MattM

Again, it's not straight up--it's Josh Reed plus a 2. Sounds close to right to me.....

But that's why we'd be giving them a decent player (remember, most of Reed's catches were for first downs, he's a great blocker in the running game and if he'd stayed healthy he was on pace for 70 catches in a "run first" offense) and a 2. This isn't a "straight up" trade. The 2 is the problem to me. If we could do this for Josh Reed and a 3, I'd be all over it, especially considering this is Josh's last year under contract I believe (but could be wrong). I like Josh, but the opportunity to get a 26 year old Pro Bowl DT is too good to pass up.

There were rumors earlier in the offseason that the Pats* wanted him, since they need a pass rusher, with the potential that he move to OLB. May still be some life to that, since if you look at their roster, they really are pretty thin at LB generally. If something were to happen to Mayo or Thomas (their only two decent LBs, and one of them being 32 years old), their D could really reek this year, considering the state of their secondary behind those LBs. Their D-line is solid, but there are definitely chinks in the rest of the armor.....

Would have been even more interesting had Goodell not destroyed the evidence and followed up on some of the other accusations that were leveled against the Pats* at around the same time (headsets going out in Gillette at weird times (two head coaches--Marinelli and Del Rio--each brought that up separately), bugging defensive players to pick up audibles and the like) instead of just sweeping it all under the rug in the name of protecting the sport (and, more importantly, one of his main benefactors and the man who helped him get his job).....

I was thinking the exact same thing. I'm incredibly glad that he's off the show (and suspect that was the "idea" all along).....

As I said, I hope it's just a snafu on their side, but I also strongly suspect that they, like all similar organizations, do have someone who reads those kinds of requests when they come in (and not weeks or months later). If so, I think that we can all pretty much guess what that letter said based on the article. The person for the Pats* who read that article must really not be the sharpest knife in the drawer to not immediately elevate something like that up the right flagpole pretty quickly. If they did not do so, then there's your answer--an incompetent junior person, no big shock. If, however, that person did run things up the flagpole and there was still no response (or at least not a timely one, and from that article it sounds like months went by after the request without a response), then that's just weird, as I originally noted, especially for a team that's supposed to be the end all, be all in sports and just all around swell guys (if you don't believe me, just ask them and their fans, who, BTW, are themselves disappointed in the lack of a response as per the Pats* message board that I found this story on). Don't get me wrong--I'm smart enough to realize that just because someone plays for a football team I don't happen to like doesn't mean they're a total D-Bag. Look, even Vince Wilfork and yes, the much-maligned Tedy Bruschi, do some great charitable works (for ex., that great story where the Pats* brought in a young boy with cancer to get a private tour of their facility at Gillette, including his own jersey and name on the scoreboard, and Bruschi imploring him to go ahead and touch the Lombardi Trophy--very good stuff and you really got the impression that Bruschi had put some thought into the visit, all to his credit). I just think it's odd that a team that gets so much positive press and is held up as the role model for all other teams in all things somehow just completely missed the boat on this one.....

I'd like to think that if it was the Bills, the school would have the jersey (and it wouldn't surprise me if Wilson himself would do something special for the school, but that's just my opinion). Just very strange--I'd also like to think that it was just a snafu on the New England side, but who knows. Maybe the all-mighty, media-loved Pats* just ain't all that when the spotlight's off them--as I've always said, character is most revealed by the actions you take when no one is watching (or you think that no one is watching perhaps in this case).....

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/...m?storyid=91679 An incredible tragedy, no doubt at all about that. It's just downright weird that the Pats* didn't respond to the school's request for a jersey..... :"The kids all knew what a New England Patriots fan David was," Julie Amegashie said Wednesday. Her son, Adrian, is one of the magnet students who helped establish Forever in Our Heart. The students tried to get a jersey from the NFL but didn't get a response. "We wrote a letter to the Patriots asking for a jersey," Adrian Amegashie said Thursday. "I was a little disappointed we didn't hear back.""

He ain't saying that we'll beat them--he's just saying that they're not as good as the hype. I agree with him. I think that it's the very rare sportswriter who can actually look at a team, the changes that have been made to that team (whether it be actual player changes or just the passage of time) and the other teams in the League and take a well-informed judgment about that team's prospects for the upcoming season. Way too many of these guys go with the "Let me see how good they were last year" and tweak it very slightly approach.....

Congrats (and way to support the team staying in WNY)!

No one's mentioned that we won't have Marshawn for that game--advantage Pats*. I knew that we'd open with them as soon as I heard about his suspension--funny how that works. Kind of like the 4 years in a row they got to play us after a bye, many of those years we were considered their closest competition (such as it was) for the title. Funny how we NEVER got to play them after the bye during that period. This year, guess who New England* gets after the bye--Miami. The more things change, you can always count on the NFL front office looking out for certain teams.....

And the alternative is not buying tickets and the team moving, which I suspect it may still do even if we do buy tickets. If you want to find a villain in all of this, I'd suggest looking no further than the current "new breed" of NFL owners who are seeking ways to enhance the revenue of their own (largely big market) teams over the League's old more equal revenue sharing model (you know, the model that made it the most successful sport in America). It's honestly not Ralph's and Brandon's fault that the Western NY area has few high paying jobs, is bleeding people yearly and has few major corporations to support luxury boxes (read "unshared revenue"). Them's just the facts. Under those conditions, it will become increasingly harder to compete for FA talent, so you'd better hope they scout really well out of college. In a kind of ironic way, the current economic downturn might be good for teams like the Bills--watching Jerry Jones not get naming rights deals and having trouble selling tickets and watching Kraft's Patriots* Place (you know, the joint venture he did with CBS, one of the League's networks--no conflict there) flop, may put a little humbleness into those blowhards who have been among the most intent on changing the old model.....

Me neither, especially since you consider that our 3rd wideout had 56 catches last year in 12 1/2 games (or about 70 plus in 16 in a run first offense), two youngsters in SJ and Hardy and the underused Roscoe Parrish. This team is stacked at WR. I had a flight for work yesterday and I read some of this on the flight (after paying a ridiculous $14 for it) and thought that a lot of the rankings were garbage--based more on either name recognition or how popular (ie., big market) the team the player played for was on. For ex., no way is Stroud the 21st ranked DT in the League. I also thought Marshawn was ranked way too low as well as our CBs (for ex., McGee, who is at this stage of his career better than McKelvin, not even being mentioned).

There were a ton of questionable calls in that game, from the no offsides called on the play before JP got sacked in the end zone (when the Pats* defender was two steps into our backfield at the snap--I've got TIVO and watched that one over and over) to the "inadvertent whistle" when Clements was heading to the end zone a pick of Brady. That was one of the "worst" (and I use that pejoratively, because I personally suspect that it may have been more than "poor" officiating) officiated games I've ever seen.....

It's good seeing these guys doing something for charity like that. Seems like most of the site is devoted to his charity work. No problem at all with that to me.....

My wife and I did head into the city and checked this out. It was an interesting event--there was a $25 cover charge (but wings and free beer went with that) and by the time we got there at 6:20 there were about 15-20 people maybe attending. We got to talk to Eric for a bit and take a picture with him. Seemed like a very nice guy, very happy to be in the League and with the Bills. He was very friendly and was talking to all of the fans there. It was funny, but someone asked him who he grew up rooting for as a kid and it was the Bengals. Fair enough, IMHO, considering where he grew up. He also told us that he wasn't being paid for attending, but that he and his girlfriend got free air fare and a hotel for the weekend and it sounded like a good opportunity to him to check out NY and to get to meet some fans of his new team. All in all, a very worthwhile event. The team (and/or McFadden's) ought to consider more fan-friendly events like this. My wife and I will root a little harder for #70 after tonight, for example......

My wife and I are going to try to go--we need to head into the city to catch some friends for dinner in the theater district at 7:30, so I figured may as well kill two birds with one stone.....

Not to beat a dead horse too much, but it occurred to me in looking at our current proposed starters that this team could have been a ton better and a sure fire playoff contender if they had simply found a way to keep Peters, draft Maybin, trade our second and third to move up to take Eric Wood late in the first and then use our 4th to take Nelson. We wouldn't have Byrd or Levitre, but our O-line would have been a (hopefully) happy Peters, Wood, Hangartner and, most importantly, Butler and Walker playing their natural positions. Two new guys on the line, but both improvements over last year, and three other better linemen at their normal spots. We'd also have addressed our other two major needs, DE and TE. Tell me that that team wouldn't have playoff potential written all over it. My fear this year is that with 5 guys playing new positions, Trent is going to spend more time on his back than....well, this is a family board, so I won't go there. When the Bills traded Peters, I originally was pretty happy about it, in that I figured they must have "cash to cap" budgeted about $8-10m for him that would then be freed up to go get a LT and/or OLB. Personally, I expected them to at least sign one of Pisa or Levi, if not both. They've done neither, which makes me wonder how serious they were with their numbers for Peters and getting a real deal done. Frustrating, but that seems to come with the territory of being a Bills fan these days......

NBC News did a little tribute to him on their broadcast last night. Made me realize how much I miss him on "Meet the Press" every week. The world is a bit of a sadder (and less informed) place without him.....

Now that's funny!

Brandon's also a Fisher grad, so that might help keep it in Roch as well. No argument here--I grew up in ER, less than 2 miles from the camp and my mom still lives there, so I go every summer when I get back to visit family/friends....

I always liked TKO, and still do. It is indeed too bad how his career here ended.

Ding, ding, ding--we have a winner, folks! Straight on correct here--the NFL is becoming closer and closer to MLB every year in terms of an uneven economic playing field, and the big market owners who now control the League with the Commish they selected will make sure it keeps moving in that direction.....

I think you may be thinking of Boomer's. It was on 75th and Amsterdam. I used to watch the games there myself in the mid-90s when I lived in that 'hood. I recall once even watching the game with Phil McConkey, who I didn't recognize until some time in the third quarter when he said after a particularly vicious hit, "they didn't hit like that in my days in the League, wow!". As some of you may recall, he's actually from Buffalo and is apparently quite a Bills fan (to the point of telling me he'd root for the Bills over the Giants in the SB).

Only half joking, but before I paid Wilfork huge bonus/guaranteed money I'd be at least a little worried that what goes around comes back around and he suffers some kind of career ending knee injury on a cheap shot by someone he's cheap shotted in the past or some young guy trying to make a name for himself (hello, Wood and Levitre?) by retaliating for that POS's prior dirty tricks. Not that I'd endorse that--I don't root for injuries, even to jerks like Wilfork. That said, I wouldn't shed too many tears if he got some of what he dishes out to others. No way I'd want him on this team, BTW, either. What I hope happens is that he does indeed hold out, causing big distractions and then, like Peters, comes back in no shape to play. Wholeheartedly agree on the quoted part as well--he'd no longer be under Kraft's protective umbrella once he takes of that Flying Elvii and I suspect he knows that as well......