AKC

Well then please do entertain me! I'll spare the time to expose your ill manners in this forum in which you appear to forget you are a guest. You offer not a single fact to refute my conclusion. Typically that's the sign of at best a blowhard, offering rhetoric over any substance. Here's your chance to show just how "knowlegable" you are: From among the 15 times that NFL teams have won consecutive championships I challenge you to identify any of those teams with LESS convincing back to back wins than the two 3-point squeakers the Pats eked out in '04 and '05. tick.... tick...... tick..... tick......

The facts simply don't support a designation of "Dynasty". A dynasty is multi-generational and at this point it's been a single generation of this team with titles. Dynasties in the NFL would be accurately limited to: Green Bay Pittsburgh Dallas San Francisco Oakland/LA Raiders Arguably Giants and Skins In fact these Pats haven't even reached the level of dominant, let alone dynasty- three of the five least convincing Super Bowl wins in history, and each one a 3-point win on the foot of far and away the best player on their roster. Kickers are hardly dynasty makers. It was enlightening being in New England last week, where I hadn't travelled in about a decade. It was laughable how popular Pat's gear has all of a sudden become in a place where a Pat's Jersey used to simply signify a lackey who didn't have the good sense to buy Bruin's gear.

I didn't say the value proposition doesn't support allowing Pat to move on, but at the same time the loss of his skills immediately hurts our run stopping ability and unless Tim Anderson turns out to be a phenom we will be nowhere near as good against the run this season. In the NFL today, and this holds especially true in our division, two solid run stoppers and a pass rushing DT with help to spell them is the MINIMUM to have a superior defense. Right now there's no way anyone can make that supposition about us- we have only 1 solid run stopper, a passing down only player in Edwards and a complete unknown with no credible help behind those three. If you want to see how a real quality NFL defense is built look at the strength at DT on the NE roster. They have far more real talent at the DT spot and they play a freaking 3-4!

While that's 100% accurate there's no historical evidence that the loudest fans will ever watch line play and recognize it has far more to do with a team's success than the quality of the quarterback. Jennings is a pass blocking Tackle who was not a good fit for the offense we're running featuring WMcGahee, and his value to teams running a pass feature offense made him a liability. It's not out of the question that we'll improve on that side of our line with an under the radar player currently on our roster. A running offense doesn't need a marquis LT, it requires a tough working grunt with a serious motor. The loss of Jennings is hardly the silver bullet some publicaitons and fans portray it as. PWilliams is a completely different story. He remains one of the best run plugs in football with sure hands and feet. Yeah, he's been seeing less time but Ron Edwards is simply a passing down DT- he's never shown the ability to hold his ground against NFL run blocking and additonally he just doesn't tackle well when he does get position. Anderson would have to be a pretty special player to not have the loss of Pat be our major achilles heel this season. If Edwards ends up getting run down duty you shouldn't expect London Fletcher to finish the season, he'll simply get killed. Our defensive outlook rests upon the shoulders of the barely tested Tim Anderson.

My impression as a regular reader of the LA Times and listener to the Laker's Station on AM is that while there has been some amount of understandable griping about ONeal's talking down LA and the Lakers (especially as he moves his team forward towards the finals and the Lakers sit- a combo of envy on one side and poor sportsmanship on the other), it seems Bryant's star has dimmed to possibly a lower level than even after the rape charges first came up. Nationally I don't see Shaq going after the team who spurned him hurting him at all, and Bryant has even less cache than he does in his home market.

The Tight End who was too soft to play the game he was genetically engineered for.

I'm no fan of his game- he's hardly a basketball player. But he's been the most dominant force in the game for many years and the Laker Titles of recent were on his back. He's also in a lot of ways funny since he's a good interview and he seems to be a pretty good guy too. Jerry Buss is a clown who began to believe he understood basketball- no more Jerry West and no more Laker titles. Kobe- the gunner you hated to play with as a kid, will remain a loser unless he's traded to a winning franchise or by some deal with the devil a guy like Duncan comes to LA as a FA.

I left WNY in 1977 and I get back for one or sometimes two games in most years- we've picked two road games this season though since I enjoy contributing to the debaucherous city tills of New Orleans and Tijuana alike. It's about a three day run if you drive straight-through from SoCal so I have always opted for a trip into Buf International, even back in the days they'd drop me off in a snowstorm on the tarmac 400 feet from the terminal with about 20 feet of visibility and no one or device to guide you. The first time that happened I was coming from Miami and wearing shorts and a tee shirt. It didn't happen again ;-)

Victoria Beckham is actually pretty, in fact IMO she's a very,very pretty woman. I've seen Paris Hilton without makeup and she's nowhere close to any measure of "pretty" that I'm familiar with. In fact her face reminds me of countless plain-jane adolescent toe-heads still too young to be allowed by their parents to stay out past 10 on weekends.

I don't know if this is the photo/photos being "discussed" in the press, if not I'm sure a link to the benefit photos would be warmly received here ;-) Posh Spice

Rayburn did Tic Tac Dough, I don't remember the format or the stage so I'm not certain the shot is from it.

From the film of the Bills I've looked at in game time and pre-season I'd probably go with Rashad Baker on the current roster. He's an up and comer who was getting more playing time as the season wore on and a real ST standout with a will to go where others quiver. He hits like he's 40 pounds bigger than the 190 or so he's listed at. Now if AWinfield wasn't wearing purple this would have been a lot easier.

That's a point of interest- the first use of "living breathing document" to describe the U.S. Constitution gets attributed to Al Gore in a Google search.

The costs to manufacture in the U.S. are non-competitive. China is the preferred option but short of that, and considering your specific directive, you could make the best argument for a point of manufacture like Ireland. Look up the Shannon Free Zone and build your plan there- there are already qualified and comeptetn workers plus the tax incentives are very good. Not to mention when you knock off you get to hang out with the "funnest" people in the world ;-)

That's incorrect from my understanding- the change regarding adoption of (the requirements to pass) cloture will require a simple majority of the Senate. It's something the Republicans may not have been able to hold before the shameful hypocrisy displayed today by Patrick Leahy and his Democratic cohorts who in the past publicly decried the use of judicial filibusters when they held control of the Senate. I believe Leahy's specific statement was "a filibuster should under no circumstances be used to deny an up or down vote to a judicial nominee". After today's display of Democratic Senator after Democratic Senator standing up and directly contradicting their publicly recorded positions from the past, the Republicans may just have developed the votes to do it. For example: “I plead with my colleagues to move judges with alacrity, vote them up or down,” Dem. Sen. Charles Schumer 2000 "It defies the clear constitutional prerogatives of the duly elected president to choose nominees to the bench and the duty of the Senate to say yes or no." Dem. Sen. Russ Feingold 2000 These are three of the Senators leading the blocking tactic against minority judicial nominees.

So you do, of course, offer equal support to the Senate's right to amend their rules?

A once great party now whining like street beggars in the hopes they can make some gain by forcing their opponents to make a rule change. A rule change that has become necessary to stop the Democratic attack on minority and women judicial nominees. The nominees being denied an opportunity represent the same Americans who have voted all the power in the country to the Republicans because most Americans are not threatened by a judge who goes to church, most Americans are not threatened by an African American nominee whose life experience has not been one of perceived biases keeping them from achieving their dreams, most Americans are not threatened by a nominee of Hispanic heritage whose only crime is that he's registered as a Republican. I'm most disappointed in the Dems who I have great respect for, the honorable and decent Senators like Joe Lieberman- it's unconscionable that for the sake of a party strategy (that may prove out to have no long term benefit to the good of the Democratic Party) he's being convinced to hold the party line against qualified and decent nominees who pose no ideological threat to the majority of Americans. Unless the Democratic Party believes that it undermines them to simply allow minority Republican candidates to be brought into the judiciary (something I would hope they are not so small-minded to believe), it seems the only rational explantion for the Democratic Party position to deny these good Americans a chance to serve is that by forcing a rule change the Dems believe they can gain congressional seats in coming elections. And I can't help but think that a strategy like that could be the kind of strategy that might be a serious miscalculation in the long term. A democracy is a democracy of ideas and those with ideas more appealing to the voters will enjoy the greatest power. The Democratic Party has apparently (and FINALLY) recognized that they are losing that battle of ideas within the country, evidenced perfectly by their refusal to offer a single idea on Social Security at a time when the debate is heavy on the public mind. That again might be good strategy in the short term- if you know your ideas will not play well with the public better to hide those ideas- the old axiom of better to be thought of a fool than to open your mouth and remove any doubt. At the same time the long term value of hiding your ideas is a total loser in a democracy. You simply can't get away with it and hold power for any extended period of time. The reality for the Democratic Part is they need to revise their ideas to reflect an America that less and less is beholden to their old cry of "we'll protect the little guy". That Dem ideal is currently on display as false while we watch the Democratic Party prove through their denial to minority judicial nominees that the only "little guy" they really stand for is the one who agrees with them.

That longer torso is a trait of all three runners we're talking about, and probably leads to the upright running by necessity- something a munchkin like Travis doesn't have to fight. I always picture Eric with good hip flexion while Brown in the limited times I've had watching him looks like his hips are welded in place to his spine. Duane Thomas as I recall had the same limitation- stationary hips with that upright style but the one thing both Thomas and Brown have is that open field gear that they can hit in stride to create separation. If I recall ED correctly he was pretty smooth through the full range of his speed?

Brown's a peculiar runner and I can see TN fans watching his style figuring Travis might just be an improvement- and they could be right. In some way's like Duane Thomas, Browns more explosive than Travis but he seems kind of stiff hitting holes; even though he has some success getting through tight holes Travis should be even more productive between the tackles. It's an O that isn't looking for the RB to play much of a role in the pass game so overall the Titans should see Travis as a lot more vaulable than most teams do.

It should bring a smile to all objective voting age Americans to hear any Dem politician talk about "the mainstream of America"- this is, aferall, the party that without Ross Perot would not even be able to cling to any recent Executive Branch success. Mainstream indeed! Their obvious strategy on Judicial votes is to keep the discussion about "the overreach of the Republican Party" and trying to exhibit to voters just how "stupid" voters are to keep voting in Republicans and voting out Dems. One major flaw though is that the people of the United States have voted out not necessarily Dem politicians but instead Dem ideas, and the ideas of the Democratic party continue to be the same body of tired, lame and failed arguments of the past. For instance, this is a party that refuses to this day to offer any idea on Social Security reform- if you intend to be part of any solution do you not need to offer some indication of firing synapses? The stragegy of the Democratic party to virtually "hide" their own ideas while attacking the results of the past 12 election cycles by simply trying to reinforce the point that the people of America have voted them out of power seems to fly in the face of rational logic- I'd think any long term strategy instead of whatever short term gains they get with this "save our filibuster" campaign would require that they come back to the table of ideas with something new. Until then they seem doomed to continue sinking into the quicksand of irrelevance. Clinging to the filibuster as your very last gasp of influence should be embarrasing for anyone who wasn't born in France- it simply points out the lack of fitness of your ideas to attract voters.

My feeling is the Buck is the easiest spot to fill- look at Jay Foreman, a guy with hands of butter playing at the Mike in a 4-3 yet he became a sure tackler in the Texan's 3-4. We had John Holocek starting at the Buck effectively but when he was released on our move back to a 4-3 and I don't believe he even held a roster spot for a full season in San Diego. It's very forgiving as the second interior LB and there are lot's of 4-3 cast-offs who IMO can plug right in. The bigger question in my mind is the readiness of Tim Anderson to spell Sam on first and second downs. The way we're seeing the 3-4 morph these days REdwards could get plenty of work at DE in a 3-4.

Next time you're there tell Chris R. that "Divot" said hey.

Thanks Eric- you failed to mention that you got them for half the price of the same seats they're selling to any other groups inquiring at this time.

I haven't seen any sign that Edwards can play low enough to be an effective run stopper at this level. He always seems to be trying to leverage from the top, something you can be effective in pass rushing if you've got good size like he does but a sure fire way to get knocked silly in the run game. There are WIDELY varied reports of his numbers from the 2002 season, I typically trust Stats on tackle statistics due to their methodology and the numbers they offer are 25 total tackles in 16 starts. PatW typically doubled that number until his diminished role last season, a season in which he still ended up with 37 stops. Edwards balance reminds me of a spinning top, and I've never seen a great DT with that flaw. As far as Anderson's pedigree, we could start a list right now of recent 1st day DTs who have miserably failed to live up to their expectations. Hopefully Anderson is one of the exceptions, the fact that the team failed to give him time in any but I believe 3 games doesn't have to be an indication of their faith in him but at the same time it may. You don't have to leave our division to see the most effective defenses rotating 4 DTS in the middle- of a 3-4! Denney might be a little better suited to play in a 3-4, but I agree he's a guy who has slowly figured out he needs to get under the pads of his opponent and he should be expected to have his best year yet, but then again if our interior rotation causes us to reduce the pressure we brought up the middle last year it will be a very long and unproductive season for our edge rushers. My own opinion is that DTs are the most important players on any defense who faces West Coast influenced offenses regularly as we do, and while you can use lesser players outside the middle of the interior- the defensive line simply doesn't allow it. It also appears that we're facing a season in which my theory will be played out, and unfortunately IMO much to my dismay as a Bill's fan.

The difference between having a quality DT rotation like we had last year versus having one solid tackle, a one-dimensional pass rusher and a complete unknown is definitely worth about a dozen spots in the contemporary NFL. Anderson could help improve upon that if he's a lot more player than his reps in '04 suggest, but in any case we're still one more interior player away from a comfortable rotation for a 4-3 defense.