BuffaloWings

This tells me he had people (including agent) advising him that he's the greatest OT that ever lived, so he didn't need to improve. Karma is something, isn't it, Andre?

I'm with you, Metz. I do this every season....try and see what they look like in preseason, but take VERY little stock in it. I think I remember the Patriots* winning all of 1 or 2 preseason games during their Superbowl years and the early 90s Bills doing the same. Of course, Belichick* didn't have to videotape the preseason games... The true test is what happens in the regular season. The 5-1 start last year showed us they could beat the bottom-feeders of the league, but once they went 0-3 in the division games, I knew they were in trouble. We won't know how good or bad they'll be until week 5, IMO. I don't expect them to beat New England* on Monday night, but I'll be content with them not being out-coached and keeping it respectable. Anything more than that is a bonus.

That just means he's been talking to Favre.

You know....we laugh at stuff like this, but I might do something like that if I were a coach. If my team's not performing and not doing their job of getting into the end zone, I might actually close practice, gather every offensive player and escort them to the goal line. It's very Bobby Knight-like and somewhat embarrassing to the players, but it would get the point across. I'm not saying Jauron would do anything remotely similar to this, as he has too much respect for the players, but sometimes it takes a move like this to wake people up.

This is one of the things that has killed this team over the past few years - young players on D that can't get the 3rd down stop. When they have a horrible percentage at that, the coaches need to provide some sort of incentive. Some may think that's sad, but I think it's good motivational coaching.

This is why I wait until the first 3-4 games of the regular season. Preseason means jack squat as far as I'm concerned. Yes, I was as disturbed as everyone else on Saturday night. I would have at least liked to see the first team offense move the ball and look somewhat decent, but I'm not going to bank on that performance as gospel for the regular season. Jauron clearly has pressure to win, but he won't be fired during the season. Ralph will wait this out for the entire season and decide after it's all done.

What do you mean agents taking over sports? They took over sports years ago.

Looks like all Omon all the time. Well....maybe not ALL the time.

Or (more accurately) a league of adjustments. Once teams pick up a "gimmicky trend" (no-huddle, wildcat, etc.), other teams begin to eventually deploy defenses to slow them down or even stop them. You'll see the wildcat for a few years, but it'll eventually go away when defenses begin to stop the teams running them. Offenses will then adjust and find different ways to beat a defense that will stop the wildcat, then the defenses adjust to that adjustment. These things go in cycles. It's been a while since we've seen someone effectively run a no-huddle all game long, but I'd bet we'll see someone "perfect" it soon.

True, because we always take everything that happens in a preseason game as gospel for what exactly will happen in the regular season.

Definitely think this is cool, but I'd rather see something like what MLB.tv does - where they can broadcast the game "live" over the internet. My big thing is that I'd rather see/listen to it live than wait until later that night to watch what happened. I'm definitely going to know the result by that time, anyway.

Problem is...Donahoe was given the keys to the kingdom and was considered a "real football guy". He simply lost a power struggle with Bill Cowher in Pittsburgh. It's very unlikely to me that Ralph would be willing to do this again.

I wish I thought of the same thing for the HoF Inductions.

I honestly think he does, but agents usually are great salesmen to their clients...convincing them that they should hang out and wait for the best offer. Maybin is young - and probably green enough - to let the agent run things, so it's possible that he just doesn't know any better.

16 is plenty. For teams that are out of it in early December, adding 2 more games to the schedule would probably hurt those owners financially. Even fewer tickets would be sold, yet they'd still be paying for everyone working at the stadiums, etc. I can see the argument similar to baseball's wild card - a handful of additional teams are still in the playoff hunt with those 2 extra games, but I just don't think it's worth it for the NFL.

All good points, but I'll still believe it when I see it. He fell apart down the stretch last year - the only game he won in the last 5 was because of Jauron's bone-headed play call.

I'm not so sure....yeah, they made the playoffs with Tarvaris Jackson as their QB, but Favre will lose a game or two by forcing a throw into double coverage that gets returned for a TD. This alone is likely to keep the Vikes out of the playoffs. That said, teams do have to account for him and Petersen. I wonder how much playing in a dome will help him as the season gets into December.

The more guys you have competing for a job, the more successful a team can be. You don't just cut bait with a guy after 1 year because you signed a high-profile player at the same position.

I also thought it was a good interview, even though we didn't see all of it. JB grilled him pretty well at times, but also asked him some easy questions. * He said he was disgusted with himself for what he did. Since he was introduced to dog fighting at the age of 8, he was most certainly desensitized to it and it became something that was "normal" to him. How does he suddenly become disgusted with himself when he had been part of this for about 20 years? Which leads me to.... * He said he didn't realize the implications of this until he was in jail (this is probably why he was disgusted with himself). Either he knew it was wrong and was disgusted that he didn't get away with it or it just took getting busted to realize what he was doing. I didn't get any indication from him that he really felt it was wrong all along. * Steely Dan hit the nail on the head - he could have shut the whole operation down, but he didn't want to. He implied that he wasn't strong enough to tell people that he was concerned about his family, career, etc. to shut it down and get out. I think there was something (or more likely someone) else that prevented him from shutting it down. I also think it's interesting that the Humane Society is using him to speak out against dog fighting. I know it's been 2 years, but Vick just got busted for bank rolling the operation and just finished his jail sentence. I've never been in jail, nor do I know anyone close enough to me who has been in prison, but can someone change their morals & ethics that quickly? If someone with the reputation that Tony Dungy has says he has changed his ways, then perhaps I can believe it. My point...I'm still not convinced that Vick himself believed what he did was wrong, so if the Humane Society is using him to speak out against dog fighting, it's a bit conflicting in my mind. I know why they're using him (big name to help speak out against the practice), but I just don't know if I could believe Vick right now. As for the whole "letting him play" thing, there are plenty of people in this world that deserve second chances. We are human and we make mistakes (not always with regards to the law), but I don't think anyone on this board can say for sure whether or not Vick deserves a second chance...unless you're good buddies with him or with someone who knows him. Personally, I don't mind him getting this second chance, but I know that if it was me who bankrolled a dog fighting ring, I wouldn't be able to get another IT job for the rest of my life.

I really WISH I had NFLN.

*sigh*

Perhaps the reason for such negativity is simply to not be disappointed if such a beating happens. Don't get your hopes up and you can claim that you saw this coming. The past few years, I've approached the season with optimism, albeit cautious. Same thing goes for 2009. I also don't have confidence in Jauron leading this team anywhere, but if nothing else, he's on the hot seat if he can't win with the weapons he's been given.

Donahoe was the GM. That's all you need to know. The 31-0 game put me on a high for about 2 weeks. I hadn't seen the Bills roll anyone like that since the K-Gun days and doing it to Pretty Boy Brady was something dreams were made of.

For today, yes. Though, I imagine that will be filled somewhere within the next 45 minutes.

Still feels like a looooooong time.