Sen. John Blutarsky

Right. But which of those things was something we did not know?

Yeah he should talk to Jerry Gray about that. You're never more than one season away from being an unmentionable.

Paterno turned down either the Jets or the Giants in the 70's. He tells the story about it. Apparently he accepted the job, went home and thought about it, called them back the next day and stayed at Penn State.

Tim, I read your recent note questioning where the faith that Cowher is still coming despite countless reports to the contrary. I guess I'm still questioning why we haven't heard from the man himself. If I'm his agent, I'm loving that the Bills are getting denied left and right and if we've had a conversation I keep putting it out through back channels that they aren't coming without officially closing the door. It's not as if Cowher doesn't have a vehicle to be asked the question to publicly put it to bed and it isn't as if CBS would mind being the network to break that sort of news to people. Every report I've heard, Schefter, Peter King, Mortensen, etc. have all been on other networks and from "sources". I don't understand what Cowher has to gain from not coming out and flat saying he's not interested if it's not, at least in part, a negotiating strategy. His representation had to be hoping for a bidding war this off-season and were anticipating Fox, Coughlin, and Raheem Morris (if not Wade Phillips, etc.) getting the axe. That didn't happen and very quickly the Bills became the only girl without a prom date. That's not an ideal situation to be in. Ralph is cheap, he saw that Shanahan only got 7 mil a year from Daddy Warbucks in Washington and Pete Carroll only got the same from Seattle so what HAD been a 10 million dollar market at Thanksgiving quickly became a 7 million dollar market and Ralph always likes to buy on sale. Cowher's reps were then left with no real jobs to parlay against the Bills so the only remaining tactic was to delay and make the Bills uncomfortable so they would bid against themselves. Now, we'll really see how much of these interviews and declines are jousting if the Vikings lose tomorrow. Nix gushed over Frazier and if he's not hired this week (if available) you'll get an indicator that it was posturing.

Now I agree that that angle is silly, but what if there's a hefty penalty clause should Cowher leave CBS before the end of the season. If that's the case and the agreement is in place there's no downside to waiting, except for all of our sanity.

I will accept an interview to be the next coach of the Buffalo Bills. I promise to let Buddy Nix handle the personnel decisions. I promise not to run a pass first offense. I promise not to run the Tampa 2 defense. I promise to play ugly smash-mouth football at all times. I promise not to say that it's hard to win in the NFL. I promise to have facial expressions.

And then back to laGuardia after a quick jump over to another airport, maybe closer to a meeting site?. The 2 airports are about 40 miles apart. Ooooooh <shivers>

FWIW, a Bombardier Challenger 300 left NE Philadelphia Apt at 7:41am to Buffalo. The same plane then returned to NE Philly Apt at 2:40pm. Either McDermott or Mornhinweg was here. * NE Philly is a very busy airport for smaller private planes. -edit- Also, FWIW, a Net Jets Gulstream left Teterboro at 2:27pm bound for Oakland County Airport in Pontiac, MI. Another Gulfstream was inbound from Palm Beach and set to arrive at 3:20. Anybody know where Ralph's office is? i think he lives in Grosse Point

Harley - yes Walking out - yes

Yeah, but only 29% win on the first possession.

Sudden Death is sudden death and that's what makes football football and not baseball or basketball. I don't know where this false sense of fairness and entitlement came from in sports but it makes me sick to hear. Lets assume that we give both teams a possession then how is it fair that one team would get the ball first and have to decide on 4th and goal from the one whether to kick the field goal or go for it. The team who has the ball second has the advantage of knowing what is required. How is that "fair"? Maybe we should require both teams to play simultaneously at opposite ends of the field. Of course we'd then need to have 2 possessions so we could switch sides to account for the wind and disproportionality of crowd noise. In fact, maybe what we should do is what they do in European soccer tournaments and have all playoff games be two game series so each team gets a home game to be fair and ties can be decided by aggregate scoring. That's really really fair. Everyone gets the ball, everyone gets a home game, everyone gets a hug and orange slices after the game. It all works out.

If you win the toss you have the right to choose to play defense. You are not required to take the ball and as matter of fact I can think of several games in Orchard Park where I would have chosen the wind over the ball every time.

I did a super quick search and from 2000-2007 that scenario occurred in 37 of 124 OT games. That's less than 30%. So in 70% of OT games both teams get the ball.

The Eagles actually ran the ball a lot more when he came aboard. You can tell the games where Reid took over the gameplan because the run/pass ratio is crazy. I still agree with you that the WCO is crap and does not work in windy places. Don't underestimate the effect of the Dungy thing on coaches. Reid's kids have gotten in all sorts of trouble recently and Mornhinweg's been around to see that. Reid's sons have both gone to jail and Garrett has been more than once.

Play defense.

And if Rodgers had hit the bomb on 1st down why should AZ have been rewarded with another possession for missing the GW FG then failing to play any defense? NFL OT works, the team that wins the toss wins less than 50% of the time and they didn't win it today either. College OT is a joke.

I don't disagree, I'm just throwing out he new names we're allowed to hear this week. After next week either Garrett or Frazier will be definetly be free, Rivera or Schottenheimer, Cam Cameron and Vic Fangio or Pete Metzelaars and Frank Reich and maybe Grimm if AZ loses. Metzelaars is Jr. O-line coach and Reich is QB coach so they're not up for HC spots but I wouldn't be shocked to see Metzelaars name thrown around as an OCsoon.

Let's put it this way, if Mornhinweg agrees to come and pulls his kid from his place as starting QB (as a freshman) for St. Joe's Prep who went 9-3 and got knocked out of the playoffs 35-28 to the eventual state champ AND is an early verbal commit to Stanford. A. I'll be very surprised. B. Canisius better get on their horses and get him in there before Joe's or Frannies does. SJP is the Jesuit school in Philly so hopefully they have an inside line. I don't see it happening. He's under no pressure to move on, he's ultra-safe in Philly with Reid there.

Yeah, ok, tell me you saw that one coming. Cuz when i think Brady in the playoffs I think terrible.

Mike Zimmer - DC Cincinnati Dom Capers - DC Green Bay Mike Trgovac - D-line Green Bay, former DC Carolina (possible DC choice) Pepper Johnson - D-line New England (possible DC choice) Marty Mornhinweg - OC Philadelphia, former HC Detroit. His kid was starting QB as a freshman for St Joe's Prep in Philly and is an early commit to Stanford - unlikely to move Sean McDermott - DC Philadelphia McDermott is terrible and I don't know why he's even being discussed. I hope that the two consecutive destructions by Dallas put his name to rest. He rode Jim Johnson's coat-tails and nothing more.

Yeah, but who is the DC. With Frazier that's as big a question I hate the Tampa 2 with a passion and it needs to go. If Frazier's keeping that then he can't come here regardless of his OC. We don't play in Tampa Bay, we don't play inside, we don't score 30 pts per game. It's cold here, it's windy here, we play against teams that run the ball and against QBs like Brady who tend not to make unforced errors. That scheme sucks for our situation.

You know, if the Bills were trying to clandestinely fly in a candidate don't forget they could use Niagara Falls or any number of smaller airfields to land. I don't know how much runway a Gulfstream needs but Niagara Falls is long enough to land a C-130 and military jets.

The problem with that is Fox needs to quit or get fired first and that doesn't look like it's going to happen. Cowher is just as apt to let Fox be a lame duck, take over football operations during the 2011 lockout then be back in 2012 with his own handpicked team.

I have come to the conclusion that no matter who they hire I'm going to be disappointed. I really really want Cowher but I'd be OK with Jim Harbaugh or MARTY Schottenheimer, or even Jason Garrett if we needed to hire a coordinator. Frazier would send me over the edge, the lesser Schottenheimer is <meh>, I loathe Billick. I guess my problem with Schottenjunior is that I don't know enough about him to know who he'd have as asst coaches or what his defensive philosophy will be. The longer this goes on the more I fear that we're going to end up with someone we don't want.

But seriously, Reid drafted Kolb to supplant McNabb and he performed pretty well when tossed in there this year. The Eagles have gone to great lengths NOT to extend McNabb's contract this year even though this is typically when they extend a player they want to keep. If you get to the last year of a deal as an Eagle the writing is on the wall. Check out what they did with Brian Dawkins last year. They let his deal expire, then low-balled him and let him walk. It's certainly didn't make them better defensively as safety was a trouble spot all year long. As a person who has been subjected to the Eagle front office for nearly 15 years now trust me, this is as good as done and the fan base is throwing him under the bus just as badly. Re: Vick, there's no way he stays as a 6.5 million dollar back-up next year (what his deal escalates to) and I don't think Reid sees him as the starter so they have to deal him too.