Cotton Fitzsimmons

D-Line is THE WHIP! Philip "cry me a" Rivers Sacked again... Bills win

Perhaps YE OLE could have an hour long daily show dedicated to a variety of shenaniganz and tom foolery. YE OLE 'POWER HOUR' if you will.

Lest we forget Bob Trimble, Ricky Jay, and the weekly segments with Ivan "THE IMPALER" Who can forget that classic moment when Brinson introduced Ivan as "The impaled one" to which Ivan quickly protested that he is the impalER not the impalEE. That was sports talk at its finest, gents!

Deano, my good friend, thank goodness the hiatus is over. YE OLE was runnin all willy nilly around here like "Where ya at, DEANO?"

Deano, my good friend... you are spot on per usual! Bon Jovi... you sir are a MAROON!

xsoldier, my good friend, YE OLE couldn't have said it better himself.

Where?

mattsox, my good fellow, you are spot on per usual with your concern regarding watering down the playoff field. However, the realignment in 2002 seems to have really forced the league's hand with this. WIth 8 division winners filling 12 playoff spots, the 7-9/8-8 type teams are usually the ones getting in as the winner of a piss poor division. There's really no way to prevent that from occurring more frequently with this alignment. But, it has more often than not caused 10-6/11-5 teams to miss the playoffs where they wouldn't have under the previous alignment. The only way to stop the majority if these .500 or even sub .500 teams from backing into the playoffs is to consolidate the divisions again so we're back to no more than 6 divisions. The teams that get in under this expanded playoff proposal will likely be teams with winning records.

Kirby, my good fellow, YE OLE can neither confirm nor deny said information.

Who is this Kevin Massare fellow?

Jimmyo, my good man, you are spot on! Is it really a so called "tough" question more so than just a ridiculous question? Either EJ gives the company line and says something like "That's not my call, my job is to get ready and prepare and be the best player I can be, etc." OR he pushes back and makes Tim Graham part of the story as he did. There's really no way to get something productive out of a question like that.

No Saint, my good friend, you are spot on per usual! Schwartz has done something right to have been continuously employed as a DC and HC for the past 13 seasons. But at the same time when you break down the track record, he seemingly has not consistently led good defensive units. In fact, you could argue the opposite. In all fairness, YE OLE's first pick was Wade (whether that was doable or not for reasons we've all hashed out, who knows) and Schwartz would've been the next best option. On the surface there's a lot to like about the hire. He was certainly one of the biggest names out there, and many of the good folks here on the board were like "YE OLE! This is a good hire! He had real top notch defenses in Tennessee! Top 10 every year!" It was only when YE OLE went to look this up as a point of fact, that it appears Schwartz has had very few top 10 defensive units, and many more bottom 10 defensive units.

Schwartz had 2 really solid years as a DC (2007 and 2008). Prior to that he had 6 years where his defenses were mediocre to bad. From 2001-2006 the Titans defense under Schwartz averaged 23rd in the league in points against and averaged 21st in yards against. The Titans in Schwartz' final 2 years as DC were 8th and 2nd in points and 5th and 7th in yards respectively. Certainly those two seasons in Tennessee put his name on the map for a HC gig. As the Lions HC, the Lions average ranked 23rd in points against and 21st in yards against during Schwartz' 5 years with the club. Now, YE OLE, acknowledges that Gunther Cunningham was running the D in Detroit as some have pointed out, but is it fair that we give some responsibility to Schwartz being a defensive mind? What seems striking is that save for the 2007-2008 seasons, the defensive units Schwartz has been associated with mirror each other in overall rank (23rd in points/21st in yards). That's 11 seasons total vs. 2 seasons where his units were very good. What do we make of this data, gents? Does it mean anything?

This is certainly the best Pro Bowl in recent memory. The defense is really laying some hits and playing hard. Being able to play man coverage is a big improvement as well. All of that said, it is an all star game so there's only so much at stake no matter what you do, however, the changes they've made for this game have all been positive.

YE OLE was in the office one day when that Locked Out of Heaven song came on. Our secretary was trying to relay a message to one of YE's associates and the guy held his finger up and was like "shhh wait..." and then when that "HUHHHH!" Part came on that fellow made a loud "HUHHHHH!" himself accompanied by a little pelvic thrust kind of thing.It was only after this that our secretary was afforded the courtesy of speaking. Now this is the same fellow who would go around our office and emit large quantities of gas and yell "ALOHA!" after each incident. Some of you may recall YE OLE telling that anecdote before.

Now that's a trophy right there, gents! Something you can really grab on to.

Perhaps it is a dumb question, but what ever happened to Deano? He was one of YE OLE's favorite folks on this board. He was good people.

Woods needs to control himself... BUT there should've been a penalty called on the DB he was locked up with who drove him back into the pile after the play which started the whole thing.

You want Johnny Football rolling into Foxborough, slinging it into tight windows for game winning TDs and looking over at Belichik and making hand gestures.

"Hacksaw" Dan Carpenter is THE WHIP... FACT!

Yes. It is likely that none of the teams battling for this 6th seed will finish the year 3-1 over the next 4 weeks. What will probably happen is the Bills bounce back to whip us all into a frenzy needing a win in NE to claim the last wildcard. Then for good measure, we'll be treated to an ill timed muffed punt return, drop, fumble... maybe Tuel weasels into the game to chuck a pick 6.

YE OLE must concur. This is similar to the phenomena that existed during the Flutie Johnson era when the team was something like 4-1 when Marcus Spriggs was starting. It was never about Flutie or Johnson... it was always about Marcus Spriggs

Steve O, my good man, you are spot on per usual! The more we get to know Kiko and all of this Twitter toomfoolery takes on a life of it's own, the more comical the whole Kiko passing out on the strange couch anecdote becomes. Putting one self in that scenario... just how do you rectify that situation when you find Kiko passed out on your couch?

Big Cat, my good friend... YE OLE would have to say yes. It's not that Thad is a terrific option under center, but when Tuel couldn't come in the Browns game and muster a first down most lost all confidence in him. The way Tuel started hopping balls off the turf, it became apparent that he wasn't a threat to complete a pass. Thad on the other hand, while he has made mistakes, he's also led the offense on scoring drives and has proven a threat to connect on deep balls. Now it's possible, Tuel just wasn't ready for the spotlight and maybe given another chance to prepare will be better. But, as bad as he was in the Browns game, nobody wants to take that chance.