Sen. John Blutarsky
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Posts posted by Sen. John Blutarsky
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One question...what was the point of telling us about games in Chicago where linemen were posted in the EZs to retreive footballs? I must have been drifting in and out, but I couldn't figure that out.
He was talking about how the owners used to cut corners to save money. I wasn't sure whether he was implying that what Halas did was a good idea or not.
There was an awful lot of revisionist history in that piece. The AFL owners knew that once Ralph gave his word that was good enough? I can run through a list of names who would argue that statement. Bill Polian was the best Gm the team ever had? Then why isn't he still GM? Cuz the honoree fired him. "They" named the stadium after him? How about he named the stadium after himself.
I still contend that Ralph has been instrumental in hiring a litany of poor GMs, poor coaches and has either run off or fired 2 of the best coaches we ever DID manage to get in Saban (twice) and Knox. He lucked into hiring Polian because Terry Bledsoe was good enough to die on the job (he should have been fired for gross incompetance) and Polian was the cheap, in-house, candidate. Good thing he was good. Levy got hired because he was the cheap in-house candidate after RW fired his last brilliant HC in Hank Bullough who the cheap in-house replacement for Kay Stephenson who was the cheap in-house replacement for Knox who left because Ralph would not build him an indoor practice facility. Stephenson was quoted in Relentless as saying the RW "never explained his reasons for selecting me." Kelly didn't come to Buffalo until he had to. The Bills were a Roosevelt Leaks fumble away from the playoffs the previous year. Why wouldn't he sign with Buffalo? Houston paid him more...oh and RW had just had a big flap with Knox who left basically over money. Let us not forget that prior to Knox's arrival the Bills were 5-23 the previous two seasons. Under him the Bills made the playoffs twice and were markedly improved. RW let him walk and they were turning in back to back 2-14s within a year.
The Levy/Polian years were an unusual period of stability within the organization and it showed. Nonetheless RW canned Polian over something stupid and the cycle slowly began again. This recent period of Bills football with constant rotating coaches, coordinators and leadership is much more normal than the previous 10/15 years were.
So bottom line, thanks for keeping the Bills in Buffalo Ralph but let's not pretend that you were magnanimous about it and didn't put a gun to taxpayers heads on multiple occasions. If we didn't foot the bill for you you would have moved to Seattle 40 years ago. If we didn't foot the bill some more in the 90's it would have been LA, or Jacksonville, or Baltimore. Now it's Toronto. You care so much about the Bills staying in Buffalo you won't even sell the team while you're still alive and have control over who buys it and where they move the team to. Why? because it makes your family more money to let the team's future play out after your death. Thanks Ralph.
Last night would have been a perfect venue to announce that because of his dedication to the fans and the city that he reached an agreement to sell majority control to an ownership group led by Kelly, Thomas, other Bills and whichever big money guy will back them (Jacobs?). All the players were present and RW could have brought them up to the deus. Imagine the reaction that would have gotten. What better way to go out than that. HOF induction, all your best players there, surrounded by your fans, announcing to the world that not only have you kept the Bills in Buffalo for 50 years but you have taken the steps necessary to keep there there indefinetly. Hell, keep a minority stake if you want to just in case they win so you get a ring or defray taxes in that way. Sell 50.1% now and 49.9 percent after you die. The tax hit is halved and we all get what we want.
Couldn't do that because as always, it's all about the Benjamins, baby.
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Interesting point about Trent. Seems to still wait for the perfect opening, when a little more courage can result in a game changing play. I agree with the assessment that he 'just needs to play more'.
If Hangartner pulls a lot, that leaves the 3-4 NT's to the rookies.. no?
Yeah but that's also one way to neutralize a big guy in the middle. Pull and trap and make him move laterally rather than try to move him out of the way. If Hangartner's pulling you'll see Levitre or especially Wood blocking down on the NT and getting some nice shots in. I'd guess we'll also see quite a bit of cutting from our guards, again to get at the big players legs and slow them down, they hate that.
It doesn't always have to be a pissing contest, my guy move your guy one on one. Sometimes, it's how can my guy outflank your guy and put some smack down in the process and our tubby interior line hasn't been able to move well enough recently to take advantage of these things. They've also done a terrible job of blocking at the second level. I'm hoping we see some improvement there with the improved mobility. That will help spring some longer runs and bring some pain to the LBs and DBs.
I'm still worried about tackle, but inside is encouraging.
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Sitting directly at the center of the group of five holdouts is Crabtree, with his infamous (in Buffalo, at least) agent, Eugene Parker.
Shockingly, Parker is the douche again.
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Stewart Bradley went out for the year with an ACL tear. Also from the article, Maclin signed and Peters is out of practice again and apparently not even on the field.
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A week into camp I would expect that a 3rd year player with 30 starts would be ahead of a rookie and a 2nd year player mentally. Talk to me again after the third pre-season game when Harris and Bowen are more up to speed. Once they can stop thinking about what they are doing and just do it the differences will become clear.
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I went to an Eagles VIP event last year at Lehigh. Similar setup except it was gratis and the swag was better, of course it was for team sponsors so that probably helps. Food was a little better, sawg included beach bags, leather coasters and all the kids got Eagles jerseys with their name on the back. Big disappointment was field access. Kids under 16 could only go onto the field with an adult in a confined area VERY VERY VERY far away from any action. Liability concern I'm sure, but it was kind of a bummer. Autographs were better managed. Eagles gave access to Chris Gocong, Victor Abiamiri, Correll Buckhalter, and someone else who is escaping me. Had a little speech from Andy Reid too.
Overall it was well coordinated in that there were no lines but I'm guessing it was also a much smaller affair than what you are all discussing today. There were maybe 200 people there in two tents. I should be getting an invite to this year's event soon. I'll let you know how it is this year. I'm guessing better since the economy is pooping and they need to show the sponsors a little more love. Case in point, my wife was in the hospital (minor thing) two weeks ago and the Eagles marketing people found out and sent her flowers. Small thing, but we had a baby 3 years ago and didn't even get a card from that person so they are clearly trying a little harder.
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If we could find 52 other guys like that we'd be unstoppable.
Sounds like the kind of guy who won't accept failure and will set a high bar for himself. Hopefully that raises the bar for everyone. It's hard to ignore the guy who is out there killing himself everyday.
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Phil "iron-man" Hansen vs. "Dr. Sack-less"?? You have got to be kidding. It took Schoebel 6 or 7 years to pass Hansen on the Bills all-time sack list. Did Seals ever have 5 in any one of the few seasons he played opposite Bruce?
What is your next comparision question going to be; who was better opposite Andre Reed, Eric Moulds or Flip Johnson???
Flip Johnson DID have that cool catch on a tipped ball for a long TD vs. the Jets on MNF. The same night TT ran for 200 yds IIRC.
-edit- I was wrong. Johnson's TD was in 1988, Thomas' 200 yd game was in 1990. Both on MNF in the Meadowlands though. In 1990 Thurman managed to run for 218 yards on 18 carries (12.1 ypc) and score 0 TDs. That's kind of hard to do.
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Here's my attempt
QBs (3) – Edwards, Fitzpatrick, Hamdan
RBs (3) – Jackson, Rhodes, Omon
FBs (1) – Corey McIntyre
TEs (3) – Schouman, Fine, Nelson
WRs (6) – Evans, Owens, Reed, Parrish, Johnson, Jenkins
OL (8) – Walker, Levitre, Hangartner, Wood, Butler, Chambers, McKinney, Bell
DE (5) – Schobel, Kelsay, Denney, Maybin, Ellis
DT (4) – Stroud, Williams, Johnson, Ventrell Jenkins
LB (7) – Mitchell, Posluszny, Ellison, Palmer, P. Thomas, Bowen, Harris
CB (6) – McGee, McKelvin, Florence, Youboty, Corner, Lankster
S (4) – Whitner, Scott, Byrd, Wilson
K (1) – Lindell
P (1) – Moorman
LS (1) - Garrison Sanborn
PUP - Hardy, DiGiorgio
Suspended - Lynch
I'm not sold on Youboty or Florence and I think one of them might buy it a la William James last year. i don't think Youboty is healthy and I don't know if Florence is a good fit at nickel back. To me this is a battle this camp and the one who is less productive may lose his spot, may even to a different position if the Bills have another LB or S they want to keep like Bowen or Wendling.
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I believe that yes, he does.
Kevin Faulk did not count against the Pats* 53 man limit while serving his 1 game suspension in week 1 of last year, neither did 2 Ravens in the same situation.
Link to Ravens press release from last August
Lynch MAY count against the 80 man limit in camp as his suspension does not kick in until week 1 but he won't count against the 53 man limit until he comes back from suspension as he will go on the "Reserve/Suspended" list.
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1. T.O. - his resume of borderline personality disorder speaks for itself
2. Langston Walker - because he's a turnstile. A chubby turnstile, but a turnstile nonetheless
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If the Bills hit 9 losses at some point, Ralph will have all of the fans howling with pitchforks ready and torches lit.
You think it will take that long for the pitchforks and torches to come out? I think there are people with pitchforks now who are just waiting to re-light the torches. The calls will start after we get killed by New England on MNF. If Skeletor pulls off a win he buys himself until Thanksgiving at least. If not, all bets are off.
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Firing Jauron is really just a move they would pull in order to prevent the Bills fans from hating the team.
Sitting Flutie, Keeping Jauron, signing T.O., drafting Whitner over Ngata...since when has that been a priority?
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I just checked again. Home opener is still not sold out and Cleveland still has groups of 4 together. I didn't look at the others but if those 2 still have seats the others do too.
Cleveland will be gone tomorrow when all the Brown-eyes buy the rest.
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I prefer the upper deck as well. In general the closer to midfield and the lower you can get the better. There's less insanity. Depending on the game you are looking for you might do better using the ticket exchange or stubhub to get better seats from a season ticket holder.
That being said I just got seats in row 8 of the corner of the upper deck so I know that A. I'll be surrounded by Browns fans and B. it will be ugly.
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So I've been under the impression for weeks now that there were no tickets left for any of the first 4 home games. So I log into the Bills backers pre-sale just for kicks and found tickets to all those games. Lots of them, in groups of 4+ together.
Here's a link to the story that said they were all gone from a month and a half ago
"Bills sell out first three games"
I scored 4 tickets to the Browns game and am very happy. I just don't understand why the Bills would float it out there that tickets are gone when they're not. As a matter of fact there are TONS of tickets left for everything after the Cleveland game.
As of right now this is the status:
Tampa - single seats only
New Orleans - groups of 5 seats still available
Cleveland - groups of 5 still available
Houston - groups of 14 still available
Miami - groups of 14 still available
New England - groups of 14 still available
Indy - groups of 14 still available
The Bills backer code is TRENT in case you don't have it yet.
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So when the defense gets them down 24 points by the half does it count if they go no huddle for the whole second half?
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DJ, Russ and crew get this season to put it all together, they have my support, the bigger question is do they have yours?
Let me check...nope.
5-11 and it's ugly with regards to TO by October.
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so you are better with the surgeon smoking when society has declared MJ legal but until that point you are not OK with it?
Basically yeah and I think I fleshed out some pretty good reasoning for that.
This is what we've come to now? Even if my only reason were "you shouldn't do it because it's illegal" (which it's not)that's grounds to imply that I'm some sort of lemming? Wow.
For your benefit, because you obviously didn't get the rest of the last post I wrote, here is the cliff notes version of my "take". In the specific case we're talking about I don't care about any physiological effects of MJ. We're going to assume that the doctor doesn't have a 4 foot bong in the OR so that piece of the argument is irrelevant to me.
My concern is that I know what personal and professional risks the doctor is taking by choosing to engage in that activity. I would have a hard time letting a person who is that cavalier and/or arrogant about that level of personal risk for the sake of recreation be my surgeon. If they'll take that much risk on themselves for recreation who knows what level of risk they are comfortable with when operating. If you don't think that risk is real then you are kidding yourself. Docotrs already pay massive malpractice insurance because they get sued all the time. If they test positive for an illegal substance my guess is that it will negatively impact their insurance coverage in a malpractice case (sort of like how your auto insurance won't pay if you smack up your car when you're drunk). The doc's personal assets would then be on the line in court and trust me there isn't a jury in the world that wouldn't hammer a doctor in that situation with exceedingly punitive monetary damages. That doesn't even consider what any state licensing boards would have to say. I'd imagine you'd at least be looking at a suspension of your license. That's an awful lot of risk to take to smoke some pot. I have a similar circumstance. I teach school and I have to have 3 different clearances for my job, state police, fbi (w/ fingerprints) and a background check specifically looking for any offenses toward children. If I pick up a DUI tomorrow I'm going to have a major problem at work, if I get busted for pot I'm completely screwed. Thus, no drunk driving and no pot. It's not worth my career. Hell it's getting to the point that it's risky just to have a Facebook account because so many other jackasses have gotten in trouble that employers will search you out and some require you turn over usernames and passwords so they can check you out. If my employer comes to me and says "We'd prefer you not have Facebook and are prepared to take action if you use it." Guess what, no more Facebook.
It'd be sort of the same if I had to pick between the doctor that goes base jumping or the doctor who plays squash. Neither one will impact their ability in the OR, however, each one lets me know a little about their personality. Base jumping doc is the guy I want when I have a 5% chance to live. Squash doc is the guy I want when I'm getting my appendix out.
The law impacts my "take" because if MJ becomes legal that inherent risk is removed and pot smoking doc is no longer displaying risk taking behavior in the name of recreation. In that case I can revert solely back to any concerns based on phsyiological effects and since my concerns in that area are fairly limited I would then have no problems with the doctor in question.
While we all want to be the ballsy guy it's not always the best guy to be. Sometimes you want to make the safer cut or fly around the storm rather than through it.
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The Jets are going to struggle more than you think. Unhappy running backs, a new rookie QB, new coach, new system. It all adds up to a long season.
I can see the Bills going 9-7, going 3-3 in the division, 2-2 against the NFC South, winning at home, losing away and going 4-2 against the rest losing to Tennessee and Indy.
Thomas Jones and Leon Washington can piss and moan all day long. Shonn Greene is a beast in waiting.
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The reason for the no huddle is because of the oline. I feel that the coaches think that the no huddle will make it harder for coaches to blitz an o-line that needs to gel. Fair criticisms there is defiantly a lot to be concerned about but I think you are overrating the Jets a bit rookie QB with no one to throw to won't get them 10 wins.
See and I think the opposite. One of the keys to running the no huddle successfully is having a line who has chemistry and works together well along with a center who can call out protections on the fly and adjust on the move.
As for the Jets I don't think Sanchez is going to throw the ball more than 10-15 times a game. They are going to run the hell out of the ball and play solid, aggressive defense. Baltimore's been making the playoffs with Kyle Boller, Steve McNair, a rookie in Joe Flacco and just about every other conglomeration of lousy QB in the world so I don't think that's new to Ryan. Sanchez's job will be to not screw up and captialize on field position the defense gets them.
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When they say the word ath-ah-lete. It's ATH-lete, with two syllables you hyper-concussed windbag! That and Phil Simms' QB knob slobbering.
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I'm sorry, I just can't be optimistic about this year. DJ is still here, the defense didn't upgrade at LB or free safety, the O-line is a HUGE question mark right now, especially LT, Lynch is suspended 3 games, and we have a ticking time bomb at WR. Not to mention that our division has improved around us. Here's how I see it.
New England - 12-4, Brady and a younger faster defense lay waste to us twice.
New York - 10-6, The Jets defense is going to be nasty and will take Edwards out at least once.
Miami - 9-7, Tougher schedule will bring Miami back a bit.
Buffalo - 5-11, The line is going to be atrocious and the defense is still a farce. We have a pass happy OC and no pass blocking. If TO doesn't get the ball often it's going to be very very bad. We're going to run no-huddle? Why? So we can punt faster and put the defesne ont he field more?? Here's better question, if you ARE going to run a no-huddle why the hell would you tell people about it in April????? Especially when you play the Pats* in week 1??? Why not just fax them the gameplan while you're at it.
Hate away, but I see zero reasons for optimism this year.
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So, it comes down to, what you happen to find out, about someone? You make your decisions based on a single piece of data on a single issue? A top surgeon who has performed successful surgery on you, or someone in your family, is now to be avoided if you discover he smokes a little pot, in the evening?
I guess that's one way to go about it, but I'm surprised someone as intelligent as you would be so reckless in their decision-making.
Well it moreso comes down to this. In the case of a surgeon, they run a tremendous risk of losing everything they've worked for by doing that. Yet they choose to do it anyway. Why is that choice made? Are they cavalier about the situation and say my time is my time and I'll do what I want or is it because they arrogantly believe they are bulletproof and it won't even matter if they get caught. It's not that I don't want someone who smokes pot as my surgeon bvecause of a phsyiological effect, its that I don't want someone who will take that kind of a risk to be the one cutting me open. If they'll take that risk with their own livelihood what risk won't they take with me when deciding what to cut and what not to cut?
I understand that in order to be a surgeon you have to have some degree of ego but IMO once people cross into the area of feeling like they are bulletproof they run much greater risk of catastrophic error. It comes back to patterns of decison making. The surgeon has to know that if he screws up once in the OR and someone dies and the malpractice lawyer has him tested that he's toast. You obviously never want to have that happen at all but things happen in hospitals and people often sue even when the doctor didn't do anything wrong. It would be really really hard to go in front of a jury of people and expect not to be ruled against in a serious way if your piss test came back dirty. Since the half life of MJ is so long it just amplifies the risk that much more.
If laws about MJ change then that risk goes away and I'm better with it. Until then it indicates an unacceptable level of risk taking behavior for a person who is in control of my life.
Today's game - Bills vs.... Oilers?
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted
Yeah today has to piss off old Oilers fans fairly significantly...