SoTier

Totally agree. Booth had a broken leg, an injured thumb, and the entire Union Army after him, so he wouldn't have gotten very far without help, which few Southerners were in any kind of position to offer even if they were so inclined. People love fantasies about people who were supposed to have died but really didn't. Probably the biggest such "mystery" in the 20th century was that Grand Duchess of Russia, Anastasia, somehow escaped execution at the hand of the Bolsheviks. Anastasia Romanov Then there's always the tales of Elvis being alive and well and living somewhere incognito. John Wilkes Booth was probably as well known at the time of his death as Elvis.

Even very modestly talented LTs who can do a credible job as starters are probably going to command $7 million.

And I'm saying that deciding to move on from Rosen is more an indication of the incompetence of the Cards organization than an honest evaluation of Rosen himself. Instead of taking Murray with the first overall pick, they could have picked somebody like Bosa or better yet, traded back and gotten more picks as well as a top five or ten pick because they could certainly use a major infusion of talent. Their new QB is going to be hampered by poor talent just as Rosen was. Allen and Rosen had similar passing stats last season, and the Bills had only 6 wins with some of their losses being embarrassing blow outs and most of their wins being struggles. Pegula/Beane didn't fire the entire coaching staff, bring in a new coach without NFL HC experience, and waste their first round pick on another QB after investing so much draft capital in Allen. Instead, they took steps to put better offensive talent around him and hired a better QB coach to give him a better chance at success. That's what a competent organization does. PS - my comment about some posters calling other posters trolls wasn't meant for you personally but for another poster.

Dawkins may very well be better suited to be a guard. It may be a contributing factor to his struggles last season. As for the expertise of the Bills OL talent evaluators, I'll reserve judgement until I see them actually make some astute moves. Last year, Beane and/or McDermott didn't seem to realize that in order to have even a mediocre OL, a team needs to at least have some NFL caliber talent to work with. I didn't like Castillo but in his defense, he had very little to work with; Beane just collected some bodies and inserted their names on the offensive line depth charge.

Aside from Morse, most of the FAs were second tier guys, most not starters on their previous teams unless due to injury. Dawkins has to regain some of his rookie season form to be average, and Ford is a rookie himself so he may not even be good enough to start early on. Until this unit plays in real games, it's way to early to assume anything except that they'll be better than last season's group -- but then, that wouldn't be too hard to do. Let's see what they can do in games that count before making predictions about their ranking vis-a-vis other NFL OLs.

This might be it. His release and/or throwing motion might also be an issue. I think even before the draft, he wasn't ever considered discussed among the prospects likely to go before the sixth or seventh round. I think I saw one article somewhere calling him a "sleeper pick" or something.

Ford was drafted to play RT because that was his position in college but many experts think he's physically better suited to be a guard. My point was that it's a pretty common thing for collegiate OTs to move inside when they get to the pros. It's not like they would be trying to convert a 2nd round WR to DB, which is rare.

No, you don't get anything. I don't like some TSW posters attempting to intimidate posters with opinions they don't like by calling them "trolls". I also don't think that any rookie QB can be blamed for being stuck in a situation beyond his control. Furthermore, it's extreme homerism for Bills fans to make excuses for Allen not putting up passing numbers similar to Mayfield's while dissing Rosen who not only faced the same kinds of problems (poor protection, ineffective receivers, poor running game) but also had to deal with a coaching staff that was in disarray almost from opening day as the Cards OC was fired early in the season. Allen's big advantage over Rosen last season was his mobility and his running ability. Without that, he would have looked as miserable as Rosen because their passing stats are comparable. At this point in their careers, there is absolutely no guarantee that any of the 2018 QBs are going to make great QBs, including Mayfield. It's simply too early to determine how much progress any of them can achieve, and if that progress is enough to move them forward. Moreover, of the 2018 first round QBs, Allen probably has the most room for improvement and the Bills didn't help him a lot by managing (or mismanaging) his rookie season the way that they did. Given that he didn't suffer permanent injury, his elbow injury was probably a blessing in disguise because it gave him some time to sit and learn.

Another instance of TSW's homer patrol attempting to intimidate anybody who doesn't toe the homer line du jour. The last time I looked, neither Josh lit up the NFL with his passing stats in 2018, and neither is guaranteed to do so in 2019, either. Really? I disagree. What it does is make Arizona's ownership/GM look even more incompetent than they had proven themselves to be the past few years. Only an incompetent organization would trade up to get a first round QB and then throw him away after a single season where he struggled on a team that was a dumpster fire to draft another first round QB on the say-so of a mediocre collegiate coach who has never coached in the NFL before.

Exactly this. Dawkins played well for a rookie LT but he wasn't anywhere near a top NFL LT. Playing beside Incognito with Wood at C making the line calls really helped him. Dawkins' play certainly didn't make Cordy Glenn "expendable" -- Beane's determination to move up in the draft to take a QB made Glenn "expendable". Without help from his LG and C, Dawkins struggled as a sophomore, but while whoever the Bills have a LG isn't likely to be as good as Incognito, he shouldn't be as bad as the scrubs that played LG last season. Morse is probably as good as Wood, at least in making line calls. So, Dawkins should play better than last season and keep his starting LT position but he's unlikely to become a top NFL LT in 2019. Ummm ... no. While the Bills brought in FA OLers who were significantly better than what was on the team in 2018, most of them weren't starters on their previous teams or were starters because of injuries to other OLers. Some of the guys listed in your post were only on the Bills roster because the Bills needed bodies in 2018. Because college coaches tend to play their best OLers at OT, especially LT, regardless of how their skillsets translate into the NFL game which requires more speed and strength, and better footwork from its OTs, especially LTs, than collegiate ball does. That's why many college OTs move to OG in the pros, and why it's not uncommon for collegiate LTs to move over to the right side. McDermott is not an OL expert, and I seriously doubt that he's solely responsible for making draft picks, so we don't know if Ford was actually drafted to be a RT or if the Bills intend move him to OG. The Bills will try Ford at RT but they may eventually move him inside, especially if they acquire a better RT. What is better? A poor OT or a good/excellent OG?

Unless you dislike them and then they cause all kinds of health issues ...

The problem with the Bills is that they have missed so often on their trade ups, most notably with Losman, McCargo, and Graham. All three were busts so anybody they would have taken in their places would have been better simply because they would have had the extra picks. Your view is dead on with Watkins and Jones, although since the Bills didn't keep Watkins, that move was a waste of draft capital, and Jones has yet to prove that he's not a bust.

How do you know that Rosen isn't a good teammate? Because he has opinions that you don't like? It can divide the locker room but it can also lead to some players not giving their all when they think that the better QB is sitting on the bench in favor of the owner's/gm's/HC's pick or if they have no faith that the QB who's playing can get the job done. The 2017 and 2018 Bills under Nathan Peterman seem to have been good examples. In 2017, I think the players wanted Tyrod not Peterman. In 2018, they realized before the coaching staff that Peterman was crap. In both instances, I don't think the team -- or a significant part of it -- played as well as they could have when Peterman was QB. That they looked immediately better under Allen as well as under Anderson and Barkley underscores their lack of belief in Peterman.

2017 Subaru Forester has about 27k. Since I retired, I actually put more miles on my vehicles since I drive to fun places rather than mostly make my 7 mile RT commute to work.

Thanks to all the Ice Age glaciers. On our land in northern Cattaraugus County, the fields on the north side of the farmstead are igravelly soil while the fields on the south side are much more clayey. That's probably a distance of less than 100 yards.

Exactly. The land has road access via the current owner. The current or a future owner could sell part of his frontage and the back 14 acres to somebody. If the farmer bought the 14 acres to add to his land, then it would become part of his much larger parcel -- and even more likely to be developed at some point.

The "Problem" is that you can only have 1 starting QB at a time, even if it changes from game to game, which means that only 1 would get most of the reps and coaches' attention at a time. When a team with an established veteran starter picks a first round QB, the youngster generally sits and learns early on. That "sit and learn" period may last less than a full season (Flacco and Jackson) or more than one season (Favre and Rodgers). With two young QBs only a year apart on the team, the attention is either going to go to one, so that the other one gets left out when he's in as much need of coaching and learning as the starting QB. How, exactly, does that increase "the Odds" of finding the right QB since the same GM selected both QBs a year apart? The Cards were NEVER going to get a first round pick for Josh Rosen since their willingness to trade him after one season labels him a "bust". My guess is that they don't get a second for him at this point since three QB needy teams are out of the picture. If another team offers a third, they best grab it. As for the Brees/Rivers situation, remember that Brees was a 3rd year starter who had had a decent rookie season and was somewhat established when the Chargers traded for Rivers. They got a treasure trove of picks as well as the better QB for swapping Eli Manning for Rivers, but they got nothing for Brees, who has been a better QB than Rivers throughout his career, who left in FA.

Thermal solar is not pv solar -- photovoltaic solar -- which is the type of solar power that the Audubon Society endorses. They endorse pv solar with the caveat that steps be taken to minimize danger to birds and other wildlife as well as their habitat but they would do that with every type of power project. The reality is that everything people do impacts other species and always has, and the best we can do is mitigate the damage we do.

Yeah, there are positives -- like slowing global warming which will negatively impact almost all species of living things. Modern PV panels can produce electricity even on cloudy days, which is what makes building pv panel farms in WNY feasible. Small pv panel arrays are popping up all over rural Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties to provide power for dairy farms and local government facilities as well as individual homes. Individual pv panels provide power for all kinds of permanent and temporary warning/traffic control lights along interstates and rural highways. Smaller energy producing facilities spread over a wide area significantly decrease the threat of terrorism simply because terrorists seek to have significant and symbolic impacts, so the Kinzua Dam would be a much more likely target than the Ellington Town Hall, and the New York Power Authority facilities in/around Niagara Falls would be even more so. The Audubon Society supports solar power, most notably the pv panel arrays, and addresses the issue of "lake effect" and other dangers to birds. Why Solar Power is Good for Birds

I totally agree. Beast Mode was the third best RB to ever wear the Bills uniform behind only OJ Simpson and Thurman Thomas, and he proved it in Seattle. That he didn't play longer for the Bills is totally the fault of Wilson, Brandon, and their assorted minions on the second floor of OBD who been much more interested in making more profit than in winning football games. My guess is that the jackasses who are dissing Marshawn don't like to be reminded -- once again -- of all the players the Bills have had and kicked to the curb since 2000 -- Antoine Winfield, Pat Williams, Ruben Brown, Jason Peters, Marshawn Lynch, and Stephon Gilmore are among the most notable but certainly not the only ones -- to be replaced by significantly less talented players at best or, too frequently, scrubs that didn't belong on an NFL roster.

I'm thinking along these lines, too. Rosen stays with Arizona, and the Raiders grab a QB in the top five -- Gruden has never met a QB he didn't love, so he'll try to grab whomever he loves best from this class.

You're going to get roasted for being a "hater" by the true believers on TSW for even daring to even think that Baltimore might be as good or better than the Bills in 2019. Despite the fact the Ravens had 10 wins and made the playoffs in 2018 and in 2017 had 9 wins and missed the playoffs because of the same Hail Mary fourth and twelve play that broke the Bills 18 year playoff drought, the Bills cheerleaders are convinced that the Ravens are going to challenge Oakland, Arizona, and the Giants for the #1 pick in 2020 while the Bills are going to challenge NE for the AFCE and be a serious Super Bowl contender because their never-fail crystal balls tell them that Allen is going to be great and Jackson is going to bust.

Dareus was a good pick in 2011, and he played well early in his career, making Pro Bowls and even being named an All Pro while under Doug Marrone. I don't pretend to know what happened to him while he played for Ryan and McDermott but he doesn't seem to have regained his early form when playing for Marrone in Jax. My guess is that something in his personal life or with his mental health changed his interest/attitude towards the game. My guess is that it wasn't Buddy NIx or Doug Whaley but Russ Brandon. Brandon was all about putting butts in the seats, as evidenced by his signing Terrell Owens in 2009 in order to placate fans upset over the extension of HC Dick Jauron after the horrendous collapse in 2008 (the Bills then set a then-record for season tickets sales in 2009). In 2013, Ralph Wilson had died and the future of the team was up in the air. Fans were nervous. The Bills had a new HC with, to say the least, modest NFL credentials. That he had been pretty successful at Syracuse was probably his biggest selling point. The best way to excite the fan base at that point was to draft a first round QB, which always excites the fanbase. Hence, taking a first round QB in 2013 was a no brainer for Brandon -- that there wasn't a QB worth a first round pick in that draft -- even no QB even worth a 2nd or 3rd round pick in that entire draft -- was immaterial to Brandon. If the Bills had drafted Gronkowski, most of the MB GMs would be whining about him being "injury prone", but AFAIK, the Bills never had an iota of interest in Gronkowski because they didn't even meet with him at the Combine despite his Buffalo connections. My guess is that Troupe was a "need" pick. Certainly Graham was, although how the Bills didn't NEED a QB in 2012 was bizarre, especially the only fault in Wilson's game was that he wasn't 6'2". Agree. Manuel is the absolute poster boy for NEVER taking a first round QB just because you need a QB. The Bills decided that they needed/wanted a QB in 2013 in the first round, and they were taking one, even if the entire QB draft class was simply awful.

I'm sorry that I misinterpreted " ... folks will come after you with pitchforks and fire for suggesting it [holding unpopular opinions] or at least try to make it so you can't hold a job or speak in public, that's the way we've been moving for decades now and it's accelerating in the age of social media" as being based on personal experience rather than simply being a general defense of hypothetical defenders of reprehensible ideas whose public comments could hypothetically get them fired.

If Johnson hadn't gotten caught up in the Vietnam War, he would be viewed very differently today. Medicare was also created during the Johnson Administration (1965). LBJ is an example of a leader who "did the right thing" despite being born, raised, and reaching adulthood in a society that mostly produced unapologetic racists or those who tacitly supported them.