Albany,n.y.

I went to the Florida Tuskers vs the New York Sentinals game in "The Rent" Rentschler Field E. Hartford Connecticut Thursday night. The final score was 24-6 Tuskers, but it was more the gameday experience than anything else that I came for. As far as the game goes, it wasn't up to NFL standards, but it was entertaining. The Sentinals actually kept the game close and were driving for a go ahead TD late in the first half. That's when QB Quinn Gray went out with an injury and was replaced by Ingle Martin, who quickly threw an interception and cost them any chance of a halftime lead. The Tuskers ran out the clock and it was 10-6 at halftime. Two touchdowns later in the 2nd half would seal the game. Haslett called off the dogs & switched QBs in the 4th quarter. Now for all you fans who criticized Dick Jauron for punting down 10 in the 4th quarter, Ted Cottrell out Dicked, Dick. With about 5 and 1/2 minutes to go in the game, deep in his own territory, down by 18 points Ted chose not to lose bigger & punted. I arrived early in the parking lot, paid my $10 and drove in. When I parked my car, I wondered if I was at the right game. The stadium was all lit up and people were in the parking lot, but the only thing they seemed to be interested in were their kids, the peewee players who were all dressed up in their uniforms and ready to take the field. I got to the ticket window and sure enough, they were selling tickets for the night's UFL game. I decided, what the heck, and bought a $40 ticket that put me in row 7 at the 25 yardline. I then went back to my car & waited until 6:00 for the gates to open. Upon entering the stadium I started looking around for programs, since getting a program is always part of my gameday ritual. I saw a bunch of unopened boxes behind a program stand and went to the people at the gate and asked if those were the programs. They didn't know, but since the boxes were addressed to one of the guys who runs things they gave him a quick call & got permission to open them up. Inside were the programs-they only have 4 pages -a cover with the team logos, the date, stadium etc; two inside pages with the depth charts and rosters; and the back had a summary of the Sentinals last game and a preview of the game that night. At the bottom of the back page was the logos of the UFL sponsors (StubHub!, Motorola, etc) but no advertising. It didn't have any photos of players, but for its size was efficient. There were literally thousands of programs in the boxes. The guy handed me one and I asked for a few more, I left with 3. I then went to find my seat. It turned out that I was on the Tuskers side of the field, behind their bench. I sat down in my seat Sec 102 Row 7 Seat 1. It was cold and I was the only one in my section, so I got up to walk around a bit. When I hit the bathroom, I saw a guy with Tuskers gear on and asked him if he was with the team. He said no, but his son is. It turned out he's Rob Petitte's father. I talked a little football with him as we washed our hands and wished him luck in his son's dreams to get back to the NFL. Fortunately, his son was a guy who I had heard of and I could say, I remembered his son's days with Dallas. He mentioned that these players are hoping that their coaches make it back to the NFL & bring some players back with them. I went back to my seat to watch the pre-game warmups. After the teams finished there was about a half hour before the game and the peewees I had seen in the parking lot hit the field. By that point I had thought the peewees were being held there until halftime to keep them and their parents in the stadium for the game. When the game started I was the only one in my row, which seats between 15-20 people. Some came into my section before the game, but the only real crowd was in the lower center seats. Those went for $50, but I assumed they were mostly freebies. There were some freebies in front of me in my section too. A guy came in with his two kids and stadium tags indicating he didn't have to pay. They sat in the front row. Pretty soon Todd Sauerbrun, the ex-NFL punter keeps coming over to talk with them. I guess he's friends with the father, because he keeps coming back. Then he started giving the kids stuff. They ended up getting gloves, and even a UFL football from Sauerbrun. I decided to do a headcount and calculate how many fans were in the stadium, which has a capacity of over 30,000. It wasn't that hard, because, except for a few scattered souls, nobody was in the upper decks or endzones. Earlier they had upgraded the folks in my side out of the upper deck, but a few people remained there, at least in the first row center. Since the majority were in the good seats and I knew there were 21 or 22 rows, with about 50 people per row per side, I figured that 22 x 50 x2 was a good start. That's 2,200. Since it was about 75% full on the Sentinals side and about 60% full on the Tuskers side, that equaled about 1,485. Add in the people from the other parts of the stadium and the most that could be there was about 2,000, it was probably around 1,700. In the next day's edition the Hartford paper said over 10,000 tickets were distributed but only 5,201 showed up -the UFL box score says 5,201-What a joke! I wish the UFL had the guts not to pad their attendance figures. I noticed on TV that there were well less than 1,000 at the Sentinals game the week before at Hofstra on Long Island yet they announced the attendance at over 4,300. Why not be honest with people? Worse, so far the only time I've seen the attendance figures at a Sentinals game questioned was when the NY Post, in a little story on the California -NY game at Giants Stadium where they stated the attendance, announced at over 10,000 was more like 1,000 in the huge NJ facility. The guy writing the story in the Hartford Courant had to know there were a lot less than 5,200 people at The Rent, but since Hartford is trying to get an expansion team for next season, he chose to cowtow to the UFL & go along with their story. The one thing he was honest about was the halftime exodus. The paper did mention the stream of cars leaving the parking lot at halftime. By the second half, maybe 500 to 600 people were left. By the 4th quarter there were only a few hundred souls left to bear the cold, empty stadium. If they dropped their prices & did some promoting, they might have actually had 5,200 people there. To make matters worse, they offered free admission to all UConn students. Unfortunately, UConn isn't that close to East Hartford and that night they were having a tribute to someone big at UConn that kept most of the students who might have gone to the game on campus. Since the giveaways were all on the Sentinals side (they were throwing free tee-shirts into the stands) I decided to move there for the 2nd half. At halftime, I noticed boxes full of programs and took about 40 more. The 2nd half went on and I was able to move around quite a bit. As the game became one sided, the exodus continued. I stayed until the bitter end. As I left the stadium I took more programs, I ended up with about 120 programs. I expect the UFL to last 1 more season, because they get TV revenue (they have a two year deal), then pack it up. Their paid attendance is virtually non-existant (I'm one of the few to actually shell out full price).

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. I'll delete my Sosa post.

I'm crazy enough to go. I'm heading off to Connecticut tomorrow afternoon. It's the matchup of the best team, the Florida Tuskers coached by Jim Haslett, versus the worst team the New York Sentinals coached by Ted Cottrell.

TO

Tom Brady & John Elway are from California.

I guess you haven't been watching Bills games this year.

Sterling still holds the record for dumbest remark ever made on ESPN. After the Bills-Titans playoff game Sterling said the Titans bailed out Wade Phillips (for his choosing Johnson over Flutie) by winning on homerun throwback.

Minor league football could succeed, but not the way the UFL is doing it. 3 of the 4 franchises are too close to NFL cities or in them. Why would anyone from SF or NY where they already have 2 NFL teams, go to a UFL game besides out of sheer curiosity? Orlando isn't far enough away from Tampa & to make matters worse, they schedule a game at St. Petersburg, right down the road from Tampa Bay. The only place that isn't exposed to the NFL is Las Vegas.

They announced the attendance as over 4,000. There were a few hundred people in the stands at best, and I doubt Phil Simms' daughter had to pay to see her boyfriend play.

The New York Sentinals have 3 home games. The 1st was last Thursday in Giants Stadium. Game 2 of the World Series was in NY that night. They announced the crowd over 10,000 , with the NY Post writing it was closer to 1,000. Tonight they play a game at Hofstra in Hempstead, that was relocated from Citifield to get a smaller stadium. Now it's game 6 in NY. Their 2 NY metro games both went head to head with the Phillies @ Yankees in the World Series. They would have been much better off moving those 2 games to Friday each week to avoid the World Series. Their 3rd home game is in East Hartford, Connecticut. On top of that the Sentinals are the worst team in the UFL. I doubt that any of this is what the UFL planned for their NY franchise.

Stephenson is not even close, Bullough is 2nd or 3rd worse, but the worst is the reluctant coach, Harvey Johnson. The worst coaches, not only in record order, but bad overall for the reasons stated: Harvey Johnson 2-23-1 he didn't want to coach, Ralph forced him to twice Jim Ringo- 3-20 he was so bad, Ralph opened up his wallet for Chuch Knox Hank Bullough-4-17 and he was winless vs the English language. Players hated him so much, Bruce Smith told the players in the D huddle in Hank's last game in Tampa Bay (paraphrased from Fred Smerlas quote): Any of you make any f'n tacles I'll kill you. Stephenson actually had an 8-8 record his 1st season, better than Jauron has ever done.

I'd like to see the the Bills have a winning season, but it's not going to happen.

Next week James Hardy will be added to the active roster and someone will have to be cut. While the logical choice appears to be Roscoe Parrish, I say be bold and cut TO. Here's why: The season's going nowhere, having TO around takes playing time away from Hardy & Johnson. Since Owens is gone after the season, we need to find out this season whether we have a #2 receiver in either Johnson or Hardy or need to dip into the draft or free agency again for a WR. Cutting TO actually can help TO as well. As the team heads for 10 losses or more, how will they keep Owens even remotely interested. If you think he's a little disinterested now, imagine him by week 14. Cutting him frees him to look for a team he can actually contribute to & win. Now there was no way anyone would have traded for him, but they might just be willing to take him in as a free agent, especially if they get an injury at WR this weekend. Cutting TO is a win-win for both sides.

What QB has Gruden ever developed? He had veterans wherever he went. The funniest thing was when he thought he could do something with Rob Johnson and figured out there was nothing he could do after 1 season with RJ as a backup. Gruden doesn't develop QBs he just has a carrousel of QBs and it always stops at some guy in his mid-late 30s.

I get so sick of people saying this Bills QB or that QB just needs better coaching. There are still some mentally ill ones out there who think all JP needs is coaching. It's the Bills scouts who keep getting us these lousy QBs who are the problem.

He was 1 row behind me & a seat or 2 over, and he never puked. He was tossed for being too intoxicated, he passed out a few times & was spitting on the ground but no vommit. One of the guys with him, or seated with him, said the cops were going to take him to jail. He tried to defend him by telling them he never did anything to anyone else. At first security came over & talked to the guy, saying that some people complained & just asked him if he was ok, then left. Security was more in my row than his because we had so much more room to access the guy. The part most people didn't know is he, or someone in his group, came with a David Carr Texans' jersey and the 1st thing they did was rip it & throw the half the jersey on the luxury box roof right near our seats. At first I thought they came over because he threw the jersey on the roof. It wasn't until after he was booted did I find out he was bombed-he really was quiet, as his defender had said to security.

My row was very weird (219 row 1). 9 seats in a row were up on ticket exchange & the only ones in any of those seats were me & a guy who moved down from row 2 for more room. Then the people in the two seats to my right left right before the faked punt & I mockingly layed out on all the empty seats & almost missed the fake.

Check your typing-Section 103 is in the endzone, per the RWS seating chart, the description sounds like section 113 you need to correct this if it's a typo. It looks like a huge buyers' market for this game. Ticket exchange has a ton of tickets posted at the minimum we're allowed to post them for & nobody's buying. If you really want to get rid of them, you may have to price them at half or below half price, especially those Rockpile seats where they can't even see the scoreboard from these seats without some serious rubernecking.

I've seen 3 Tuskers games on TV & on the internet & they're just a bunch of NFL castoffs who would be something like 1-15 in a 16 game NFL season. Brooks Bollinger is the best QB in the UFL-that has to tell you something about the league. Think about this, if the Bills had signed Bollinger before the season & named him the starter, this board would have exploded. The AFL had NFL talent because they were in direct competition for players for years & by the time the Jets won the Super Bowl there was a common draft. The UFL is not in competition with the NFL-they take their rejects. Now the Tuskers have Odell Thurman who is an NFL talent who got bounced out for off the field stuff, but he's about their only player who could start in the NFL. To think they could beat the Bills, who have 3 wins this year in 7 games, is ridiculous.

Well, here's the context: "Is Larry Johnson being unfairly singled out? He very well could be." -That's not a defense of Johnson, as much as it is an indictment of the NFL culture where just about anybody could feel comfortable thinking it's ok to slur gays. As I stated, the culture of this board is much the same. Really, other than the word chosen, how many times have you seen stuff like "that's so gay" "that's the gayest thing..." ON THIS BOARD. So, why single out a guy, when it's pervasive? Because he was dumb enough to use it on twitter & repeat it in public? I'm defending his right not to be singled out when all he did was use a word. Once again-gay players stay in the closet due to fear of physical harm-they wouldn't be afraid to come out if the only threat was to be called a fag. So what is worse, the use of a word, or the actual physical harm a gay player would be threatened with? What did Larry Johnson do that was so wrong was the question used to get this topic, which was about a day old & not discussed, discussed. The fact that we're on our 4th page indicates to me the question succeeded in bringing out a discussion of the topic.

Only Losman Edwards & now Fitzpatrick have started under Jauron. Holcomb & Bledsoe started under Mularkey.

Actually, my point was that in a league where the anti-gay culture is so prevalent that no player would ever come out as gay for fear of bodily harm, the fact that Johnson is being attacked for his words is quite hypocritical. The NFL needs to do a lot more to change that culture than to pay lip service to people who are protesting the use of a word. That's the problem I have with political correctness-it does nothing to solve a problem. If you think I was defending Johnson, I was only trying to prove a point that actions are more important than words & before the NFL, Chiefs etc go after Johnson's use of a word, they need to work on their anti-gay culture.

It's not hatred for JP, it's people like you who can't see he was bad and refuse to admit you are wrong that drive me wild. 32 NFL teams said JP isn't good enough to play in the NFL-what more do you need to wake up & see it for yourself? I guess in your mind, all 32 teams just need to get over their hatred for JP & give him a chance. The post you replied to did not say one thing about Trent. It was about your irrational love for a guy NOBODY in the NFL wanted. Every time someone posts that JP wasn't good enough you JP lovers call us JP haters. We don't hate JP-we just don't think he was any good-a position that Trent Edwards, by the way, is quickly approaching. I'm loyal to the team, I don't fall in love with QBs and say the irrational things you've said in this string about a fallen QB who just isn't NFL caliber.

I've never been a fan of political correctness & now the NFL is all over Larry Johnson for using the word fag. Well take a look at this and other football message boards & you see gay slurs all the time. It's the culture of sports & athletes. Is Larry Johnson being unfairly singled out? He very well could be. I think the NFL is being very hypocritical here. If they're going to persecute Larry Johnson, maybe they should examine their attitudes before they come down on him. It's no coincindence that no active NFL player has ever come out as gay during his career. Why?-they fear physical retaliation on the field, that's why. Coming down on Larry Johnson for using a word, I'm even seeing he might be suspended, is ridiculous. Don't come down on one player for his language, when the culture of the league supports his thinking. How different is Larry Johnson's attitude than what goes on in churches Sunday mornings before the games? The NFL has a long way to go before it will ever be called gay friendly. Paying lip service to some activists does nobody any good, who knows the gay equivalent of Al Sharpton may surface at an NFL stadium if the NFL comes down on Johnson. I'm not saying Larry Johnson is completely correct, but what he said in public goes on in NFL locker rooms every day. The rest of the story is that KC doesn't want to pay Johnson his contract & is looking for a way to recoup money by claiming he breached his contract with his gay slurs. I bet if a high profile player who was producing up to his team's expectations said the same thing, you wouldn't hear any talk of team suspension or trying to terminate his contract.

There's a reason JP is in the UFL-HE EARNED IT! You really need to get over the fact that JP is not qualified to play in the NFL in ANY capacity. At least the guys on the team are in the NFL & Fitzpatrick is a proven #2-a job JP couldn't get. You might just need a psychiatrist to get over your man-love for JP.