Offside Number 76

How freaking bad is Oakland that it lets Filly hang 49 points by the end of the third?! He's wiry.

I recognize the importance of that play, but I'm not putting the defeat in Chandler's hands, nor am I giving up on him for a new TE. That man has been money in the bank in numerous situations. I still don't know how he ends up uncovered in the front of the end zone every other game--don't teams bother to watch film of the Bills?

8: Chandler had a rough day, but he wasn't the problem, and it's not his fault that Goodwin (?) blocked a nice first down pass to him. 10: Marrone/Hackett had some boneheaded play calls; I'll go with these: (a) First and goal from the one, try a sneak out of spread formation. Same for second. Same for third. Never tried, and that INT was the result. (b) Running Spiller into the line at the end of the first half. Look, if you want to go for yardage, by all means, take a chance. It's not supposed to be a playoff year anyway, so some sideline routes might have been nice. If you want to kneel, that's ok too, I guess. Know what's NOT ok? Running your half-injured star running back into the line for no reason whatsoever. But all in all, I like Marrone. A LOT. He's learning. I'm not as sure about Hackett. And there was some very good play calling, too, that doesn't stand out, including the brilliant run strategy. 11: I actually thought Gilmore was very, very good.

That's true. And if the league wants to maximize the TV money, it shouldn't be using blackouts. I don't really know the solution, but I sure know the problem.

Neat stuff. Thanks.

I agree, and it will continue that way until the game day experience is improved. Sitting through consecutive two-minute TV timeouts is brutal. Notice that the continuous action sports (basketball, hockey) have TV timeouts at predetermined intervals to prevent this nonsense. The other stop-action sport in the US (baseball) only goes to commercial at the end of a half-inning or when a pitcher is changed. There's no TD, XP, 2 minutes of commercial, kickoff, 2 minutes of commercial, replay, sponsor's message, first down. That's an awful lot to sit through at the game.

I'm pretty sure that Manuel didn't put the ball on the ground three times against the Jests.

Are we done here, now?

It's very nice writing, but it's not really about where he is now.

Why? It wears down defenses and pays off later in the game.

Makes perfect sense to me. If you were an objective NFL viewer, with no team allegiances whatsoever, and watched all of the Bills' games so far, you would say that you had seen seven very exciting football games. I don't know that there's another team in the league that we could say that about.

40 storeys.

I guess if he takes the Bills to the Super Bowl, I'll consider it.

It won't matter. All of the problem drinkers are loaded up before they go in.

It has been one year and two days at most.

Thank you for shutting down the naysayers. Always so many naysayers in Buffalo. Agreed, except for the restrooms and food/drink. But that will be fixed.

Just get a cheap transistor radio at K-mart for ten bucks.

There's another local sports station somewhere in the 1200s now, too. I may start moving to that at 10am.

1520 is now ESPN Buffalo, so if you're local, you can listen to Colin talk about Tony Romo for three hours daily beginning at 10 am. You're getting 3, three, THREE fantastic hours of Colin, and not the meager two that WGR used to give you.

As much as I cannot stand Peters and Sylvester, at least they're not Cowherd. Peters, at least, is good for a "inside the dressing room" anecdote now and then. I'm not sure what Sylvester is for. Isn't Cowherd available on 1520 now anyway?

Every year... WGR covers both sports well. There are three Sabres games this week, and there was no Bills game. What do you expect? To address a couple of items above: Whether NASCAR, NBA, etc. are more popular than the NHL nationwide doesn't matter. WGR is a local station, and those sports are not more popular than the NHL here. By this logic, WGR should cover more soccer and cricket because of worldwide popularity. Also: Yes, Andrew Peters is tough to listen to. But if you're going to call him stupid, at least remember the difference between a hockey player and a football player. It's Andrew, not Jason.

I'm with you.

As I understand it, the team considered Tuel a project for the future, not present, and wanted to protect him, so they didn't send him to the practice squad. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I understand the logic.

Oh yes he was.

Yes it does. He's still not going to succeed in the NFL, and the Bills will be a playoff team next year without him.