colin

there is not a consensus on climate change, its cause, or its impact. there are essentially two schools of thought, and one school declared consensus, but that doesn't make it so. there are independent groups (the sepp at www.sepp.org being the most widely quoted one) who feel that the national academies are political and have a bias (they exist to publish reports and get more funding for scary stories --- AIDS killing half of america, global warming, global freezing, nuclear war, etc). the biggest problem with this kind of passion for the issue is that other perhaps more solvable issues get ignored (things like boring regular old pollution) because the sexy topic gets all the interest.

3rd down stats are misleading because good teams can have great games and just reach 3rd down fewer times than bad teams. if you have a team that goes about 25 yards and converts one third down but blows the next, they will have better third down numbers than a team that goes 80 yeards and only has 1 third down but does not convert. it is better to be good than bad at 3rd down, but it is best to be able to move the ball on 1st and 2nd and go for big plays on 3rd and long so you score instead of being holcolmbe converting 3 3rd and shorts and ending up punting.

mainly this line "You also don't have to have an all-pro defence to be the Super Bowl champs, just a good o-line that does its job of keeping defender out of the QB's face and opening holes for the RB" did you mean don't need an all pro o line instead of all-pro defence? if so then we agree about the oline part, but the line as quoted made it seem like you are saying we need an oline more than a D and when i said we about the desperation for o line i mean the fans

i agree with some of the stuff you post, but i think this above post is wrong. we have been wanting for a good O line for so long we now over emphasize it and act like O line = championship, we even have people saying we need a new oline for our 1st round pick QB (who hasn't showed anything and has a MUCH greater likelyhood of being a bust than a solid player). a top D is MUCH more important than a top line. a decent but not great line can help a team win and let solid skill players do well, but a great D is the most important thing. KC and Cincy have great and very solid lines respectively, along with super powered Os to go with it, and crap Ds. our Ds really showed up against them and we spanked them both last year. new england won so many games with a good but not top class line and a super powered D. for years GB had an awesome line and not great D and got thrashed by teams (albeit late in the year or the playoffs, but they beat up on chumps all year and a decent team ripped them). oakland has put more talent and draft picks all over the o line and with their crap D (altho they have a solid D line at times) they aren't going anywhere. the D is still the number one thing in the NFL, followed by QB play, followed by O line, then skill players.

the coaching and qb mistakes are the biggest. he went for two rook HCs, and in hindsight GW is better than MM so he went from bad to worse. the QB situation was bad when he came in, it got a bunch better when we had bledsoe and all those weapons, and it went worse when we lost those weapons, and got even worse when we let drew go and made jp the starter. overall we could have done a few things to have a better qb situation. keeping drew (particulary at a more reasonable cap number, even tho we could afford him now) and keeping pat williams would have kept us competative last year

if he gets 14+ this year i think we can put him up there with the elite

with our new OC coming from the rams i think we will have a solid upgrade on O. i understand that DJ has a history of being dull and predictable, but that's why he hired a guy from the most insane unpredictable team in the NFL. i think we will be competitive, maybe not really a playoff team, but with an improved D (only 2 years removed from being the best) and with the additions to our O (particulary since this is a boom or bust year for JP) i think we can end up being in about 13 or 14 of our games and walking away with 8 of them.

if jp can't win the job in his 3rd season he is officially a BUST. if he comes in due to injury and plays well he gets a mulligan, but if he isn't entrenched as the starter at some point this year (due to merit) he is yet another 1st round stinker QB

i don't doubt that JP is considered a decent guy, i think the issue is his play (and what he shows in practice). i think he just needs to get better and be consistent for the team to rally behind him. the best result would be jp winning out in training camp and starting, but i dunno if he can beat out holcomb (and i don't like kelly gutless).

that's a pretty good response. who did i insult personally? i made general insults. fluie is garbage

2 things right here: 1 "Hated the bills" are/were you a flutie fan or a bills fan? 2 "he lead us to the playoffs twice and no other QB taken us since." no, he played QB (at an average level AT BEST) for a very good team. he didn't lead jack chit. did fiedler LEAD miami to play off victories?

you ain't the only one. i hate flutie. i didn't hate him when he came to the team, i thought he would be a great back up and could even be a start for a while if need be. it was clear early on that RJ (just like i see it the same way with JP) is frail and will get hurt, so a solid back up is a must. anyhow flutie came in and played fine, not with the same production that johnson had but good enough. the thing is the jerkoff flutie first fans got wet in the ass about a little mullet loser (their self projection of a hero) running around and making bad throws that eric moulds rescued (just like garcia with ownes, an all world talent WR rescued a crap QB) and having the D and christie win games for us. flute lost a damn play off game the year before (a great game on the road, but a loss) but he has the balls to say thet he would have won one that he would have won a game that was lost on the biggest gadget play in the history of the NFL? aside from being a C@nt flutie was at his absolute best an average stop gap QB, he isn't as good as say jeff garcia (the other CFL cast off who had a great WR to make him look good) who can't do enough to win a starting job in detroit with 3 super talent WRs. flutie was mobile and hard to sack, but he had a rag arm, was a joke to shut down (crowd the box and you stop the passing AND the running game, he can't throw the long outs either), and was a HORRIBLE red zone QB (he got sacked for fumbles and throw DUCKS in teh red zone). flutie is not and never has been a good QB (if you think he is observe jeff garcia, who is the same QB flutie is but a lot better -- still not good). flutie fans (as in flutie first bills second) are whores and i REALLY hate them. oh, the one thing i like about him (sorta) is that he crossed the picket lines.

keep troy, if someone goes down he is still a decent corner

that was a very exciting series, i like the way the sabers play. hope they can keep up the high intensity for 2 more rounds.

i think if he gets his conditioning right he will have bigtime speed this year. the 40 tims and how fast a player is in a game have a bit of a difference beacuse: 1) players get tired, some players slow down more than others (see jerry rice who stayed fast vs the 2005 bills who got lethargic after about 10 minutes) 2) over the course of the season players get beat up and hurt and slow down, different players will slow down more than each other. this is why body type is so important to nfl teams when the scout young ncaa players. a buff player might be stronger and faster than another guy, but after 4 quarters of getting beaten on he might not be able to bring it like a naturally big man. same thing with speed, your fast little guys (evans, steve smith, moss and moss and moss) tend to be able to burn all day, leaving guys in their dust in the 4th.

of course i mean whitner! YOU SCREWED UP THE QUOTE FEATURE SO DON'T SLING MUD AT ME!!!!! yes whitner, i do think bunk will be better than mccargo, but there is the chance that bunk might just not care or get hurt again.

huff is fo sho the bigger name, he is a bit more athletic and would prolly be a better corner (he might be a slot corner and FS in base D for a bit for the raiders and then move to corner). they have similar (great) ball skills. mccargo is a MUCH better tackler, and is much stronger and IMO more explosive in terms of blitzing and going from in the box to good depth off the snap. i think mccargo is a better guy for our D, but either of these guys could end up being really good.

the women have the choice to have the kid or not once the are pregnant. willis didn't do anything wrong.

OGT you are making good sense, stop it! i think the point that everyone should note is that ngata, bunk and whitner would have been gone by 15. those were the 3 players the bills really wanted in the top 15 (aside from the guys who had been picked allready). the bills might have gotten some decent picks for moving down, but they REALLY wanted a stud safety and dt, a trade down to 15 would have removed at least one of those from their selection. they saw that chicago was willing to trade and the guy they wanted was there so the jumped up and took mccargo, solving both the needs they wanted. if mccargo ends up as good as ngata or bunk, and if whitner is the rock he was in college (and the rock that every damn osu db has been in the nfl so far) then we are talking about this being a superb draft. looking back i think marv and co did the right thing

you could on 3rd and long, or you could move a guy from the 3 to the 1 or 2. i think our 3rd and passing downs D will be MUCH improved

don't you think our passrush will be better with spikes back as well as having mccargo and tripplet, 2 guys that can rush the passer from inside? we haven't had a good threat from the inside for years turn your :< upside down!

totally on point here. with grey (who IMO was never NFL ready) we never showed the ability to get teams off the field consistently. there was a whole lot of scoring drives that we extended ourselves, particularly late in the game. our best games on D came when our LBs and secondary outplayed their guys. now that we can put 4 pass rushers (assuming kelsey and denny can do it a bit) up front which is MUCH better than we have been able to do for a while, and our entire secondary can cover AND hit.

the way i see it levy and co had a few guys they really liked (our first 3 picks), and in the later rounds just picked up the best players that fell to them. they didn't make a move down and hope to get whitner, and they jumped in front of the giants who did make a move down to get mccargo. we just had a consistent strategy and it resulted in getting the players we wanted, which is better than a trade down and roll the dice with more picks if you know what players are best for your team.

spikes is a very heady player, he'll pick up the D in short order. spikes gets me so jacked up i end up kicking my mom in the face!

i agree in principal, but i think the scheme is what is more read and react rather than aggressive (our last scheme is prolly the most aggressive in the NFL, even blitzburg disguises and stays home some of the time), but players can be aggressive within that scheme. guys like nate, schoble, TKO, london, mcgee, vincent, and IMO whitner even in his first year make plays that force turnovers and turn turnovers into scores. in a cover 2 scheme we hit them all day and stop big plays while having a shot at a positive play for the D every down. our last scheme would often cause negative yardage plays, which are good, but don't mean anything if we get burned on 3rd downs or get chewed up late in the game with simple running plays. i think we have have a very good D next season if TKO comes back healthy