Ennjay

Thanks for the responses. I'd still like to know about any franchise-and-trade deals (first round pick or any pick) other than Price, and I notice nobody has come up with one. I'm not sure you can take off the franchise tag the same year you put it on a player. In other words, if you franchise Jennings, I think, you MUST sign him to Top 5 money if he signs (vs. holding out), and I think you have to block his imputed salary against your cap even if he holds out. You can only beat it if you trade him or sign him to a contract with a lesser salary hit. One poster's reference to Spikes implicitly makes two more good points: 1. The Bengals' failure to franchise-and-trade goes back to my original question. They had their reasons, but they let him go for nothing. Again: franchise-and-trade isn't as simple as it looks. 2. Since the Bengals didn't franchise him we'll never know if the Bills thought he was worth giving up a number one. It seems ridiculous to me that they would hesitate for a heartbeat to give up anything but, say, one of the first three picks (if even) for Spikes. More likely, would anyone rather have, say the 18th pick in the draft than TKO? Nevertheless a lot of NFL teams are scared to death to give up a first-round pick in advance, even though it seems like there are more first-round busts every year, more later-round gems every year, and maybe more first-round draft-day trades every year.

A lot of people on this board are telling the Bills to franchise and trade Jennings or Williams. It looks so easy because it worked for Price. Think about it. How often does this happen in real life? The Price deal was great but it took the accident of Atlanta's owner salivating for a local guy (Price) who looked like a "perfect fit" for the other new toy in town, Michael Vick. Under the circumstances Atlanta didn't care about the draft choice or the Price contract. If it's so easy to franchise a guy and then trade him for a first-round pick, how come everybody doesn't do it? Can anyone remember a player other than Price who scored a Number One for his original team this way? And if you can name only two or three more in the last 15 years, what does that say? I'm not saying it's not worth dreaming about this -- just that it's unrealistic to think other teams are lining up to make that kind of deal, based on past history.

A lot of posters are talking about whether or not SD trades Brees. Just to be clear, his contract is up this year and they can't trade him unless they re-sign him OR use the franchise tag to retain his rights. Franchising anyone creates a risk that the player will then be untradeable because few (or no) teams will want to pay top 5 money for one year for the player in question. Who would want to rent a quarterback (that is, a key guy who doesn't know your offense) for big bucks for one season? So it only should only work for SD if Brees agrees to a multi-year deal either with the new team (as Peerless did) or with SD that's acceptable to the new team. (And if SD can work out a multi-year contract they may not need to franchise him.) This is all written with the assumption SD wants to get some value for Brees when they lose him. If they actually want to KEEP him, things are different.

Actually I think it's Mondays at 9 (Eastern), in the vacated MNF spot for us die-hards.

Terrific show. More tension, minute-to-minute, than anything else on TV. I thought it lost its way towards the end of last year (the Sherry/David Palmer storyline just got completely stupid, and what was the deal with what's-her-name and the baby and Chase?), but killing off Sherry, axing Palmer as president, and cutting off CTU suggests the producers know that and are setting up for a fresh start.

In a roundabout way that's really my point. I held on to faith in Bledsoe as long as I could, thinking it was Kilbride's fault or the line's fault or whatever, and that in the right schemes he would just have to push the right buttons and get the job done without really being a star (like, say, Trent Dilfer in Baltimore their SB year or Brad Johnson in Tampa Bay their SB year). What he showed yesterday, like he did against the Patriots in November, is that in a big game against a smart defense he bottoms out. So It looks like it's time to just go with JP, with Bledsoe on the bench. I don't know what an "open competition" accomplishes, if there really is such a thing. I was trying to say that a truly "open competition" would likely favor Bledsoe in preseason.

Good points all and I too would like to see JP catch fire next year. There's a threshold problem however: with the vanilla defenses, limited efforts, and quick substitutions you see in the first two preseason games (when the decisions are really made), there really is no way JP can look better than Drew unless the coaches don't base it on game performance. Opposing D's will not zero in on Drew's weaknesses in preseason the way they do in the regular season. Meanwhile he'll have the advantage of working with an improvng line that needs to get its work in too. Even if JP starts a game and Drew plays the second half, second- and third-string D's will not be running the stunts and misdirections that make Drew look bad. So starting JP will require the coaches to make some kind of leap of faith based on his atholetic ability, because they sure won't base it on his superior game management or defense reading in the preseason -- there just won't be a significant advantage there for him.

Does anyone else remember the Anaheim Amigos of the original ABA -- the one that John Y. Brown passed through on his way to gutting the Braves?

For those of us not watching the Bills on TV, how was the crowd at the end? Cheering? (Mostly Steeler fans?) Booing?

The Bergen Record (writing about the Jets' plans) says the San Diego home game is Saturday night. That would make the Indy home game Sunday afternoon. The NFL.com schedule page says the Sunday AFC (CBS) game is at 1 p.m., so that would also force the other AFC game to be Saturday night. NFL.com doesn't (yet) say which home team has which slot.

Sure, that would work. You can also bake your own from a mix -- you add one egg and it takes about 15 minutes.

Have you tried corn bread instead of crackers? The sweetness goes really well with chili spices.

I find that really interesting. The Peerless deal was supposed to cement Vick as a weapon because he'd have a downfield go-to receiver if defenses bunched the o-line to take away the Vick run. So after two years they would give up on Peerless? They need the cap space that much? And they have other receivers?

That was Darren Woodson from Dallas.

I've been reading all year that Jennings is from Georgia and the Falcons have an interest. I know nothing whatsoever about either the Falcons' o-line or their cap situation. It's just possible that the Falcons have two tackles they like and no cap room anyway. Does anyone on this board know anything about either?

This is a joke, right? Charlotte Bobcats. First-year expansion team replacing the Hornets, who moved to New Orleans about three years ago. (Maybe you missed it.) Something like the Cleveland and Houston expansions in the NFL. Named after the principal owner, Robert "Bob" Johnson, pubisher of Ebony and Jet and first African American principal owner of a major sports franchise (if you consider the NBA "major"). For a while Michael Jordan (a North Carolina native) was supposed to be putting money in, but he backed out when ownership wouldn't let him run the show (like that disaster he created in Washington). Coach and GM is Bernie Bickerstaff, who has to be among the worst of either in the NBA.

Is anyone listening to this? The Niners color man just said he had to look up in the media guide where the "Buffalo Bill" name came from. Are these guys really NFL broadcasters?

Didn't he just go over?

I'm listening to the Bills feed, watching the play-by-play on nfl.com Gamecenter, with the Jets-Pats game on my TV. I assume so's everybody else, right? Can it get any better?

Thanks. Who are these announcers? They sound really mediocre -- were Niner broadcasts this weak when they had Montana and Young?

Thanks. Strange there's no page on nfl.com.

Why would anyone give two bobbleheads of the same guy?

I can't find the page for future opponents on either nfl.com or buffalobills.com. Can anyone help me out?

There seems to be a lot of negativity towards Moulds because he complained about losing and indicated he could want something better. (It's a quibble, but he didn't actually say he wanted out and he hasn't demanded anything yet.) I actually like it when players get upset about losing. I like the attitude and I like the pressure it puts on management. And unlike, say Terrel Owens, who torched SF as best he could all last season before his agent actually screwed up his exit (remember that?), Moulds is no locker-room problem. So yeah, I wish he never wanted out, and yeah, I think he's had better seasons, but no, I'm not down on him and I want him back.

Nice memories, but a correction or two: Tom Janek never punted in a game. Paul Maguire was the Bills' punter in those days. The return was 102 yards. (Janek, by the way, was a safety picked up in a trade with Denver. I think he replaced Hagood Clarke.) Jack Spikes was a fullback and kick returner, not a punter. I think he went to Miami in the expansion draft but I'm not sure. If I could only remember what happened yesterday as well as I can remember this stuff . . .