DonInBuffalo

If you consider 25/30 with a TD, no Int, and a 114 rating a "miserable drop off", then I wonder how he would do when healthy? Please identify for us all (or at least some) of the times you noticed him being "very shaky at times", just so we all know what we're talking about.

A big part of the problem is depth/injuries. The Bills signed Mitchell with the idea of having him play SLB, with Crowell being a short term solution at WLB. They drafted Bowen expecting him to be a ST freak this season, and then replacing Crowell when he left after this season. With everyone healthy, the backup LBs would've been Ellison, DiGeorgio, and Bowen. Of course, it didn't work out that way. Bowen was put on IR during training camp. Crowell threw the Bills a curve by deciding to have surgery right before the season started. DiGeorgio got hurt and put on IR a few weeks ago. In your last paragraph you mention the other big part of the problem. A defensive unit has to play as a TEAM. It's only as strong as it's weakest link. If the DL or DB play is substandard, that limits Fewell's options as to what schemes he can use for the LBs.

Washington definitely did it on purpose. I've also seen other players do the same thing in the past. I don't understand why this hasn't been addressed by the rules committee already. One of the most basic rules in football (or pretty much any sport for that matter) is you have to be entirely in the field of play to make a legal play on the ball. All they would need to do is add a rule for kickoffs that makes it "illegal touching" for a player who is out of bounds to touch a ball in play. There wouldn't need to be penalty yardage associated with it; they could just spot the ball where it's touched. This hypothetical new rule wouldn't be the first penalty with no yardage associated with it. Technically, it's a penalty for the kicking team to touch a ball that has been punted before the other team touches it. They never bother to throw a flag because there's no yardage associated with the violation.

I had a recording of that game but unfortunately had to erase it because I only have enough free space on my hard drive to keep one game at a time. Hopefully someone else here has a recording of the game and can verify for certain. According the the nfl.com gamebook, which IMO is probably the more reliable source, this play took place with 3:43 left in the 2nd quarter.

For starters, no pun intended, Smith and Moss both are listed as the same height as Parrish, but have a listed weight of about 20 pounds more.

One thing to keep in mind is that the biggest offseason, physical development wise, is rookies going into their second season. We won't know how physical he'll become until he's had a real offseason in the weight room. I'm hopefully correctly quoting Marv here, if not I'm pretty close: "It's not about doing extraordinary things, it's about doing ordinary things extraordinarily well." Put simply, the ordinary thing the Bills expect Hardy to do extraordinarily well is CATCH THE BALL.

My observations are quite a bit different. While it's early, right now McKelvin has "bust" written all over him. Nate Clements had already played a lot of nickel early in the season and earned a starting job by this point in his first season. McKelvin didn't play a single snap at nickel in the preseason, and the coaches had so little faith in him they didn't put him in for a single play today to replace someone who was obviously getting burned due to playing hurt. OTOH, I'm very optimistic about Hardy. Of course he doesn't have breakaway speed, but he has all the other physical tools to become an outstanding possession receiver. He has a big learning curve as far as running routes; he never had to adjust his route in college based on coverage. (i.e. "hot read") The "agility" comment is comical to say the least. I suggest you go back and review that TD catch he made in the corner of the endzone. I don't know enough about Ellis to form an opinion yet. He was active for last week's game, but didn't play. He played sparingly today, but wasn't noticeably better/worse than anyone else on the DL.

I may have gotten off on the wrong foot with The Dean in a previous thread on this subject, possibly in part because one or both of us didn't include the sort of "it's just my opinion" disclaimer such as he did in the initial post in this thread. As best I understand the business argument at this point, of course simplifying it to a great degree, here is what the two sides are arguing: TW: It's costs you nothing to provide this service to us, as we're just pulling in your signal and retransmitting it. In fact, we make you money by providing your signal to a larger viewing audience. So we don't want to pay a fee. Lin: All of that is true, but you also make more money because you're carrying our channel, and we feel we're entitled to compensation for that, because it costs us money to produce that signal, even if there are no additional costs associated with transmitting it to you. As a consumer, I feel caught in the middle. I'll repeat a question I posed in a previous thread, but clarify it to avoid misunderstanding this time. Let's assume the only thing I watch on cable is ESPN and Sabres games. (not far from the truth) If Lin charges TW a fee, that fee will no doubt get passed along to me. Why should I essentially pay a fee to Lin so I can watch ESPN and Sabres games? From my perspective, it's just corporations colluding to find yet another way to charge me money for providing absolutely nothing. At the very least, I should have the option of opting out of this service/fee, if I prefer to get the channel OTA or not watch it at all. IMO the arrival of HDTV has added a big new wrinkle to this whole issue. Previously, cable subscribers were virtually certain to receive a much higher quality signal for analog local channels via cable vs. OTA. Since the consumer is receiving a tangible value-added, he doesn't mind paying a small fee for that value. Now with HD, many consumers can receive essentially the identical signal for free that they now are being asked to pay a (indirect) fee for. I'm not sure if this is just coincidence, but from my experience WIVB has probably the weakest signal of all the local stations. For example, watching the game today, on my TV with a cheap pair of rabbit ears I bought at Target, the signal was repeatedly dropping out. Fortunately, I had a convenient alternative. I also have a capture card on my computer, and a nicer Terk antenna hooked up there, and got the game without any problems. From a logic/business perspective, I'm guessing WIVB has nothing to gain during this standoff by improving the quality/strength of their OTA transmission, in fact probably quite the opposite.

1st paragraph: How do you figure that? The Edwards fumble was essentially a rookie mistake made by someone who should know better. Royal's fumble had nothing to do with the OL. (Parrish fumble irrelevant anyway) The only turnover that was caused by OL play was the interception. Of course, the safety was also caused by OL play and that's arguably a turnover too. IMO the OL play has improved from last season. (which isn't saying much) Grading them for the season so far: pass blocking - adequate. run blocking - marginal. 2nd paragraph: Agreed.

Looks like you'll be sitting near Elvis. Hammer's Lot or Drive 2 would both be good alternatives for parking relatively close to where you sit. (I sit in 334, but won't be going to this game) Drive 2 is easier for getting out of the stadium, as you can cut across lot 7 and go out Drive 7 (ECC parking lot) , bypassing that nasty logjam at the corner of Abbott & Big Tree. It's also close enough to Hammer's Lot you could walk over and mingle with the folks there.

The stadium lots are $25, unless you have a $5 off coupon that was mailed to all the season ticket holders. The satellite lots are less. Generally speaking, the further away from the stadium, the less it costs. What section are you sitting in? That might give us a better idea about where to suggest you park.

According the the Gamebook at nfl.com, Simpson started on defense. I don't know how many plays he was in on defense, because I wasn't paying close attention until partway through the game when I noticed Simpson wasn't out there. I noticed Simpson playing on the kickoff coverage unit, but don't recall seeing him out there on other units. (although he might have been) I'm guessing that his injury at this point limits him in some specific types of movements that you need to play FS but not to play on ST coverage units, such as backpedaling. As far as Wendling goes, the coaches are probably hoping he can eventually develop into a reliable backup SS. In general, I really like this move, because the more versatile your safeties are, it gives you more ways to confuse the offense. For example, both Whitner and Scott are more effective blitzers than Simpson, because they're stronger making it easier to shed blockers.

The common sense thing to do is activate the LB you have on the practice squad, because that guy has spent the last 7 weeks (and probably training camp, etc.) practicing with the team.

That looks like an "opinion poll" where people were asked to rank the teams. The most commonly used football stats to rank offense and defense are YPG.

If someone gets placed on IR, per league rules they can't play for that team during the remainder of that season. However, if they have a doctor's opinion that they've recovered to the point where they can play, they can file a grievance via the NFLPA to force the team to release them. That's essentially what happened with Steve Christie.

Corto was converted to LB during the preseason. He took lots of reps during those games at SLB, in part due to Crowell being injured. Assuming DiGiorgio goes on IR, the logical assumption is somebody from the practice squad gets promoted. Wouldn't necessarily be Buggs, but that seems the most likely candidate just to insure they have enough backup LBs on game day.

Why would it matter? The parking lots are distributed around the stadium. If some people who park on the North side prefer to go in a gate on that side, even though their seats are on the South side, wouldn't logic suggest there would be a similar number of people who enter a gate on the South side even though their seats are on the North side?

IIRC the reason the Bills went to the Commissioner's office is because the Bengals weren't using the no-huddle as a legitimate offensive weapon, but rather a gimmick to get defensive penalties for too many men. IOW, they would substitute personnel, and then quickly run up to the line and snap the ball while the defense was still making changes. Here is an article consistent with my recollection: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...752C0A96F948260 The rules were clarified to require the offense give the defense ample time to substitute if the offense changes personnel. I can't even count how many times I saw Kelly running the no-huddle and just standing there waiting for the defense to get their personnel on the field and lined up before he called for the snap. That's much easier to see from in the stands than it is on TV.

IMO it makes no sense to trade for a WR. Reed and Parrish (when healthy) have both been productive. The only thing Hardy needs to get better is to gradually get more playing time. The only WR problem the Bills have is figuring out ways to utilize all their other players once Hardy becomes the starter. Maybe on 3rd downs, they could put Evans/Hardy wide, Roscoe in the slot, and Reed and one of the RBs in the backfield, instead of putting a TE there. That could create some interesting matchup problems.

I wouldn't call someone who threatens to kill multiple people and all of their family members if he doesn't get his $40,000 "harmless". Drug dealing that that large of a level pretty much always involves guns, and often includes violence. There's also a ripple effect where deals even 2-3-4 levels down almost always involve guns and often violence as well. And that's just scratching the surface on the overall effect of drug dealing at that large of a scale. Based on everything I read about Vick, first of all he wasn't slaughtering dogs for a living. He was playing football for a living. He used his wealth to fund the dog operation, which may have resulted in dozens of dogs getting killed. I doubt if the total was even close to 100 total.

I agree with all of this except the part about Chris Collins being more qualified than Palin. I originally thought so when she was nominated, as Collins has run businesses for many years, and Erie Country has more people and much more difficult financial issues to deal with than Alaska. I mentioned this to a friend of mine who has worked for Erie County Social Services for many years and he set the record straight. Collins has been handling the negotiations with the union as if he is still running a private business where he's the owner and has that leverage over the union. He's tried "negotiate" by telling them they'll need to make concessions for nothing, and the union basically laughed at him. He's tried to save the county money by using WalMart style tactics of replacing full time workers with part time, but in doing so blatantly violated the existing union contract. His feeble strong-arm tactics with the intent of saving money will in the end cost taxpayers quite a bit, as when this all plays out in court the county will have to give back pay/benefits to all the people who were hired part time who by contract should have been full time, and the county might even wind up having to pay numerous people substantial amounts of money for doing no work at all. In the end, he's no better/worse than any of the inept local politicians who have unfortunately dominated the scene for far too long.

for those who don't recall, one of the reasons Pat Williams walked was because man-boobs said something along the lines of "I don't like fat guys".

It's against the rules to hit a "defenseless receiver". So if Pennington is just standing there as if he's expecting a pass, and looking away from the defender, and the play is nowhere near him, if someone unloaded on him they would get flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. I suggested in another thread in another forum the proper strategy would be to leave the QB uncovered and put the extra defender in the box. Dare them to throw to the QB, in which case he would be open game and the guy hitting him would have a running start.

Part of the problem was injuries. With McGee out and Simpson hurt on the first series of the game, Fewell decided to take a relatively conservative approach, hoping players would make enough key plays in critical situations (such as 3rd down) to get the defense off the field. Of course, that didn't happen. We basically saw last year's defensive game plan.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/sports/176...&psp=sports The latest: trial has been moved to Montana, Henry's bail set at $400,000. There's a link to the Arrest Affidavit on that page too. Looks like Henry is totally screwed. They have at least three recorded conversations with him working out the details for the purchase.