Albany,n.y.

While Donahoe screwed the pooch on some key moves, he did bring in the current Bills, some hits, some misses, but they're still on this year's roster: Evans, Peters, Moorman, Lindell, Parrish, McGee, Schobel, Greer, Reed, Kelsay, Denney, Preston, & Losman. That's almost 25% of the roster. His main problems were he bombed on 1st round picks Losman, & Mike Williams and sent a 1st rounder to NE for 3 mediocre seasons of Drew Bledsoe, wasting three 1st round picks in 5 years and he picked two horrible head coaches. He also gambled & lost on the McGahee pick, but remember, he stole that pick from Atlanta for Price and Marv & Brandon cleaned that one up, resulting in Edwards & Stroud on the current team. Overall, Donahoe's bad use of 1st rounders & poor coaching hires, combined with his gestapo management of stadium behavior (I once wrote "Fire Mularkey" in the snow on the roof of the end zone boxes & security made me erase it) made his firing necessary, but he was not as bad as some other GMs in the same timeframe, like the guys who ran the Dolphins totally into the ground.

Going back to Clayton's spot on WGR Thursdays at 5, he's been all over the place when it comes to Edwards. Last year, after the 1st two games people started talking about replacing JP with Edwards. Clayton said if the Bills did that, it would set the franchise back 3 years. Towards the end of the season, he had totally backtracked from that statement. So, since Clayton talks about the Bills with WGR every week, he knows exactly how long it took Edwards to get into the lineup. He's just a spinmeister, as bad as a politician. He can't say "you know, I was totally wrong about the Bills QB situation early last season", so instead he starts revising history to match his current opinion.

By the end of preseason 2007, I was raving about the next great NFL quarterback to the people at work. After I got back from opening day I must have been pretty po'd that the Bills were still starting JP and let everyone at work know. One of my friends at work took my words and wrote them down & asked me to sign them. Here's what he wrote for me to sign: "9/10/07 Trent Edwards is Joe Montana, Dan Marino & Tom Brady all in one player." At that point I objected, since it didn't explain my opinion properly. I then wrote in why I felt that way: "The coolness of Montana, The release of Marino, The mind of Brady." I then signed it. It is sitting in a co-worker's desk & I have a photocopy hanging on my wall at work and have copies at home as evidence that I saw the greatness before he ever played in a regular season game. 13 days later I went to the game in New England and after Edwards entered the game & drove the Bills right down the field I told a Patriots fan that the moment Edwards entered the game was the Bills'equivalent of when Tom Brady replaced Drew Bledsoe for the Patriots in 2001. Ironically, it was September 23, 2001 in Foxboro when Brady entered the game to replace an injured Bledsoe and it was September 23, 2007 in Foxboro when Edwards entered the game to replace an injured Losman.

No need to wait, here's what Mort's answer would be: Tom Donahoe was a real visionary. He drafted Willis McGahee knowing that when McGahee would be in the last year of his contract, the Bills could trade him for a franchise quarterback. Marv Levy was just lucky to reap the benefits of Tom Donahoe's brilliant plan. Now you might ask: Why did Donahoe's Bills trade three picks for draft JP Losman? Well, the guy started 31 games and if he wasn't behind center during those 31 games the snaps would have continuously hit the ground and resulted in a lot of turnovers. You can't play NFL football without a quarterback, Tom Donahoe knew that.

The local CBS station is committed to the Jets. They now show all the Jets preseason games, or have them on their sister station. So no matter how bad the Jets game is, head to head Albany will always show the Jets this season. On to another post reply-the Bills express ended a few years ago. The US government was threatening not to fund Amtrak and the Bills Express was a casualty of Amtrak's uncertain future. After that season, Amtrak continued, but the Bills Express did not.

Somewhere Chris Mortensen is thinking up a story showing what a genius Tom Donahoe was for drafting Willis McGahee so that he could later be traded for the pick that we used on Edwards.

A good to great tight end helps. Look at teams that throw to the TE in the red zone, then look at our sorry group.

There's one team that will take him: After the dismal showing without Romo, Jerry Jones probably can't wait to bring him to Dallas as the backup. The Cowboys have become the league's dumping ground for guys in trouble.

Most important ranking: 5-1, 1st in AFC East.

TD passes-this is another reason I hate just about every QB statistic! Too much fantasy football thinking & not enough real football thinking. A guy at work who plays fantasy football asked me to rate QBs that were available last week, this is what I said: Edwards is head & shoulders better than the rest of these guys but the Bills like to run near the goal line, so he doesn't get as many touchdowns as the guys whose teams throw down there. As long as the Bills are scoring touchdowns in the red zone, TD passes are irrelevant.

Tips for not getting peed on: Use a bathroom with 2 doors-the one door bathroom is too dark for any man to be around other guys with their Jaurons out. Most important-get to the end of the urinal, aka the corner. You only have 1 guy next to you and you can keep a pretty good distance. Plus you can use you legs to help position yourself. Don't try to use the sink to wash your hands-guys are peeing in there because it's closest to the door & they can see where they're going. If you really want to be safe & see-go ahead, pee in the sink. I used the bathroom once during the blackout and came out unscathed.

The Old Farmers Almanac specifically said "No once in a career blizzards or monsoons are projected for Bills games for the next 10 years."

Marcus Buggs was drawing raves early in camp. If he's progressed on the PS, he's the guy, not Spragan.

Most draft guides had Trent rated between 3rd and 5th best QB in the draft. Here's what I have seen from the 2007 draft-when we get to GMjr, Russ Lande, a former NFL scout for 2 teams, he totally blew the Edwards analysis. Mel Kiper-4th best QB, mid 2nd rounder. Nolan Nawrocki-3rd QB, 2nd rounder. NFL Draft Scout-4th QB 2-3 rounder. Frank Coyle, Draft Insiders' Digest-5th QB, 4th rounder. Finally, GMjr, Russ Lande-15th QB, 7th rounder. He believed that Edwards would go in the 2nd round even though he rated him so low, but added in his mock draft where he had him going to KC " Chiefs are not sold on Brodie Croyle for their future and they have bought the hype after Edwards great Pro Day." Here's his weaknesses writeup:"Trent is an inconsistent quarterback whose bad footwork and lower body mechanics hinder his ability to consistently see/sense the pass rush coming and takes a large number of sacks that he has the athleticism to avoid. Despite not panicing under pressure, he does not consistently throw the ball accurately in key spots which hindered his ability to convert consistently in key spots (Converted under 49% of key important downs). He is a thin looking quarterback on the 'Hoof' and has struggled to stay healthy at Stanford, so I believe he will have trouble being a durable NFL quarterback." Here's his summary : "Trent is an interesting prospect because prior to evaluating him I had very high hopes for him having seen flashes of him play on TV, but upon charting out 6 games from his junior season I was greatly disappointed. He is being widely talked about as one of the "Sleeper' quarterbacks and is listed as the 3rd or 4th best quarterbacks by a number of NFL teams, but I think teams are falling in love with the quick, compact delivery and strong intangibles. While arm strength is the most over-rated part of a quarterback, Tren's inability to consistently throw accurately when he tries to put zip on passes is a major concern. Overall, I am sure Trent will be drafted much higher than I have him rated, but I am confident that in the end Trent will struggle to be anything more than a quality backup quarterback in the NFL." Is it any wonder this guy has been canned from both his NFL scouting jobs? These are the QBs, in order, that he had rated above Edwards: Jamarcus Russell, Kevin Kolb, John Beck, Brady Quinn, Matt Moore, Troy Smith, Drew Stanton, Toby Korrodi, Tyler Thigpen, Jeff Rowe, Jordan Palmer, Tyler Palko, Luke Gesty, and Lester Ricard. Ironically Ricard, his 14th QB was on Tulane.

What choice did the Chargers have. They got Rivers after Brees had a bad season & they had the worst record in the league & Eli refused to play there. So Brees has his 1st great year, Rivers sits on the bench & they franchise Brees. The next season Brees has another good season, but then gets injured & now the Chargers, who could have franchised him again & then tried to trade 1 of the 2 QBs are stuck-some team might want to gamble on Brees with $, but the Chargers ability to trade Brees is out the window since he may have a career changing or even ending injury. Remember this: Miami chose trading for an injured Culpepper over giving a free agent contract to Brees. Now they have to choose Rivers since if they trade Rivers & Brees doesn't come back they're screwed. They can't trade Brees because he has no trade value with the arm injury. The injury tied the Chargers hands-they had to let Brees go and keep Rivers. You can't even question the Chargers decision to get Rivers on draft day since that was a QB & WR draft at the top & none of the receivers was worth picking over a QB at #1 & they got a ton of value from the Manning to NY deal.

I don't have a link since I read it in my Adobe file issue.

On a good day 9. Yesterday 8:55. I caught a break because virtually nobody left the game & jammed up the roads & I was able to take 219 to the Thruway. When the roads jam I go 20/78 to the Depew exit before getting on the Thruway & that is slower. Opening day too many people left & I got home after 10. I was quite surprised when we pulled away & I saw it was you.

Not only was he there, but we were parked 2 cars from each other at the Thruway rest stop & pulled away at the same time, on the way home. I think he got home sooner than I did since he got off at the next exit.

It won't be the Jets game. The NY Giants @ Dallas will stay as the Sunday Night game. The Jets game could get flexed from 1 to 4, by not to 8.

I realized that because of the blackout there couldn't be any replay challenges. It's a good thing we didn't get screwed by the refs during the blackout. I had to revert to looking at the down markers on the sidelines for some plays. The key to successfully navigating the bathrooms was to get to a corner of the urinal. At halftime I went to the upper deck because they're always less crowded & was able to reach a corner, then it was as if I was blind, that's how dark it was. I didn't even try the bathroom by my seat, way too dark.

John Leypoldt 9/13/76. Saban resigned a month & 2 days later.

Leonard Smith never played again after his infection.

Great story: John's there visiting his mother & his sister's husband is having a birthday party. His sister tells them to come over at 2:00 for the party on Sunday. John demanded that they change the time since he needs the 1-4 time to watch the Bills game. Last I heard John expects them to move the party to Saturday.

It is when JP plays. Since Edwards, not JP is playing, the Chargers won't have the ball long enough to score more points than the Bills. The Madden thing is good because now when the Bills win, it's added proof that Edwards=wins, JP =losses.

I'll be there alone-Petrino sold his seats on ticket exchange & will be watching the game in Connecticut.