Albany,n.y.

Only if it doesn't conflict with the Giants. The NY teams don't usually get flexed to 4:15 because the other team has already been scheduled at that time. So unless the other team is scheduled or gets flexed to night, flexing a 1:00 game to 4:15 doesn't happen to the Jets or Giants.

They're going to flex the Browns game to Sunday night.

The OJ version of Jingle Bells, recounting his career with the Bills up to the murders: Dashing through the snow In a one-horse open slay O'er the fields we go Laughing all the way Bells on bobtails ringa Making spirits bright What fun it is to laugh and sing A slaying song tonight!

I thought it was around 50-50% Bills/Steelers fans. I took it as a total insult to the Bills players & fans that there were that many Steelers fans there & I wish management felt the same way. I think the team needs to re-think the order they sell the group tickets and give people in Buffalo a shot at the individual games before the group sales sell all those tickets to fans from the opposing city.

That would mean a new CBA and an uninterrupted season.

If you think 2010's schedule is tough, take a look at next year's. AFC west with away games in KC (again) & SD, NFC East and of course, 2 games against the rest of the AFC East. It may be too early to tell, but 8-8 or 9-9 looks like it would be an accomplishment.

If comparing a player with a guy who helped his team make the playoffs & won a division title is a trashing, we have very different viewpoints on how to trash a player. If you want to see my definition of trashing a player, read some of the posts before Fitzpatrick was named the starter by other posters. I'm not trashing Fitzpatrick, I'm just keeping it real. It's amazing how Fitz has gone from a guy 1/4 of this board wanted cut to someone who now can be entrusted to lead this team to the promised land. The guy still has the same limitations. I've been realistic about Fitzpatrick all along while others have had so many mood swings on the guy, they'd qualify for a Prozac prescription. The guy is a great backup who can be a decent starter, but never an impact player. That's reality. If proper evaluation of a player's talents is your decription of a trashing, because you disagree with my assessment, which in the 2 years he's been here has been more spot on than most, so be it.

Here's why. I'm not a stat boy, I think QB stats are among the most misleading statistics in all of sports. Especially the QB rating which rewards QBs who have a better TE than RB in the red zone. What difference does it make among QBs who drive the team all the way down the field if with 1st & goal at the 3, one QB hands it off to his RB for a TD & one throws it to his 6'6" TE in the endzone. They both drove for TDs but the one with the big target in the end zone will look better on paper. Let's not even get into sack prone guys like RJ who had inflated QB stats from completion % to QB rating, or Trent Edwards who is too afraid to throw the ball into tight coverages, but can look better on paper than on the field. So any statistical comparison between the 2 is irrelevant to me. Now that my rant on QB stats is over, here are the similarities. Both are smart guys who were disregarded by the NFL. Fitz a 7th rounder, Fiedler a UFA. Both bounced from team to team early in their careers. Both were given a chance by proving themselves on the field after being thought of as nothing more than a smart career backup. Both are guys who can win in the right situation, but will never carry a team on their backs. Both always have to fight year to year to retain their starting job. Both are viewed as a caretaker QB who their team will always be looking to upgrade from. Both are overachievers who will battle to stay in their jobs. Both (Fiedler for sure)can lead a team to the playoffs, but are unlikely to go all the way. I don't understand why some people feel I trashed Fitzpatrick by the comparison. Fiedler, at this point put up a lot more Ws and if the 2011 Bills were to hit 10 wins, like Fiedler did with the Dolphins, most fans around here would be ectatic. I still judge QBs by Ws & not stats & Fitz has the potential to get the Bills Ws, like Fiedler did with the Dolphins, and keep the starter's job a few seasons. However, I don't feel Fitzpatrick is the guy to lead the Bills to the Super Bowl. By the way, before this season started, the cut Fitz crowd was really on my case because I thought they were way off base thinking Fitz was going to be cut. If you think I bashed Fitz, go back to all the April-September posts where I defended the guy, including the one where I had him as the QB with the surest spot on the 53 man roster.

I'll take a stab at it. 1st off you've included too many guys who, no matter what their skin color, wouldn't have lasted long. Stewart, Lucas & King didn't have the talent to last a long time. Carter's career was destroyed by drugs similar to Todd Marinovich's. Culpepper & Cunningham had injuries that affected their careers-plenty of white QBs get injured a lot too (RJ & TE in Buffalo), although some black QBs have come from QB running offenses growing up and are more likely to take off & run-more running plays by a QB will result in more injuries. Vick's case is unique due to the dog fighting. Young is a head case, he almost had a nervous breakdown earlier in his career. I don't know if he's that different than a white bust headcase like Ryan Leaf, but so far he's had more success. McNabb has had a long, productive career, he's just not a HOFer, similar to Phil Simms with the NYG. Finally, there's still too small a sample to draw any real conclusions, why that is is another issue.

If you're looking at a parallel career, look no further than Jay Fiedler, another smart, overachieving Ivy Leaguer who managed to start for a few winning seasons with the Dolphins in the early 2000s. Fiedler was able to lead the Dolphins to 3 double digit winning seasons, but was never looked at as a guy who could lead a team to a championship. So the long term question is would you have been satisfied having Jay Fiedler as our QB in his prime? If the answer is yes, Fitz is your QB the next few years. If the answer is no, we have to search for someone better, but maybe not this year. Now that we have virtually no chance at the #1 pick, I wouldn't spend our top pick on a QB. I think only Luck was worth unseating Fitzpatrick next year this early into our rebuild. We also cannot afford to take a shot on Mallet or any other 1st round QB when we have so many other needs and each of the other QBs have question marks. So let's keep searching for the franchise QB to replace Fitzpatrick, but let's not reach in the 1st round this year with Luck out of the equation.

Anyone who has ever parked in a stadium lot at Foxboro has to know if they're not the worst, they're pretty darn close to the worst. How many other stadiums have parking lots that are so bad getting out of that the private lots surrounding the stadium get to charge more than the team's lots? After getting stuck deep in the lot a couple of times, even when I arrived early hoping to avoid it & they still sent me to the back of the lot, I will never park in a Gillette Stadium lot again. If he was really that smart, he'd have figured out a way to make it so that parking in the stadium lot at least as valuable as parking in a private lot. The fact that the market dictates that the private ones can charge more indicates he's doing something wrong when it comes to parking at Gillette Stadium.

One thing she definitely does is overrate Campbell. By doing so, it makes me question her knowledge of the NFL in general. Doesn't she understand that any former 1st rounder who is traded for a 4th rounder is considered a throwaway player by the team trading him away? Doesn't she understand that when a team trades a 4th rounder for a veteran QB, that they realize that if he had any real value as a starter, they could have never have obtained him so cheaply? It's amazing how people look at QBs obtained on the cheap as the answer, when if they had more ability, they'd have more value than what they were obtained for. QB is the most valued position on the field & nobody just gives a starting QB away. Just to put the Campbell trade in perspective, the Bills took a 4th rounder for a guy drafted at a similar spot as Campbell in the draft. The guy failed his physical & got returned, but Bill Polian was willing to give a 4th for John McCargo. That should tell anyone how little value a guy has who is traded for a 4th round pick. Of course he'd be on a short leash when occupying the most important position on the field.

Thanks for all the info. I saw a bad review of the Mercedes' handling, but your drive sounds like it handles up to my expectations. I live right down the road from Slingerlands & go to the Price Chopper there.

Once real free agency started, those of us who were around then knew we would never see as talented a Bills team as the 4 time Super Bowl teams ever again. In this era you can't keep all those Hall of Famers & borderline HOFers together that Polian put on one team. Now someday we might win a Super Bowl, but the team won't have all that talent as long as those Super Bowl era Bills teams had. I remember going to the AFC Championship gave vs KC and thinking I better cherish every moment because it will probably be the last one of that era.

When they were 0-8, I saw no reason to win with the possibility of Luck being available, since Luck appears to be a once in a decade player. Now, at 2-8 there is no chance of getting the #1 pick & the team appears to be playing a lot better & developing a pretty good bunch of receivers. With Luck gone, I wouldn't draft any other QB early & I'm no longer interested in where we draft. Just win.

You can fit stats to any argument. It's interesting you didn't go back one more year & pick up Peyton Manning. How's this for a filtered stat: In the last 6 Super Bowls, including multiple appearances, 7 of the 12 QBs were 1st rounders, including 4 of 12 top 5 picks.

What did you replace the Audis with? I have a 10 year old A4 with 113k miles on it, I've spent over $5k this year in repairs, the AC is shot, it's leaking oil & the cam adjuster is going. The door molding is bad too. I'm probably headed to the Mercedes dealer within a few weeks, maybe even this week & I'm curious what your take on Mercedes is.

They're the "Real Fans" and they want to prove it by cheering for the Bills to win 5 or 6 games every year and feeling great every one of those wins. They will root for the team to win every game, no matter how little talent the team has. They hate the thought of looking beyond the next game. They would rather go 5-11 every year than go 1-15 this year & get a guy who can lead us to 13 wins two years from now because those extra wins feel so good this season. Only a "Real Fan" could make the ultimate sacrifice, never see a winning team again in order to feel good 2-3 extra Sundays this year. The biggest joke is they think they have to have the same mindset as the players, and refuse to root for what is best for the team in the long run because the players mentality would never allow wanting to lose. Real fans will never understand that they don't play for the Bills and can actually root for a Super Bowl in 2 years instead of 1 game at a time that the players have to do.

Obviously if Andrew Luck comes out, he's that #1 pick to build a franchise around. I've never talked about the Bills purposly losing games. What I said is that as a fan who wants to see a winning team, not a team that is under .500 just about every year, I don't see the point of rooting for the team to win meaningless games in November & December if it ends up costing us an impact player. As someone who travels almost 600 miles to every home game I have the right to root for them to get a player who can help turn things around rather than see a meaningless win in December that costs us that player in April. There's a big difference between me not wanting them to win & them actually tanking games. The players will never tank games & I understand that. On the other hand if they lose due to lack of talent, I see nothing wrong with not rooting for them to win. If you really think about it, the small minded strategy of fans, NOT PLAYERS, is to go to a game and want them to win that meaningless game so they can feel good leaving the stadium, when the team in the long run is better off losing that meaningless game. I've cited this stat before. If you draft a QB #1, he has a 33% of winning the Super Bowl some time during his career & many of those win multiple Super Bowls. Considering the Bills % of Super Bowl wins is 0%, I'll take that 33% shot.

That's ridiculous. How many players were there in the 1985 draft that would have been as good as Bruce Smith? Could a Bruce Smith be there at 32? Hell no! Same goes for Peyton Manning, Troy Aikman, John Elway and all the other HOFers drafted with the 1st pick. Now we might not get the 1st pick, but look at the last decade where we were a pick, or a few picks away from getting the player we wanted & ended up settling for garbage. Remember when Patrick Willis went one pick before the Bills picked, so we picked Marshawn Lynch instead. While Willis is a force, we dumped Marshawn for a mid & late round pick. What about the year we missed out on Roethlisberger by a few picks, tried to trade up & failed, but succeeded in trading up for JP instead? I know you don't like to hear this, but really, in a totally wasted year like this one where we're likely to win 1-4 games, what difference does the 3 extra wins make if in the long run we miss out on a franchising changing player by a pick or 3? When you're bad you need to be really bad, not just somewhat bad. Now I don't start a season looking for the team to lose, but when we get to loss 10 or 11, I see absolutely no benefit in winning. Obviously the players have a totally different point of view, and I don't blame them, but as a ticket buying fan, I'd rather lose a couple of more games this year, than never see another championship contender. I want to see a winner, not of 3,4,or 5 games. I want to see 10,11,12 wins, the number a team with some impact players gets, not a team with no impact players like the 2010 Bills. Also, don't try to convince me the difference between 1 and 4 wins will help the players learn how to win. Most of those guys won't be here if we get good. Guys like Talley, Smith, Reed, Ritcher etal all went through 1 or 2, 2 win seasons, and it didn't stop them from learning how to win when other impact players arrived.

Because the NFL told him he'd probably go in the 3rd round or later and he needed a great 2010 to get to the 1st round. Now people love to revise history around here & every QB who stayed was going to be a 1st rounder or the 1st pick in the draft, but that isn't the case. The only guys who stayed who might have been the 1st pick earlier were the Mannings, who ended up #1 anyway, and Matt Leinart. The rest are pure fiction. At least Locker can go play baseball.

Players have very little trade value unless they are Pro Bowlers or young guys with huge potential. Even in his prime, Indy couldn't get a #1 for Marshall Faulk, who went to have some great seasons in Stl. 90% of the time, you don't get proper value when trading an NFL player. About the only time you make out is if teams want your young backup QB.

The way Clausen & Pike have played, there's no way Carolina would pass on Luck. Add a new head coach with no ties to Clausen & it's a lock Carolina would pick Luck if they're drafting 1st. If for some absurd reason the new coach loves Clausen, then Carolina is going to do what any sane GM would do with the number 1 pick with other teams coveting the franchise QB-they'll trade it to the highest bidder. I just can't see any sane coach falling in love with Clausen enough to prevent him from drafting Luck himself. For anyone who thinks drafting a QB one year & not going after a franchise QB, if available, remember this. When the Cowboys drafted Aikman, they also chose Steve Walsh the same year in the supplemental draft. They eventually traded Walsh. When the Jets signed Joe Namath, they also signed Heisman winner John Huarte. Having Clausen & Pike(who is going to the bench in favor of a guy who was home 2 weeks ago) will not prevent Carolina from taking Luck. The only way the Bills can get Luck is by holding the #1 pick.

The Bills have a survey that season ticket holders got. When they asked the question whether it is important that we have 1st shot at Bills playoff tickets, I filled in N/A.

If you want to play it safe, get tickets in the family section. There's no alcohol allowed & it has to be the tamest place in the stadium. Here's a description from the Bills: Family Corner Sections 224,225,226 and 227 of the stadium are designated as the Tops Family Corner. Alcohol and the use of profanity are prohibited in these sections. These policies will be strictly enforced and violations could result in loss of ticket privleges. Patrons who appear to be intoxicated will be denied entry into these sections.