Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

To say the Bills had a huge need to draft a QB, I'd agree only if you are either going to start him or make him your #3 guy. The backup QB gets what somewhere between 10% to 30% snaps each week in practice. So how is a guy who doesn't even get to practice much become a good backup if Fitz were to go down. It's good to use him as a #3 and give him time to develop, but considering the Bills have Brad Smith that isn't going to happen. He's too good to cut him and hope to sign him to PS so you're only choice if you picked him was to make him your #2. Too me doesn't sound like a very good strategy to have a rookie who's not even getting many practice snaps to be #2. Seattle is starting him, does that mean he's looked real good, or did the other two guys look worse. Actually I don't think Jackson even came into play he wasn't going to start, the plan back in the spring was Flynn was the starter, but then he didn't look good so they going with Wilson now. I think the one thing you could criticize the Bills for is having Brad Smith on the roster as that limits your other QB moves you can do. If there #3 QB was say T Jackson, then you take a flyer on a guy like Wilson as your #2. Fitz goes down, by rule you need to bring in your #2 until the 4th quarter. But doesn't mean the following week you can make your #3 guy the starter and again leave a rookie as #2. Maybe only teams with very strong #1 QB's can afford a guy like Smith as your #3. Kind of like the mess the Jet's could be in if Sanchez goes down. Certainly if Fitz has a middle of the road or worse year likely the Bills will be looking for a new QB likely either through the draft or a free agent. And quite frankly whoever they may get, the odds are better than 50/50 he will also fail. That's nothing against Buffalo's front office it's just reality, more often than not, QB's fail.

Not surprised about Clowney,he just never seemed to take the game very seriously!

The last drive doesn't bother me too much. Not that it's a good excuse or anything, but I have to believe the Bill's D was already mentally out of the game. Pre-season, under 2 minutes to go essentially in the game for many of these guys as will be sitting out the 2nd half. It's kind of like when a team is up by 25 points with 5 minutes to go, you kind of let he other team do as they want, main plan is to get out healthy. Likely assumed Pitt was going to just kill the clock and go into halftime. But Pitt made a good pass on 3rd down for the first, once that happened, the Bill's couldn't turn it back on. Likely the Bills were in a prevent style defense, but maybe testing out some extra wrinkles that apparently didn't work very well. The fact that the D looked as good as they did up to that point, I'll give them a pass on that drive.

Yes he likely will be a good nickel back. The reason for being the whipping boy is due to his high draft selection combined with play below that level. In the long run these things tend to balance out, guys selected in later rounds make All Pro and there are many 1st round busts. However that doesn't stop people from ripping the under-performers.

Biggest problem with Modrak seems to have been his love of small college players, or maybe I should say not taken into account a guy wh's a stud at South Dakota St doesn't mean he can play that level in the NFL

I don't from everything I'm hearing about Gilmore it's hard for me to believe Keuchly would have been better. Yeah, may have been better at LB, but what would our secondary have looked like. Plus am tired of the Bills using high draft picks on white MLB's that never work out. Gilmore also played agaisnt much better competition too in college so I'll take an all SEC draft . (or close too it) I think in the long run, and even short run wil lbe the better pick.

So where is Sully, I recal he had surgery back in the spring. Is he still out? True, be he helped amplify it more. I think the distrust dates back to the TD era, he's the one who froze out Schoop and started the ball rolling down hill and it hasn't stopped yet.

Here's my take on the issues between Schopp and WGR vs the Bills. The people in Buffalo have limited $$, so they have to decide, do I spend it going to a Bills game or a Sabres game? Since WGR was broadcasting the Sabres, Schopp kind of figured he'd help things along, wouldn't even surpise me that was encouraged by his management to bash the Bill's and remind people how inept the Bill's are whenever he had the change so go spend your $$ at as hockey game instead. Since he admittedly doesn't even like football very much was easy for him to do. So for a number of years did that. Well I don't think the Bill's liked that too much so they made things a bit tougher on him, wouldn't grant interview requests, wouldn't give him a story, etc and again can't blame the Bill's for doing that either. So what did Schopp do, he took that personal so he racheted things up even more against the Bill's to the point they both I'd wager a guess won't give each other the time of day. I'm sure the Bill's treated others somewhat the same at WGR as the bashing was somewhat station wide, but since Schoop was the worst offender and he seemed to take it personally, things were worse with him that others like say Howard Simon. Now WGR is broadcasting the Bill's so no longer want to bash them, instead wish to prasie them, but again with Schopp it's personal so I don't think he read the memo about that part. I no longer live in western NY so haven't heard him in awhile, is he as negative as ever against Buffalo or has he toned it down some, but still as bad as he was, even toned down is still pretty bad. It wouldn't shock me if he keeps up the negative stuff, the next time the Bill's broadcast writes are up, they make it part of the deal with WGR, either Schopp goes or we go!

Actually I thought he was OK back in the Rochester days. I think his biggest problem was too many early on told him he was destined for bigger things, so he leaves Rochester, goes to Buffalo to work his way up. Figues two to three years he'll be in Chi, or maybe Boston or a city of that size and in ten years he would have been the Mike on Mike and Mike or something like that. So now he's in shock as he can't believe how many idiots out there must be running all the radio stations all over the country and don't realize how great he is as no one is banging down the doors to hire him. So he's stuck in a place that he's way to good for. Trouble is the more people that post threads like this, the more relavent he is. You want to see him off the air, everyone needs to stop talking about him and stop all the Shopp's are idiot threads! When he gets no press then WGR will think about replacing him.

Well Chan stated he's back to form, that may be true, but form for him is playing an OLB in a 3-4, playing DE in a 4-3 probably not something he's well suited for. They didn't lie about his health, he just can't play the position I think in hindsight (which is always easy) it may have been a better shot for him trying to latch on as an OLB in a 4-3. It may have ben the same outcome, but would have thought it to have been a fairer assessment?? For those suggesting the Pats or Jets wil lsign him, it could happen as they both play 3-4's Maybe that was their fear, if they kept him til lthe final cut the Jet's would have signed him and by then the Bill's likely would have been putting in their game plan for opening day agaisnt the Jet's. Cutting him now, "he knows nothing, nothing!!"

Mentioning Brady and getting penatration in the same sentance can be troublesome!

Just because he hasn't publicly announced a succession plan doesn't mean he doesn't have one in place. I recall Larry Felser writing columns about how there's no plan in place. To me all that means is Larry assumes since Ralph didn't inform him of his plans there can't be one. For whatever reason, it may just be that RW doesn't want anyone to know his plans until he's dead. I certainly can understand peoples argument that RW would be much more liked if he announced his plans now, while I totally agree, that doesn't mean he needs to do it.

So I called back again, finally talked with customer retention, complained how I was a new subscriber in April, 2 weeks after I signed up they started offering Sunday Ticket for free, complained about the Viacom disruption, some equipment issues, the fact that three times when I called up I got disconnected. What probably helped sell it was during the call while the person explained how reliable their call system is, we got disconnected. He did call me back though, this was initially promotion department, so then talked with retention. They make it so confusing with all these credits and stuff hard to figure it out exactly what I'm getting, so will see on the actual bills. I ended up getting a $15 credit for three months, then a $30 one time credit, so added all up getting Sunday Ticket for $125. In addition I'm also getting because of the Viacom issue, a $10 credit for three months and another $5 credit for three months. Whether these credits are concurrent or consecutive, not certain, but either way wouldn't care. Why they have to make it so confusing I don't know, maybe they figure by making it hard to figure out prevents others from calling and saying well you gave "Fred" this deal as who knows exactly what "Fred" got. So if I get these credits on top of the $125, essentially would be paying $80 for Sunday Ticket. For a new subscriber who already has a bunch of credits coming, I'm happy. Took alot of effort and phone calls, but finally got someone who gave me a decent deal. Now I just need to sit back and watch the games.

I'm on vacation right now in the Boston area and can tell you they are discussing on the radio shows whether NE will go undefeated. They are trying to be realistic about it so are settling in on 14-2!

Last time I called I did speak with Customer retention, she looked at different things but told me there was nothing she could do as I was already getting all these credits. In fact while talking to her I started quoting posts from threads here on the page. I mentioned, "here's one 'so and so got Sunday Ticket for free, got $10 credit for 20 months" Right away her response was, yes he got credits and since you are already getting credits she couldn't give me more. I'll probably try again, but so far haven't had any luck even whe ntalking with customer retention. I can't wait for May 2014, then I can tell them I want it free or I'm gone and I'm making up for getting screwed the past two years! Though watch in April 2014, the NFL will announce Sunday Ticket is no longer on DTV!

So is that basically what you need ot threaten them with disconnection? I'm still under my initial contract, so don't have that card to play. Well not without paying a few hundred in cancellation fees and they know it.

I watch it every year and enjoy it. Just would enjoy it more without the rap music

Just curious, how long have you had DTV? I've tried calling two or three times, have spoke with customer rentention and have got no where. I first got DTV in mid april, 2 weeks prior to them offereing it for free to new subscribers. The last person I spoke with in customer retention basically told me she can't give me any kind of a deal as I'm a new subscriber so am already getting all of these monthly credits; $29 for being new, $10 AAA discount, $10 for auto bill pay, etc, so no room to give anything else. Their argument does somewhat make sense, and reading through the threads, I did find mostly everyone who got a deal, weren't new and got the deal in the form of a credit.

Yes, but at this point last season was anyone talking about Kyle William's injury?? I don't recall that happening. Point is it's easy now to say we're healthy, lets see how we look from an injury standpoint around Oct 15th or so. You're assuming everyone is going to recover fine and no new major injuries. I do think we will be much better, but wouldn't try to make the argument that it's due to last years injuries will make the difference.

So will CBS finally give up having 60 Minutes "start" at 7:00? That had to really piss off all the non football fans having to wait for like 45 minutes for the show to come on and/or having to pad an extra hour onto the DVR and sometimes that wasn't enough. And backing up all the other shows by up to an hour for the nite. I'll give Fox credit for starting their programming at 8:00 and having a post game show, sometimes it was 10 minutes long, sometimes it was 40 minues long, likely this coming season will be 10 minutes shorter each week. I've alsways said ABC which is the one network that doesn't show any football on Sunday should put a news show on at 7:00 on Sundays, like 20/20 is it called and advertise that it WILL start every week at 7:00! I think they'd take many viewers away from 60 Minutes

I wouldn't be shocked ot see Brad Smit hget cut to keep him. I just think they both offer a certain uniqueness and not enough snaps i na game to utilize them both, so one gets cut. And I think Dikerson may bring more to the table.

Does Amtrak still run the train anymore to the games or did that idea die?

Two other names I'd add to make the team are Lee Smith for a blocking TE and this Dickerson guy as another TE H back. I'd go as far to say I wouldn't be shocked to see them keep Dickerson and cut Brad Smith as I think there's quite a bit of over lap in what they bring to the table, but Dickerson may have more options. I don't see that there's enough snaps in a game to utilize both an H back and the Wildcat so one of them goes

So I've only had DTV now for about three months so am still well under initial contract. Started service a little over two weeks after they offered free Sunday Ticket for new subscribers. When I originally signed up I even asked they guy about deals for Sunday Ticket to which he replied that's like 3 months away. In all likelihood he didn't know about upcoming offer. I've tried now twice to call up got the original person asked for deal, got the standard response that the $299/$199 offers are already a big discount. Told me couldn't give me anything better, I kept asking to transfer me to retention department, person last night responded there's no such a thing as retention department. I could hear her typing away in background for over 1o minutes. After that both times I was then placed on hold,( supposedly waiting for someone to answer) after 10 to15 minutes line went dead. Tonight ironically I got an email from DTV asking me to fill out survey about satisfaction over recent call, I gave them 1's! Will see if that gets me a response. So my question is with only being a 3 month subscriber still under contract, do I have much chance of getting any kind of a deal. Is there some better words to get them to transfer me. Are there limited hours that retention department is open? Likely by the time I got cut off last night was probably after 10:00pm. First time I called was on Saturday. I did also have DTV for about a 2 1/2 year period back around 6 years ago when I still lived in Western NY

I don't disagree much with any of your comments, last year at this time many of those same things were true Merriman and Fred Jackson for a full season, how'd that work out. If the Bills can stay fairly injury free for most of the year, I agree it could be an exciting year, but need for that to happen first. Safety's are good, don't consdier them one of the best in the league and Glenn could be the answer at LT, but we don't know yet. He also could end up being the RT in the end too. Lets see how it works out.