Billy Claude

Exactly, Buffalo is the smallest TV market in the NFL, even if you include Niagara County Ontario, it would just get Buffalo past New Orleans. There's a lot of much bigger markets without NFL teams.

I was going to say that a big jump in women's tennis at an older age probably seems to be very rare because most people , including me, only know the winners of the grand slam tournaments who typically good at a very young age. However, clearly you know a lot about women's tennis.

So I looked at the top 20 in the WTA rankings this weekend to find the age that they finished in the top 30 the WTA year end rankings. It appears that a jump like Jessica Pegula's in women's tennis is unusual but not unique. Age: Player 28: Collins 27: Pegula, Jabeur 26: Krejcikova 24: Badosa, Sakkari, Kerber 23: Kontaveit 22 Pliskova, Helep 21: Muguruza 20: Sabalenka, Ostapenko 19: Swiatek, Raducanu, Kasatkin, Fernandez 18: Bencic, Azarenka 17: Gauff So there are at least 3 other players that broke the top 30 at about the same age as Jessica Pegula. Danielle Collins, rank 8th, is the only one older than Pegula when she broke the top 30 but Collins had three years in the top 50 before that.

October 22, 1978 -- Bills 5 Bengals 0. This game made those Bills-Browns 6-3 games in the late 2000's look exciting. Safety happened when the Bengals tried to take a punt out of the end zone. I could have sworn the stadium was 25% full but official attendance turns out was 45K.

It is Nick Wright following the Skip Bayless model -- not the other way around. At 8M per year, he is not an idiot. He is lacking in any integrity but he knows exactly what he is doing.

It works for him. He reportedly signed a 4 year $32M contract renewal in 2021.

Nice story but not true. Lawrence had an endorsement deal with a crypto app. The signing bonus for the endorsement deal was in crypto. All Lawrence's money from the Jaguars (and probably most of the money from the endorsement) were in USD.

I am surprised about Marino's take on the o-line unless he was comparing it to the start of last season. Ford, Feliciano, Morse, Williams and covid Dawkins is a pretty low bar to clear. If he was comparing it the oline at the end of last year, the only change to the lineup will be Saffold replacing Williams. From what everybody says Saffold should improve the run blocking but not super impressive at pass blocking. He is also 35 years old, and has to take plays off if he gets hit a certain way. As for Quessenberry, I guess he will add flexibility but he will be a improvement as a backup compared to Feliciano? Perhaps Marino is assuming that Spencer Brown and Tommy Doyle making major improvements? Certainly one would expect 2nd year players to get better but it is also risky to assume big jumps. We are also hoping that Bates six games is the real Bates. So I don't see where one can be that confident that the oline will be much better. Perhaps Marino's opinion is based on Kroemer being hired?

When its listed like this, it is really not very much -- especially compared to the effort made to improve the defense. McKenzie, Bates -- I know that they are expected to have a bigger role this season but it is hard to argue you've made your team better by resigning your own guys. Crowder -- a wash or slight improvement over Beasley. OJ Howard -- they say he looks pretty bad right now but hard to not be an improvement on TE2 considering the Bills TE2 situation last year. Safford -- probably a wash compared with Daryl Williams Austin -- 50/50 that he makes the 53. Johnson -- a little extra depth a RB -- most likely will be T.J. Yeldon this year . Shakir -- you are in trouble if you are relying on a 5th rounder to contribute in their rookie year. Cook -- only real improvement that one should have confidence in. Compare this to defense where you signed Von Miller, Settle, Jones, Lawson, Phillips and a first round draft choice it is clear that Beane has been focused on defense this season.

Amazing misuse of statistics to conclude who is "best" at something based on categories with 5 (Davis Mills vs. red-2) and 7 passes (Tua vs. goal-line).

He was definitely pretty bad with the Jets last year. Their OL got a lot better after he got benched after the first Bills' game. Also raised a bit of a stink when he said that Zach Wilson needed to get the ball out quicker. Certainly hope he contributes more than Long, Winters, and Ducasse.

It was not a bad Jets team. The Jets had finished 9-5 in 2008 with Nick Mangini-- exactly the same record as Rex's first year. Mangold was fired because the team went 1-4 over the last five games mainly due to Favre being horrible at the end of the season. They had a great offensive line, Alan Faneca, Nic Mangold Damien Woody and D'Brickshaw Ferguson, Thomas Jones had just finished his 3rd consecutive 1000 yard season and they also had a decent defense in place with Darelle Revis and nose tackle Kris Jenkins. Though certainly Rex got more out of that defense than Mangini did. Rex Ryan got way too much credit for the team Mangini built and for being able to frustrate Belichick for a couple of games.

I would guess that NDAs are pretty common when celebrities celebrities hire people so I really don't think one can make a big deal about it. I don't understand the hotel business though.

I don't think its the people at the bottom who are sleeping in the offices. The Bills have 26 people on their coaching staff this year (21 if you don't coach the strength and conditioning coaches). That's most likely double what it was 30 years ago and I bet the number of head coaches sleeping in the office has changed much.

The number of staff wouldn't make any difference. As long as the head coarch believe spending the extra time (whether a correct assumption or not) will give them an advantage they will do so.

The full PFF article notes that although Allen has one of the lowest check down rates during the last two years (4.6%) -- the rate is twice as high as it was during his first two years (2.3%) when he had lowest check down rate in the league. Their analysis was based on two years of data so Allen's check down rate last year might be higher than 4.6%. So he is adjusting.

The only recent hires I can think of who were never OC or DC are three who just got fired, Joe Judge, David Culley, and Brian Flores. Judge was special teams coordinator for the Pats, Culley was assistant head coach for the Ravens, and Flores called defensive plays for the Pats but never had the DC title. It is more accurate to say there has been a lot of recent hires with very limited OC or DC experience. For example, Zac Taylor was only interim OC for 5 games for the Dolphins before he was hired as head coach for the Bengals although he was OC for a year at the University of Cincinnati. There's a lot of recent hires who only had one year experience as coordinator.

A team golf format (sort of like Ryder cup but with 6 holes instead of 18 and trash talking encouraged) for those who golf and some other sport (cornhole, bowling, Madden, softball?) for those who don't. A few weeks after the Super Bowl -- will definitely get good ratings.

The more optimistic Jets fans are basing their hope on Wilson's against the Bucs and the fact he had no interceptions in his last five games. They disregard the Bills game because all their receivers were injured and the Bills had the number one defense.

Yeah, Joe Douglas appears to be trying to copy the Beane playbook with the big advantage that they didn't need to give up any additional assets to get a QB.

You couldn't design a better way to mess up a player's development than the way the Dolphins have treated Tua. 1. Coming off major injury. 2. New OC every year. 3. You couldn't design a more effective way to kill a young QBs confidence than the way Flores handled Tua his rookie year. 4. A coach that obviously has zero confidence in you. 5. Constant rumors that the team is trying to replace you. I'm not saying he's would have been great with better development but the way Flores treated him certainly didn't help.

His main issues last year were skipping swing passes, holding the ball for too long, and turning 5 yards losses into 15 yard sacks. Not sure how getting more muscular helps those things.

The games are already too long. No need to lengthen them even more.

It is a legitimate question though difficult to demonstrate with a small sample size and based on the pats playoff game, perhaps he figured it out. You should have realized that you will get flamed even if you even hint at an area where Josh Allen is not absolutely the greatest. Luckily, Allen does not feel the same way. Every off season, Allen identifies areas where he can improve and works on it. As an example, most of the people on the board blame the Bills bad yards-after-catch on Daboll's play-calling and receivers not having enough speed or breaking tackles. Allen however, takes some of the blame himself and says ball placement is one of the things he will work on this summer. Allen's ability to be willing to be self-critical in a constructive manner is one of the main things that I find remarkable about him.

So according to Lewan, nobody in the know pays any attention to the the PFF ratings, yet some players are willing to kick in 50K to get higher ratings. Is there a contradiction there?