yungmack

A lot of the negative positions sound more like they're anti football than a concern about concussions. Even if you eliminate football, it seems to me that most of us have (or will have) a concussion or two sometime in our lives. Unless you want to live in a sanitary bubble, injury is an unavoidable part of being alive. And to those of you who won't let your kids play football out of a fear of concussion, I think you are being waaaaaay too overprotective. The likelihood of of an 8, 9, or 10 year old getting a concussion while playing Pop Warner is probably no more likely -- and maybe less -- than soccer (at least the football players are wearing a helmet). Sure, it can happen but so can your kid slip while running through the house and hitting his head on the coffee table. Or falling on an icy sidewalk. Or running into a tree while playing tag (if kids even play tag anymore). As the kids get older and bigger and faster and stronger, sure, the chance of concussion goes up. But the same is true for hockey, soccer, baseball and just about anything worth doing. To me, the real reason to think very carefully about letting your kids play football has less to do with concussion than with all the other injuries that can come with it, particularly damage to the knees. A high percentage of people I know who played at a decent level through high school have now lived most of their lives with that damage and the pain that comes with it. Those non-concussion injuries also account for the majority of suffering that retired NFL players live with, some of whom are barely even able to walk at all.

And that's true about the majority of people who live here too. BTW, the Chargers (named for the Hilton Hotel charge card) and the Angels were also "born" here. And wouldn't the world be a less happy place without another LA creation, Roller Derby?

Hardly a whiff of truth in this entire statement. Through good years and bad, the LA Rams were one of the top box office draws in the league. Same for the Dodgers. Same with the Lakers. The reason the Rams moved had little or nothing to do with fan support and everything to do with the typical NFL scam of wringing governmental (aka, local taxpayer) money out of the yokels who somehow came to believe that having an NFL franchise made their city instantly an elite one. LA, then Anaheim, refused to go along with the strong-arming while St. Louis couldn't wait to hand Georgia Frontiere bushels of money. Now that those conditions are changing in St. Louis, Rams ownership is looking longingly westward yet again (The Rams were originally a Cleveland team). As to the Raiders, the fall off in attendance had more to do with the sort of crowd they attracted than anything else. Gameday at the Colisseum came to look more like the Yard at San Quentin than a football game. Bloods, Crips, 18th Street, bikers, they were all there and all about as close to out of control as you can imagine. BTW, the Raiders still have a huge fan base in LA, and not all of them have teardrop tattoos. The Dodgers, who haven't been to a World Series since 1988, continued to draw three plus million a year until last year, when the fans finally had enough of the greed of Frank McCourt and the increasingly Latin-ized, crude and dangerous crowds who were making up a goodly part of that 3 million attendance. My personal take on the NFL in LA is that most of the people I know are fine with things the way they are. No blackouts, no huge traffic jams on Sundays, no tax money going to billionaires. Besides, an awful lot of people here are from somewhere else, including enormous numbers from Taiwan, China, Korea, Iran, Armenia, Thailand, Russia, India, Israel and every Latin country in the western hemisphere. What they have in common is little to no interest in American football. As to the Americans, loads of us come from other parts of the US and tend to still support our old "home" teams. That leaves a fairly small base of natives, many of whom still carry the torch for the Rams and the Raiders. As far as I can tell, the only people enthusiastically supporting NFL teams in LA are the sport reporters, the land developers and the construction unions. The rest of us could care less.

Absolutely!

There were May Day celebrations long before there were Communists. Both pagan and christian.

Why so serious?

Actually, he'd won the starting job then broke his fibula and was replaced by Matt Barkley.

The reason for the disparity of opinions on Glenn come from, I think, the fact that he didn't move to LT until last season and he wasn't great from the start. In fact, he's said he had a lot to learn. What I think Nix liked was that he most definitely improved week to week. The guy who started the last game of the season was a much better LT than the guy in Week One. And that bodes very, very well for the Bills. As to Graham, the Bills were looking for a tall burner who could really stretch the field (a major problem for the Bills in the second half of last season). The most important part of that profile was "burner." So they couldn't get a receiver who combined the whole dream package and instead took a guy who will put defenses back on their heels. Gonna be hard to cheat up into the box when Graham can blow past you. Right now, I'm sure Fitz is doing his best Amish Back Flip.

Exquisite diagnosis of the bi-polar illness that afflicts some of our fellow posters. It also manifests itself in the unshakeable belief that nearly every player on the Bills is inferior to (and should be replaced by) anybody cut from any other team not named the Bills.

Really? Stevie is only decent? And just how much better value to the Bills are Blackmon, Kuechly, Kalil and Claiborne than Gilmore? Kuechly, Blackmon, Claiborne and Gilmore are to me basically interchangeable picks when considering the Bills' needs this year and were probably equally rated by OBD. I would add that Mark Baron was probably also in their mix. So why would you sacrifice two, three, four or more picks to move up when, by staying pat, you could get one of those guys? And, considering the Bills only had one pick, some of us were bound to be disappointed no matter who they took. The Bills top needs this year are LT, WR, LB, CB and maybe S. With that in mind, it seems to me the only sensible player to trade up for would have been Kalil. But I think it's clear now the Vikes never had any intention of letting him get away. I'd bet your soul to the devil that they got assurances from the Browns that they wouldn't use the 3 pick to take Kalil. So with him out of the realm of possibility, LT was scratched (none worthy of pick 10), as was WR (plenty of good ones all around the draft) leaving LB, CB and S as the positions of need, with CB probably the most pressing need. And they got one of the best rated ones. I don't know, but it seems to me things worked out just fine for Buddy and the Bills. And it cost them nothing to get one of the premier players in the draft.

The best I can figure from all the reliable mock drafts is that one or more of the following players will likely be available at #10: Kuechly, Kalil, Gilmore, Barron, and Floyd. So long as the Bills pick one of them, I'll be happy. If they pick Tannehill, Rieff, Martin, Adams or Clady there, I'm going to kick your dog.

You know, I think you've inadvertently hit upon a great nickname for this team, with Buddy's talent for snatching good to great players off other teams PS, beating other teams in picking up waived players, and snatching a top FA from under other teams noses then holding him "hostage" at the Hole In The Wall (One Bills Drive): Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids. If you put it up for a vote, you've got mine.

Made my day!

Please note: this is NOT Mayock's analysis. This is an unsigned NFL Network analysis. Better to wait until Mayock gives his in-depth analysis which airs tonight on the NFL Network at 8 Eastern/5 Pacific.

Fred Biletnikoff used to smoke on the bench. This might have been more common back then, but he's the one I remember doing it.

A. J. Smith was a John Butler guy. When Ralph screwed Butler around, Smith left with him. If Smith has a personal thing going on, it probably has more to do with Ralph pretty much exclusively. There is a loooong list of people who feel very much like Smith, starting way back with Cookie Gilchrist and Lou Saban, and continuing with Bill Polian and Wade Phillips.

I don't think this is the position of highest need but I'm fine with it if that's the way the Bills choose to go.

:lol:

Keep in mind that Fitz QB-ed at Harvard. That's a nice enough college program but hardly a football factory. And certainly not a place where you're going to get highly specialized coaching meant to prepare you for an NFL career. That he even wound up in the NFL is a heck of a personal accomplishment. Then he spent several years as a backup, where you are not the coaches focus. When he finally gets the starter role, it's under an interim coach. The next season, he begins as the backup once again, then is suddenly elevated on the fly to starter. Finally, last season he's the designated starter and what happens? No off season interaction with the coaching staff until the labor contract was finalized. So, whatever good we've seen with Fitz has come with a fairly minimal amount to top level coaching interaction, and even that has been intermittent because of circumstances. This season we should see what a full year of focused coaching can do, including the addition of Lee to work with him. Or, to put it another way, this is the real make or break year for Fitz.

Two reasons Fleener won't be wearing Bills gear: TE is not a critical need this year; and Fleener is going in the first round. While I don't think the Bills will grab a TE anywhere in the draft this year, if they do feel they need one, I'd favor Dwayne Allen in the second. Still, I'd rather they used the second and third rounds on WRs, DBs and OL.

Adams was also one of the players involved in that "Tattoo" scandal that get his head coach fired.

If enough people vote of this topic to make it meaningful, maybe Scott or one the helpers could formally submit it to the Bills and to the NFL as an expression of the fans. Might be cool to get other teams' fan sites to do the same.

I like Spiller a lot. I have no objection to him being on the roster whatsoever. I think he's going to have a fine career. My problem was using the #9 pick on him. In the "new" NFL, RBs are no longer the stars of the draft. I wouldn't say they're a dime a dozen, but their value has fallen dramatically over the last decade as the league has become overwhelmingly a passing one. This year, Richardson seems to be the only one being talked about as a top pick and even that isn't certain. I don't know if the Bills could have grabbed him in the second round, but they surely could have gotten a very good runner later on. I'm too lazy to look it up, but someone around here probably knows which DTs, DEs, WRs, QBs that were available that year at #9.

I'm not singling you out here, just your comment because it's a fairly common meme around here, this idea that Fitz is somehow a place holder until the real Bills QB is found. And apparently quite a few people feel just about anyone who's ever thrown a ball in college will do. I don't know if they secretly believe Chan has a QB Developer Machine in his basement that you put a guy in, then come back in two years and, voila!, there's your next Hall of Famer. People suggest the Bills should invest a couple of years in one of these guys. But that's exactly what they're doing right now with Fitzbeardy. Last season was his first full one as the announced starter. And he had to do it without off-season training camp for himself and the rest of the team. The 2012 season will actually be his first with a full off-season as the designated starter since he came into the league. So maybe we can see what he does this year before chipping in on a Greyhound ticket.

BPA and it filled what Buddy at the time thought was a key need. I believe he was wrong about that, and also wrong about even considering a running back as "best player available." Those days are gone...for now.