Ennjay

I have to split one hair here. CJ Spiller could actually play football and had some good moments. What made him such a bad choice was that the Bills didn't need him, but DID need a lot of help elsewhere. Everybody else on your list was just a wasted pick, at least in the round the Bills used on him.

Good analysis in the OP. As for the quote above, we could quibble about what "a few" means, but the roster breakdown reinforces why people (well, at least me) don't care about the number of picks Beane gave up in the Diggs trade. I think he's worth the #1 if you want to win now (which we do) and the rest of the package was a bunch of ???'s that would have a hard time making this team -- picks from the rounds Beane added to with the Bodine and Teller trades.

I know there's been more discussion of whether Logan Thomas is any good but I wanted to get this in: it wasn't that long ago (3 years?) that the Bills were desperate to sign anyone who could play the game even a little because they had so many holes. Now they don't have room to stash and develop guys that other teams actually overpay to recruit. Hallelujah.

[Silent Thread in Spirit -- Condolences to all the Family]

This post has been up for nearly 48 hours and nobody's told a Booth Lusteg joke yet.

I remember Dave Costa as a DT but there are no OT's or DT's designated, just T's.. This is also before Paul Costa got switched from TE to OT.

I'm so out of it these days ........

Whoops. How soon I forgot. It's the NJ lockdown. They've turned off my football radar too.

Pete is CJ's great uncle. Pete's brother Bobby was a front office exec with several teams. IIRC Bobby had a good reputation. Bobby is CJ's grandfather. God this makes me feel old since I remember Pete Beatherd -- and this game.

Meanwhile since they already soured the relationship with Cam, who's supposed to play QB in Carolina? Or are they already tanking for Taylor Lawrence (a local hero too!) in the '21 draft?

I can honestly and sincerely share with all of you that I had completely forgotten that Ray Ray McCloud was currently a Buffalo Bill. I'm also supremely confident that I'm not the only one. Are we sure that he is?

And it's official: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28898729/bengals-end-tumultuous-relationship-lt-cordy-glenn

Not a lot of tears shed around here in North Jersey when Prince and the Giants divorced. Just sayin'.

Putting aside I don't give a rat's crap about Miami's QB situation so long as it stays bad: Joey Harrington comes to mind. Not Jimmy Clausen because a lot (meaning a lot) of people thought he was a marginal talent to begin with and the Carolina situation wasn't as bad as AZ and Miami. (Cue the Notre Dame defenders; ND hasn't produced a decent NFL QB since ... Steve Beuerlein?)

You are exactly right. It shows again that voters for the HOF of "the ultimate team game" put too much emphasis on winning Super Bowls. Of course that counts for something, but a guy (Coryell) who made a huge mark on this sport is penalized because his teams in St Louis and San Diego were good enough to be in the championship mix for years but never overcame some other good teams like Dallas and Pittsburgh and Miami to get to the top. Coryell made Dan Fouts, who's in the HOF himself.

What a pleasure it is to fill my Monday morning with this topic. Thank you for giving my week the sunshine-and-roses start it deserves. Maybe it will snow, too!

Good list but I would add making Marv GM as a bonehead move. Look, I love Marv. But this wasn't a job he could do and Ralph hired him strictly and purely because he (Ralph) felt comfortable with him (Marv), the team and the fans be damned. Then he made it worse with Brandon. I have to think Ralph really lost it in his last years. But I always wondered if he really understood how the game on the field worked (hello Kaye Stephenson, Hank Bullough, . . .) I don't know about cynical, but pitiful and flat-out stupid work too.

This XFL exists for only one reason: television programming at a minimal cost. Per Wikipedia: "The Wall Street Journal reported via inside sources that neither the broadcasters or the league are making any upfront payments, but that the XFL will sell the in-game sponsorship inventory. The networks will cover the production costs, hold the digital rights to their telecasts, and the right to sell the conventional commercial inventory during their games." Team budgets and the programming costs are all low enough that it won't take much (a few ads, ticket sales, maybe some t-shirts) to make the league "viable" -- meaning it won't lose money. And think about it: what else do Fox (and its FS1) and ABC (and its ESPN) have to program in these time slots? They're already saturated with college basketball and that ends for them in about another month anyway. Golf? Not many majors in the next 10 or 12 weeks (CBS has the Masters). Baseball? Fox can park its Saturday game on one of its two networks but the seasons barely overlap (two weeks in April?) and nobody will care that early in the year. Bowling? I think this is very low risk for ABC and Fox. So long as they control costs like it seems they can, this can be a workable venture.

I had the same reaction. Robert DeNiro is a great actor. Who isn't Irish.

Seattle should be a Fox game but unlikely to be what Fox likes to call America's Game of the Week at 4 or 4:25 with Buck and Aikman -- it's not like the Cowboys or Patriots are playing, using the Fox mindset. So I see Seattle as a 1 pm game for that reason, especially if it's on a Fox doubleheader week. Yeah two good teams but not much national juice. Loved the movie, but DeNiro as Irish?????? Geez and begorrah.

Thanks. I can't explain why (other than the obvious I want everything Bills to be great) but the weakness and unreliability of our punting game bothered me more and more as the season went on no matter what Bojorquez did. He was supposed to be a thunderfoot stud when they picked him up off NE's waivers and really on his best days he's only a journeyman gap filler. I don't know what priority to give a punter, but if Charlton is that good and he's there in the third round given how late the Bills draft this year . . . is that crazy talk?

So . . . no punters?

I'd forgotten. You're absolutely right.

Me too. He probably pissed somebody (maybe a lot of people) off back in the day. I find the Football HOF voting too biased that way -- guys who are in the club get in and the outliers don't make the cut. Guys on national broadcasts like Cowher and Johnson are in the club. I don't know if anyone actually dislikes Tasker but neither can I see who his in-the-club buddies are. BTW, my favorite Karras line from when he was on MNF: Cosell was going on too long about what a great blocker some RB or WR was, so Karras says, "if he's such a good blocker why don't they stick a 63 on his back and. make him a guard?"