JasoninMT

OCinPhilly - I think you're spot on... even a 3 WR set (minus Reed) will be interesting - especially if Fine turns into a good recieving TE... Then you have options... which is what a good offense has... Some sets are so telling as far as what they are doing for a play... I love it when you can line up and they don't know whether it'll be a pass, P/A, or Run... That's the OC too... hopefully our rookie OC will do alright... he's probably as weak a link as Fowler in terms of being unknown...

7 rounds is enough imho... and I wouldn't reduce it to 6... One statistic I heard that amazed me from last season... there are 5 players drafted last year who are currently NFL unemployed... all the other players are either on active rosters or practice squads... that's pretty telling. Now that the Practice squads have been enlarged, more of the draft players are able to stick w/ a team. In a bad draft year like this one (according to the "experts"), you could say the 7th round was mostly UDFA material... When the league starts having a LOT of UDFA "stars" - then we'll hear talk of adding another draft round... but I don't think that'll happen. In the old days of huge drafts - we didn't have 32 teams (weren't there only 26 when they moved to 7 rounds?) We also didn't have Free Agency... Last point - I was thinking about the draft this weekend, it's really surreal the way people pay attention to the NFL draft... it just goes to show how much people love the NFL more than the other leagues... I bet less than 10% of the people who talk about or pay attention to the NFL draft in terms of numbers give a crap about all the other sports drafts... I couldn't even tell you how many rounds there are in their drafts (NBA, NHL, and MLB)... I love the Sabres, but I don't know the first thing about their drafts and I don't think many people do outside of the organizations... the Media certainly doesn't spend the time and ink on the other drafts the way they do for the NFL... we have people who make their money REPORTING on the NFL Draft all year (Kiper & McShay are just the famous 2).

Well... they don't usually run a FB... so, that's why I pencilled him in... I wanted to put Parrish in the slot... But the purists want a FB listed. He's the only true FB on the team...

Here's how I see it pre-camp... I think Fowler is our weakest offensive link still, we'll see if they bring in a UDFA or two... I think Hardy will edge out Reed for the starting #2. I don't think Fine will beat out Royal to start the season. Evans - Peters - Dockery - (Fowler) - Butler - Walker - Royal - Hardy QB - Edwards RB - Lynch FB - Viti On Defense... I see the following: McGee - Kelsay - Stroud - McCargo - Schobel - McKelvin (It's the McDonalds line....) Crowell - Posluszny - Mitchell Simpson - Whitner There aren't any "weak" links per se... but McKelvin is a rookie and may not start right off, Poz & Simpson are unknown based on their return from injury.

Here are the Bills Drafts since '00... Rank 'em (in order of best to worst)... Then Rate 'em. Imho, if a player is still in the league it was a good draft, not the players fault necessarilly the Bills decided not to pay 'em or whatever... # is the pick order in terms of the bills R is the Round they were picked P is the pick in the round O is the Overall Pick 2007 # R P O Name Position College 1 1 12 12 Marshawn Lynch RB California 2 2 2 34 Paul Posluszny LB Penn State 3 3 29 92 Trent Edwards QB Stanford 4 4 12 111 Dwayne Wright RB Fresno State 5 6 10 184 John Wendling DB Wyoming 6 7 12 222 Derek Schouman RB Boise State 7 7 29 239 C.J. Ah You DE Oklahoma 2006 1 1 8 8 Donte Whitner DB Ohio State 2 1 26 26 John McCargo DT North Carolina State 3 3 6 70 Ashton Youboty DB Ohio State 4 4 8 105 Ko Simpson DB South Carolina 5 5 1 134 Kyle Williams DT Louisiana State 6 5 10 143 Brad Butler T Virginia 7 6 9 178 Keith Ellison LB Oregon State 8 7 8 216 Terrance Pennington T New Mexico 9 7 40 248 Aaron Merz G California 2005 1 2 23 55 Roscoe Parrish WR Miami (FL) 2 3 22 86 Kevin Everett TE Miami (FL) 3 4 21 122 Duke Preston C Illinois 4 5 20 156 Eric King DB Wake Forest 5 6 23 197 Justin Geisinger G Vanderbilt 6 7 22 236 Lionel Gates RB Louisville 2004 1 1 13 13 Lee Evans WR Wisconsin 2 1 22 22 J.P. Losman QB Tulane 3 3 11 74 Tim Anderson DT Ohio State 4 4 13 109 Tim Euhus TE Oregon State 5 7 6 207 Dylan McFarland T Montana 6 7 13 214 Jonathan Smith RB Georgia Tech 2003 1 1 23 23 Willis McGahee RB Miami (FL) 2 2 16 48 Chris Kelsay DE Nebraska 3 3 30 94 Angelo Crowell LB Virginia 4 4 14 111 Terrence McGee DB Northwestern State (LA) 5 4 30 127 Sam Aiken WR North Carolina 6 5 16 151 Ben Sobieski G Iowa 7 6 14 187 Lauvale Sape DT Utah 8 7 14 228 Mario Haggan LB Mississippi State 2002 1 1 4 4 Mike Williams T Texas 2 2 4 36 Josh Reed WR Louisiana State 3 2 29 61 Ryan Denney DE Brigham Young 4 3 32 97 Coy Wire DB Stanford 5 5 4 139 Justin Bannan DT Colorado 6 6 4 176 Kevin Thomas DB UNLV 7 7 4 215 Mike Pucillo G Auburn 8 7 39 250 Rodney Wright WR Fresno State 9 7 41 252 Jarrett Ferguson RB Virginia Tech 10 7 49 260 Dominique Stevenson LB Tennessee 2001 1 1 21 21 Nate Clements DB Ohio State 2 2 15 46 Aaron Schobel DE Texas Christian 3 2 27 58 Travis Henry RB Tennessee 4 3 14 76 Ron Edwards DT Texas A&M 5 3 33 95 Jonas Jennings T Georgia 6 4 15 110 Brandon Spoon LB North Carolina 7 5 13 144 Marques Sullivan T Illinois 8 6 15 178 Tony Driver DB Notre Dame 9 6 32 195 Dan O'Leary TE Notre Dame 10 6 33 196 Jimmy Williams DB Vanderbilt 11 7 14 214 Reggie Germany WR Ohio State 12 7 38 238 Tyrone Robertson DT Hinds J.C. (MI) 2000 1 1 26 26 Erik Flowers DE Arizona State 2 2 27 58 Travares Tillman DB Georgia Tech 3 3 27 89 Corey Moore LB Virginia Tech 4 4 27 121 Avion Black WR Tennessee State 5 5 27 156 Sammy Morris RB Texas Tech 6 6 28 194 Leif Larsen DE Texas-El Paso 7 7 27 233 Drew Haddad WR Buffalo 8 7 45 251 DaShon Polk LB Arizona 2007 - Lynch, Poz (who is a ? given IR), and Edwards + some ST help... A- (and could go higher) 2003 - McGee, Kelsay and Crowell + McGahee wasn't a bust... A- 2001 - Schobel, Henry, Clements, and Jennings (albeit 3 aren't with the Bills - but were good when here) A- 2006 - Whitner, Simpson, Butler... an OK draft with some other backups and ST players makes it a B- 2004 - Evans & Losman... I think it's a B- right now - we'll see what happens this year... 2005 - Everett & Parrish... Everett, while a great story, was never an impact. Parrish is the bomb, C+ 2002 - Mike Williams... Need I say more? D- (Reed is still here at least for now) 2000 - the worst draft by the bills, possibly ever... F My .02 anyways... what's your opinion?

Yep, and Edwards Sucks... I'm just sayin...

If you trade down - draft media love your move... If you trade up - they think you're reaching... I think a B+ is appropriate for the Bills. We didn't draft a Center... Oh well, we can try the FA market... We didn't draft a backup QB.. I guess they really like Edwards and think he'll be amazing - so next year when JP doesn't sign w/ us and we draft a rookie we won't have to start from scratch... This wasn't the best draft for QBs anyways - and we weren't going to spend a high pick on one... I'm glad they didn't trade up, and I like the picks for the most part. Restocked some ST players, grabbed a top CB who'll help right away. And got a red zone threat... Maybe a better TE candidate would have been more sexy, but at least they got a red zone threat in Hardy. I think he'll be the #2 this year - maybe not at the start of the season, but we'll see how camp goes.

I predict the Bills will stand pat and pick with the 11th pick - no trades up or down with it. I further predict that it won't matter who they select - 3/4 of all TBD posters will be upset by the selection - including several who wanted the selected player but thought we could have traded down to get them. Finally, I predict they will select a WR with their first pick - probably Thomas. If someone fell into their laps from above, we might take them instead, but I think it'll be Thomas. Who knows, a team could miss their pick deadline since the timing is shorter this year. crazier things have happened.

Those must be only the NFL numbers too... Not including the AFL records. We sucked in the 70s for the most part, sucked in the 80s for the most part until the end of the decade (under levy), were the winningest franchise for the 90s (if memory serves) under Levy for the most part. 2000s have sucked and had a lot of turnover. If you play .500 football (which we haven't been doing) it'd take 5 years to get to 40 wins, and we haven't kept a coach anything close to that over the last few years - plus a big goose egg in Playoff victories... A sad statistic, but not all that surprising.

I'll give an Over/Under of 4 for the number of patriots "Primetime" games scheduled this season... Any takers?

TG - It's been pointed out here... but, he bought the team when it was on the brink of folding and is trying to make it run in the black while keeping the team where it belongs... I can't fault a guy for that. At least we smell the playoffs even after a complete overhaul of the "stars". Darcy has a habit of hemming and hawing and not always pulling the trigger when he can - that isn't TG's fault other than he continues to allow DR to lose talent. RW - He had plenty of years where he was cheap and refused to pay talent - but in those days the NFL wasn't was it is today... RW is old school and got an NFL franchise on the cheap (via the AFL of course). I think his "cash to the cap" strategy is what drives fans nuts since we know there's more money that could be spent. We had a purge a long time ago, when we watched Thurman go to Miami, Bruce go to the Redskins, and Kelly sent to the pasture. That doesn't include the other "staple" players of our time who came and went - some of them while they could still play. I don't think either owner is a bad person or has evil intentions for Buffalo or fans of their franchises. They're simply trying to make their franchises profitable, and as owners that's their right. I would be VERY surprised if any subsequent owner to RW is able to keep the Bills in Buffalo. Because they will have to contend with a drastically different purchase price than RW and the ROI (return on investment) will be very minimal if at all. I find it interesting that when the media chose to ridicule Wilson for the last CBA - the owners did not, and now the media is coming around to recognize the current CBA is going to cause problems. As complex as the NFLs CBA is, I cannot imagine 45 minutes being enough time to truly analyze the document before approval. Hopefully, the NFL will be able to work out negotiations before they cancel it in November (as is being reported as almost certain).

If the NFL network were an equal opportunity network, they'd give 5 hours of coverage a week to each team...

I am not any where near the games ever.... But, I sent them an email via the BB.com website with a suggestion yesterday and was pretty much told it wasn't their fault... which was funny since I wasn't even affected... I suggested they look into ticket kiosks like airlines have to print tickets... they could even use them to sell tickets etc - like at malls and the airport... But, they said they have no control of outside influences like weather and late fan arrival... didn't even acknowledge my suggestion... And it was signed by the "ticketing manager"...

I wish Lee were going if only for the simple fact that he doesn't toot his own horn the way some of these punks do... He just quietly does his job the way he ought to. Here's to a 9-7 finish.... which should get us a primetime game next year, which will lead to more press if they perform... which leads to Pro Bowl appearances... If you polled non-Bills fans about who the top receivers in the game right now are, his name wouldn't come up, but you can bet lesser talented players names would on sheer name recognition... Let's Go Buffalo!

I think that the Roch D&C has it right, they should move a bit closer to Rochester... The problem as I see it is abandoning all the work which has been done to RWS... what would become of it? the other Question is how it would affect those Canadian fans, moving it further from them... I did one of those Google searches to see who searches for Buffalo Bills, and the hits are most from Lancaster... Then I think was Rochester...

Or, that the kick didn't go 10 yards at all - let alone hitting a Bill first.

What bugs the crap out of me is our run defense... how many runs up the gut for 10+ are we giving up? Where are the LBs? is it scheme? We cannot give up the kind of running yards we do and win consistently... yeah, we were able to stop them a few times yesterday, but there were still way too many big plays on runs and short passes...

I'd have to say 6 points is fairly respectable... when you consider how poorly we do against the Run... LT is going to kill us next week if you ask me...

It is broadcast TV which is supposed to be converted, but that deadline is past... the "out" clause is your area has to have a large percentage of HD sets in homes - as measured by sales etc... so, most areas don't have it... what I see some even doing around here - is put their HQ in an even more remote locale than Missoula - and then use a translator here... because it's less likely to get saturation of HD sets there than here... That said, I get 3 channels in HD over my antenna (CBS, NBC, & PBS). PBS due to it's federal funding can't actually use the saturation excuse from what I've read, so they all complied by the deadline. There is a lot of good information to be found online on the HD subject etc...

I picked up a nice Samsung for $800 at BestBuy... it isn't flat panel, but it's their "thin" CRT... it's a nice 30" WS... you could also pick up an HD Projector for the same price if you have the room for it... But, I understand where you're coming from...

It seems to me we have a glut of "above average" to "good" receivers, but really seem to be lacking a "great" receiver. I like Lee Evans, I hope he can evolve into that role, but right now I think we are missing a "stud" who puts fear into opposing DBs. While there is all this talk about who the #1 QB will be and how the preseason will flesh that position out, the real battle is for those WR slots... It's a new coaching staff & GM... which means no ties to the old... And, I just have this really strange feeling that Peerless will be let go in the end unless he shows something special in the preseason, which means this weekend... Game 2 to me always seems like "the" preseason game, where the starters are in the longest and you have your opportunity to shine... Games 3 & 4 some teams pull starters after just a series or two for injury prevention... And to evaluate their backups... Game 2 is the best test... Which is why if you are a JP fan, you have to be happy he's starting this week.

What I remember was it was the day before I went to St John Fisher, which was the Wed or Thu before the Packer game... As I recall, it was when he was diving for a ball, not from a collision or tackle from any other player...

It's actually a rule... 5 years is the maximum contract length for his draft slot... 6 is the max for Whitner...

If Evans can deliver, and peerless still has the form he had as a #2, then we could have some receivers... Trouble with receivers is... you have to have a QB who can deliver and right now we don't even know who that is... Jerry Rice wouldn't be Jerry Rice without a Joe Montana or Steve Young throwing to him. I don't care how fast you are, or how well you run routes if the QB can't deliver it doesn't mean squat. Given that ESPN ranked our QB's 29th, they don't have much faith in them either. I think our receivers are better than our QB's... but that's just me.

Wow. Rest in Peace. As someone who has thought about suicide many times, but was able to recognize what I have to live for... how tragic... For any of you who know someone who has discussed suicide, please take them seriously. There are 3 questions you should ask them, if they can answer 2 or 3 of them, it is time for intervention. (I learned these from a crisis management therapist...) 1) How are you going to commit suicide? 2) When are you going to commit suicide? 3) Where are you going to commit suicide? If they can answer these questions, it means they have truly made plans for it, beyond just simple depression and thinking about it.