Ennjay

Running screens has a lot to do with the mobility of your o-line. Can Gandy, Anderson, Big Mike get out for screens? Maybe, but they're not exactly built that way. I see Willis catching a lot of flares as a safety valve IF JP can't use his TE that way. I expect once the season starts he'll be better than Bledsoe was at the quick dump-off when nothing's there because he'll be so well coached against DB's pat-pat-pat-wait-for-the-opening habit. UNLESS JP can't get over his urge to run.

Reading and hearing pre-season talk about the Bills reminds me how frustrated I get with the national football media because most of these guys NEVER WATCH THE GAMES AND DON'T SEE THESE GUYS PLAY. Thus, the national surprise about the Bills cutting Bledsoe -- if you haven't seen his mistakes and flaws you still think he's a Pro Bowler. Also the national indignation over trading Henry -- never mind he's slow, can't block, and can't catch. I trust Dr. Z because I think he makes the effort to watch game tapes. I think Chris Mortenson generally does his homework. And I like watching Ron Jaworski (the Lackawanna Rifle!) break down tapes but I'm not sure how many games he catches. Whose opinions do you trust in the football media?

Your post got me curious (I couldn't name many beyond Carr and Johnson), so I looked at the roster on www.houstontexans.com. Not a lot of household names, but: Marcus Coleman -- didn't he score a TD vs. the Bills on a Bledsoe interception a few years ago when he was with the Jets? Or was it RJ? DaShon Polk -- former Bill, right? Benny Joppru -- TE who's usually injured, wasn't he supposed to be a sleeper Bills draft pick about three years ago (meaning people on this board wanted him a lot; who knows what TD thought of him . . .).

One only-half-way-interesting-and-completely-predictable-note: the Mike & Mike Bledsoe discussion. It's clear that neither of these guys has actually watched Bledsoe play for the last two years. All comments were based on reputation and his status as a veteran who's been around and accomplished what I think of as longevity statistics. If you play for a dozen years in the modern NFL, of course you'll move up on the all-time stat lists. (Does anyone really think that just about every long-term starting QB in the NFL for the past 10 years is better than Johnny Unitas ever was?) Golic surprised me because I thought he watched more film, etc. for his ESPN TV gigs about the NFL.

Also notice UB is an 18/19 point dog in its UConn opener. Sigh.

By including Washington, DC. (#35)

Interesting that the South tends to be fat and New England tends to the opposite.

"He played for the Kokudo Bunnies of the Japanese league in 2001 . . . " (There's a great punchline lying around here somewhere . . . )

Thanks. The nfl.com stats page is working now, so I could find those plays.

Has a Bills TE caught a pass tonight? Has a pass been thrown to a Bills TE?

Thanks, but why would you waste a seven-day free trial on a preseason game?

Your assessment of Giants fans is dead on. You'll find New Yorkers generally don't really know much about football.

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Some time ago -- maybe a year? -- a new IKEA opened on Route 4 in Paramus, which you may know is the middle of Mall Heaven in North Jersey. Lots of anticipation and publicity, nutzo traffic jams the first weekend. In two or three days it all blew over and now it's just another ordinary big store with its own parking ramp. My wife cruised it once and vowed never again. I still haven't been there myself. So the answer is: no, you're not missing anything.

This is going to be a perfect case of deals being affected by the lack of an extension of the CBA. All the other big-money CB contracts amortize the signing bonus over at least six years, I believe. If Nate signs today he can only be amortized over five, meaning the per-year cap hit will be higher for the Bills than it was for the teams that signed the other deals mentioned in the story. That makes it that much harder for the Bills to do an extension NOW. Of course, the amortization limit would apply to anyone else signing Clements, but as of today only the Bills can do that, and the rest of the league -- which would have to wait until February anyway -- gets a break waiting for the CBA to be extended while the Bills' hands are tied.

People seem to forget that TD gets along fine with Rosenhaus, who is also WM's agent. I don't think either has any personal lesson he wants to teach the other. As other posters have said, it's all about slotting. My bigger concern is that Rosenhaus claims to have something like 94 clients. Not all of them are draft choices negotiating their first contracts on the eve of training camp like Roscoe, but if Roscoe doesn't sign until Rosenhaus can be in the same room as TD, and he's flying around to other camps, then when do we get our turn at him?

I thought there were sites listing every team's draftees and who's already signed. Does anybody have a web address? And while I'm asking: the Bills have, what, three down and three to go, correct? They've signed Preston, Geisinger, and Gates, right?

This is going to make such a huge difference this year. You can't overstate how much pressure JP and the running game will take OFF the LT, whoever it is, compared to what we're used to. In some respects there will be more pressure on Big Mike because JP's natural rollout will be in his direction, to JP's right. But RT's tend not to see the best pass rushers, who line up on the blind side (like Freeney).

I think Moulds will continue to draw more coverage than Evans this year because he'll still be the bread-and-butter receiver. I also think this will be a GREAT year to be the Bills' slot receiver, since he'll routinely draw the most favorable mismatch on D. Now if only we threw to TE's . . .

I have no problem with Michaels. And I actually thought Dan Fouts knew what he was talking about.

I believe he's moving to the ESPN Monday night pre-game show in 2006.

I've often said that Joe Theisman blows dead moose chunks. Does anyone have a better one-line analysis?

This is too perfect. Is there a ring of fame at Pro Player Stadium where they could engrave this? And if you were Don Shula, at this very moment would you be (a) planning to die so you could roll over in your grave or (b) laughing uncontrollably?

Have you considered the Garden State of New Jersey? Oh . . . yeah . . . well, never mind.