Albany,n.y.

There's a huge hole in the pie Mrs. Lombardi baked and set down on the table.

The reason for the current IR rules is because certain teams were stashing players on IR rather than exposing them to waivers. The Polian/Levy Bills teams were among the most notorious abusers of IR-they would find a late round pick who they felt needed seasoning, stash him on IR for his rookie season & save a roster spot while maintaining the player. There was an old expression "get a concussion" in the final preseason game so that the team could IR the guy. The league felt it was unfair to the other teams that these players weren't being exposed to waivers, as all practice squad members currently are before landing a PS spot.

If they want to play the season with the virus continuing, they're going to have to treat the virus like an injury, with one change. They will have to change IR rules so that a player can be put on Covid-IR where they can return when healthy & be able to sign a replacement player. It will truly be survival of the fittest, but most NFL seasons come down to that. I see teams losing players to Covid-IR similar to the 2019 Jets season. When Darnold & then Simien went down, their season was shot, but they still had to play their games with whatever QB they could find on the streets. Lots of free agents in & out every week but seriously, as long as there is 100% survival rate among the players & coaches, the season will go on.

I think this is a poor list. A lot of the guys you rate on the top part are much more highly thought of around the league and locally in their teams' cities than how you rate them. To answer your last question: It's pretty obvious they didn't win enough to be retained. Only 2 of the 7 weren't benched in season.

Never in the same day, but I once did a trip where we went to Cleveland for a Bills game on Sunday & a Giants@ Indianapolis game on Monday in 1990. I also traveled to opening day in Buffalo vs Miami in 2010, came home that night & then went to the Baltimore @ Jets game the next evening the weekend that Met-Life Stadium opened.

220 Bills home games 36 Bills road games-most in NJ but multiple games in NE, Baltimore, Philadelphia. Farthest away game in LA (the Peterman game) 4 Bills Super Bowls in neutral sites. Total 260 Bills games attended. Bills record in those games 154-106

But once you translated it into gallons it was significant. I lived in the Riverside area at that time (right over the city line in Town of Tonawanda) and used to go to Canada to gas up. I even bought a Peace Bridge coupon book so I could save more money & I only had a 10.5 gallon tank on my VW Rabbit.

Brent calls the Raiders games on their radio broadcast. I'm guessing he'll stay on since he lives in Las Vegas & was commuting to broadcast the games in Oakland.

I don't agree. Yes the pure record was better 6-2 vs 4-4, it was more a function of opponents than road/home. The finale was a tank & do you really think they would have played a better game in Baltimore than OP?

I counted one more bar game: if the schedule as shown in the latest issue of Bills Digest is correct, week 2 the Giants@Bears game is on CBS. So unless they messed up plan on week 2 not being on local TV. Also since I think the Patriots will suck, I doubt we'll get the week 8 game on Ch 6. However, I think we'll get the Raiders game because the Patriots don't get games over us unless they're playing the giants or Jets.

Sammy 100 years from now:

Don't F up

I always thought the 1992 team was the best Bills roster man for man, but had some key injuries that hurt their record including Kelly who was hurt at the end of the season & early in Super Bowl XXVII. Very similar rosters but the few tweaks, including Christie replacing Norwood, put 1992's roster ahead of 1991's.

Polian was around when there was Plan B free agency. The two biggest signees were Kenneth Davis & Steve Christie. Among the losses was Martin Mayhew, who the Bills stashed on IR his rookie year, a common practice back then with late rounders who showed promise, & then Washington swooped in and signed him as a Plan B free agent. Polian was upset when Mayhew left, but he tried to have it both ways. Sam Wyche went nuts when we signed Christie away from Tampa Bay because he put Christie on Plan B after Christie promised him he'd stay in Tampa yet signed with the Bills about a minute after he was eligible to sign with another team. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1992-02-06-9202060666-story.html Wyche was furious and said there might have been a conspiracy between the Bills and Christie's agent, Gil Scott. "It happened so fast it makes you wonder if anything was planned ahead of time," Wyche said. "We're disappointed only in the fact we did a deal with people we felt we could trust and it didn't work out." Countered Scott: "Somebody's been watching too many JFK movies. There wasn't a lot of negotiating and I guarantee there was no plot." Scott claims his client signed after the Bills offered an agreement allowing Christie to surpass New Orleans' Morten Andersen as the NFL's highest-paid kicker. Christie, who was scheduled to earn $350,000 in base salary and bonuses with the Bucs, received a substantial signing bonus and will earn more than $550,000 next season from the Bills.

It looks like he's getting a head start on his coaching career at a player's salary instead of entry level coaching pay.