macaroni

If he "quickly" passes a physical after telling the team he is too injured to play ... how big of a market would there be for him? At least his true colors would be revealed.

The way I'd handle it if I were the "Boss Bill" (and I'm not) is to put Byrd on IR, make a public announcement that the injury wasn't responding to rehab as expected, and use the roster spot to bring in some CB or Safety or OG. At the end of the year I'd give Byrd and his agent our best and last offer, and let him walk if that's his preferance. IMHO the team and Byrd seem to have crossed the Rubicon as far as "friendly negotiations" go. Putting him on IR allows him to "save face" while opening up a roster spot that we could use. I know you all are going to scream that we will be paying him for nothing, and giving in to him ... but face it, we are already paying him for nothing and he's locking up a spot. We will never (nor will the Bills) get to the bottom of ... is he lying about the injury ... could he play ... yada yada yada. It's just time to call this stalemate a stalemate and move on.

I can't blame Byrd for feeling he's worth quite a bit more than the Bills are willing to pay him. I also can't blame the Bills for establishing a price they feel a Safety is worth (no matter his skill level). I have never agreed with all of this "tag business" once a player has fufilled his contractural obligations. I also can understand Byrd's reluctance to play under the tag and suffer a potentially career ending injury. That being said ... at some point it should become obvious that the team has "lost" the tagged player, and that player has lost his "emotional buy-in" to the team, and the roster spot becomes more valuable to the team than the chance the player in question and the team can repair their relationship. Wouldn't the best course of action at this point be to put Byrd on IR, get somebody that could possibly help our depleated secondary, and at the end of the year present Byrd with our best and last contract offer, and allow him to "shop himself" around the league and if he gets a better offer just shake his hand and wish him luck?

IMHO .... E.J. makes a few bone headed rookie mistakes every game, however that is to be expected, he is after all a bone headed rookie. The impressive thing (at least to me) is he does not get rattled after those mistakes. He has a very short memory and "commits" to the play at hand rather than letting his emotions get the best of him ruining the next few plays and therefore the series. In my fifty some years of following football I can't think of any rookie QB that didn't make rookie mistakes ... what seperated the good from the bad was; the bad ones dwelled on their mistake, and the good ones forgot about it and made up for it with the next play.

We'll be staying someplace near Marymount U

Third game is better .... get to see the starters WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO 20 bucks for parking??? after out of state tuition to a private school .... 20 bucks is nothing

I just realized my son and I will be driving to the DC area to get my daughter to school the same weekend as the Bills last preseason game. The school is in Arlington ... how easy would it be to get to Fed-Ex field??? Would it be feasible to take the Metro, or would I have to drive??? How hard would it be to come by tickets??? (4th preseason I would think there would be tickets aplenty).

If they moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles I don't think the league will let the team call themselves the St. Louis Rams anymore ... but I think they'd be OK with the Los Angeles Rams

Actually they just had that left over "sub package" that they drew up but didn't use from last year ... they dusted it off, handed it to Geno and said "sit on the end of the bench ... we'll call you when it's time"

unpaid Bills

Ralph Wilson Jr. (the man who made it all happen) Ritchie Lucas (the first Buffalo Bill) Jack Kemp (the first QB to win a league championship) Jim Kelly (the last QB to win a conference championship) And I would leave a featureless clump of rock next to Jim's just to remind us that we should always be looking for the NEXT great QB.

You may be misreading my post .... I didn't say all he did was hand off to O.J., I said that was his reputation around the league. O.J. was the "star power" at that time and he was the guy that got ALL the hype when we did well, Fergy was the QB and wrongly got ALL the blame when we did poorly ... Fergy was probably the most under rated QB in my memory.

My recolection of Fergy was an average to good football player who was cursed with a not so good supporting cast (except for O.J.) his reputation around the league was the guy who handed the ball of to Simpson, and he was never appreciated for his "skills set" as a QB. He had the horrible habit (as far as I was concerned) of when a drive went wrong, he would walk back to the bench with his head hanging which reminded me of Eyeore of Whinnie the Pooh fame. If memory serves me (and it may not because I'm an old fart) it was Fergy that requested we change our helmets from white to red because he had trouble picking out our recievers playing in a division full of white helmeted teams.

I love this signing ... I'm not particularly a Kolb fan, but I feel he would be an adaquite bridge should the QB we want not be available when we draft allowing us to draft a "project" this year, and a "franchise guy" next year if one becomes available. My biggest worry about this upcoming draft was that I didn't see a QB that was worthty of a number 8 pick (I don't know if OBD likes one there or not) .... and felt our second round just may be too late to get somebody we may really want, and the Bills being so depleted at the QB position were going to be forced to pull the trigger fo a QB at pick 8 whoever was there. Now if there is a guy we covet at the top of the QB class (worthy of pick 8) and he is gone, we can go "best player available" and fill one of our other big holes. IMHO .... this signing says we are going to draft our QB out of whoever we feel is the best available at our round 2 pick ... and my crystal ball based on a total lack of any valid facts or insider information says it will be Nassib.

I can see it now ..... half empty stands at the Jags game errupting in the chant ................ PLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY C. J. SPILLER

my biggest concern is that the fish usually play pretty darn physical on defense .... and our offense always seems to play "soft" when they strat to get beat up ... I think unless we jump out ahead from the get-go our guys will start hearing footsteps.

IMHO the "game plan" for the front office these past three years has been to build a team starting with a powerful defense and to "settle" for an offense capable of scoring in the 20 - 27 point range and relying on the defense to limit the oponents to less. With this outlook, Fitz should certianly able to lead the team to a "good" record. I don't think they felt the need to draft a big time QB, and give him big time weapons, until the defensive foundation was built (and I think they felt that job was done this offseason). I have always thought that Fitz would be a great game manager ... and that was all we would need this season, however the defense is not performing as advertised. Do we need/want a super star QB playing for the Bills ... of course we do ... but we don't have to panic and "reach" (whatever the heck that means) to get one ... but we do have to act with some urgency (dare I say panic) to figure out what the deal is with our defense.

Two weeks ago the Cards gave up 8 sacks to the Dolphins ... last week they gave up 9 sacks to the Rams ..... of course our pass rush looked good.

IMHO ... I think that is the team the front office envisioned when they brought in Mario Williams and Mark Anderson, kept a "kick off specialist" on the team to eliminate KO returns, and stashed away a punter with a cannon for a leg to pin the opponent deep in their territory. I think they had visions of playing the "field position game" and only needing a sliver of offense to win games. But as we all know our "vaunted D" pooped the bed their first outing and made Shancize look like Joe Wille reicarnated. I think the brain trust lost a little faith in our D at that point (but luckily we got to play two weak sisters for our next two games). It almost looks like they are afraid to play all out on D .... they're holding back for some reason ... whether it's the coaches unwilling to take risks ... or the players being too tentative ... I just don't know. For some reason this team is running scared

If the brain trust we have now are spending 15+ hours a day and we are still playing like this, they may as well go home early and get some sleep because those long hours aren't doing anyone any good .... they're just wasting time. I GOT IT!!!!! maybe they are AT work for 15+ hours a day ..... but ..... instead of coaching our guys up or formulating game plans or watching game films or manipulating rosters they are spending their time posting on TBD

Which of those catagories would you place Alex Smith, and Mark Sanchez?

If a team gives up 48 points in their first game ... it's not yet time to panic If a team gives up 52 points in their fourth game ... it's not yet time to panic If a team gives up 45 points in their fifth game ... it's not yet time to panic However if the above scores are the SAME team ... and they were billed going into the season as a defensive powerhouse it IS time to panic (especially if the coaching staff doesn't seem to know why we have been so dreadful)

While I agree the 9ers are a great team, they are a great defensive team .... now the SB winning 49er teams of Montana, Craig, Rice, and later Young were great Offensive teams. Yesterday the 49ers set all time frachise records on offense .... THAT'S saying something

The Cards are terrible at protecting their QB ... I believe the Dolphins sacked him 8 times, and the Rams sacked him 9 times in their last two games. The way I see next week unfolding is the Bills will get a handful of sacks next week and we all will be thinking our D has finally arrived.