MattM

As long as it's with the number 32 pick, I won't mind....

Now I've heard everything--Ralph is "cheap" in the draft? How do you go cheap in the draft? Each player is basically slotted in terms of salary--don't matter who you pick, that guy's going to get a little less than the guy infront of him and a little more than the guy behind him. This is not an area that one can cheap out on--you pick the best player available at a position of need with your picks and they get paid according to the scale. Some folks like to use the "Ralph is cheap" thing even in cases where it's not appropriate. If that's not what you meant, I apologize in advance, but that's what your post looks like to me.....

Isn't there the little matter of the 4 year extension this administration just gave Roscoe? Based on that alone, he ain't going anywhere, nor should he.

good comeback! need to be positive on draft day!

Except that cable has twice as many HD channels (at least in my area) and their customer service folks actually show up when you make an appointment for them and take the day off of work to let them in. I had that happen to me not once, but twice, with DirecTV--making appointments and then just not showing up. Incredible, but true. The absolute worst customer service I've ever seen. They know they have a monopoly on the Sunday ticket, so they have no need for customer service--responding economically rationally like any good monopoly would. Congress needs to get the NFL to offer the ticket on cable, full, end stop.

He looked pretty good on the Youtube video--in particular, he seems to have excellent vision and ability to know which hole to hit and then great acceleration and cut back once he does. while I wish they'd found a reserve guard or tackle instead, I don't think this was too bad a pick, IMHO....

If you look at his profile Q&A above, says he's also a chess player, so Melvin Fowler will have some company....

If they can get Rucker in the 4th I'll love this pick....

Isn't he off the board late in the 2nd?

That's okay--as a first rounder, we can sign him for 6 and franchise him after that if he's worth it. Nothing to worry about there. Anyone else check out his individual game stats last year--on a mid-level team, he typically held his man to between 0 and 3 catches for minimal yards all year long against good competition (like Auburn and Florida). How is this not a great pick considering we got Hardy at 41?

I thought I heard ESPN mention that he ran a 4.41 at his pro day--anyone else hear that or can confirm it? If so, just wow for a guy his size....

Anyone else suspect that the Pats wanted Rivers, but didn't count on Rivers being taken by the Bengals? I also saw Mayo as high as 42 on someone's mock draft--remember when they called Whitner a reach when he went at 8 (but would have never gotten past 16-18 or so)? How come no one has called the Pats out on this? Of course time will tell, but still.....

This is exactly what they're setting up--see point 6 of my ealier thread on my quick read of the Agt. (I'm a corporate lawyer by day, sadly.) The Agt. spends a lot of time talking about whether and when Walsh will be presumed to have been acting at the Pats' request (such circumstances arguably do not include taping another team's walkthrough) and puts the burden of proof on him "by a preponderance of the evidence" in other non-listed situations to show he was acting at their request. Sounds to me like (a) the tape may well in fact exist if they're spending this much ink in the Agt. on it (but we'll see) and (b) the Pats and the NFL are setting up the argument that Walsh was a lone gunman on this one (which to me will be completely non-believable no matter how much they spin it--for ex., if he did tape it on his own, you mean to tell me he never, ever showed it to anyone else there? I mean, wouldn't that be the point of doing this, to impress your bosses with how devious you can be? Or was he just filming it for his personal collection? If he did show it to anyone else there, shouldn't they have brought this up during the investigation into all of this in the fall? I mean, the Pats can't have it both ways in such a case. At a bare minimum they would have lied to the Commish's office about this then.)

As noted in the thread I started on my review of the Agt., there is language in the Agt. that talks about the burden of proof in such a case. In my haste, I looked at it as mainly more evidence that such a tape exists, but glossed over the idea that this may be the way the League and the Pats get out of this, as you note above. They will certainly lose the PR war, as no one in their right mind is going to believe he did this on his own, but it may mean the League gets away with not punishing the Pats further in such a case. At that point, there's absolutely no doubt who Goodell works for, to the detriment of the integrity of the sport and I may actually never watch a game again if that were to happen (perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but not much)......

I disagree--I think what they wanted most of all was to keep this (and by this, I mean the actual allegations that will come out of whatever Walsh ends up having) out of the discussion during draft weekend. The timing of this allows the Commish to say to any questions on it, "The Agt's resolved and we'll talk in a couple of weeks. Next question", rather than have to suffer further embarrasing questions about why it's taking so long to get it done (ie., sweeping it under the rug yet again), but at the same time pushing off the actual dirt until a period when football fans are most likely to be tuned out. The columnists can write what they want, but if folks' attention is elsewhere then the damage is minimalized. Of course, for us die hards, we'll listen whenever the story breaks, but for the casual fan, this is the best the League can hope for. All of this points in my eyes to an increased likelihood that there are embarrassing things that are going to come out of this, both for NE and by association, the League. Anyone else notice in Goodell's comment last week the statement that Walsh says he has "new" evidence of Patriot wrongdoing for which further punishment may be warranted (i.e., more than the taping of D signals that we already knew about). In light of all that's gone on the last two days on this, I think that that's more likely to be the case. We'll find out either way in a few weeks time. Where's Hollywood Donahoe when you need him?

From a posting I just made on a Pats board (where they're flipping out, as you'd imagine)--- After reading the Agt. itself last night, some thoughts: 1. It's clear that both sides contemplate Walsh having tapes--there's no doubt about that now; 2. Section 1(a) also contemplates the idea that Walsh may have given materials to others and needs to get that back--Tomasse perhaps, or some third party to back his story up to Tomasse so that the Herald could run the story without fear of being sued? Any journalists out there able to answer whether that would be "normal" to do so without disclosing it in the article? (In my best Mr. Scott impersonation here, "I'm a lawyer, Cap'n, not a journalist!"); 3. Under 1(b), and as has been reported elsewhere, it looks like Walsh can talk to third parties about what he's turning over, but there are restrictions on his ability to let others see his lawyer's copy of the materials he gets to keep (at least for a little while--there's another provision saying he needs to turn those materials over to the League at some point); 4. Under section 2 Walsh will be talking to the NFL not just about videotaping, but also about "any other violations" of which he has personal knowledge (audiotaping perhaps?); 5. The possibility of Congressional hearings is contemplated in section 3(a); 6. What to me may be the most important nugget here is also in 3(a), namely the Agt. goes into detail on when Walsh was presumed to be working for the Pats and actions he took will be presumed to be their actions--including taping activities relating to Pats games (the "Covered Videotaping Action" defn.) It then goes on to say that things outside those listed activities (which, to my reading, may arguably not include taping a Rams practice) need to be proved by Walsh to have been Pats actions by a preponderance of the evidence. The fact that this is even in here leads me to even more strongly suspect that on May 13 among the items turned over will be a SB 36 walkthrough tape. 7. I also found that section on rehabilitating reputations (4(b)) interesting, but am not quite sure what's contemplated by it. It is pretty powerful, however, due to the statement that it trumps the rest of the Agt. For those of you taking comfort from the Pats strong denials--go back and re-read that denial. They say that the "NE Patriots" didn't tape the walkthrough--that will be their argument, it was Walsh as a lone gunmen. And the rest of world outside New England will have a good old laugh at that, I suspect, as will the Commissioner. As noted before, in that case, my suspicion is that BB may have coached his last NFL game and the loss of a first round draft pick this year will be made to look like a slap on the wrist. I originally thought that this may be to the Pats benefit when I saw the timing of this--i.e., if they're doing all this this week, the week of the draft, then the League thinks Walsh has nothing. But when the fact that they plan to do this in the NFL season "dead zone" of the period between the draft and spring training, I now think just the opposite. The delay here IMHO has been the NFL trying to position what they know to be a smelly problem into a media period when it will do them the least harm.

Yeah, and I read somewhere else that after all his alcohol issues (at least 2 DUI's in the last year or so), he now owns a bar. A really bright guy, IMHO. My prediction is he will be serving a one year suspension (he already got the 4 gamer last season, reduced to two) within the next two years.....

http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/billsnfl/story/327434.html "Whatever happened to Chapter Two in the New England Patriots’ Spygate saga? Start looking under the rugs. Bob Kraft, the franchise owner, has that sort of clout." True that. Surprised not that the League hasn't done anything to resolve the Walsh situation (after the way they handled things in the fall, I suspect they don't really want to find out what really happened any more than Pats* fans do), but I am surprised the media has given the League and the Pats* a seeming pass on this. I guess that's what happens when all the major media outlets either have contracts with the League (ABC/ESPN, NBC, CBS and Fox, for ex.) or rely on the League for access to their teams and personnel for their sports stories (include everyone else under this category). Disappointing, but not surprising in light of this. Oh, well, looks like the asterisk is just going to have to stay firmly affixed until this is resolved.....

That would indeed be a great trade for the Bills. Go OC and/or DE in Rds 3 and 4 and hit on those picks this year (i.e., get a DE that can actually be a good backup for Schobel and Dennelsay to the tune of 3-4 sacks as a rookie backup and an OC that can push Fowler for the starting job) and dare I say it, we'd have a great team for a number of years.....

I've also read that the Pats may be after Lito as well to fill the Asante hole. Those rumors have them offering up their very late 2 for him. Not quite sure if that makes sense, however--why pay Lito when you weren't going to pay Asante?

This is all if Albert lasts until 11--I saw this morning that both Mel and McShay have him going at 5 to the Chiefs, FWIW.....

Maybe publicizing things like the fact that the Pats* had a bye before playing us four years in a row (random odds 1: 4096) helped prevent them from happening again--I did see the Pats point in several newspaper articles in the last year or so (Bob Williams in the D& C being one of them--perhaps he read it here)......

...and that's why payback's a B word.....

Awesome news, VA--you saved me the trouble of searching that one myself! Finally a break on that!

http://www.buffalobills.com/games/schedule08.jsp Here it is....