Taro T

I'm not sure what you're referring to about the Anaheim jerseys. The ugly maroon is their base color from their home jersey and the silver and white show up in the home logo.

The Sabres got special approval from the league to wear the b/g that one time. If they come out in b/g this time, while the possibility exists that it may be another 1 time thing, it WON'T be a 3rd jersey. Color scheme for 3rds have to use team's uniform/logo colors. The Sabres currently do not have blue in the color scheme, although they have been adding a gold border around the shatanic goat head in their brochures / etc.

That it is. Looks like they finally got the deal done. Also, although pre/post games aren't showing yet, they should end up on that channel as well.

I think that's been said before about members of that family and to date the Dem's are 1-3 on the prediction. While I don't know nearly enough about him right now to vote for or against Jeb and there are other Republicans I'd like to see run, I would not write him off just yet.

From what I have been told by DirecTV reps, if you are in WNY AND have Center Ice you will be able to see the games on the Center Ice channels (773 for tonight's game) as DirecTV claims Rochester / East have Anger/Slander/Evil as their home market and Buffalo has Pens as home market. This contradicts what I have always understood the NHL blackout policy to be, but I have been told that by at least 3 of their customer service reps / supervisors. However, until / unless something gets worked out between DTV and MSG you will not be able to see the Sabres pre/post game shows as they typically are not carried on Center Ice. Dave.

I don't think they'd have a problem selling the new B&G. The issue is what do you do with 1,000 Black Noronnen sweaters. Dave.

As near as I can tell, there's nothing to the story. He dumped the stock 1 month before it tanked but put works in motion to drop it from his blind trust 2 months earlier at the behest of critics who didn't want him owning it. Doesn't appear to be a lot of smoke there, but I guess time will tell. Dave.

Huh? Dave.

There is no way that Ralph would ever hire Polian back, even if the Colts were dumb enough to allow him to be available. Ralph's buddy and head accountant hated Polian and vice versa (personality issues, not financial ones); Ralph sided with the accountant as Ralph didn't like Polian's attitude very much either. I would definitely like to see Polian back. Especially when you consider that Polian was instrumental in developing the Salary Cap. Dave.

I will agree that Wade had a very strong loyalty to his friend, but there is NO WAY that guy should have been anywhere near an NFL sideline. Ronnie Jones took one of the best special teams units in the league and made it just about the worst. Wade had no problem with making DeHaven the scape goat for the home run throw forward and then replacing him with a guy with no special teams experience. He should have been willing to tell his friend, "hey, sorry, we tried. Go back to college for a few years, get some more experience and maybe I can bring you in as a quality control coach." Actually, the ST coach he should have refused to fire was DeHaven. Didn't Wade want to move Jones to Linebackers Coach? I can just imagine how that thought process must have worked. "Well, we've got a good linebacking corp, heck they're almost as good as special teams used to be. Ronnie can't f*** that one up, can he?" Sorry Wade, I think he could have. Overall, I think Wade did a good job. It's a d*mn shame that one more than likely illegal fluke play ended up lining up the dominoes on him. Dave.

Might work. More likely though, it would cause the companies to only provide insurance to top executives as the added cost of insuring the "masses" would exceed the value of the deduction for the employees they were currently providing insurance. Dave.

Agreed about making adjustments on the fly (4-3, 3-4 who do we have who's healthy? and he made it work). The thing that doomed Wade was the Home Run Throw Forward. If that doesn't happen, Bruce DeHaven is STILL the Bills' special teams coach and idiot boy with the cones is still an assistant college coach or pool boy or whatever but not an assistant with the Bills. And Wade would never have been put in the position of defending idiot boy or keeping his job. He probably would have lost his job a couple of years later when the wheels fell off in the salary cap purge, but he wouldn't have been gone before Donahoe showed up. It didn't help Wade with the "disciples" that he couldn't get Dickerson off his case about wearing headphones. (The funny thing about that is I was going through an old junk drawer and found the Wade Phillips tickets that the Bills gave out at the Rams game and Wade was wearing headphones on those.) Dave.

That sounds pretty reasonable as to why throws are going high. Any idea on how they can speed up his getting comfortable in the pocket and stepping into the throw? (I mean other than getting the O-Line to give him some time back there on a regular basis!) Would running some designed rollouts WITH the protection moving with him help? Thanks, Dave.

You're absolutely right. Sheldon should have caught the ball on that pass. JP has made some good throws this season (the long one to Evans in the first game comes to mind immediately), it's just that he seems to be overthrowing most of his passes (it may just be the beer remembering the high throws and not the others, but I definitely have a perception that his throws tend to be higher or wider than necessary). Going back to my original post in this thread, I was wondering if there was anything the coaching staff could work with him on (if in fact he really is overthrowing a significant portion of his throws) or if it is something that he just has to work through by getting more experience on the field. Dave.

It's not just the long ones he seems to overthrow. Most throws - short, medium, and long, SEEM to me to be either wildly overthrow or thrown at the head of the receiver. If he could get his target lowered about 18 inches, I'd expect to see him completing more passes, especially given the way he rockets the ball. Dave.

It's my understanding that it is just the Sabres games and pre/post game shows that were picked up by Dish. Your best bet would be to check programming guide on Wednesday to see what channel the game will be shown on. I'm dealing with the opposite problem currently. I have DirecTV which gets MSG, but DirecTV and MSG haven't negotiated a deal for the Sabres games back feeds. So I get MSG, but no Sabres as of yet. Dave.

It's hard for me to really comment on that one, as he's only seemed to have time to throw on a handful of occassions. Dave.

If you quadrupled the number of them, especially w/ reducing their salaries; law of supply and demand says it gets cheaper to bribe a congressman. Demand has remained constant; supply has increased and marginal cost of bribe the market setting bribee is willing to take has likely gone down as well. You would get even less accomplished, and pork-laden bills just got a lot more pork in them as you now have many more congresscritters to feed at the trough. In theory, it would make the govt. more representative and responsive as each congresscritter would now represent a smaller constituency; but reality is - the cluster f*** gets worse, not better. I know you were just joking, but that is a horrible idea. Dave.

Actually, what I think it is the guy showing he's a pretty good politician, democratic opinion that he's the stupidest thing this side of Jessica Simpson aside. If Miers gets confirmed, then he has someone HE knows extremely well and feels comfortable with on the Supreme Court. I have to assume that he feels very comfortable with how he expects her to rule on issues that he considers important. If she gets shot down, due most likely to her never having been a judge, then he gets to nominate someone else - quite possibly Rogers Brown who by all accounts I have read (and no I have not seen details of her decisions) is very STAUNCHLY conservative who the Democrats will now have an even harder time defeating IMHO. I think the Democrats would be extremely reluctant to filibuster or vote down 2 nominees within one year of an election for fear of being viewed as strictly obstructionist. So do the Democrats give him a pass on a nominee that they have very little paper trail to follow, hoping she turns into another Souter; or do they fight tooth and nail with the very strong possibility that someone who is known to be more conservative is waiting in the wings? Either way, I think Bush "wins" this "fight". Dave.

Watching JP for the last 4 games, I've been getting just as frustrated as a lot of other posters and I'm sure the coaches as well. The thing is, it seems to me that most of JP's misses seem to be overthrows on passes to the middle of the field and too throwing too wide on sideline patterns (I know there are a few underthrows, but they seem to be in the minority.) Most of the drops and catches as well seem to be up near the target's head, not down on the numbers. The announcers have mentioned on several occasions that JP seems to have too much adrenalin or is getting too pumped up for the games. If he is in fact overthrowing the ball predominantly, what can the coaches do to try to get him to lower the throws a little, without taking the velocity off the ball? Could the coaches get him loaded up on caffeine in the practices so he's as wired in them as he is in the games? Could they have the receivers line up on practice plays a yard or 2 short of the line of scrimmage and have them run the route as if they had lined up at the line of scrimmage, so that when they run the route in the game it ends up where JP is throwing the ball? These suggestions are more in jest than serious, but the question is serious: what can they do to change JP's preparation to reduce the overthrows, if anything? Or do they just have to let the season progress and as he gets more comfortable in there, he'll stop overthrowing? Thanks, Dave.

The Bills have given up 47.1% on 3rd down. That is 28th in the league and barely out of last place (worst is 50%). The Bills offense has major problems at this point in time and all the 3 and outs in the Tampa heat & humidity and other games definitely did not help the D, but the D isn't helping itself. They have to get off the field when they put themselves in a position to do it. Currently they are not. Especially if the other team is playing it close to the vest, I'd expect their 3rd down percentages to be much better if they were a very good defense. They still have 12 more games and the next two are very winnable. Unfortunately, until the D steps it up on 3rd down and the O finds its bearings, the Bills will have great difficulty winning any games. Dave.

Looks like Bush will announce tonight at 8:00 Eastern that current White House counsel Harriet Miers as nominee to fill the O'Conner vacancy. Link It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out. You know the cry of cronyism will be heard loud and strong. Also, I expect cries about how she isn't even a judge, even though it appears a few Senators of both parties recommended to Bush to choose someone outside the current judiciary. Dave.

I was pretty ticked as well when he decided to punt. The thing is, that was MM showing that he had no faith in either QB to move the ball. Even if Holcomb had made the 1st down (pretty unlikely considering what had been going on the previous couple of series), I don't think MM thought that he could get the ball moved down field in any reasonably efficient manner. Remember, Holcomb still needed to lead 2 scoring drives. While it was an extremely long shot that the D would hold NO 3 and out, he did have 2 prayers left after Moorman made an excellent punt. The 1st was Aaron Brooks has had a tendency to play, shall we say, erratically in pressure situations in the past. If Brooks fumbles or has a mental meltdown and goes into the endzone on a sack, then the O only needs a score to either win or tie (depending upon how many points Brooks gives the Bills). The other prayer was that, assuming the Bills held NO, Clements or Smith could run the punt back. Then, if the Bills get an onsides kick, again they only need 1 score to win. While the likelihood of either occuring, especially with the way the D has played in the 4th quarter of the last 2 games, were extremely slim, it looks to me like MM thought they gave him a better chance than a reasonably long 4th down attempt. That MM had no faith in the O at this point of the game is roughly as troubling to me as the horrid play of the D on 3rd down and in the 4th Q. Dave.

Didn't all 3 Sabres goalies end up in a fight with the Flyers goalie that year? Or was Dom's the previous year? Shields actually won HIS fight. Dom didn't get creamed, but he never could get his blocker off. Dave.

Robby was definitely not a goon. I never once saw him go after someone from behind nor hit a guy while he was down. (Brad May on the other hand....) Also, Rob could actually play on a 3rd line on occasion. I remember several games in the Aud when Rob was "checking" Jagr and Jagr was afraid to even come near the puck, because whenever he did, Rob hammered him. Dave.