Pyrite Gal

I simply ignore things which I find stupid and it does not take me long to do this actually. They used a brighter tone originally for this down and distance arrow and it did interfere with the game some even for me, but much like the game situation and out of town scores (whih I find much more readable in the NBC coverage) one simply has to ignore the garbage to get at the good stuff. I find I have to do the same thing at the Ralph where things from the annoying pseudo-fans sitting behind us, to the old days when one had to cough through folks cigarette smoke, there were great things about viewing the game from the stadium in terms of sharing the game with other Bills lovers, but their is also alot of stuff going on around you (a little of which was interesting but some of which were events like folks having sex at the game which happened once in terms of full intercourse). One simply hs to take the best and leave the rest. We all had practice at this when we were kids when conveniently we just could not hear our Moms when she was telling us to stop doing something and was only twenty feet away. I think that technology will eventually solve these problems as the internet and interactive TV will allow us to choose between the info overlays we want displayed or not and Ihope eventually will allow us to chose an announcer or announcing style to go with the game. Imagine a future in which rather than turning off the Fox/NBC sound and listening to the radio feed which did not match the picture, one can turn off Dierdorf or Theisman and get the synchroed feed you like with the game.

In some ways I think folks are being overly sensitive to the media on this issue. I agree that the media and announcers do suck (I have always been an advocate of the nets renewing their experimentation with the announcerless game they tried in the 70s, the advent of the numerous game info crawls which cover the screen and the availability of the internet to supplement the game makes an announcerless game a proposition which could meet many of the challenges posed by that experiment). However, a couple of factoids which make the concern about JP being turnover prone (for example he set a record at Tulane for having few INTs were in fact shared with us by the announcers. The networks generally have a script for the games which they lay out and try to follow (so and so is favored, so and so team has a turnover problem etc), This is not a bad thing as it provides viewers with insights which the announcers can get from talking to the teams ahead of time as to which plays to look for and whether their plans are working. However, many announcers take this way to far and try to pretend that these insights were not gained through somebody spoon feeding thme info but pretending that these are observations that they made themselves from studiously watching all the gamefilms and their "superior" foiotball knowledge. Some actually understand the game well and do this analysis like Jaws (and even he can be totally wrong) bu others like Theismann are complete pretenders who at best state the obvious like it is some new idea. Even worse, he simply gets it wrong quite a bit. The worst cases are those announcers who try to stick to their script about how the game is going despite reality being contrary to their descriptions. They try and try to explain each event which goes contrary to their predictions as somehow supporting their script, being a bad bounce, or somehow unexplainable. Even worse, when they would simply be on another planet to try and stick to their script, they somehow do a 180 and seem to claim they saw it coming all the time. Dan Dierdorf is one of the worst at this practice. However, the departure from reality is helped a long a bit by us Bills partisans being overly sensitive to potential slights against our team. JP really has had a tendency to make some bad fumbles in some games (a factoid Jauron pointed out in one pre-season game where he said that the INTs simply happen from time to time but the fumbles when sacked on JP's part were due to him not being careful enough with the ball and he was gonna work on it) and the media has not made a distinction which might be reasonably mad that he has exercised good judgment in choosing whether to make a pass, but when he sometimes tries to hard to wait for the big play and they he can give up a bad fumble on a sack. Its not a problem I am worried about at this point, but in general a lot better analysis could be done.

Its a judgment call pure and simple by the ref whether a player had his arm fully extended to call for a fair catch. In retrospect with the help of the tape one can easily see he did not have the required full extension of the arm and waved it side to side even if he had intended to call for a fair catch. However. it was a surprising to all (this is why it worked) call and it would be unreasonable to expect that even the ref whose duty it is to watch the receiving team players to judge whether they made a full signal is watching every player to make sure he makes the full fair catch signal. I can see him keeping an eye on the KR guy at the goal line and not watching the flight of the ball to insure he makes the proper signal, but whether he is staring at the likely receiver OR watching the flight of the ball to instead watch receivers where the ball is landing he is not gonna watch the upback until the ball starts heading down. Either way, he is not gonna lock fully on the up catcher until later in his signal and he has to make a judgment whether the player's hand is not extended because he made an illegal half-hearted wave (as happened in this case) or he merely caught the end of a full wave by the player. In any case the play is not reviewable and the ref doses not have the advantage of the videotape, so this is a bad call but one which was reaspmably made. Thanks to the Bills D this had no game effect, but it is yet another quiver in the Bobby April sack as he once again made an innovative play that will force opposing STs to prepare for something/anything on seemingly routine plays. Also kudos to Lindell for an outstanding kickoff placement to match his ver good onside kick last week. Lindell demonstrated the ability to make great kickoffs not simply last year but even the year before when he was subjected to a lot of criticism for missing a chipshot FG. He deserved that criticism, but it would have been dumb for us to cut him because he was simply outstanding kicking the proper distance and height for KOs and also pilled off a great onside kick and recovery himself that year.

thst is in order to have even a remote chance at the playoffs. Rhe AFC looks pretty weak right now having faced all the teams: NE- Not the same team that won all the SBs, though they were so good before they have a long way to fall before we can hope to stumble by them. Whether they hold the lead they currently have on Cincy will tell us alot because they did not look impressive at all winning against the Bills in NE and so far early in this season. NYJ- Break up the Jets, but by failing to upset Indy today we keep hope alive though now our trip to NJ is likely a must win game for us and one cannot feel good about this with a yonng team. MI- Them getting picked for the SB by several so-call experts is one of the greatest jokes so far this season. Still, at best I had this team at 2-2 at this point (though which 2 has been completely the opposite of what I expected) and we are at 2-2. Those who predicted a 1-15 finish can show they are strong people and not simple whining idiots by issuing an apology rigbt here.

Add Shelton to your list of goats. he got called for two penalities including a really bad holding call nullifying a WM run. He also through a pitifully ineffective lock when a guy got up after he engaged him and WM had to try to hurdle him but failed. This bodes badly for our running game. I will need to go to the tape to figure out how his performance as a blocker looked on other plays, but these highlights (make that lowlights) were awful.

Actually, I think the fact is that with a subpar OL (I mean they are bad enough that Bennie Anderson was a starter for them before he got hurt and now they are even worse than bad) and with a QB who can no longer has the mobility to play the game he played in MN, the fact is that deception is likely the best way for them to convert. I think a complaint about MM picking the wrong people (assuming their GM and HC decision-making allowed the OC to actually have other viable options to choose) makes a lot more sense than a complaint he did not invest in an OL that cannot get the job done. Deception is the only way they are gonna beat even a lowly Houston team. I assuime this is MM's fault in part, but blaming him for not adopting an approach that is likely not to work to build confidence in players who cannot do the job seems odd to me as it makes little sense.

I agree that ans4 should not go overboard, but I also think that to trot out an I told you so in regards to judging whether Preston is going to be a suitable replacement for an injured CV based on his coming in for relief against a Pro Bowl level DT with Phat Pat playing next to him is also going overboard on your part. To date, I think the scoop in Preston is that: 1. He was an early pick on the second day of the draft as a C which I think generally means that his college play earned him high expectations that he would give an immediate contribution to the team, but it would be as a back-up at best his frst year and and as an ST player. He did not disappoint with his first season play as he saw considerable time on ST and as a back-up to an oft-injured CV st RG and even got a start when CV could not answer the call in a game last year. 2. This year he plays a role as back-up C tp Fowler on the depth chart, but more importantly has shown the ability to play G as well as he most likely is going to be asked to fill in for CV who clearly is on the backside of his career. Overall, he had an up and down game today with K. Williams simply beating him once but even the announcers noticed a nice downfield block by him on PP's TD. The running game was stalled much of the day, but it is notable and simply the facts that WM rolled up enough yards to make this an OK day by him with Preston in there. A reasonable judgment can be made about him next week after: A. He gets all the reps with the rest of the OL in practice. B. He prepares like a starter for his D opponents (among them Big Ted) with the Bears and of great import, Fowler and Peters beside him prepare with the plan in mind that they are going to need to look out for the back0up. C. Fairchild develops a rushing plan which takes into account the strengths and weaknesses of Preston in arranging the blocking scheme and working out the game plan for this opponent. I think drawing any conclusions at this point is pretty clearly going overboard.

The answer to the question of why MM does not let Daunte be Daunte in terms of chucking the ball downfield is because of the huge limits to the quality of the MI OL and because of the likely limits on the recovering from an injury Culpepper as a scrambler. This MI OL is lame enough that they even had Benie Anderson as an uograde abd this crew gave uo 7 sacks to our Bills. There is little sign that the OL can hold their blocks long enough to give Culpepper the time to chuck it downfield. Further, while the OC's job is put the players in the best position for them to make the plays they can, the writer does not seem to get it that the current Culpepper simply cannot be reasonably expected to make the same plays as the old Culpepper. There was some sense that his leg injury might have not even allowed him to play as this season started. Fortunately for him, this was not the case. However, the idea that "Meathead" should install an O that calls for the MI OL to hold blocks that cannot hold and then when they fail that the recovering Culpepper is going to avoid sacks by scampering for his life is silly. MM may be to blame IF he led the way in getting players who simply are not good enough (my guess is he did in the effort to reclaim the likely done as a player Anderson, but that the Culpepper decision was made by a lot more folks than simply MM and in essense he is working with what he has rather than simply his choice of who he wants at QB). However, my sense is that the problem here is not simply MM and if they had Fairchild, martz or whomever at OC everything would be fine. Just as the buck stopped with MM rather than Clements here in Buffalo, the buck stops with Saban rather than MM in MI. Saban may choose to go with another oC to accomplish his goals in MI, but i doubt this will help in that all appears he has but together a lame team with the aging Zach Thomas and Taylor leading the Das well as not having an offnse which works with the up and down from great to bad play of Chambers, Brown and Culpepper. The writer and the poster demonstrate that their analysis is not very deep as it seems to fail to recognize that sometimes MM does a very good job (the consistent revival of failed QBs under his OC/HC leadership is quite impressive and happened a number of times) but he also does a bad job sometimes as well. The bottomline which should be recognized is the the MM (and TC) offense worked quite well in Buffalo in the 2004 season to the tune of putting up a winning record after a horrid season though ultimately it failed to help achieve the holy grail of aplayoff berth. He failed to oversee having a productive O in 05 as the team fell apart IMHO because a decision was made (certainly by TD with MM's aggreement at least) to use 05 as a training time for JP because they judged that even though bledsoe was a better QB than JP at the time, he had no long term upside.

I am quite certain that there were moments in time in which Tucker was playing at his best and Ruben was playing at his least effective due to age or injury when Tucker was undoubtedly a better LG than than Brown. If one is making a judgement about a particular game as to who the Bills should start, if Tucker's best happened to coincide with Brown's least at that point in time, the obvious decision is to start Tucker. This may even be true of a particular season (though I doubt it and there would likely need to be some other demonstration than the usual fact free opinion we are entitled to that for this particular season the stars happen to line up correctly). However, if one is considering their total careers (I was gonna say to this point but a quick check reveals that unlike Ruben Tucker is no longer even in the league) I think there is little doubt that Ruben has had a far better career and overall at almost all points in time when their careers ovelapped, Ruben was a far better player. To try to introduce some facts that support this opinion: 1. It is difficult to compare the two since their careeers did not overlap completely, but given that Ruben both was drafted prior to Tucker and has been selected by professional evaluators to have his career continue on after Tucker was forced or chose to retire to use his Princeton degress on something real, Ruben achieved a lot more as an NFL player than Tucker. 2. By definition Ruben was always a more experienced pro than Tucker was and folks backed up their sense that Ruben contributed to their team while Tucker did not with their money to pay him.I like Tucker and knowing the value of a PU degree , I think he is a bright boy, but professional evaluaors judged who could contribute to their teams and who could not as they evaluated both FA Brown and multiple time FA Tucker and Tucker is out of the league (whether due to injury or choice he simply wasn't a good enough player to be worth the investment). 3. The Pro Bowl is not a perfect evaluator of talent as to some extent it really is a popularity contest among the fans, the fellow players, and the coaches who share the choice. Nevertheless, though not perfect there are indications of good play as assessed by coaches, leadership ability and respect for play as assessed by players, and notariety from stellar play at some poiint as assessed by fans which exists so it is real that makes Pro Bowl selection a good (though not perfect) indicator. Brown was obviously judged repetitively by all parties to be a better player than Tucker. 4. Again in the real game given this a unit, experience and respect matters a lot in terms of play. Chemistry and coordination matter a lot more with this unit than it does with other positions where though there is coordination (for example the QB and receivers must be on the same page and make the same reads) is important there is a lot of freelancing and one of on one individual play to create achievement. For the OL to work it is critical that each player know where the other players are and they all do their jobs. What this adds up to, is that even if for a moment in time (probably brief) Tucker was a better player than Brown, you probably start Brown anyway because his experiencecopared to Tucker's is so much greater that Brown almost certainly helps the rest of an OL perform better if they are inexperienced as happened with the 02 team. In many ways it is not the key thing which player makes more mistakes than the other, but whether those mistakes of failings can be compensated for and covered by good play calling by the OC, by the players teammates who know they need to pick-up for their teammate at a particular time, and to what extent this weakness can be exploited by opponents. I would submit that Brown's weaknesses (sometimes false starts too much for example) are not critical problems which are easily exploited for sacks). They are there but I'm not sure that this adds up to Tucker being better. The bottomline is when in particular are you suggesting Tucker was a better player and my sense is that this time is brief enough as to have little meaning.

Clearly the great thing about Ruben for those of us who have met him and should be even for those who have not was the great work he did and does for charity. The folks who took the biggest hit when we traded him were the folks at charities such as the kids in the Buffalo Prep college prep program and the organ transplant folks were Ruben was a solid volunteer and supporter. He organized motorcycle rides where he not only made the typical player appearance but worked really hard for the cause. On the field he did get a bunch of consecutive Pro Bowl appearances a number of which struck even those who like him personally as undeserved based on his play, but this says more about the faults of the Pro Bowl selection process than it does about his value as a Bills player and even in his worst years here he was a benefit to the team, I think his best work on the field was in 2002 where despite already declining skills, he was the only player on the OL who had started before at his position as a pro with JJ having moved to LT, Teague having moved to C, MW having just been drafted anda revolving door of RGs. It really was Ruben who helped this group give up a ton of sacks with the elusive Bledsoe at QB and the predictable O of Killdrive, but this unit still blocked effectively enough for Henry to rush for well over 1200 yards, and Bledsoe to hit Moulds for 100 receptions and Peerless for 94. Ruben was really a valuable player because he made the other players around him perform better. His work is particularly notable because it was clear that OL coach Vinky was not a very good coach and lost his job even though his buddt GW was in charge. Great job Ruben and I am pleased to hear he is doing well and that he still makes his home in Buffalo though clearly he has the wealth to live anywhere he wants,

The NFL has gotten everyone of import to the black-out judgment to realize that they get far more financial value from the free three hour plus doage of advertising than they get from a butt sitting in the seats buying beers. They keep the blackout rule in place because it is very helpful in keeping a sense of scarcity on the tickets and add value to season ticket buyers (who have made a substantial purchase so that the real money they put in the teams hands well before the product is produced or consumed) and who have a real financial reality which competes with the 100s of thousands of potential buyers of NFL items when they watch the game on TV and get advertised to. Though the market does like to pretend that there are only two choices for any problem (like those who use news to sell commercials at CNN and Fox) there is profit in actually doing everything you can really do to make money. TV provides more money than tickets, but the NFL is working to maximizte the profit they make from both even though they are different things. When one hears that only single tickets are available, this is not true as virtually anything is available in our society if you are willing to pay enough money for it. However, what it does mean is that for financial purposes they have sold every ticket they can sell though regular activity and niow full attention turns to making sure they get the free advertising of the product by the game being broadcast locally.

and weren't they somehow involved in the untimely death of Dennis the Menace?

I think this impression (and you are right that there was not a flat out statement of discord between TD and MM) is that MM made a few comments about the importance of winning now (which the JP haters andthe relatively few Holcomb boosters who who allied with them over a shared result) of winning now. These comments from MM might have been a bow toward toward the wishes of the vets who had a shorter term view of the Bills than the braintrust and folks sense of indecision came from his also making comments which were supportive of a longer term view. TD on the other hand had a longer term view and was quite willing to cut Bledsoe who even though inadequate with this team to QB it to the playoffs, did provide a better bad chance than having the young JP go through the gorwing pains of losing. Perhaos, I am mistaken and TD and MM were on the same page, it makes little difference now as both are gone, but I think MM was at least forced to acknowledge the win now perspective because his team leadership generally had that view as these older players knew the clock was ticking. Where TD ultimately lost his job was that he did not see that Ralph was on a different page than he was on as Ralph needs to do as well as he can with Ws now while he still on this planet.

I think the post above that read Phat Pat's comments as being directed toward TD's actions rather than MM's is right, 1. PW's big dispute with the Bills which determined whether he would stay was over his contract and the amount of scratch which the Bills provided rather than his particular use as best as I can tell. 2. TD essentially admitted failing to communicate (his job even if the player chooses someone as an agent you do not like or respect) with Phat Pat's agent and that his offer which PW passed on was not his final offer. 3. The Bills would have kept MM as HC here (if only because of the $ we had promised him), but fortunately he quit so we could make a fresh start. 4. One of the greatesty positives which MM showed in 2004 was that he knew exactly what he wanted to do and stayed the course when the team was roughly 2-6 and just about everybody was ready to throw anyone under the bus, Around the 4th or 5th game he did make changes like going to WM as our starting RB and cutrting Shaw, but the O and D schemes did not change at all and ultimately though the team fell short of the playoffs, it was pretty clear that MM had guided the team to great improvement over the 03 debacle. In 05 rather than judging this as uncertainty on MMs part, the problem seems to be that Mm was certain what he wanted to do (go with the older QB who while not adequate as a player to win consistently he was better at getting Ws thsn the learning JP) but TD wanted to do something else (use 05 as a training season for JP) and that dispute led to the uncertainty. I'm not sure what you wanted MM to do? Should he have pushed for more clarity by simply caving in and going with JP, or should he have directlyu defied his boss by demanding we go with the older QB?

I think you are certainly correct that one can only really assess a draft with any sense of reality three years down the line. The reality is that a player may present as Moulds did with all signs his first two years making him worthy of people feeling he may well be a bust, but then he broke out and became a legit multi-time Pro Bowler. It can go the other way too due to the league catching on to some weakness or an injury that a player looks great initially and ends up sucking. Hower, I think that this rookie of the month (particularly for the 1st month) is completely relevant to those who wailed, whined or laughed at the pick claiming that this was proof Marv was senile. What this honor demonstrates is that those who declared Whitner as not a first round talent or even a likely bust have already been proven to be flat out wrong. He may turn out not to have a career consistent with being the rookie of the month, but no matter in terms of demonstrating that folks that Marv made a foolish choice Whitner's start as the best of the draftees indicates they are the ones who may well be senile and that compared to Marv and the Bills as talent evaluators they are out to lunch. Regarding your interst in buidling an OL from the draft, there is logic to this in a perfect world, but in answer to your question "here" is simply an imperfect world. Your strategy us a fine theory, but simply make little sense for the Bills who after 5 years of no playoffs under YD and Marv and Ralph's age need to win as many games as they can right now. If that is your goal (do you disagree that due to our recent record and the age of the Golden Boys this is not a primary goal for the Bills in the here and now?) then looking at our needs (certainly after the cuts of Milloy and Adams and probably even before) an OL focused draft for the Bills makes little sense in 2006. We actually now have after this weekend a best case in terms of an OL oriented draft as NYJ took D'Brick early and also got Mangold late in the 1st round. To even come close to replicating this, the Bills would have had to both trade up and give away resources to get D'Brick and still pull off something like the trade up they did to get Mccargo. Even if they did this, they still would have the holes to fill at SS and DT and now have even less resources to draft other players as they would have needed to trade away picks to trade up to get D'Brick. Alot of this is woulda/coulda/shoulda illusion as one different pick or a trade up would alter the entire draft. However, given that there was only 1 othe OL player taken in the 1st and scant dew others taken on the 1st day, the choices the Bills would have had to make are pretty limited and clear. Its hard to see how this team is not vying for the #1 [ick next year if they had followed your theory and traded up for both D'Brick and Mangold and what the world would look like watching this team play either with Coy Wire as their SS and desperately needing 5th rounder Williams to play (unless we had to trade that pick away to step up for D'Brick). I simply do not see your strategy working at all for Ralph and Marv and this team even if it is a good theory.

Osoally it seems to ne the habit of some of the loudest typers on TSW to really rag on any Bill who has left the team as though they were spurned by a lover. However, I think folks are so long starved for having anything to cheer about by the general wasteland of the TD era and they are disappointed in the current team but it is tough to be pissed at them as though they are not good they do seem to be getting better. Thus I think most folks will cheer for Phat Pat as a way to vent feelings which are held in check. Cheering for him will serve a number of different purposes for folks football souls,

From watching the game: 1. WM's speed looks fine to me. He rarely is in the open field as few RBs are ever in the open field. However, he does seem to get outside as he is used more for these types of runs this year (as opposed to last year when TC clearly had the run game focused inside the tackles), Already twice this season we have seen him use the stiff arm with some effect and a runner has to be able to get outside to do this. Maybe you are basing this view on his 40 time but there is little in the game to indicate he has below average speed for an RB. 2. Is there some calculation which you have used watching the game to derive this 50% figure or is it just a guesstimate which is as legit as most other guesstimates. What do you take as a sign of his hitting the hole hard? Whether the first tackler brings him down? Him getting through some crack in the line (if there is one but an assessment of the blocking would need to come with this)? Are you pleased with the Bills run blocking, or not? How do you analyze WM picking up more yards running to one side of the line than the other. My sense is that your opinion should not be rejected more than anyone else's opinion, but without some facts or at least more detail on your perspective if it is based on just watching the game, it is also legit that folks might simply classify it as a fact free opinion which is not rejected but certainly is taken for what it is worth. 3. He has not produced many long runs (though again this begs for some description of what you consider to be a long run (40+ yards, 30+ uards, a first down). I actually see few signs that WM has fewer long runs this year than most other RBs in the league. If so, then who are you talking about and who are these 16 RBs with long runs to their credit that make WM below average. 4. His blitz pick-up is problematic and by a player\s 3rd year as a player there will be mistakes (unless your Thurman orcorey Dillion) for most RBs but this factor should not nr s notable liability. He missed a couple in the 3 games this year which were notable, though his picking off two blitzer from RB on the same play in the Miami game is about as good as an RN can do so at least he has it in him though there is a better case this is a problem than an asset for him. This problem is one which I think can be lessened with how we run our schemes and I see no reason why he cannot get better at it as he already has improved from his work last year where I doubt he could block two blitzers on the same play even by luck. Do you also claim he cannot improve or that scheme cannot be altered to minimize the blitz-pick-up role for him if he is so bad? 5. I'm not sure what about his attitude is bohersome to you (I know that what is bothersome to you or to me makes zero difference as far as the game or the team goes). I like an "I am or I want to be the best attitude from players, in fact if they do not have that I do not think they generally will be the best. If it is the "baby momma thing that bothers you, it is rather silly on his part, but my advice to you is do not sleep with him and then you have nothing to worry about regarding his attitude. 6. The stats do make a difference in that they describe the game you are watching in some cases. His running on short yardage is actually one of those cases. Dibs pulled together the specific short yardage plays WM faced on Sunday and they were either passes or they called on him to run and generally he busted them for significant gains which produced the first game. It is legit to base your opinion on simply watching the game, but what the stats raise is the question are you sure you were watching the Bills on Sunday as your views about how he does in short yardage situations seems based more on the nig miss against NE than what one gets from watching other games this season. 7. I'm not sure how you draw the conclusion he is bad route runner from watching the games as he does not seem to be employed as a receiver a lot. Again, I can see how someone would not want to merely rely on stats as the ONLY measure of a players play. To rely on this as the ONLY measure would be as idiotic as to reject them totally. However, what the stats can be used for is to measure what game you are watching. As WM leads all non-WRs in catches with an 11 y/c, while it is not a proof at all of him being a reasonable route runner, it does make legitimate question as to what games were you watching?

Or the players on one side for the Jets were far superior to the other side, or we had a better match up of the players on our left against their players than we had on the right. Your stats I assume are correct but the conclusion that you draw from it that our players are a liability may be reversed next game if the skills of which side the defenders play well is reversed. In addition, if by liability you mean they are not good players that is also a conclusion which cannot be drawn without some assessment of their opponents. Taking players who we know to demonstrate this point, let's assume that your LT is Orlamdo Pace and he is a better player than your RT Jason Peters (again this is simply a hypothetical to make a point). However. let's say that on a given Sunday, Pace was facing an opposing LDE who performs like Bruce Smith while Peters faces off against an RDE who is the player equivalent of a Chidi Ahanatou. Do you think it is legit to draw a conclusion from your team running better to the right against Ahanatou that Peters is a better offensive player than Pace and Pace is a liability because you ran worse to his side or lets say he gave up a sack to Bruce. The stats being correct does not necessarily mean that any conclusion which MAY explain them is also correct. the stats are appreciated by this reader, but it is going to take a lot more analysis and game description to make a conclusion which should be accepted. Its this type of superficial analysis that saw folks predicting DDDOOOMMM for the Bills because they even legitimitately judge our shortcomings, ut then draw conclusions about what our record will be without taking into account that we are facing opponents like Houston, Detroit and TN who not only had worse records than us last year generally but suck really bad with their off-season problems.

This is a good point to remember. We have all actually seemn this Johnathan Ogden got flat out best for a sack by aaron Schobel last time we played the Ravens. Did this mean that this tackle who was a blocker for an RB who produced 2000 yards and was a key part of their SB win is a stiff? No. One bad play can happen to anyone. A second bad play may well simply be a coincidence. Its takes a third bad play and then it MAY be a trend, but more looking is needed.

My sense is that TD wanted Phat Pat back also, but the problem was that he miscalculated badly what he could get him for. Belicheck made a similar error with Lawyer Milloy where he and the teammates definitely wanted the player back based on their post exit public comments, but the guy in charge for the team erred badly in measuring the man and not treating him like family. IIRC, TD actually publicly blamed PWs agent for not transmitting word that TD was willing to offer Phat Pat a better offer than the Bills gave him. Too bad for TD and too bad for us, because it was TDs job to not get so caught up in playing chicken negotiating with an agent that he did not communicate properly with Pat that he wanted him and would pay more.. Still BB paid the price when the rest of the Pats publicly read him the riot act for not successfully concluding the negotiations and the Bills killed them in the opener and TD paid th price with an ineffective D last seasonthat ultimately led to him getting run out of town (again). I think actually the end team results in the two cases say a lot about the 05 Bills and that Pat team. BB screwed the pooch with the Milloy negotiations but did do a good job with his cronies of building a sense of family among the team. They answered the challenge of the BB screw-up and the injuries to key players by coming together and winning the SB. I do not think last year's run D sucked primarily because Phat Pat was gone. I think he is good but was quite replaceable. However, the decision to use 05 as a training camp for JP at QB rather than to give the team its best chance (though its best chance was a bad chance) at winning was what really killed the 05 team. As older players OR team leaders like Fletcher, Moulds, Adams, etc. saw that TD was not going to ive this team its best shot at winning in 05 they were not able to deal with challenges like losing Phat Pat or TKO.

Granted the "abuse excuse" strikes me as pretty stupid as excuses go and be they the Twinkie Defense or other acts of idiocy I do not think chemical imbalance or other such things excuse anything. However, I hope you also recognize that any post which even implies some comparison between the crimes against humanity of Tojo, Hitler, or any of your favorite war criminals and TO and his antics lacks shall we say a little bit or reasonable proportion to put it mildly. I really hope you do recognize this. On your specific point, I also think it is a good thing for us to recognize while chemical imbalances or similar ills do not excuse heinous behavior at all, they certainly can explain it and is worth considering and understanding. There is a difference between the two things. I for one can deal with a world in which we recognize that a person might have performed a heinous act likely due to a chemical imbalance AND we also choose to incarcerate that person for a long time as punishment for that heinous act. I am even comfortable with the state putting that person to death if the act is heinous enough that this retribution and revenge is called for by our society and with due and careful application of our law and systems. I do not see our society using the death sentence reasonably much at all as I consider only crimes of an Osana Bin Laden nature to be worthy of that societal revenge and retribution. In addition, I take so seriously the state having the power to mete out an irrevocable punishment, that is cheaper to deny someone their freedom for life than it is to run through having the necessary safeguards so the government does not take the life of a citizen who is not guilty. I go through this only to provide a contrast between the level of disdain i think a true criminal deserves and TO deserves. TO's behavior has lapsed from the passingly amusing to the grossly unfortunate, but it is completely out of proportion to equate him to anyone who deserves to die for his sad stupidity.

I think this OL is developing as expected: 1. They are a far better group than the 05 crew. Even folks who rag on this group should admit this unless they want to put their endorsement behind the good old days when Bennie Anderson, Trey Teague and good ol MW were starting last season. 2. Having taken the FA route to building an OL quickly which JMac was forced to do by the failure of TD first day draft picks MW and JJ to be good enough to be longtime Bills, and the failure of his consistent efforts to his with a late or FA choice (exs. Pucillo, Sullivan. Sobieski) the results though the expected mixed bag are good. JMac Hits: Peters Gandy JMac miss: Anderson Jury still out: Reyes Fowler Preston Not Unreasonable prospects to contirubute under contract: (I do not consider PS or 3rd stringers reasonable prospects to contribute unless there is some reason to do so) Pennington Butler Certainly when one looks to real world production to measure performance. this group provided blocking which has kept this team in the game against NE (the failure to produce on 4th and 1 is a big one that nullified the results but not the reality of their full game performance), did the job to get a W in MI, and allowed both WM and JP to have career best run yardage and pass yardage production. This unit strikes me as needing time to develop chemistry and that seems to be happening based on results from the three games. Folks can have various opinions about this player being agreat prospect or that player turning the wrong way or bending over too much and they all are opinions legitimate enough for the internet (ie. basically all opinions are fine opinions) but the facts are simply the facts. For example, in the lass game, WM gained a career high in yards and JP got a career high in passing yards. However, we got an L so this accomplishments are great in fantasy leagues but still were not good enough to win. The 3 sacks came from two safety blitzes (usually a need for blitz pick-up from the RB is key here) and on a designed bootleg and the facts are this OL was productive against a not very good team, but this represents progress over last year. I think in the big picture for this season, the OL should continue to improve as they play together and have more experience with the new offense. On the negative side, as i have said before depth remains a big problem and this crew must remain lucky with injuries in order to keep getting better. There is a little room as the most likely player for injury is Villarial (he is well into the backside of his career and when he went out briefly in Game 1, I thought my gosh already, but he came back. The good news is that the one back-up we have with past pro starte experience is Preston and though the jury is still out on him, he looked good and I do not even mention Villarial above as I really view him as little more than a placeholder. Overall, the OL results last week were simply impressive against a not very good team, but that is what a good pro does against a not very good team.

Bingo! The problem that TD had with his handling of JJ at LT was not a problem that he did not resign him, but that he picked an injury prone player who never started all 16 games on the OL in his 4 years here. I agree that JJ was a good player WHEN he was on the field. Howevr in his last season he was unable to finish a full one quarter of our games (injury forced him to miss starts in two games and injuries not him out of the two games prior with significant time left on the clock). The worse thing about JJ as a player was that by my definition he proved to be injury prone as he was knicked out of games or slowed by a variety of injuries rather than having one nagging (or even serious) injury which could be worked on. One week it was a shoulder muscle problem, a few weeks later it was a lower leg problem, and then it was a concussion. A player like WM had a much more critical problem as his knee blowout cost him a full year of play. Yet, i would not classify him as injury prone in that he made a surprising full comeback from the potentially career-ending injury. JJ (and RJ as another example) are injury prone players as while they do not seem to suffer the tremendous traumas that a WM or even a TKO had, it was a series of injuries to different parts of their body which cost them smaller amounts of time but in the end made them bad investments from my point of view. i was not surprised to see JJ end up on IR for the vast bulk of last season for SF or to here that yet a different physical problem is slowing him down this year. Yet, thanks to SF signing him and TD letting him go he is laughin and limping all the way to the bank with their cap money. TD was guilty of many stupid things (he spent significantresources trying to follow the BINYC method of building an OL through the draft spending a 4th pick on MW in addition to the first day choice of JJ, in addition, OL was one of two units that he drafted a player for every single draft0. TD's problems stem from the bad HC hire of GW who hired his non OL coach buddy Vinky to be the OL coach and then replace him with the equally inexperienced Ruel when it became obvious Vinky was a failure.

I agree with you and the post above it by BoondockCL. Money and greed are big drivers for the NFL. However, this strikes me as an argument for why the game is NOT rigged. The NFL does not have to rig games to make money hand over fist over toe or hsmmerlock etc. They can get boatloads of cash without breaking the law at all. In fact, rigging the games presents a real risk of endangering this gravy train so one would be stupid to rig the games when you do not have to. I think you are right that it is possible, because people do stupid things for money and stupid things when they realize that money does not really satisfy them at all, so folks do stupid things for power, for sex, or because they can all the time. However, it is exactly this greed motivation that is the primary reason why they have tons of lawyers so they can get as close to the line as they can to maximize their profits, but never cross it (without and ability to maintain deniability or escape liability. My faith in human beings leads me to conclude the games are not rigged because if someone were really writing scripts they could produce better scripts and stories than they do. My faith in the greed of human beings also leads me to conclude the games are not rigged to make money because they do not have to, under the law the NFL hasa license to steal and they do. Why rig the games and mess up a great deal where you make more money than reasonable by any human standard.

For those who see a conspiracy fixing the games: Who is doing it and why? I'd love to see answers that are beyond saying that it is THEM and they are doing it because they can.