UConn James

Then again, in my point was that the Raiders 1) have played in LA and 2) Mr. Davis still claimed it as their territory. I didn't know about his son. The estate/inheritance taxes are likely going to be killer. Possibly not as bad as any heir of Ralph would have had, since Davis didn't purchase a majority of his team 'til the late '70s --- but the govt is still going to take its juicy bite.

Perhaps today's news of Al Davis's death will light a fire under some fannies.... After a period of due respect.

I think it was telling how, as Cinci erased Nelson from Fitz's options, we struggled to move the ball/chains. As I've written here, DN has more than filled Josh Reed's shoes.

If anyone can truly be called an eccentric, Al Davis was it. He was a man who had his vision of things and stuck to it. Sometimes to the astonishment of all as his band of pirates bloodied and stunned their way into Super Bowl prominence, but most of the time, especially these later years, making matters worse for his team WRT coaching hires (with what coaches he could attract given his management style and hierarchy) and zany personnel moves. It seems that altho the love-hate relationship the league had with Davis is now over, the fans are assured of there being relative stability of the franchise. Given the givens, it will be no surprise if the Roski(?) group buys the team and moves it to LA, either right away while playing in the Rose Bowl stadium and/or once the proposed stadium is completed. It sucks somewhat for fans in Oakland proper, but their team is assured of staying in the same general region. Such a move might also benefit the 49ers and help quell some of the bad blood that has generated between the teams (the ugly incident during preseason only the most recent) from such close proximity. And as Bills fans, we can see a silver (and black) lining that this brings some measure of relief to the rumors over the years that our team would be heading there. So at the risk of sounding a little crass, it's fortunate that Mr. Davis went to the giant pigskin reward in the sky first. RIP.

Big 12 Invites TCU Yet Another Blow for Big East Can't say I blame them....

AP: Mizzou hoping to join SEC, reveal they were shunned by the Big 10 last year

Brandon is a very weird dude. First, the tunnel vision of wanting to get rid of Mikayla and his very creepy leering at her in the first few episodes. "He's got some demons," Coach said. No stevestojan. It's like Brandon wanted Mikayla to wear a burqa so he wouldn't get a chubby looking at her 6. And while I wouldn't kick her out of bed, and all due respect that she was in Playboy, her face is very manly. So far, Blue has stuck to the alliance of five. And I expect that to last. Brandon is getting to be a really whiny B word tho. Loved how Coach told him off tonight. It's like Christ, kid, get it together! Red is basically picking off people who are helping the least in the challenges. I missed ~ the first 40 minutes of tonight's episode so I didn't see whatever scheme Cochran was shown hatching during the preview this week.

Then again, that's probably the best matchup among the CBS early games.... Just hope the Providence FOX keeps with Bills-Iggles.

A point I've been trying to make for the past few years as people here kvetch about the defense. How many times have I typed out "... the NFL has slanted the rules in favor of offense...." I don't know, but it's a lot. McKelvin complainers say that while he's usually in position to do so, he doesn't make plays on the ball very frequently/well. Well, pass interference calls that spot the ball at the point of the foul are at least part of the problem. A DB puts his hands out or up, or even just a slight nudge and he takes a huge risk in gifting a WR a catch he may not have been able to actually make. It seems like McKelvin takes the option of his close presence at the point causing enough of a distraction in the WR's attention to force an incompletion. Can't say I entirely blame him. It's Catch-22 these days. The thing in all of the rules changes, tho, is that the balance in the game is gone. It doesn't really matter if you invest heavily in your defense. Given the rules, most any offense you face is going to get yardage, is going to get points. What matters most is the margins --- forcing a field goal here, bending-but-not-breaking and forcing an odd punt, coming up with an INT or knocking the ball out. But wait, you say, to a large degree defense has always been about the margins. Yes, but the margins are ever thinner. Defenses can no longer take away the big plays from talented offenses because --- by nature of how much harder the committee has made it to play unpenalized defense --- they aren't allowed to do so! The NFL wanted more scoring. We're seeing high-30- and 40-point games at a time of the season that used to favor the defense as an O got its stevestojan together. This is what's wrought. Neutered defenses. So, it shifts most of the burden of success onto your offense. When the other team scores, your offense needs to respond in like kind or you're soon going to be down 14. It's one thing getting a defensive penalty; it sucks, but it's not as big a deal in a league where that's going to be the equivalent of a routine slant pass because your DB has to be scared to breathe on a WR. Getting screwed over by the refs on offense now hurts bigger than ever, which is what made the Stevie Johnson catch-then/but-not-a-catch such a blow. And as much as our O looked like it can hold its own (with our starters in place), the FO's almost entire devotion to drafting defense --- while perhaps necessary and beneficial to rebuilding what Jauron literally gutted --- can't continue. Teams need to invest first and foremost in a QB who can run your offense, and then offensive (OL second most important) depth. Look at the Colts with Manning vs. without now. Everything came unraveled.

If Ms. Attkisson doesn't get a Pulitzer for "Investigative Reporting" in 2012 (the awards are given in April).... She's been all over this at every turn. It's rather a good sign that she's hit a nerve on the situation when people who are part of the conspiracy get pissed at a reporter for discovering the truth. My father once called CBS the Communist Broadcast System, and that was before Katie Couric took over.... This series has taken it a tack back toward respectability in my esteem.

This is more evidence than they have on Rogers Clemens vis-a-vis perjury in sworn Congressional testimony.

Newly uncovered documents suggest AG Holder knew about Project Gunwalker 9 months prior than he claimed So here they are, eeking out this case bit by little bit over the course of 6 months of congressional testimony and investigation, and by the time it's completed, I fully expect everyone to say, "Old hat!" And the beat goes on for everyone involved. No consequences.... other than higher-paying jobs in D.C. ATF is irreparably dysfunctional.

We lost to a friggin' ginger. And a ginger who's a rookie, at that.

I don 't remember what they were collecting. The Philippines uses the Philippine peso, and converting 30,000 to the USD = $684.57. So I don't think that's it. The Ph. peso is divided into 100 centavos --- so carrying the decimal place over would bring the total to $6.85 (rounding up). But "centavo" doesn't ring any bells re: the currency they were collecting last night.

Well, you know what they say: "If you're not a liberal when you're 20 you don't have a heart, and if you're not a conservative when you're 30 you don't have a head." dev, bear in mind that the Harvard girl probably hasn't showered in the past week. Some guys like that, but....

Ehhhh.... Manningless Colts and the Browns are pretty much stuck toward the 4-12 end.

I didn't say it bothers me. I'm just wondering why that donation number is so low for an organization like the NFL doing this over 4 games. There's local cancer-patient-with-crap-insurance fundraisers that can raise $100,000 in a couple of days. Something as big as the NFL can only garner 10 times as much with 32 teams over 4 weeks?

It's like some of them actually read it and inferred that they had to give all of the money that they earned in the challenge, not all of their money which is what the sign said. You need to do everything literally; this is not a show that pussyfoots with meanings. When Ethan said 'This money is all going to charity, which I'm all about!' it was kind of a douchebag moment. The 30,000 in currency was probably equivalent to like 10 bucks, maybe? I think they were one of the teams that did notice the sign the first time too. They were just thinking almost entirely of themselves. Charity is not what Ethan is all about.

I didn't notice the sign being shifted at all. It was right there. It's not like they put it underneath the tablecloth.

I wonder why.... One of the main reasons why if the game ever moves entirely to the NFLN, it will be the day it dies. As it stands, some people still seem to think that altho the emperor is naked, he's wearing fancy clothes. NFLN would only ensure a WWF fix status. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

They said on CBS somewhere today that the NFL raised $1M last year for the SK Foundation. Seems a little light to me for 4 weeks of this stuff for something as big as the NFL.

I'm right there with you. I've watched the Bills games this year, but my NFL viewing in the past few years has declined precipitously. Too much interpretation up to individual refs, too much litigation on the field. This crap keeps up, I'll be giving it up completely. This is what was wrought by CBS partnering with the Pats* stadium and building the "CBS Scene" there. The league is under no small pressure by a $500M/yr. broadcast partner to keep NE a top team and in first place so their restaurant/club makes $. It was incestuous, a conflict of interest and has the appearance of impropriety.

First, Ma and Pa. Excellent recovery even tho that wasn't much of a Speed Bump.... Forgot to mention last week that Ma sounds so much like the mother on "That 70s Show." It's really uncanny. Second.... The Amazing part of this week was how many teams totally missed the sign at the orphanage. If nothing else thru all the seasons of this game, players should know they have to pay attention to everything. Notes at the competition sites, need to read your clues in their entirety, your eyes need to be peeled. There were a couple of people who seemed to notice the sign in its rectangle-ness (the guy racing with Sandy looked right toward it the first time they were there!) and their eyes just failed to process a single word even when it was in English. Some of them just don't seem to get that this isn't a show that will let anything slide; if you miss doing something, you've gotta go back and do it, even if it means mopeding 100 miles backtrack and another 100 miles like the Cowboys last season. Definitely developed a few likeable teams tonight after last week's initial ep. The surfer guys were the first to notice on their own and they were excited to give the orphanage the last of their money, as if they were only sorry that they hadn't thought to do that on their own. Liked that the Asian girl and slightly-creepy-looking-guy took it so much to heart that they screwed up and this was their comeuppance to a race that to that point had been going so easy for them. The gay guy in the shake it challenge? Worst dancing ever. Aren't gay guys supposed to have rhythm? And this week's team drama attack, the brother and sister team getting at each other's throats so early on does not bode well for when the challenges get tougher and more competitive. It's one thing for the dancers to be peeved at each other over a lost passport last week. That was something. These two were just barking at each other over nothing. (Sorry, I suck with names --- unless there's a hot girl involved --- and with camera time so split up between them all, I'm not going to retain names as such until it gets down to ~ five teams.)

You say that as if the NFL hasn't skewed the rules so much in the past several years in favor of offense. There's how many games now that are into the 30- and 40-point ranges? They want scoring. They've made it easier to score. This is now a league where you've gotta be good on O and you've gotta respond to every score tit-for-tat. Defending is harder and you can't do this, can't do that, can't do the other.... When refs hose you of an opportunity to respond while you're on O, especially late in the game when there's not much of an opportunity to get the ball back, it hurts bad.

We've historically been chewed up and spit out by this type of QB (especially ones with capable WRs) and the 3-4 probably won't change anything in this regard. And then add their defense.... Then add in refs who are going to be pissed at SJ and whatever comments are made this week --- they're not above grudges and personally, I think one of our guys needs to just lay in a ref early next week and I mean a BIG hit. I'm tired of the whole verbal ref-complaint crap during the week. This team needs to do something to send a message on Sunday. They want to f--- with us, they'd better get the fear of God put in them, break a leg and make a guy and future guys re-think trying to screw this team over so the league can have their pretty-boy Brady in first place.