yungmack

Maybe not the most overrated, but right up there. I don't hold his entire NFL draft class of QBs in high regard.

I love those people who eat outside a restaurant, right where thousands of exhaust-spewing vehicles are crawling along, then act all "eew-y" when a smoker walks past them. BTW, I'd rather have smokers near me than those strapped gun-toters in the knuckle dragger states.

Dodger Stadium did this a couple of years ago. You have to go outside the stadium to have a smoke. Still no restrictions on foul-mouthed, drunken, gangbanger "fans." But at least they've gotten those psychotic smokers under control.

Nicely done.

I guess Nix is an idiot...after all, he didn't identify QB and LT as the team's highest needs, unlike Kiper, and many who comment on this board have done. And because of his foolish failure to draft for these Kiper-defined needs, the draft was a failure. I mean, who the hell does Buddy think he is to NOT do what Kiper says he must? I don't know, maybe I'm an imbecile, but I'm going to trust that Buddy Nix knows more about the real needs the Bills have, and who he thinks are the best players available to fill those needs, surely more than I do.

I'm with you all the way on this one.

I think Sanchez is better than you think he is, but aside from that, I agree with you. Also, the Bills are making a major commitment to the defense this year. I think we absolutely improve against the run. And if they choke off the run, the Jets (and a lot of other teams) are going to be forced to throw the ball. And if my aging memory isn't failing me, the Bills already had the Jets passing game in turmoil. The 2010 Dolphins could go either way, but I don't think they've improved enough to be unbeatable. NE appears to be in something of a decline which a newly aggressive and effective Bills defense could accelerate with one good hit on Brady. So, to me, the AFCE is wide open this year.

Considering all the changes since last season, until we see the actual team on the field, it's very difficult to project how the Bills will do. But the four opponents are a "Known known." So if the Bills are improved even a scant 10% over last season, when they were awfully close in several loses, I think 4-0 is not out of the question. Then again, neither is 0-4. I think I'll wait until late August to decide.

I know, I know, it gets crazier around here by the day.

In all the years I've followed the Bills, I don't think I've ever seen a draft class like this. Without exception, everyone of the picks and FAs seem to be really good kids. And they all appear to be bright, thoughtful, reflective, modest and genuine. Even Spiller, who of all of the Bills picks might have had the "right" to be cocky and flashy, is anything but that. Heck, he went against his own mother's urging in order to finish his schooling, in part because he felt an obligation to the man who signed him. I think this bodes well for the Bills.

As much as I'd love to see Luck with the Bills, the only way that happens is if the Bills have the worst record in the league. I really can't see that happening, do you?

Legalize it..all of it. No more profit in the blackmarket, no more cartels, no more funding of the Taliban, end of problem.

Name the games the Bills have no chance of winning.

Take a look at this year's schedule and tell me which game the Bills have absolutely no/none/zero/nada chance of winning.

I'll give Nixley the benefit of the doubt on talent assessment.

Here's a quote from Allen Wilson that tells me the league is as anxious for Wang to succeed as are the Bills: "TV figures for NFL programming in China are up to 102 million "unique" viewers." I have to say, that really surprised me.

That'd be an interesting place to put a crown.

Have to agree with you. BTW, sports fans, take a look at this year's schedule and tell me which games the Bills have absolutely no chance of winning?

Now there's a rewriting of history. Wouldn't have been a Fallujah problem if the Corps had been left to continue what it was already doing before the arrogant Blackwater clowns sent those guys roaring through an explosive situation to deliver... kitchen ware, then Dubya's team decided they had to go "boots in their ass" even if it meant the locals were going to go nuts. Then there was Odierno and the 4th ID kicking over the beehive in Tikrit after the Marines left them a pacified population. And the idiot Tommy Franks who capitulated to Rumsfeld and his wack jobs and their "plans" to conquer millions of people with such a small force that they couldn't even secure and guard the massive stashes of bombs, shells and other armaments they discovered (much of which later was used for IEDs) At least Franks had enough sense to run away when he saw the mess he helped create metastasizing before his hungover eyes. I shouldn't have to mention -- but I will -- that Petraeus's vaunted counterinsurgency manual is essentially a rewrite of the Marine Corps manual on insurgency developed during and after the Spanish American War in the Philippines. And his Clear-Hold-Build approach? An updating of what the Corps was doing with its CAP program in Vietnam until Army General Westmoreland put a stop to it because its success made his overall strategy look stupid. The Petraeus Surge? Again, based on a Marine Corps initiative which had already largely pacified Anbar (and was what the Corps was trying to do in Fallujah in 2003 until politics and Army bullheadedness intruded). Some of the worst days in the history of the Marine Corps came when it was under Army command: Belleau Wood, Peleliu, Okinawa and Chosin. And it was Army commanders who stuck those Marines way out in the boonies at Khe Sanh, only to abandon the position after the battle. I don't mean to disparage the Army grunts who have a deservedly proud history and who today are probably as good as they have ever been. But the Army officer corps? Oh, man. If you're looking for the cause of historical Army failures, never put the blame on the valiant soldiers on the ground; look no further than the West Point culture.

Ah, the Navy....The Marine Corps taxi service.

I find this quite interesting. Nix has added quite a few linebackers between the NFL free agents, draft and the college FAs. The change to 3-4 also means Kelsay and Schobel should move to LB. And I don't know that he's done with LBs. So far, it's a crowded field right now. It looks to me like he and Gailey saw this as an area of real need. What I wonder is what this means for the LBs currently on the roster. I also can't recall them saying anything about how they regard Mitchell and Poz the way they have with the RBs, QBs, Kyle Williams, Schobel and even Bell. Maybe they have and I've just overlooked their comments. But if they haven't, I wouldn't invest in a new house just yet if I was an LB last season with the Bills. Comments?

You could also fairly say he was brought in under the Buddy Nix regime....

The one word I think sums up the Bills over their half-century of existence is "erratic." There have been some good eras, some phenomenally great eras, and a whole lot of mediocrity. Out of all the head coaches in 50 years, only three (I believe) had a winning record: Saban, Knox and Levy. The team also historically seems to have alternated between spending money on players and keeping them around, with sudden attacks of miserliness and roster turnover. And throughout this history, there is only one constant, only one person whose been there for the whole thing: Ralph Wilson. I can't see how he cannot be held responsible for the Bills institutional "DNA," for the good times as well as the bad. That said, I don't think Wilson has been a particularly bad owner, especially when compared with the other owners in the NFL. I've been around long enough to remember when the Pats, Jets, Eagles, Steelers, Niners, Bears, Cards, Skins, Saints, Bucs and Broncos were much more screwed up than the Bills. The Cowboys and Dolphins have recently gone through a bad patch. Even right now, the Bears, Rams, Raiders, Lions, Jags, Bengals, Falcons, Broncos, Skins, Eagles and several others are either perennially a mess or maybe stabilizing and improving (we'll see...I think the jury's still out on the Skins, Lions and Falcons). There are a handful of teams who are elite franchises (my definition would be stability, consistency, always finishing in the top third of the league, and doing so for ten years or more) which would include the Steelers, Pats, Cowboys. Other than those few, the rest of the league is a constant churn, with most of them in a constant state of rebuilding or "looking for that one missing piece" that will take them to the Super Bowl. What all those teams I mentioned had in common over the years was poor to mediocre ownership. As an example of good ownership, the Steelers and Niners only became dominant under new owners (Dan Rooney, Jr., and Eddie DeBartolo). I don't think it's a coincidence that the Chiefs, who were a premiere franchise for decades, really went into decline with Lamar Hunt's illness and subsequent death. So, in the end, we have the owner we have, love him or hate him. There's just enough success in the last 50 years to give us hope that we're on the threshold of another "golden era." And enough mediocrity to fear that whatever is being put together now could just as easily be torn apart for reasons we'll never completely understand.