, and I give him credit for stepping down. I heard him say he wasn't comfortable in the role, and, basically, took the job at Mr Wilson's request, not really knowing what his role would be. As you said earlier, he was more a figurehead than a traditional GM. It didn't go well, but I tend to blame that as much, if not more, in the owner than on Levy. I just find the fact that we can't even agree that the most successful coach in the history of the franchise we devote so much time to was a pretty damn good coach, whether he was a delegater or administrator, or whatever it was, it worked better than any other set up the Bills have ever had. People say "a real coach" would have gotten a ring or two with all that talent...but then they say the players themselves were "overrated" and generally well respected coaches, such as Bill Parcells are "overrated"...it is just tiresome and depressing. We can't enjoy anything it seems. I heard Parcells once say (around the time of Levy's induction into the HOF) that getting a team to a Super Bowl 4 times was impressive, the fact that they lost each one, in some ways, he said, made the the achievement all the more impressive.

What a depressing thread this is.

I have no doubt that this thread will morph into a bunch of insults toward Silverman...so let me be the first to say, I think she she rocks! One of the funniest people out there, IMO.

Giving any Bills from the Super Bowl era teams is not chic or in vouge on TSW. According to them: Marv was not really a good coach, Jim Kelly was a drunk who partied too much, Thurman lost his helmet, Andre Reed was an overrated diva, and Bruce Smith was "all about me"... that is the way it is now... I sometimes think, if this team ever really does turn it around, there are some who are so jaded, they won't be able to enjoy it, and will do their damndest not to let anyone else enjoy it.

Okay...I am normally a huge sucker for the music threads...but I agree with Chef. Music is way too subjective to define "under-rated" and "over-rated". If Alice and Chains had never released an album, I wouldn't miss them. On the other hand, Elvis being written off as shclock, or "sloppy" or whatever is ludicrous to me. It doesn't make one opinion more correct, and another less so. It just means we appreciate one artist more than another. I hate the Beach Boys, fully aware that some hold them up as genius. That might be true, but I still don't like them. Ditto for Rush, just inducted into the Rock-n'Roll Hall of Fame. I can't presume, just because they don't pass the sniff test for me, the appreciation that so many of them have for them is unwarranted. Some opinions are derived through narrow personal definitions, some with a more historical perspective. The best you can hope, in a discussion like this, is to learn something you never knew, or get turned on to something you never heard. Rated right about where they should be....nice!

Their best value is to a Bills fan. There are those (like somebody who linked their EBAY listing on the Trading Post a month or so ago) who will list this stuff with vague descriptions, and pretend they have no idea how much they are worth...and some casual fan will buy them, not knowing any better...this person got $50 or so, for what was essentially a pile of cards that were worth a few dollars. I have boxes and boxes of this stuff...I am not getting rich selling them. Make no mistake though, even though they have little monetary value, they are still pretty nice cards. Unfortunate, I suppose, for Bills fans who are collectors, the teams "golden era" (the Super Bowl years) just happen to coincide with the period of the collecting industry that produced the most, and least valuable cards. A Jim Kelly rookie card (1984 Topps USFL set) in its' prime, could sell from anywhere from 100-175 dollars. Now, you can get one for about 20-30. His NFL rookie card (1987 Topps) at one time had a value of around $45-50 dollars. Now, you would be lucky to get $5-7 for one. It is in no way a reflection of the players, just the dearth of cards that were produced back in those days.

I have been collecting and selling cards for decades. If you want an accurate gauge of what your cards are worth, go to EBAY, Look them up,,,click on "completed listings"...hate to say it, but you will likely find that the cards are of minimal value. There are not as many people collecting seriously these days, and those who are aware that pretty much anything produced between 1986 and 1997 does not have a lot of value. The cards, as nice as some of them are (that Pinnacle set is really nice) were mass produced. Newer cards have a bit more value, because the manufacturers started to realize (or acknowledge) that the secondary, re-sale market would make or break them. So, their solution was to produce more different sets, but to produce each in much smaller quantity.

From the "sportspickle" no less!

According to ESPN (Sportscenter) last night, "a media outlet" picked up this story and posted it as a legit news story....journalism may be dead, but faux-journalism is having a renaissance!

I thought it was hilarious, and I am no Ray Lewis hater... though he did suffer from a bit of overexposure this past season...and while I don't think he murdered anyone, I think it is very likely he was more involved in the cover-up (or attempted cover-up) of this crime than we will ever know. I have been collecting sports autographs for years, so it is always fun/cool when somebody adds something unique to their autograph. I have a couple unusual autos. One is "Larry Bird" signed autobiography that was forged by Kevin McHale. The other is a signed 8x10 photo of former Dallas Cowboys great Ed "Too Tall" Jones. The picture is of he and OJ walking off the field at Cowboys stadium after a game. Jones has his arm around OJ's shoulder. This was signed a weekend or two after OJ's arrest. The inscription read "Happier times...who knew? - Ed "Too Tall" Jones.

Honeslty, I have just always hated their vocals... sacraledge I know, but they just irritate the **** out of me. Would much rather listen to Chuck Berry or the Everly Brothers...even Herman's Hermits... I have a pretty healthy respect for the classics...and I realize the Beach Boys are considered classic. I have purchased "Pet Sounds" about three or four different times over the years, in its' various re-releases, and I just can't get into it at all...realizing it is because of that damn vocal style... I just never can understand the hype surrounding that album. I am probably missing out on something. I am not saying it is rational, I just can't stand it. I must admit, I saw them once at the old Rockpile, after an old-timers baseball game...it was horrendous...this was in the mid-70's, so likely not a stellar lineup of guys in the band...but images of Mike Love have scarred me forever... Of course, I get annoyed when people say they hate Dylan (or Neal Young) because they "can't sing". If you are stuck on their voices, you are missing the point, IMO. But, I realzie

Some of you may or may not remember Pete Mitchell... a mediocre tight-end for the Jaguars, and Dolphins, played mostly in the 90's...check out this autographed picture he singed...it is an "epic" signature! http://deadspin.com/this-is-how-you-sign-a-picture-of-ray-lewis-trying-to-t-509696414?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_facebook&utm_source=deadspin_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow