Ramius

Mostly just frustration from a board "old-timer" who's annoyed with the "everything sucks and will never get better" that's prevalent at this time of year. The "If it's a first round pick thats not a pro-bowler, we need to bash everything they do," mentality get sickening. Spiller still has a ways to go, but I'm confident he'll get there. He looked both good and bad on saturday in his limited action. I still think Freddie is the better back, and should be starting. I'm also guessing that Freddie will start the opener and get the majority of the carries. But, Freddie has nothing to gain in preseason. Get CJ out there to continually learn the game, and tell Freddie to be ready to go on Sept. 11th.

Whats your point then? Denver was still blitzing LBs, because they run a 4-3. Our LBs rushing from the 3-4 are nothing more than a standard rush. We continually brought 3-4 guys on the pass rush. Many times Denver brought 5 or more, which to me, constitutes a blitz. As for preseason, its for getting the starters a few reps, but its mainly to figure out which 10 of the 50 or so bottom guys are going to make the roster.

Perhaps some of those, but i'd guess because of his contract. Instead of taking care of him a few years ago, the Bills stuck it to him because he was an ERFA and had no bargaining power. It would be decent of them to give him a nice little pay raise to keep him happy for all he's done here. But then again, Ralph is too short-sighted to fork over the dollars for that.

Shhhhhhhhh! You're not allowed to say that, even if he did play decent the other night. Since Whitner and Evans are gone, Spiller and McKelvin are the newest whipping boys. The official TBD party line is that neither player does anything correct and both are busts.

Somewhere, Darwin is smiling.

Yeah, when i called, i said "cancel" at the prompt and didn't dick around with regular customer service people.

I've been there numerous times as a kid and we were there 3 years ago. We stayed at the park, and while a bit pricey, i think it was definitely worth it. Its great having that extra hour in the morning. Everyone else has taken care of the ride reviews (if you like coasters, you'll love this park), so a bit on logistics. You'll need at least 2 days if you want to do everything, and you will. First thing, make a beeline for the back of the park (especially if you stay on property and have the extra hour), and hit the big stuff before it fills up. Some of the shows they have at the park are pretty good as well, and it lets you get out of the heat for a bit. Secondly, things get very sketchy outside the park, which is why we stayed on property. If you're staying outside, perhaps look a bit further away, at some places maybe 20-30 mins away instead of right there. Lastly, for my money, Millennium Force is the best overall coaster they've got there for thrills, speed, and length of ride. Disaster transport used to be awesome when i was a kid, but now its absolutely terrible. However, you have to do it so you can say you did every coaster.

FSU Realistic Ceiling: 14-0, National Championship There's a lot of positive vibes down here in Tallahassee heading into Jimbo Fisher's second season. Almost all of the old Bowden/Andrews guys are out fo the system, and Jimbo's offense is up and running. He's dead set on turning FSU into an SEC type smashmouth team that is going to kick your ass up and down the field. In his past 2 seasons, Fisher has stocked the lines with 13 recruits weighing over 300 lbs coming out of high school, and he's got a ton of momentum after reeling in the #1 recruiting class in the nation. Why they Will: 1. Defense (DL), and Defense (DBs) Mark Stoops has whipped this defense into shape ,and FSU may have the best DL in the country. We go 9 deep on the DL, and feature returning stars Brandon Jenkins, Everette Dawkins, Jaccobi McDaniel and Bjoern Werner. We've also been hearing nothing but glowing news about incoming freshman Tim Jernigan. They simply can't keep him off the field and he's been blowing up everyone they put in front of him. Nigel Bradham leads a solid LB corps, and The secondary is stellar. Led by Greg Reid, it also features Xavier Rhodes forming a shutdown CB tandem. Freshman phenom Lamarcus Joyner moves over to S to bolster that position. The defense is going to come hard after people in waves. 2. Running game We've got the 4 headed monster at RB, with starter Chris Thompson the best of the bunch, but Ty Jones and Jermaine Jones should see lots of action. As usual, hybrid FB Lonnie Pryor will see his fair share of touches. Toss in freshman James Wilder jr, and thats a nasty stable of RBs. These guys can run over, around, and right past anyone. Jimbo wants to pound the ball, and is going to. The ground game really opened up last season, and should only improve this year. Like the defense, the RBs will come at you in waves, always someone with fresh legs. 3. Coaching/Institutional change The attitude is completely different around FSU nowadays. Gone are the laid back, whimsical days of Bobby Bowden. Jimvo has installed an SEC style no-bull **** approach to football. He keeps a clamp on the players and media. Mark Stoops is a top DC, and probably wont be here much past this season, as he should be in line for HC jobs. Rick Trickett is one of the best OL coaches in the business. The staff was also revamped to (finally) include a complete strength and conditioning program, as well as a nutrition program for the players. There was little of this with Bobby in town. Why they won't 1. The offensive line The line was great last year, but we lost a couple of key contributors. It should be solid, but there have a rash of injuries along the line during spring and current practices. If these guys stay healthy, they'll be fine, but if they can't stay on the field, there isn't much "game-ready" depth behind them. We've got some good young players, and the OL should be great in a year or 2, but young guys on the OL take a bit to develop, and the kids we've got will struggle if pressed into action too early this season. 2. EJ Manuel While the kid has the athleticism and brains to be a great one, he remains sort of unproven. He's done a fantastic job the past 2 seasons filling in for Ponder, playing 4 games each of the past 2 years, and leading us to 2 bowl wins. We've got no reason to think he'll play poorly, but now he's got the target on him. Teams are going to prepare for his running style as opposed to Ponder's pocket style. I think Manuel can be great, but he has struggled with accuracy at times. If he struggles, so will the offense. 3. Schedule Our OOC schedule features 2 cupcakes, but we've got #1 Oklahoma rolling into Tallahassee on Sept. 17 for a rematch of last year's debacle, and we have to travel to UF on thanksgiving weekend. FSU hasn't won in the swamp since '03. The worst part of the schedule is just how the games line up. We follow thw OU game by having to go on the road to Clemson (:finger: ACC). Later in the year, we face a tough NC St team, and then have to turn around and go on the road to BC on a thursday night just 5 days later. FSU notoriously struggles on thursday night, and the asshats in the ACC continually put us on the road for thursday nighters. We also play miami and UF in a 15 day span with Virginia in between. The pieces are in place for FSU to make a good run this year, but i still think they're about a year off from being a true national title threat. They can win it this year, but i think they will fall just short. Anything less than 10 wins and an ACC title game appearance is an abject failure for the season (barring unforseen catastrophic injuries). My prediction: 10-2 regular season, winning the ACC title game, and an appearance in a BCS bowl.

I called a couple fo weeks ago, and said i saw their ad for free sunday ticket to new subscribers, and asked what they could do for me (longtime direcTV customer). The guy left me on hold for about 5 minutes, and came back and gave me the ticket for free. No questions asked, no need to threaten cancellation. And i've never gotten ticket in the past either. This also wasn't a pay now and get credits later, he simply added the sunday ticket to my programming at no charge.

9-14 for 71 and an INT. Not exactly lighting the world on fire.

Agreed. I've been stopped at the border and hassled for nothing other that driving back from chicago. I was in Canada for the time it takes to drive from Detroit to NF, and the guard on the US side at the bridge decided to give us a hard time even after i told him exactly what we did and where we were.

Nah, i'd prefer to wait and try to draft George Luck from Stanford next year.

Looks like Pat Moran just lost any and all credibility he had with buffalo sports fans. His "career" is effectively over.

What the hell is franchise altering? Even if rob's steaming pile of BS somehow turns out to be true, while losing Merriman would suck, its hardly franchise altering.

Looks like little tommy threw a hissy fit like the 12 year old girl that he is. Much like his weekly hissy fits he throws towards the refs when he gets touched.

Sounds like someone is whining because his university is about to get butt hammered. There's a huge difference between an isolated incident (the FSU cheating scandal), and lack of institutional control, where an entire program is running roughshod over the rules over the course of many years, and the scandal involves players, coaches, and most likely high level administrators. The good part about UM getting hammered is that only the 784 fans that attend the games are going to be disappointed.

This is pretty much what the NCAA would call a "lack of institutional control." If that allegation comes down, its bye-bye miami for a long time.

It all goes back to Ralph. Blame whomever you'd like, ralph's the one who is ultimately responsible.

I'm guessing that the SEC will expand, but not until they have 2 or 4 teams lined up and can do them all at once. One thing about potential 16 team super conferences...how would the conference schedule play out? Playing every team in your division would put a team at 7 conference games already. Does the conference then go to 9 or even possibly 10 games? I'd hate to lose a lot of those great cross-divisional matchups, or only see them once every 8 years instead of 2 of every 5.

Missing on a 5th and 7th round pick isn't the end of the world. Most of those guys are out of the league in 2 years anyway.

Wilson couldn't beat out Whitner last year for the starting job, what makes you think he'd beat him out this year? Furthermore, Wilson is the same weight as Donte, only 2 inches taller. Perhaps you should refer to him as Lil Georgie?

While agree that Whitner should be re-signed at a reduced rate, if Wilson was the better safety, Wilson would have started last season, NOT Donte. If Donte re-ups for a reasonable price, i'd bet on him winning the starting SS job out of camp...again.

Good call. Peppers, Freeney, and Reed were the only 3 players worth a damn in that entire 1st round.

So where are all of these "good teams" that were after Lawson?

What does the SEC gain by adding Clemson? I underastand why Clemson would make the jump, but whats in it for the conference? Clemson can't win in the ACC, let alone the SEC.