Lothar

what a game - not sure if Young's coming out, but he's the best college QB I've ever seen - the bigger the game, the better he is.

I've watched a bit of Pac-10 football this year - I don't think USC is as good as they have been the previous 2 years. I do think that SC has a better offense than even Carson Palmer's final go-around - that OL may be as good as some pro teams. Their defense is somewhat dubious this year though and I really think that Texas will pull off the upset. Also, Vince Young is Michael Vick on steroids. He runs past DBs like they were standing still - and he's as big as some LBs. He sold me when he brought his team back against some tough defenses last year, both running and throwing. Note that he has a higher passer rating than Leinart despite the latter having more weapons.

OUCH! Looks like Thomas suffered a serious injury in the game - playing defense of all things. This would surely drop him from surefire 1st rounder to ... depending on the extent of the damage.

sorry - i didn't see the thread below ...

Wow if he's even a mouth breather at this point, I'd have signed him for the vet minimum. It appears that several teams wanted him to come to camp next year but the Pats took a flyer on him now. I'd still take a healthy Tucker over Anderson ... too bad he couldn't stay healthy.

It was $10 mil over 5 years I believe - and at least according to Buschbaum (RIP), he was descibed as an over-achiever. Looking at those names below - Panos, Nails - yikes! ... and I don't think Panos ever was healthy that year. Our OL over the last 10 years seem snakebit with regard to injuries. The Pro Football Weekly Internet Edition asked contributing editor Joel Buchsbaum for his thoughts on the subject. Q: What’s the scouting report on Dusty Zeigler? Buchsbaum: He played guard with the Bills last year; he’ll play center with the Giants. He’s a scrappy, tough, tenacious, pumped-up overachiever type of guy who’s good enough, not great. You always want better, but he gets the job done. Also, if the Giants start (Luke) Petitgout and (Mike) Rosenthal, they’ll have three Notre Dame starting offensive linemen. Q: What does losing Zeigler mean to the Bills? Buchsbaum: From Buffalo’s standpoint, it doesn’t hurt badly if they can re-sign Ruben Brown and Joe Panos is healthy. But if they lose one of those guys, that means they’d have to go to Jamie Nails, and Nails is too fat and runs out of gas too quickly.

I really thought Gray might have learned some solid fundamentals from his time with both GW and Lebeau - but his lack of adjustments and mis-read of DL capability - point out he's in over his head. A good coach can adapt to stay competitive, make adjustments on the fly. Wade-O even, used to routinely make halftime adjustments during his tenure as DC - I remember remarking on this board how even if we looked lost on D early on, we'd almost always clamp down after halftime on whatever was working for the opposition. Unfortunately, I'm not sure Jerry's good at thinking on his feet. We have A gameplan - sometimes pretty good - like the one against Carolina. But he has a hard time making changes on the fly or throwing wrinkles into the formations. It was either all blitz all the time - or back off and play cover 2 - I see no nuances in his style. Whoever the new coach is, I'd like to see if Dom Capers might be his pick for DC. McNally's probably an even bigger disappointment. I heard, perhaps wrongly, that he doesn't like superstar players - he works better with hard workers who have tools. At least last year I thought that the line when healthy (with Tucker instead of Pucillo) was decent at run blocking, mediocre at pass blocking. Gandy for Jennings is probably a slight downgrade but he's shown himself to be a passable LT. But what did McNally possibly see in Bennie Anderson? I was worried during training camp when we signed a Dolphin reject to be our primary backup, then when we lost depth due to the Tucker injury, we basically put all our marbles on 2 things: Anderson better be the road grader they promised, and the line better stay healthy. I think preseason showed that Bennie was a bust. So it was just a matter of time before the existing line with a below average center (Teague), a good but aging RG (Villy), a tenuous RT (Williams) and a passable LT (Gandy) were overmatched when injuries started occuring. Maybe TD dictated terms to McNally but I think Mouse over-estimated the hand he was dealt. I'm willing to give him a little slack since he has shown an ability to build a good OL from the scrap heap (Pudgy Parker and Zeigler on the Giants come to mind), but we gotta have more solid depth. Even last year, Tucker and our swing tackle were pretty decent. With both gone, only the supreme athleticism of Peters is making this line move up from catastrophic to simply awful.

I'm not sure why someone who built an offense predicated on a great QB and versatile RB will be a good choice. I too have heard good things about Childress but you gotta get someone who's adaptable - and shown that he can adjust to different personnel - not sure I see that from him yet.

Interesting stuff Mike. One thing that may add more credence to your analysis is to use a weighted average or a trend function. For example, the Bills after the 1st 4 games last year sucked in every offensive category. But as Willis got going, the points per game, quarterback completion rates, 3rd down conversions - all started improving. That was one reason why I felt JP would be ok this year. Bledsoe ranked ~26th in the league last year - if JP picked up the offense quickly (re: not looking overwhelmed) - we shouldn't have missed a beat. Now with Takeo's loss and our somehat wimpy Run D, I still think we can be successful, albeit it may take a mediocre 15-20th ranked QB to keep us in the playoff hunt. I think Holcomb fits the bill.

Alright Satellite Boy - my Directivo. Time Warner Cable - is that some kinda East Coast internet connectivity thingy?

I think he's just quoting relative rank with respect to the NFL - 29th out of 31 etc.

if that was your sign CL, I saw it during either the opening credits - or right after coming back from a commercial - during the game. I'll have to check out the tivo and let you know.

I remember an interview with a scout on NFL Network earlier this year where just this question was posed to him. His argument was that Sumo wrestlers are trained to fight for about 3 minutes - absolutely zero endurance - else you know they would be paid a gonzo amount of money to man the NFL trenches.

Thurman played for OK State, not the Sooners

I know some of you are willing to sacrifice the present for the future. I'd like to see what KH can do over the next couple games. If he wins those, and they're back in the race, you gotta go with the guy who gives you short term hope. Now if KH stumbles, I think Losman's in a great situation. He comes in with the team and the fans knowing he's the best option the team has. For those of you willing to throw away the season - I'd agree if the AFCE was as strong as last year. I want a chance at the playoffs. Losman's time will come - maybe as soon as next weekend. But until then, I want the best chance at winning now.

LOL - that's classic

Except the same thing could be said about AVP. Give Holcombe a week to prepare - he's a decent, not great QB. Let's just see if we can salvage the season. If it doesn't work, I agree pull the plug - and let JP grow up. But until then, it's not fair to the rest of the team.

C'mon CL, you willing to throw in the season after 4 games? I still believe in JP, but the game's just moving too fast for him. Can you imagine what Jason Taylor and the Miami D will do to this kid? Give the team some hope - you can see how their confidence in the coaching staff is slipping.

Hear me out. I still believe in JP but throwing him into an angry Bills crowd with a staunch Dolphin D could make the situation worse. Right now the team seems to be losing confidence in JP. Unlike last year when the defense played well enough in our 1st 4 games for fans to see light at the end of the tunnel, we're not gonna win games with this D. Why not throw a wrinkle into Miami's preparation (they did have a bye week), see if we can get a semblance of a passing game going. I don't care how much people want to coddle JP but averaging less than a 100 yards per game the last 3 weeks is not giving this team a chance to win. If Holcombe struggles, it's easier to bring JP back and the team won't feel like MM's throwing the season away. This division's wide open with all the injuries and beating Miami would definitely put us back in the race. The plan this season was to play conservative, win games with D and special teams. Obviously our D has serious issues now - for Gray's D to be really effective, we need to get on top of other teams like last year - that's when the exotic blitzes work. When we fall behind, we're obviously not the same caliber team. Staying the course means throwing in the towel. Let's see what Holcombe can do with a week of prep. As soon as we are eliminated or KH looks like a failure, bring back JP with less pressure on him. In retrospect, that may have been the better move from the start of the season anyway. Bledsoe apologists need not apply - his game right now is no better than KH AND he (a) can't win big games plus (b) he couldn't be a backup at his salary.

Spikes could be done for the year, Harrison's injury looks serious (Pats don't skip a beat however), Pennington's arm still iffy. Don't look now but the Fins may be the biggest challenge to the Pats unless the Bills and Jets get their games turned around..

It seems like the better teams do a great job limiting Atlanta's O by containing Vick, stuffing the run and making him beat you thru the air. But Grey tipped his hand earlier this week and said - unlike last week against Griese - he was going to go after him. I think he made the right move last week against a rhytm west coast offense - but they couldn't tackle anybody. Well, this week I was shocked to see 6 and 7 man blitzes - this just plays into Vick's hands. Unless you have the team speed of Tampa, you want to limit the run game and contain Vick - make him work it slowly down the field since he's not the most accurate of passers. And especially when the run game was gashing us. I still can't understand the last blitz at the end of the first half. There were 40 seconds or so left in the half. One more stop and Atlanta would run the clock out - but we get burned for a 50 yard run by Dunn. Offensively, I see JP staring down receivers an awful lot. Still with 4 street players in the secondary, how hard would it be to find the guy not covered by Deangelo Hall? That may be JP but coaches should be letting him know who to go after. Mularkey said he was hesitant to throw because of the success running the ball but all ATlanta wated to do was get it into a 3rd and 2 and count on JP or the OL to screw things up. Late in the game when our defense showed no propensity to hold back the Falcons, I'd have had JP rolling out with regularity and throw till he got into a rhythm. that's his strength - use it. Since the beginning of last year, I've been impressed with the coaching staff being able to stay the course as the team found its feet. However, I haven't seen very good coaching these last 2 weeks on either side of the ball. And now with the injuries piling up, the strength of the team may soon be a weakness. In that case, do we really want to rely on JP and the offense sputtering every week? If Spikes is down for the year, we may have to bite the bullet (with our decrepit 2nd string 'backers) and hand the keys to the offense over to Holcombe to allow us to stay in games. Believe me, I'm a big JP fan, but the formula of running Willis and counting on the D to keep us in games while he learns may have to take a backseat to the team succeeding. At least, until we're out of the playoff picture.

I'm not that surprised our defense wore down in the heat - no 1st downs from our O till inside the 2 minute warning -22mins on the field. We needed a *liitle* more production from the O to give us a chance. I too thought they should do a couple stop'n'go routes with the way the Bucs were applying press coverage. I know the coaches wanted to protect JP but they should have accounted for the heat factor and taken a few more chances in the 2nd quarter.

I've read about half of his early work - Snowcrash (a bit more juvenile than I expected), Diamond Age (brilliant!) and Zodiac (offbeat and entertaining). Haven't the time lately to invest in one of his epics - the Baroque cycle sounded like one of FFS's posts on Lindell's accuracy x 1000. Also been reading that most of his fans were disappointed at his latest ... your comments have piqued my interest though.

Another point with regard to how well Tampa's defense played against the Vikes supposedly dominant O, Matt Birk is out for the year and was replaced by a pretty non-descript center - as well, Minnesota also had a 1st or 2nd year left guard - both guys were overwhelmed by the interior of the Tampa line. Culpepper looked bad because pressure form inside gave him zero time on several plays. I don't think Tice and Co. adequately adjusted to this issue throughout much of the game. Gawd, I love our coaches when I compare em to some of these cleetuses.

I guess compared to you, you old coot , I may be a young whippersnapper but I'm assuming 3 or 4 years does put us in the same generation. My seventh grade teacher didn't talk much about Watergate, but my appetite for understanding history and perspective led me to read much about both Watergate and the presidency in general. Here's some comments from a 5 year old article about media and the impact of Watergate: govexec.com article 2005 For the national media, 1973 was also a watershed year. The Watergate scandal and the eventual resignation of President Nixon marked a profound shift in how the media viewed its role and relations with government officials and those in authority. Nearly an entire generation of journalists who came of age in the turbulent aftermath of both Vietnam and Watergate saw themselves not so much as skeptical watchdogs, but as aggressive investigators intent on exposing the essential venality of government officials. "I saw journalism change during the Watergate era, when all of the reporters coming out of journalism school suddenly wanted to bypass the fundamentals and regular beats and go right into investigative reporting," says Otto Kreisher, a Marine Corps veteran and longtime defense correspondent for the Copley News Service. "Their mentality was increasingly that journalism was all about bringing down Presidents, embarrassing those in authority, and exposing how the military was screwing things up. That's a very different view from old guys like me, who saw the government solve the Depression and the military win World War II. Even today, I see an attitude in younger editors that if it ain't negative, it ain't news." No one who has straddled the cultural divide between the media and military can fail to notice that over the past quarter century, the two professions have attracted Americans of vastly different natures and perspectives. In turn, these professions nurture and sharpen those natural proclivities. Media outlets entice people who are comfortable questioning authority precisely because they see their role as speaking truth to power. The military tries to attract and indoctrinate those who naturally respect authority because the battlefield brooks neither dissent nor questioning of orders. Joseph Galloway, the former longtime defense and war correspondent for U.S. News and World Report, jokingly called the natural tensions between these two groups a struggle between the "anarchists" and the "control freaks." Because journalists often view their role as protecting the underdogs of society even while serving as watchdogs of the most powerful institutions—or in the shorthand of the profession "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable"—journalists also tend to be liberal on social issues such as women's rights, gay rights and affirmative action. Given the tremendous risks in lives and even national survival inherent in the profession of arms, military organizations are notoriously conservative by nature, and they tend to attract those who embrace traditionally conservative views on social issues. --- I find the last 3 paragraphs a microcosm of all that goes on on this board. Two views of the world where people talk AT each other instead of trying to understand the differences and seeking to resolve them. I know, I know, this is the moment when we all hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" - it's not that, I just don't get the animosity between sides - reasonable discourse to solve issues seems so much more useful than screaming names and pinning labels at the opposition - more painful and difficult maybe - but in the end we all DO have to live in the same country. OK, that's it for my diatribe. There's a lot of intelligent people on this board but I rarely see that expressed in ways other than belittling those we disagree with - I generally surf this board for comments that try and understand issues from a perspective different from my own. But if I read it every day, jeez - that would warp my world.