Sen. John Blutarsky

It's not pandering to the team, it's appeasing the market. Dallas has a lot of fans around the country and have a big loacl market. When they are good, they will be on at 4:00 a lot. it doens't hurt that they are West of the Mississippi either. As for the NY teams, there's a reason that they NEVER play at the same time. NY is a huge TV market and TV pays the bills. if a NY team is even reasonably good they will be on at 4:00 nationally often. This weeks Miami/Jets game has national appeal because of Favre and while we are all sick of it to deny the national appeal of such a game is foolish. Boiston is CBS' biggest market. They LOVE that NE is good so they can put them on a bunch also. When the Bills were good they were the marqee matchupand had wider coverage. When you don't make the playoffs for a million years your broadcast appeal gets smaller. IMO the Bills national coverage this week is pretty good given that we seem to ahve just about the entire upper mountain west and a good chunk of everything else. I'm a little confused about why Tampa/new orelans is on in LA and vegas and that might change if the affiliates opt into something else. The only local angle I can think of is Reggie Bush and that's pretty thin. Especially for Vegas.

Same plane. I'll be there with my wife. I'm not worried about damage too much, just the leftover winds and rain since the storm will move quickly between friday (when it's supposed to be near Jax) to Sunday (when it's supposed to be in Maine). I'm hoping our plane gets out before it gets too bad.

Part of the issue with online ads right now is click through and since advertisers have an option to go with print they will. When that option is removed companies will still want to advertise so rates can go up. As for permanence, most pages have a rotation of advertisers that change per click, there's nothing saying an advertiser can't buy each slot and ALWAYS have their ad on the front page. Advertisers do digital billbopards now even though from a marketing standpoint they are stupid. Why? because when you buy a traditional billboard whatever you put up stays there until they sell the baord again. So if you buy the board for one month and they don't sell it again for 5 your ad is up for 4 motnhs for free. With digital boards your ad is in a rotation so it isn't even up all the time and is taken down at the precise end of your contract, no freebie time. yet, the digital boards cost a bunch more than traditional billboards. It makes no snese. You get less coverage for less time and people pay more. once all the old billboards go digital advertisers wont have a choice and will either play ball or not advertise. Same with papaers, once the paper is gone they'll find a new outlet for their dollars and trust me when I say that every business is trying to figure out how to advertise successfully without newspapers or direct mail because they are expensive. If papers get in there and push their space aggressivly and tie current print contracts into online contracts to FORCE current advertisers to begin to convert over they will have some success. If they leave it as an either or the company will always choose the old proven way and when the odl way is gone they will balk at the cost. If they get used to paying for something the sticker shock won't be there later on. Right now paper sell their web space like a used car. Come get this space, dirt cheap. Rather than saying if you want the prime space in our print ad, you'll buy this too. I guess my question in return would be if a newspaper can't figure out how to drive revenue through it's website how does a company like Google (or the myriad of porno sites in the world) make money at all? Part of the problem here is that papers are so late to the game that it will be hard for them to make entry. Why would a person pay a newspaper for an online classified ad when they can do the same thing on craigslist? What if the paper bought craigslist (or a regional license to it) and put in a fee structure wherein some level of free service is still available but there are higher tiers of pay services. Same for the news. Why not have tiered access? Papers already do this to some extent by requiring you to pay to access old articles. Why not have a setup similar to ESPN.com wherin there is the free site and the pay site that restricts access. Make daily access easy to do and offer people the same subscription discounts you will offer them if they had home delivery and then have a per day rate of whatever you charge for the paper. You can read the basic site every day for free, if you want the good stuff for one day it's .50 and 2.50 on Sundays. If you want a subscription we'll cut you a break on the daily rate but charge you a month at a time. Can you get a taste of the news for free? Yes. Can you go to a store and pick up the paper, read the front page then not buy it. yes. Offer people the ability to have text messages sent to their phones with breaking news or whole articles e-mailed to their blackberries but charge them for that ability, not as a per each because people willl say I don't want that article I don't want to pay .10 for it. If you offer them blanket coverage per month people will sign up for it, link it through specific cell phone companies and as part of the contract have the cell phone company be the default home page on the blackberry browser to drive hits to your page. Point is there are ways to make money by selling things apart from what you have traditionally sold. Check out philly.com Both philly papers are linked there (they are both owned by the same company - an ad agency at that) The site is pretty good IMO though it could be easier to navigate.

I'm not sure the map is correct right now. It shows Buffalo as gettign the Miami/Jets agem at one. problme is that's opposite the Bills game at one and as far as I know that ain't kosher

If I may be so bold to ask. Why does a newspaper have to be on paper? It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I have no time. I do not have the time during the day to read an entire newspaper. i get through about half of it at lunchtime, at which point I have already heard all of the news in the paper from other outlets. is it not possible to have a newspaper in a purely online format? Thus feeding our need for 24 hour news while eliminating the massive overhead that comes with a paper? It became clear to me the other day that newspapers as a medium are dead. The Phillies played a thrilling 13 inning game, culminating in a big comeback win. They had been down 7-0 and won 8-7 in 13 innings. it was one of the most exciting games of the year and was the topic of every discussion that morning. I picked up the paper to read the boxscore and found that there was no information about the game in the paper at all. Why? Because the game ended too late for press. For me to get the news out of the physical paper I would have had to read it the FOLLOWING morning. In contrast I was able to fire up the old Interwebs, get to the online edition of the paper and read to my hearts content (minus the boxscore which came later courtesy ESPN.com). The paper missed out on the best sports story of the month, however, the news entity had it covered. I'm not saying the idea is outmoded but I'm saying the delivery method is. The town crier ceased to exist, the Pony Express ceased to exist, telegraphs ceased to exist, and soon newspapers as we know them will cease to exist. not because they don't provide a good service, but because there became another way to do the same job, only faster. I feel bad for all the workers at the paper who lost their jobs and who will lose their jobs, but when's the last time you cried over the out of work switchboard operator while making a phone call? Technology made them unnecessary and while the journaists are still necessary, the paper and ink and all of the people that go into that are not.

Great. I'm flying out of B-More on Saturday AM. Looks like it will be a fast mover once it hits land. They are forecasting the low to be centered over Maine by Sunday at 8am so Saturday might be wet but Sunday PM should be OK. As for Saturday Am, they are still calling for the storm to be south of VA so I should be able to get out of B-More. Current storm track is good for me. If it slows down my flight will be better but it will be worse on Sunday, if it speeds up my flight is in jeopardy. Stupid weather. Root for it to hit Jacksonville and go inland early.

Say Hi to my cousin. He drives a Stryker. Adam Brown of Annandale, VA. I kid of course, it's a needle in a stack of needles, but ya never know. Good luck over there, we'll all be thinking about you guys during the Anthem.

Yo. 4 ex-pats coming home, like the Swallows of Capistrano. Sec 331, row 19, seats 10-13

How did Marv's drafts go? 2006 Donte Whitner - starter John McCargo - key reserve Ashton Youboty - nickel back Ko Simpson - starter Kyle Williams - starter Brad Butler - starter Keith Ellison - key reserve/ST player Terrence Pennington - cut in 2007 by BUF, cut yesterday by ATL Aaron Merz - out of football 2007 Marshawn Lynch - starter Paul Posluszny - starter Trent Edwards - starter Dwayne Wright - cut yesterday John Wendling - reserve safety/ST player Derek Schouman - #2 TE CJ Ah You - cut yesterday by Rams Marv's regime also got us: Fred Jackson - #2 RB John DiGiorgio - #2 MLB who started 14 games last year Justin Jenkins - #5 or #6 WR/ST gunner and all around beast John Corto - reserve OLB/ST Kirk Chambers - Starting RT at the moment and hopefully key reserve Ryan Neill - solid long snapper Derrick Dockery - starting LG Langston Walker - solid starting RT and current LT So that's 7 of 22 starters to come out of two drafts. He also snookered the Eagles into giving us a draft pick for Takeo Spikes which freed up salary. The Eagles released TKO after one year. He didn't give Darwin Walker more money even though we all wanted him to and Darwin went to Chicago and did zip. Chicago released him after one year and he is now in Carolina He robbed the Ravens in the McGahee trade, who after one year is hurt again and has fallen out of favor due to his work habits to the point that they drafted a RB to supplant him in Ray Rice. Did they miss on Tripplett? Sure did, but he was choice #2 after Ryan Pickett who signed elsewhere. Overall I think Marv did a terrific job of turning over the roster, bringing in young, talented, FAST players. Compare that to what we got out of the last two years of TD. Where's the problem again? marv brought some talent evaluation ability back to the team that had been lacking.

He'd show up around now but there wasn't the silent treatment or air of mystery about it either. If Jason shows up tomorrow, in shape, I think he plays

Need to get up 2 or 3 scores early and keep the hammer down. Score them out of running the ball and force them to throw with their banged up QB and WR corps. Wounded animals are dangerous and right now the Seabags are wounded. They a can go either way. Either you stomp on their necks early and they curl up and die or they rally around the flag and make life difficult for you.

Looks like they are calling for Gustav to stay in the Cat 3 range for now which would be a plus. The longer it sits as a somewhat weaker storm the less surge will pile up. part of the issue with Katrine was it got up to a 5 and stayed that way for awhile so it had time to build upa big surge which hadn't dissipated by the time of landfall. Right now there seems to be just enough in the way of atmospheric hostility to keep Gustav from getting super organized and really ramping up. It's passing over the last of the super warm water now so if it doesn't get ti ttogether soon it probably won't get much worse. Big plusses all around. There some is upper level shear that's ripping the tops off the clouds and keeping organization at bay. Go shear, shear is good. More and stronger upper level winds if possible if you're in the praying business. Good luck to all in it's path and lets hope we dodge the big bullet.

Willie Anderson anyone? I know he's old and was beat up last year. He's one season removed from the Pro Bowl and our tackle depth is underwhelming with a rookie and a guy with a torn rotator cuff leading the way. I think Willie might be worth a call and a physical. Even at his advanced age he can come in off the bench in a pinch and start a couple games for you if the starters get hurt. Plus it'd be a nice message to Peters and his agent "We're making plans without you and BTW Willie's going to get some of the money we aren't paying you."

I call shenanigans on the Eagles on Dunlap. they wanted to keep him but had a number crunch.

I'm picturing the Peyton Manning commercial except he's chanting "Ride that pine! Ride that pine!" I think we stay in house for our TEs though given the revamped system. We may go Chroiseless for a week or two until Schoumann gets back.

This season. It aired on 7/20, don't recall the episode name. of course the quote is in reference to Dr. venture but so what.

Apparently the NFL Network is hosting a show re: cut day tonight at 8:00. Since the cuts have to be reported to the league I assume they'd have the info available for their own show. Hopefully we get it from the Bills before that though.

That's kind of what I was thinking as well but Jefferson is expendable to me. I know he nominally plays DE and DT but you don't really want him on the field at either. At least McDougle or Smith would be another legit pass rush threat. I think the Eagles are trying to trad eone of them to prevent the Giants form getting them since they have a gaping hole at DE. I'm curious about Eugene Wilson as well, he sort of fell of the planet after a meteoric rise. He might be worth a back up safety spot assuming he's healthy and reasonably interested in playing football.

See also: Wade Phillips

Fair enough. I'm not overly thrilled with our depth at OLB or Safety or offensive tackle, but I don't know the fringe players or unheralded rookies from other teams well enoughh to know if I should be looking for anyone of interest in these areas. As many of us are from other cities I thought maybe some people would have some insight. Another interesting possible cut from the Eagles is King Dunlap. he's a 7th rounder from this season and he's competing with former 2nd rounder Winston Justice for a spot. Justice has been terrible, in pre-season and during the year last year. Osi Umenyora had 6 sacks off Justice in one game. Dunlap is guy they might try to sneak through to PS who is their version of Demetrius Bell. He's young, he's big and he's raw but he's interesting. He's worth a spot on our PS if he's cut at minimum.

No but the title of the thread does imply that if you know of anyone interesting it would be nice to share for conversation given that it is that time of year. I didn't really intend to be the only person posting players. If I wanted a McDougle thread I would have made a McDougle thread. It's duly noted that, despite the fact you haven't seen him play, you don't think McDougle will do anything in the league. Got anyone else to discuss or are you spent?

1. 1986 Chevrolet Celebrity cream yellow with a 90 some odd HP 4 banger in a 4 dr sedan. I pegged it past 85 once (the speedo stopped at 85) and I though tte car was going to explode. The car had 2 names. First the Yellow Submarine as an ode to the Beatles. 2nd was the Trash Heap (from Fraggle Rock) or The Heap for short due to the ever present mountain of miscellaneous material in the backseat. That was the best nsow car of all time, it was big and heavy but horribly underpowered, you couldn't spin it if you wanted to. Ia ssure you that thign went off-road several time on the snow covered W River Pkwy on Grand Island and just drove right up the embankment and out. One annoyance was the electricl sustem. It got to be that whenever it was damp outside, rainy whatver, you'd have to spray this crap on the distributor cap and plug wires to dry them out or the car woudn't start. Probably fixable but I was 16 at the time and money to fix cars did not exist. i specifically remember one foray offroad during donut, slliding time where the car conked out. Pop the hood and you see no engine, only packed snow. Waited 5 mins, snow melted, car started, went home. This, except yellow and with the 4, not the V6 2. 1989 Pontiac Grand Am. I bought this car for 3k with 60k on it in 1998. I subsequently sold it to my sister for 1k in 2002 with 135k. She finally put her down Old Yeller style in 2007 with 197k. 80's GM 4 banger lasted 19 years and nearly 200k on one engine, one tranny and with minimal rust. It finally died when the head gasket blew. The car survived at least one accident when I got rear ended by a Range Rover. replaced rear body work and boot, worked fine. That car sucked and was great at the same time. It had annoying little things about it but it got 33mpg at 80 mph. It had little, or sometimes esoteric, things break but the parts were cheap and easy to replace. The thing was indestructible. The oil pump crapped, when i got it replaced the shop didn't seal up the oil pan correctly so unbeknownst to me I was hemmoraging engine oil all over the PA Tpk during a 5 hour ride the next day. Got home, noticed it was running a little warm (neglibily at that, not as in on red with lights flashing) , l popped the hood and found a no oil left and since I had not stopped for 300 miles had likely not had any for quite awhile. The car ran for nearly 100k more miles after that. FWIW, the 2.5L 4 cyl engine was made in Tonawanda This, except maroon

Yeah? They've been like that for a month, first complaint. Better now?

Update, Smith had 11 tackles and 1.5 sacks tonight. McDougle had 3 tackles, .5 sack, and at least one good pressure that led to a sack by Dan Klecko. All told McDougle ended up with 2.5 sacks in 4 games and Smith had 1.5 all of which were tonight. Tonight was by far Smith's best game statistically.

to be honest I don't think he's a real FB. He won't even approach Darian Barnes in terms of blocking. He's more of a big RB than a small FB, but it's where the Eagles are playing him now.