The Frankish Reich

Hah! They have the same term in French: “Dentes Anglais.” That reputation is well deserved. But … it appears they’re going all American now. Everyone is getting their teeth fixed. It’s no fun anymore.

I take the 5th. But as a more general point: why on earth is the United States now the only advanced democracy run by decrepit 70 and 80 somethings?

As I pointed out earlier: Joe Ferguson started all 14 games in OJ's record breaking 2,000 yard season. He threw for 939 yards. 67 yards per game. Really. 67 passing yards per game. Sorry, but the young uns have no idea how different the NFL was back then. The Bills' offense was like the Broncos Tebow 2011 offense. The passing game was barely existent. Everyone knew OJ was getting the ball (and when he wasn't, the fullbacks - Braxton and Larry Watkins - were) and they still couldn't stop him. Compare Thurman's best year: 2113 yards combined, rushing and receiving. That's awesome. But Kelly threw for 3457 yards. Taking out Thurman's receiving yards, that's still about 2800 yards gained not involving Thurman. OJ was the offense in those peak years. Put him on a team that actually had some other talent (beyond offensive line and a few guys on the defensive side) like the early 90s Bills and that's a Super Bowl team.

Great way of putting it!

First NFL game I ever saw in person was at the old Rockpile, back in about '71. About 9 years old. Yes, that wasAnd I have really vivid memories of OJ in his glory years. I never saw Jim Brown or Gale Sayers (at least not in my football fan memories), but based on clips I'd say they may be #1 and #1A and #1B as far as the ability to accelerate and break any run for a TD. Barry Sanders could break any run too, but it was really a different running style. Eric Dickerson is usually forgotten in these conversations, but he had that turbo boost thing too.

Not at all. That just shows it was a poorly thought-out question. Maybe we want to ask, "The most talented skill set FOR HIS POSITION in Bills history." Otherwise I'm going with the Punt God.

Kind of a strangely phrased question: "most talented player." Best athlete? Well, I suppose that would be a combination of football-relevant skills: strength, speed, agility, arm strength/accuracy, etc. Kind of what we call a "5 tool player" in baseball (hit for average, hit for power, run, field, throw). So that means QB only, or a guy (Marlin Briscoe) who could play QB and other positions too. So that would be: Josh Allen. All by himself. Followed (about a mile lower?) by ... Briscoe? (too small) JP Losman? (too JP Losman) Kemp? Kelly? I don't even know. You see what I mean. EDIT: I just remembered Logan Thomas. So there's your #2. James Harris was rumored to have some running ability (he was never allowed to use it) so maybe he's third.

Not sure we were watching the same OJ as kids. The OJ I saw would be great in any era. His 2,000 yard season (14 games): 6.0 yards per carry. The Bills had a very good O line, but it wasn't Dolphins perfect season good. And we had Joe Ferguson at QB, who was ... barely adequate. How the game has changed: Fergy started all 14 games and threw for a grand total of 939 yards. Less than half what OJ ran for. He was a world class sprinter and could break one at any time - the acceleration when he saw daylight is still the best I've ever seen. Top 5 all-time? No doubter.

Well played.

Sorry, think I quoted the quoter ...

Correct. I'm just making the rhetorical point: if Biden is largely to blame for the rise in gas prices, then he must be largely credited with the fall.

I actually hated the movie. Bullet Train. Post-Tarantino Hollywood dreck. But for 3 bucks? Yeah, the A/C was good.

The moment Bills Mafia* storms Roger Goodell's NYC office building, threatens to hang Troy Vincent, Sr.**, and demands a do-over of the entire KC-Bills playoff game, well, then I'll gladly state that the existence of the Bills Mafia poses a threat to our very institution of professional football.*** *I hate that term, but it seems to be the accepted one, so, oh well ... **NFL VP/Football Operations ***Despite what many seem to think, our Way of Football is not our Way of Life.

Interesting how this thread is no longer active ... I paid $3.18/gallon to fill up my car yesterday (Costo, Colorado). Oh, and I paid all of $13 for 6 chicken breasts for dinner. And then my wife and I went to a movie on $3 cinema night. So I guess Bidenomics is working?

Maybe. I'm no campaign expert, but I always hear these campaign consultants say that midterm elections are all about turnout. So ... that's the route they're taking. Juice the base turnout (full overturning of Roe was kind of turnout magic no one expected) and hold the House and/or Senate. Nothing desperate. If this were an NFL game, we'd be talking about the Dem team trying to grind out a victory in a battle of field position.

Maybe that’s because Trump keeps playing the part the Dem strategists assign him? Voting (at least the fraudulent, early voting, 😛) begins in about a month in a lot of states. And there’s Donald John Trump, willingly taking the bait, talking about how he just might pardon the ex-cop who got 10 years for using the flagpole as a weapon against a current cop. And talking about his fantasy that somehow there will be an election do-over, halfway into Biden’s term, in which the Trump presidency will be gloriously restored. As Biden said in one of the debates — his best, and only memorable moment in his whole campaign, just shut up, man … … I finally watched the speech. It wasn’t meant for me. I’m a cynical old lesser of two evils, a pox on both their damn parties voter. It was meant to: (1) troll Trump and his endorsed candidates, who now get to answer fun questions like “do you favor a call for a do-over election and pardons for Jan 6 convicted rioters? And (2) to set a tone, aiming squarely at suburban/women voters, of the ominous future (all red-lot and doom and gloomy) that awaits if Republicans get power back. From that marketing/theme-ing perspective, I think it was effective. It’s a rally the base, turn out the suburban vote message. Against this we have the Repubs, seemingly forgetting everything that worked so well before (Reagan’s hopeful Morning in America themes) focused solely on old school rallies and trucker caps. So bad speech, cynically presented as a Speech to the Nation instead of a campaign rally speech? Yes. Effective in achieving its 2 goals? Yes. And Yes again.

It's obvious to me what this (including the speech) is all about. Democratic polling no doubt shows that "nationalizing" the midterms by associating every Republican with Trump is their best path to keep the House and/or Senate. And the Republicans seem hell-bent on making that easy. Biden trolls Trump; Trump responds by suggesting that he'll pardon the convicted Jan 6 rioters. In some alternate universe there is a more disciplined Trump just getting out of the way. But in our universe there is no such thing.

How dare you call our men and women in uniform dust mites.

I didn't watch it. I don't like this type of thing. It's a political campaign speech posing as an "address to the nation." Biden sees that Trump is on the ropes now and he wants to kick him while he's down. I'm not so naive as to think this is Trump's final undoing. But, you gotta admit it: Trump is being suckered into doing exactly what the Dem strategists want him to do. He's going full Q Anon/nutcase, scaring away all those suburban voters he'd need to win (and I mean actually win, not claim he "really won" even though the vote count says he didn't). Unhinged Trump is a really bad face of the Republican Party. They do best when people focus on Inept Biden instead.

Well, to life on the crappy party school campus at least. I am sooo happy that these dedicated students will have at least $10,000 of their loans forgiven.

I probably saw all but one or two Broncos games the last couple years. And here's the thing: I don't remember anything special about Sam Martin's punting. And when you're talking about a punter, that's a good thing. Boring, reliable, adequate - we didn't wind up with a punt god, but we did wind up with something a little better than Matt Haack.

$610,000 minimum in 2020. $660,000 in 2021.

Some (not all) of those panics were warranted in the bad old days when this team was not in a position to let young/projectable talent slip away just so we could keep some special teams ace. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Other rebuilding teams can and should raid us for those young projects.

Thanks. As the old saying goes: never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. There is no legal doctrine that would ever make the Bills liable for damages. None. So maybe this was an attempt to put a squeeze on the deep pocket - the Bills - since without an NFL punting job Araiza is just a 22 year old kid with no real job prospects. I guess the theory would be “you are not legally liable, but if you give us money anyway my client may sign a non disclosure agreement and you can keep the Punt God on your roster without fear of this blowing up later.” If so, the Bills made a prudent business decision and just extricated themselves from a mess that was not of their making. I can’t help but thing this poor girl is being used by an unscrupulous operator, in it for his own publicity rather than his client’s best interest. If anything, going full fiasco mode here makes a prosecution less likely, not more likely, and the poor girl is left with no one to collect damages from (a judgment against an unemployable punter?) and no criminal charges against him either.

OK, so maybe someone can help me here - I've been on vacation so I missed some of the details here. My big question: everyone is reporting that the Bills learned about the allegations in late July from the victim's attorney. Why would the (alleged) victim's attorney be contacting the (alleged) perpetrator's employer? I've never heard of that before, and I wonder whether it's even kosher under the rules of legal ethics. Sometimes an accuser will hire a lawyer to deal with expected pushback or counter-allegations from the (alleged) perpetrator, but this was different: the lawyer was playing offense, not defense. And it's a civil lawsuit seeking money damages. If you want money damages, why on earth are you trying to render the (alleged) perpetrator permanently unemployable in his potentially lucrative field of business? Look, I have no idea of what really happened or didn't happen. My hunch is that there's more than a kernal of truth here, and that we do have a young woman (more accurately: a girl) who feels traumatized and wants some consequences for the guy who caused that trauma, whether he's criminally liable or not. But the way this is unfolding is weird enough for me to be skeptical, not necessarily of the victim's motivation, but of the lawyer's motivation and tactics.