Albany,n.y.

What do you want them to do, go to HSBC Arena and sit in the penalty box until their next practice? With each Bills' loss the posts are getting more moronic.

ROONEY RULE Can't hire a coach in mid season

Giants-KC. Eli fumbled, half this board would be calling for his benching after that.

The Bills' two starting OTs today might not even be on any other team's roster.

When Holmgren was in Seattle, he drafted guys with very questionable character, including alleged rapist Jerramy Stevens in the 1st round. I would hope he learned not top draft these types, but unless he has, I wouldn't want him here if he has a large say on players to draft & sign.

That knock on your door was the paramedics coming to transport you to the insane asylum.

The bigger question should be: When is a Bills QB going to be able to play with a decent NFL line in front of him? Right now, for today's game we have a RT who we cut & nobody picked up & a LT who got cut by the Lions right before their 0-16 season. Add to that mix two rookie guards and a center whose back was so bad last week that he seemed to snap more shotgun passes to Edwards' knees than his hands. With that line does it really matter who is back there, because even Manning or Brady would become checkdown guys with the amount of time Edwards has to pass. Now there is hope that by next season, Butler will be back for RT, either Bell will prove worthy or we'll get a LT, and the rookies guards will be through any growing pains. With this line Edwards not only shouldn't be benched if the Bills can't win, but if he makes it through the entire season, he should be given the courage award just for standing up behind this line.

In all the "When does Jauron get fired?" strings everyone seems to be forgetting one thing: THE ROONEY RULE All the big names cannot come in like Marv did in 1986 because the league will only allow an interim coach, unless Ralph is set on naming Fewell as permanent head coach. Just look at what happened with Haslett in STL last year. He had a clause that if he won a certain # of games, he'd get the HC job permanently-the NFL disallowed it. So if Jauron gets fired, all we get is an interim coach. If you want April, you can have him audition, but that's about it. So, if Ralph is even considering going for a name, or some other team's assistant, forget Dick getting fired in season.

Also, don't forget how Dungy's thug Viking defense took out Jim Kelly for the rest of the season in 1994. I got so mad at the play I screamed out from my seat "That's why you're not getting a head coaching job, Dungy" Eventually he did, but there's no denying his Vikings' D was just a bunch of cheap shot artists.

Rattay's Ramblers

It's still in line with other salaries. Look at what McGee got in his new contract: Reported at 4 years $27 million that could be higher with incentives. That's close to $7 million/year for McGee. If Edwards has a good year, he'll get big $ and they won't need to draft a QB in the 1st round. When was the last time the Patriots drafted a QB in the 1st round? -Bledsoe. You only draft a QB in the 1st round when you think you will have a need in a year or 2. When have the Bills last felt that need? -2004 when they picked Losman after the cupboard was bare by the time they picked Lee Evans at 13. Since then, they were commited to Losman through 2006 (they did see enough flaws by then to draft Edwards) and Edwards through at least this year. So your theory would be called totally untested due to lack of meaningful data. Additionally, only Brady Quinn was available to the Bills in the 1st round in a recent year they drafted a QB & right now Edwards is better than Quinn, so you can't fault them for that decision. Personally, I would have pulled the plug on the Losman commitment after 2005 & drafted a QB instead of Whitner, but the Bills weren't prepared to dump JP at that time. Marv loved Jay Cutler, but was not willing to give up on Losman at that time. Money had nothing to do with it.

There was no reason to say "if", because your theory was baseless to begin with. Ralph has traded 1st round picks for QBs and paid them big bucks twice since 1998 (Johnson & Bledsoe) and traded back into the 1st for Losman. So what you're really saying is "If Ralph doesn't want to do what he's already proven he's willing to do, then..." That's why you deserve to get blasted for starting the string the way you did.

Years ago there was IR that wasn't season ending. So teams like the Bills (in the Polian years) and Redskins became experts at stashing promising players who were not ready to compete for jobs yet. We had guys like Carlton Bailey, Keith McKeller, and Martin Mayhew (who we lost trying to hide on plan B as well) stashed on IR. During the strike, McKeller came off IR with his "back injury" & played. The NFL wanted to stop this & changed to a 53 man roster with 8 inactives on gameday (7 + 3rd QB if you have 3 QBs on the roster) so that players with short term injuries would just be inactive. If you want to stash a player on IR, he can't practice & learn the O or D, so you're much less likely to do the old Bills/Redskins chicanery.

Whatever Green Bay used over the years seems to have worked. They have brought in a number of guys with starting potential over the years. They were smart enough to trade for Favre & during those years had Brunell, Warner, Hasselbeck, & Rodgers signed out of college. With the exception of Rodgers, the other guys weren't ranked as 1st day players in the draft. It would be nice if the Bills scouts were doing whatever GB was doing to evaluate QBs.

Especially when 1 of those seconds is used getting the bad snap off the carpet. It's a good thing this board wasn't around during the Super Bowl years because half the board would be calling for Frank Reich after Jim Kelly stunk it up at Pittsburgh or KC, which he did a few times. The guy had a bad game, big deal. Even though I hate those stupid QB ratings, many of you love them & he was #1 in the AFC going into the NO game. One bad game & AVP went from genius to dummy & Trent became as bad as JP. A lot of you have the attention span of a 2 year old.

Ralph could start spying on other teams and just say "I was confused". He's 91, I think sly old Ralphie could get away with it.

If Ted Cottrell does well in the UFL, he might be the one.

Obviously Jauron is a loser, just look at the record. Probabilities say no matter what he does, down 10 with 7:30 left, his team is not winning the game. Jauron's offense was playing losing football, so give the ball to them & they'll screw it up. Give the ball to the D & they screw it up. Bottom line: Until Jauron is gone, the players will continue with their poor execution on both sides of the ball and most of his decisions will be wrong, no matter which decision he makes-Unless the NFL allows us to play Tampa every week and forces them to use Byron "Statue" Leftwich at QB.

In the NE game the Patriots got the ball with 5:32 left, down 11 points. So BB had about 2 minutes less than when the Bills punted on Sunday. BB scored with 2:06 left and what did he do-he kicked off-why don't you consider that waving the white flag? If Belichick was confident enough to kick off at 2:06, why do you think he would have gone for it if he had 7.5 minutes left at his own 28? Just add the time up. His 1st drive started at 5:32 add 2:06 to that & you have 7:38-almost identical to when the Bills punted at 7:30. Obviously Belichick thought he could get the ball back in less than 2:06 AND HAVE TIME TO SCORE, so how can you conclude he wouldn't have punted and expected to get the ball back in virtually the same timeframe that the Patriots won the game with? The Bills felt their only chance of winning was to stop the Saints-something they had done most of the game, rather than risk a 4th & 1 on their own 28 with an offense that had not been able to figure out Gregg Williams' D the entire game and even if they made it, would be 1st & 10 deep in their own territory having to score twice, when they hadn't put up a single point in the 1st 52.5 minutes of the game. So why not hand the ball back to his special teams, with Moorman punting and then the D, who had already forced a fumble, than try their impotent offense when it may end up putting the Saints in immediate field goal range with the wind? If the plan succeeds, they have the ball back with about 5 minutes to go and maybe better field position to start a drive. That would be about half a minute less than NE had to score twice, with a possiblity of not kicking off with 2:06 to go. Also if they do manage to get the onsides kick, they start a field goal drive close to midfield.

You do it when you're ahead by more than 3 points, not when you're behind by 10 with 7+ minutes to go. So far nobody has met my challenge of just 1 time, same situation where it worked. Many teams have come from behind down two scores with less than 5 minutes to go, but when has one come from behind trailing by 10 (less than 2 TDs) with 7+ minutes to go that went for it on their own 28 or worse. I'm begging for just 1 time for you people to prove your case & all I'm getting are generalities. Just one boys & girls, just one.

Then please, please find me just one time you can document that a team did not punt from its own 28 or worse with over 7 minutes left in the game, down less than 2 touchdowns, and got the 1st down & ended up winning. I can find numerous times when a team has won a game down 2 scores with less than 5 minutes left including Monday night's opener in NE where Bellichick kicked off after scoring and when Dallas beat us after being down 11 with just a few minutes remaining. All I'm asking is one time, come on, if you're so right prove it with something you can document has succeeded.

There's a 99% chance I've seen more Bills games both at the Ralph & on TV than you have. Ok, wiseguy-find me just one other time in the NFL where a coach has done what you are advocating-down 10 in the 4th quarter, went for it on 4th & <1 with over 7 minutes left from 28 or worse, got the 1st down & won the game. I can give you at least two games in the past 3 seasons where an opposing coach was down 11 with less than 5 minutes to go & won the game.

The big difference is that in all probability, the Patriots had seen something in the films that gave their coaching staff the confidence to go for it on 4th down. Just like the Bills' staff must have seen something that indicated they could succeed on the faked field goal for our only TD. You take risks based on your film study of the opponent. The Bills obviously didn't have the same positive film feedback on a 4th from your own 28 against NO that NE had against ATL. Likewise, NE didn't uncover anything that would have indicated a field goal fake would get them a touchdown. Why don't you question why NE didn't fake a FG for a TD in their game? It's all about game situations, what's on the films etc that let you gameplan accordingly. If you want to blame the Bills staff for anything, then blame them for not devising a 4th & 1 plan (from anywhere on the field) based on studying NO's defense. However, since Gregg was throwing new wrinkles in that had stymied them all game, they were wise not to risk handing NO the game where they had plenty of time to tie with a TD & a late FG, or win with 2 TDs. By giving NO the ball at their own 28, the Bills would have virtually eliminated the option of getting a TD & tying late with a 2 minute drive into FG range.

You're the one who is dead wrong. Name me one time that a coach trailing by 10 points with about half a quarter to play has ever went for it on his own 28. It's moronic. Too much time left. That's a 3-minutes left decision. Just keep being a media lemming and parrot what Sullivan, Simon & the rest of WGR's knuckleheads come up with.

You better be sure he beats out Tim Rattay for the entire (6 game) season against minor league competition and you still won't know **** about his ability to play in the NFL. Gibran Hamdan was NFLE's MVP, got cut twice afterwards and the only reason he's in the NFL is because he's the starting QB's best friend.