MRW

No, but he's an annoyance at worst. The assertion that some kid coming out of college is going to rely on the word of one draft analyst and be heartbroken if he doesn't go that high is dubious at best. If anything I'd say the existence of an NFL Collegiate Advisory Committee is more likely to give a false sense of confidence about where someone will be drafted. At least with McShay, Kiper, etc. they're just some blowhard spouting an opinion without any kind of implied endorsement from the league.

Damn, now that's depressing. You just gave me a glimpse into an alternate reality. It was beautiful there.

Getting back to the point of the original post, I'm not sure at all what Florio's point is here. He trots out an anecdote of one draft "expert" rating a guy a lot higher than some other draft "experts". But that doesn't come close to making any kind of argument that this "expert" is any better or worse than the rest of them. Teams miss, and miss badly, year after year in the draft, so it will take a lot more evidence to say if McShay is much worse than the norm.

I think the plight of many retired players has been receiving an increased focus over the last several years, and guys like Ted Johnson have been getting noisier about the pressure they felt to go back into games injured. The long-term consequences of these injuries are being examined in a way they weren't years ago which is raising awareness of the dangers. I also believe there is something to the theory that as the amount of padding on players increases, they start to feel invulnerable. So there may in fact be a higher rate of concussions, but I would still bet the difference we're seeing is due to increased scrutiny.

I think you're absolutely right, and that's why I think it's a far worse situation than those who believe it's about the concussions do. I also think that Jauron completely ruined any chance Edwards had to overcome that performance when he took the game out of his hands at the end. Edwards actually made a good 20-yard throw to Royal to get within (long) field goal range when Jauron decided that was good enough and clamped down on the offense. For a mentally shaky young player, I think that was incredibly damaging, and we saw Edwards take on more and more traits of his coach, to the point that risk-aversion crippled his game. Can it be overcome? I really doubt it, at this point.

A great QB would give you more bang for your buck than a great OT, IMO, but how many people think that great QB will be available for the Bills in the draft this year? I'm far from an expert but there doesn't seem to be any consensus that any of the QBs are great top 10 picks, yet I expect 2 will be taken very early as they almost always are. If that's the case, the worst thing the Bills could do is take a QB just because that's what they've decided they need. The Bills cannot afford to miss on this pick. Getting fixated on which position is the most important is a terrible way to approach the draft. I hope the Bills draft a difference maker, whether that's a QB, OL, DL,or LB (hopefully not RB, WR, S, or CB though). Of course every team wants a Peyton Manning, but you don't pick J.P. Losman over Joe Thomas just because you've decided QB is more important.

3 Super Bowl wins?

You're not a good punt returner if you continually make dumb decisions.

Some very good points here. From the perspective of winning this one football game, running a play on that 1st and goal was the wrong move, but it became clear to me watching Coach Fewell's postgame press conference that he knew exactly what he was doing and is trying to change the attitude of the team. From that perspective it was a good call. And Miami had the look of a team that just quit. I hope they're embarrassed.

You do realize the clock starts when the ball is snapped?

How does running an unnecessary offensive play compare to those games? I don't consider it running up the score, but if anything the decision the Bills made to attempt to score actually put the win in more jeopardy than a conservative call like taking a knee would've.

In the overall scheme of things, it's not a big deal, but if you take a knee Miami has no hope of any comeback - it was first down, they had no timeouts, and there was only 1:20 left. Their hope would really be a fumble on the play when Jackson is going in for the score. It worked out for the Bills, so great, but I hope the decision was made out of a desire to reward the team and try to instill a winning attitude rather than ignorance of the game situation.

No way Coughlin loses his job 2 years off a Super Bowl victory and one year off home field in the NFC. It wouldn't surprise me to see their DC or Gilbride offered up as a scapegoat, though.

That is one thing that could make the Buffalo job enticing for someone who wants total control - not a lot of contracts where you'd incur a salary cap hit for cutting them, so whoever is running the show would have a free hand to bring in his own players. Even Schobel and Kelsay are getting on in their contracts so I don't think there would be too much of a hit to get rid of them if desired. The recent big contracts/extensions I can think of are Evans, McGee, Stroud, but no others really spring to mind.

I like a lot of what I've seen out of Fewell so far, and I wish him well, but I don't think he's what the Bills need right now. They're in urgent need of restored credibility with potential assistant coaches and free agents around the league, and he just doesn't offer that. Still, it's nice to see a guy who seems to realize what an opportunity he's been given.

I would also say that Seifert inherited a winning system already in place, with players extremely well-versed in running it. Shanahan, while he inherited a great QB in Elway, really had to retrain that team to get them to a championship. He had much more of a hand in molding the Broncos than Seifert did the 49ers.

Like others who have replied, I too lived through '91-'94, so I feel like I have some basis for saying being a fan of the Bills is far far worse today than it was at any point during that stretch. Yeah, when I was 18-20 those Super Bowl losses hurt. But along with those losses came a lot of great memories of games the Bills won. What memories do I have to enjoy from the last 10 years of Bills football? A 31-0 beating of the Patriots after acquiring Lawyer Milloy, and...? Help me out here. Bottom line, I want to have enjoyable Bills football again. Even if it doesn't result in a championship.

Anyone available at this point in the season is going to have serious question marks, but if he is even a shadow of his former self this is a good pickup.

Seems like every year is supposed to be the year when the Texans put it all together and make a run to the playoffs. This year we were even treated to them being lauded for the excellence of their early round drafting when they were playing the Bills. Yet here we are again, with the Texans slipping to 5-5. Are the young players on the Texans being overrated? Or is Kubiak a really bad coach? Or a little of both?

Yep. The only reason I came away unhappy yesterday was the injury to Wood. That sucked.

Yeah, not taking the TO there was really bad. They were close enough in that any pass plays would be going to the end zone, so they could've taken at least two shots before settling for the field goal, maybe even 3 and kick on fourth down. Those are the kinds of missed opportunities that kill you.

Yeah, that's true. It might be worth considering when tied or with a one or two point lead. I'll have to amend my statement - "None of them involve your team currently leading by 3 or more points."

Any coach who decides to let the other team score when up by 5 should be fired immediately. As others have said, there are some limited circumstances where letting the other team score makes sense. None of them involve your team currently being in the lead, though.

Now that's true, and pretty much undercuts any defense I could make of his clock management, especially when combined with the end of the first half. What'd they lose, about 30 seconds on that play?

Don't look for an answer from me, I'm not interested in getting into a name-calling match with you.