smokinandjokin

Bill Oefelein has the biggest booster rocket in NASA!!!

He bought me one once the bar went cash, whether he remembers it or not...

I'm no Willis apologist, but some facts need to be posted here. LABF makes good points above...Let me expand: Willis really played 13 games, essentially missing all of the Green Bay game, as well as games against Houston and Indy- all of them weak run defenses. If we assume Willis rushed for 75% of A-Train's 260 yards in those games (even though Thomas averaged 3.5 ypc this year to Willis' 3.8) that would give him an extra 195 for the season, putting him at 1185. Add in maybe another TD, a few more catches, and Willis' would be right near the top-10 in NFL backs for production. (That rushing total alone would've placed him 12th.) I'm not a fan of paying him top dollar, but I'm also not a fan of letting a very productive player walk away because people don't like his intelligence or sexual escapades. Also consider, in the games Willis did play, he faced many of the top rushing defenses in the NFL. The run defense ranks are in parenthesis: Minnesota (1), Baltimore (2), Jacksonville (4), two games vs. New England (5), Chicago (6), San Diego (7), and two games against Miami (8). That's nine games against teams ranked in the Top-8 against the run. Get rid of Willis, and what are we hoping to pick up? Maybe a back who could gain 1100-1200 yards and 8-9 TD's? Yeah, good idea, let's try to find one of those...

The Bills need to beat the Patriots at least once, and they need to win the division. With four games against Miami and the NYJ, it's the easiest way into the playoffs. The Wild Card will always be tough. I expect Cincy to tighten the reigns and limit the off-field distractions. Even still, they were sitting at 8-5 and in prime position this year before losing their last three. I don't anticipate Big Ben nose-diving into the windshield of a car this offseason, and you know the Steelers will draft well. Baltimore may have been overrated or lucky, but they did go 13-3. San Diego will be in the mix, along with Denver. And KC made the playoffs this year. Indy will get in, and Jacksonville will be looming around like usual, as will the Titans. By surprise team, I assume they're talking playoffs. 2nd place in the AFC East with a 9-7 or 8-8 record and no playoffs wouldn't qualify as a surprise to me.

Exactly! And I didn't even know this guy Bobber. If he was going to get bombed and tell his boss to !@#$ off, I was going to do everything in my power to make sure I got to see it happen.

There were a couple of hotties at the bar, but my editor sent those details to the cutting room floor in the interest of post length. As for the senseless nudity, that's a toughie when dealing with the corporate crowd from 6pm-9pm. I do have a company Xmas party story from two years ago involving a lot of booze and a hotel pool........

He bought me a beer, I bought him one of his back. Standard bar etiquette for any gentleman. Any of his transgressions resulting in his inability to control his behavior after the fact are completely his problem.

I wouldn't say I contributed...I just saw a train fly by, I hopped on, and then hopped off and watched it wreck...And what a firey crash it was!

Yeah, sorry 'bout that, I just starting typing and decided to include all of the details I could remember...Like I said, it was pretty crazy, I was trying to do it justice...

I met a friend of mine out for happy hour on Friday night at a bar in downtown Buffalo. He works for a pretty prominent Buffalo company, well-known with a good number of employees. Supposedly, they were sponsoring some sort of happy hour function, so I told him I'd meet him out for a few pops. We all have seen the disastrous-yet-hilarious people who over-indulge when out at a work function, Christmas Party, etc. It is typically pretty funny for all of the spectators, rather embarassing for the drunkard, but generally pretty harmless in the long run. Well this one on Friday was far from harmless. I arrived at the bar downtown around 5:45pm, mainly because there was a pretty good snowstorm whipping through Buffalo, and it took me a while to navigate the 33 into downtown. My friend and most of his work cronies had arrived at 5pm at the latest, with many of them skating out of work and getting to the bar at 4pm or earlier. I located my buddy, grabbed a beer, and starting shooting the schit with him and a few of his co-workers who I had met at previous happy hours, card games, etc. Overall, I would estimate that they had about 40 people from their company at the bar upon my arrival, and I knew my friend and maybe just two or three others. Well, the evening proceeds and we continue to throw back some beers, when suddenly a guy kind of forces his way to the bar next to us and was muttering something, seeming a little tipsy and slightly aggravated. My friend sees the guy and says, "Bobber, what's happening my man?" Bobber appeared to be your average Joe Corporate...Dockers khakis, button down shirt, ~mid 30's, nothing out of the ordinary. He talked to my friend and seemed to say something about one of the bartenders, and then my friend introduced him to me. We exchanged pleasantries, and Bobber stood and chatted for a few minutes with our group who was standing there. They were talking a lot of shop which, obviously, I had no interest in and was paying little attention to. Then Bobber says, "What are you guys drinking? What do we need here?" The other 3-4 of us requested another beer, and Bobber got himself a scotch and water. He tipped the bartender a buck or two (drinks were free during the happy hour), he passed out our drinks, and slipped into the crowd. We continue to talk, get a little more drunk and festive, hit on some girls from my friend's company, and some other girls who were just bar patrons, nibble on some of the bar finger foods...You know, typical happy hour stuff. The place was pretty crowded, my friend said there was a good turnout with many people from his company. At this point, it was probably around 8:30pm and I saw Bobber again. Scotch in hand, he was now completely smashed. His cheeks were flushed red, and the eyes were moving a little slow and had the nice glaze going. He came over and talked to the guys I was talking to, saying some very inappropriate things rather loudly. For example, calling one of the female employees who walked by a B word and a skank, harping rather loudly about his boss's Jewish heritage, and generally saying "!@#$" about every other word. He was clearly bombed and heading down a bad path. A couple of Bobber's co-workers, my friend included, mentioned (while laughing slightly) that he was acting a little inappropriately and should probably keep his voice down. Bobber responded with the canned response, "!@#$ that! !@#$ them, I don't care what they think! !@#$ 'em!" (I must say I did nothing to squash this behavior, as it was thoroughly entertaining. In fact, once the free happy hour was over, I may or may not have bought Bobber a scotch and water... ) So, the night goes on, it's after 9pm, and I'm getting ready to head for the hills. There was still a good crowd in the bar, most of them the layovers from happy hour, along with a few early arrivals for the Friday night out. I'm about half-finished with my final beer when the whispers begin and my friend alerts me to look over toward the bar. There is Bobber, drunk as a skunk, being helped up by his boss, who had been standing and talking to a group of people. Apparently (I didn't see it but this is what I'm told) Bobber tripped and was going down, and his boss was right there and turned around to try and catch him. As his boss tried to keep him up, he grabbed Bobber's shirt and popped a few buttons off. That was the situation when I looked over. Bobber gets up, looking pissed, and his boss is kind of laughing and asking if he's okay. (His boss looked generally horrified, but was trying to put a good face on it.) Bobber slaps his bosses hand off his arm, and starts pointing and yelling at his boss. His boss kind of puts his hands up in the "I didn't do anything" gesture, but Bobber is hot! He rips the rest of his own shirt apart, tearing it apart at the buttons, and let it hang loose revealing his white undershirt. His boss puts his arm around his shoulder and takes him off to the side, away from the group, where they can talk. Bobber is yelling and going crazy, slamming his hand down on the table and and yelling and pointing at his boss, saying things like "You purposely embarrassed me" and things like that (mind you, there was music playing in the bar and they were about 10-15 feet away, so I was only picking up pieces.) My friend and his co-workers were just staring, jaws dropped, and I was bouncing up and down extremely excited. Basically everyone in the place was staring at these two. Then it happened: I see Bobber reach into his pocket, pull out his laminated employee i.d., slam it down on the table and say "I !@#$ing QUIT!!!" He then stormed out and nearly knocked me over on his way out, muttering something that ended in "that !@#$ing Jew." He busted out the door and into the cold with his ripped shirt, leaving his jacket behind. I emailed my friend this morning, and he said Bobber came in today, on time at 8am! My friend said nobody really knew what to do, and nobody really said much. Bobber was slinking around quietly and first tried to pretend that nothing really happened, a la George Costanza. Then, the boss he argued with called him into the office, and 15 minutes later, Bobber was escorted to his desk, and in his arms was a cardboard box and the jacket he forgot at the bar. He packed up and was gone, and is probably at the unemployment office as we speak. Sorry the story was so long, but I had to tell it. It really had to be seen to be believed. It's impossible not to watch when somebody is self-destructing right before your eyes. I was waiting excitedly for the "I !@#$ing QUIT!!!" and almost didn't believe it when I saw it. Pretty wild. I guess the moral of the story is that if you plan on getting drunk at a work function, you should at least drink beer instead of scotch. It will take you much longer to get bombed, and hopefully your boss will be gone by then.

Has there EVER been a 4th quarter played in Dolphins Stadium where there weren't a bunch of empty orange seats in the crowd? If you had Indy -7 or had any interest in the over/under, I'm sure you found the game exciting right until the end. Personally, I took the Colts and the under 48, and I would like to thank Tony Dungy for his excellent coaching decision to bypass the FG late in the game and keep the total at 46. Personally, I loved the rain. And the early missed XP threw everybody's squares out of whack. Suddenly 7 wasn't a great number anymore...I thought it was great! Can you imagine if the game was in Orchard Park yesterday? It was blizzard conditions and there was a driving ban...I'm sure the NFL execs and other corporate-types would've loved that!!!

Jeez...MVP my ass...

Just give them a little Nyquil, they'll fall asleep fast and won't even realize they're hungry! I hear yah, I wanted to take the points too, especially with the rain, but I was 3-0 on the Colts in the playoffs, couldn't justify taking Grossman over Manning. I was watching the game with a friend of mine who took the Bears, and he said about two hours before kickoff that the spread was basically 14 because Hester was going to take the opening kick back. I couldn't effing believe it when it happened....

No safeties in run support helps an OLine look pretty good, too. They were so scared of fast-strike Manning, they let Dominick Rhodes kill them slowly. Did you see how far off the LOS the Bears' safeties were playing? A good 15+ yards, and backpedaling on the snap! There's no denying that Urlacher is a great player, and the heartbeat of the team, but the Chicago defense lost a LOT of luster when Mike Brown went down.

Got it. Definitely not the worst, if that's the case... It's hard to believe there was not a camera angle that definitively showed that; I'm sure CBS probably had 30 cameras througout the stadium and on the sidelines...

Don't be a schmuck. I'd like to remember you as a moron on the TSW, but I wouldn't begrudge you if you did a few commercials.

Yeah, screw him for making easy money, and getting a few free cars!!!! What a chump!

I saw that....But just based on when he starting running off, and then when the ball was snapped, it seemed like he would've been off the field in PLENTY of time, unless he just broke into a slow walk. He very well might have, and Dungy might have seen it from the sideline, but still was a strange challenge. I can't quite remember, but wouldn't it have made a 3rd & 9 a 3rd & 4 if the challenge was successful? And they were already in FG range? Seemed like a risk of a timeout in what was a close game...

Let's give some credit to Lovie Smith as well, who decided that his safeties could lineup 18 yards from the LOS and then backpedal five yards on the snap....A lot of 5-6 yard runs were quickly becoming 12-13 yard runs...

Where the F did that come from??? Has to be one of the worst red flag decisions I've seen....The 12th man seemed to be off the field in PLENTY of time before the ball was snapped, but regardless, there wasn't a camera angle that even showed if he was on the field or not! Strange move.

Jimbo's spare tire and dirt 'stache didn't prevent him from scoring chicks in South Beach while you were home drinking a protein shake and doing situps.

I'm a goddam genius. All you tards who somehow tricked yourselves into taking the inferior NFC (and Rex!!!) deserved to lose. A special 'thank you' to Tony Dungy for going for it on 4th & 6 from the 15 yard line with 2 minutes left to preserve the under. And I hit a 1st quarter square for $250! Profitable day.

Why waste a draft pick, when his up-in-the-air contract status should provide all the motivation necessary? And please enlighten me as to who all of these unmotivated superstars are.

That was the first one I remember talking about the next day at school....

49ers-Dolphins for me, I was 6 years old. I have pretty vivid memories of all of them since then. The Raiders-Skins Super Bowl the year before that doesn't ring any sort of bell.