DonInBuffalo

The replay system doesn't allow challenges on judgment calls. IMO this is a very good thing. Most penalties are judgment calls, such as holding, or pass interference. If you allow replays on calls like that, you're pitting the judgment of someone watching a replay vs. the one of someone who was observing it live. You're asking the replay official to make decisions such as "in your opinion, did that constitute holding?" That opens up an entirely new can of worms, and isn't how a replay system should work. Replay should limited to much more cut & dry scenarios.

The draft sites that I've looked at say that Bradford and Clausen are the only QBs worth considering taking that high.

Probably more like 20-25 at least. Let's do some very simplistic math: - Assume the Bills make about $30 million in profit, after taxes, per season. - Assume they take out a loan for $270 million at 5%. - So almost half of your profit goes to paying interest you've accumulated that year. You only have about $16 million to pay down the principle. So there's no way it would get paid off in 10 years.

Actually, he paid $25,000 for the team. 50 years ago, $2 million probably could have bought you a NFL franchise. $270 million in taxes is a problem for pretty much anybody. I'm guessing that if you exclude the Bills, his entire estate isn't worth anywhere close to that much. So on top of factors already mentioned, if he left the team to his children, they would have to sell it just to pay the taxes they owed on it.

I agree, and he has no excuses, since the roster was stacked full of people who played almost exclusively on ST. (Wendling, Corto, T. Johnson, Parrish, ... ) There was a big dropoff this season, especially in some of the earlier games. I noticed on a number of occasions early in the season when they didn't have the proper personnel on the field for a ST play, and they either had to run somebody on at the last second, or call timeout. That's just lack of preparation on April's part. It's his job to put together all the teams, after the 45 man roster for Sunday has been determined. If anybody assigned to one of the teams gets injured it's his job to identify the replacement and make sure he gets on the field. In addition, some of the problems that McKelvin and Parrish had also have to reflect negatively on April. It's his job to give McKelvin last minute instructions on that kickoff in the NE game. It's his job to remind Parrish when it is/isn't a good time to be taking unnecessary risks. On top of that, mistakes were made that weren't corrected. One obvious example is Byrd getting called for the same penalty (unsportsmanlike - pushing somebody out of bounds and not letting him back in) two games in a row.

He has three daughters: - Linda was the first female NFL scout. She had cancer and died last year. - Christine does merchandise consulting for the Bills. - Edith has no involvement with the Bills. They have their own lives/careers and aren't interested in becoming NFL owners.

That's what I took out of it too. Now the entire football operation can be run without Ralph being involved in any day-to-day capacity.

Here are the ones I could find, leaving out special teams:Tomlinson, Antonio Gates, Drew Brees, Lorenzo Neal, Jamal Williams, Shawn Merriman, Marcus McNeill, Nick Hardwick, Kris Dielman, Angelo Cromartie Seven of them have been to multiple Pro Bowls.

There are 4 teams with less than 4 wins. There are 2 teams with 4 wins. There are 3 teams with 5 wins. There is 1 team with 6 wins. So, without knowing the tiebreaker, which is strength of schedule, we know for sure that the Bills will draft somewhere between 5-10. If they lose, it will be somewhere between 5-9, if they win it will be somewhere between 6-10. Let's assume for the sake of argument that Washington loses at San Diego, and Chicago beats Detroit. Assuming that scenario, if they lose, it will be somewhere between 6-9, and if they win it will be somewhere between 7-9. While it's possible they could lose out on an elite prospect by dropping down just a few picks, IMO it's not particularly likely.

Fewell responded to a question in his press conference, saying that the fact that Brohm was throwing to Hardy in practice in previous weeks would have no impact on whether Hardy gets on the field on Sunday. If Hardy does play in 3 WR sets, I'm assuming that most of the time TO would be in the slot.

Ironically, Schobel was under contract through 2009 when he approached the Bills in the summer of 2007 to discuss a contract extension.

Looking at the opening day roster for 2000, I see a few more names worthy of consideration: John Fina, Peerless Price, Phil Hansen, Ted Washington, Sam Cowart

Actually, he left college two years early.

That's amusing. Since the players had the day off, I doubt if anyone knows who is starting.

As of right now, it's very possible that neither Trent or Fitz will be able to practice this week. So the Bills needed to sign another QB just to be able to run a normal practice. Brohm is entering his 5th week of practice with the Bills. It makes sense to have him take the 1st team reps, and start, over someone who hasn't even been with the team for over a month.

Based on the reading I've just finished, I tend to agree with you. Practice squad players are free agents who, generally speaking, can negotiate a contract with any team at any time. The only restrictions I've found are:- teams can't sign a player off the practice squad of their next upcoming opponent if it's less than 6 days before the game. - teams that sign a player off another team's practice squad must keep him on their active roster for a minimum of 3 weeks. Generally speaking, players that are signed off of practice squads are signed to the league minimum. So it would be unusual for a bidding war to occur when a signing occurs.

Quinn. Every article I read specifically stated that he would coach the game. I feel sorry for the players on that team. They go undefeated, get invited to a major bowl game, and their HC quits on them and leaves for ND before the season is even over. Then their OC/Interim coach signs with UB, so he's a lame duck now too.

I don't recall reading any article which specifically claimed that offer was ever made. Based on everything I read, I reached the conclusion that all the numbers being thrown around were coming from Shanahan's side, essentially identifying what his asking price might end up being. I wouldn't be surprised if there was little to no discussion of specific financial terms in the meeting/presentation with Brandon and Shanahan. IMO one of the reasons Jauron was fired midseason was because Ralph wanted Brandon to get a jump start on looking for a "real" GM. From both a business and personal perspective, it would have been really tacky to do that essentially behind Jauron's back while he was still coaching here.

I don't think either of those is completely accurate. He made the 53 man roster last season, as the 3rd QB, and never got on the field in the regular season. I just checked the gamebook at nfl.com for the Packers week 1 game this season, and he wasn't listed. So he didn't make the final 53 this season. I just finished watching Brohm in the preseason game played earlier this season. While it's only one game, I didn't see much of anything that left a positive impression. He didn't throw down the field (i.e. more than 10 yards) very often, but when he did more often than not it was a poor decision, poor throw, or both.

Let's get back to reality here. On opening day next season, Marv will be 85 years old. If he was the HC, he would break the all time record for oldest HC in the NFL by more than 10 years. Being an NFL HC is an extremely demanding job. During the season, 70-80 hour work weeks are pretty much standard. I would be very surprised if Marv was even the slightest bit serious about coaching again.

Let's look at Fewell's coaching experience: 1985-1997 Bounced around as a position coach (mostly DBs) at various colleges. 1998-2002 DB coach for Jacksonville. Jauron was the DC in 98. 2003-2004 DB coach for St. Louis. 2005 DB coach for Chicago. 2006-now DC for the Bills. He has the Bills playing better than they were under Jauron. That's not saying much. There's nothing about his resume that's particularly impressive, either.

You don't understand. It's the NFL's policy, not Time Warner's. The NFL doesn't even allow TW affiliates outside of Buffalo to bid on the rights for games like this. Time Warner doesn't carry NFLN because the NFLN is trying to strong-arm them into carrying it in their basic package, even though for 350+ days out of the year they have nothing of interest to the general public airing.

The point is, for 350+ days a year, NFLN is a schlock channel with nothing that 99% of their customers would want to watch. They're trying to strong-arm Time Warner into putting them on their basic tier at a pretty steep price, only because they carry about 8 NFL games a year, plus draft/combine coverage. The game is being shown by WPIX, not by CW. It's not on in the Albany area; I just checked the TV guide listings, which are usually pretty reliable. This policy goes all the way back to when ESPN first started carrying regular season games. Every Bills game shown on ESPN has always been shown on a local channel. The basic concept is that people who live in the local market shouldn't be required to purchase a cable package to watch a game that's sold out and being aired locally. So in this case, WKBW and WPIX put in the highest bids in their respective markets, and those are the only two channels other than NFLN which will be showing the game. That's more/less correct. If the NFL had allowed them to, and no other local channel outbid them, then they would have been able to show the game. If your cable package includes WPIX (not another CW affiliate, but the WPIX channel itself) then you will get the game.

Ironically, they probably have a better chance of winning the division than they do of getting a wild card spot. Somebody put together a site where he estimated the odds for each team/spot: http://www.playoffstatus.com/nfl/afcstandings.html

Upon further review, this appears to be the case. Bryd and Florence's arms are blended together, creating the illusion of one very large arm. Ralph is "coincidentally" wearing the exact same clothes that Jauron wore for the MNF game on 9/14. So in the end, all they did was paste Ralph's head onto Dick's body.