MattM

FWIW, Orakpo's also almost two years chronologically older than Maybin--turns 23 in July and Maybin turned 21 in April. At 21, Maybin may still have some physical growth in him, unlike Orakpo. My hope (and the Bills' FO, I'm sure) is that Maybin will gain15-20 pounds naturally as he matures physically, while not losing his speed or strength to body size ratio. If so, we may have gotten a steal here. I agree with the other folks above on first year DE's taking a bit to get things. Remember, Mario Williams, probably a Pro Bowler for the next 5-10 years had something like 4 sacks his first year. If Maybin can get 5 or 6 this year in limited playing time, that's a great season, IMHO....

Uhh, the Bills got their number 2 last year (the mighty Josh Reed) the ball 56 times and Reed didn't play almost 4 games. So having a number 2 with TO's talent for hopefully a full season you're saying it's a stretch that he'll catch 70 balls from our number 1 QB (Losman played in a number of the games Reed did while Trent was out)? Now who's displaying "magical homerish thinking"..... Still no answer on where you live and/or grew up, dude.....

Declining skills? I'll take 69 catches and 10 TDs and over 1000 yards any day from a number 2--and that was with his QB out for 3 weeks and Brad Johnson throwing to him. So far, he's done and said all the right things. Not to say that will continue, but so far, no complaints from me. Beats the heck out of Joey Galloway and Greg Lewis, no? Those were your WR additions. Don't look now, but Randy's due for his tight hammy or some other injury costing him 5-6 games and his explosiveness for the rest of the year--I should know, I've had him in my fantasy leagues those seasons he could never quite gets through all of (in Oakland and Minn, in 2004 and 2006). "He plays when he wants to play", you know--and when things go south, he has a tendency to check out mentally. That was the knock on him once upon a time, wasn't it? If he's changed, why not TO? Especially when there's plenty of cash at stake for good behavior in the form of a one-year deal...... And I'll take your ignoring my post about where you come from to confirm my strongly held suspicion that you're a Johnny-come-lately Pats* "fan" with no connection to the city of Boston or the region of New England. I've given you plenty of chances over the last few weeks to come back on that and yet you never have. Funny, isn't it......

Don't worry, he's got that all figured out, too--he'll just go back to being a Cowboys fan or may even be really daring and bandwagon his way onto whoever is the new hot team. Yeah, he's a real Pats* "fan", alright. I'm curious, dude, do you even live in Boston? Or are you like 90% of their fans who grew up and live somewhere else but just magically became Pats* fans over the last nine years. Just curious....

What he was referencing was all-purpose yards, in that Rhodes can catch out of the back field, which has never been Taylor's strong suit. He is correct about that, as Rhodes had about 190 more all purpose yards and an absolute ton more TD's (like 9 to 1 IIRC). Rhodes didn't play in one game last year (the last)--Taylor in the last 3. Rhodes is also 3 years younger--Taylor is a one-year fix at age 33. I won't argue that Taylor career-wise is the better back--that's obvious. However, for the roles being asked by Buffalo--2nd-3rd back, with potential use on 3rd down--I'd honestly take Rhodes over Taylor at this point in their careers, but that's just me.....

Great find. It looks like it's going to come down to us and the Bears. Fewell versus Lovie, all versus $ no doubt. I give us about a 50% chance there, much better than what I'd have thought two days ago.....

I used to read that site, but Florio's become such a front-runner it's ridiculous. Anything teams like the Bills or Bengals or Lions, etc. do is horrible, while anything the Pats* do is immediately praise-worthy, for ex. Now obviously bad teams do some bone-headed things (by definition), but it's such a knee jerk reaction nearly every time, in both directions. It's really nauseating, to the point where I've nearly stopped reading the site. On the Pats* knob gobbling it really started about halfway into Spygate when suddenly Florio started posting pro-Pats* garbage, doing a near 180 from some of his prior positions--all of which at the time made me wonder if someone with the Pats* and/or League (same thing, in my opinion) threatened to cut off his access if he didn't change his tune. I've found the National Football Post, largely written by ex-Bill (if you could call one season largely on IR that) Matt Bowen and some other current and former football folks (front Office, agents, etc.) a much better read, IMHO......

Forget it--logic doesn't work with this guy. He's a "born again" Pats* fan--i.e., post-2001, aka the worst kind of Pats* "fan" and I use that term loosely. He'll be back rooting for the Cowboys in no time once the Pats* slide starts.....

How is calling out an arrogant jerk for being an arrogant jerk a "loser mentality"? He opened his mouth both at the SB and in that Esquire interview and sounded like a prima donna a-hole who thought he was better than he was. "17 points, huh? Is Plax going to play defense?" That's literally what he said--if anyone else had said that they'd get ripped a new one by the media, like Plax did just for predicting his team would win the game. That Esquire article last summer was almost as bad. He came off like one of the rich and mean pretty boys you'd see in a John Hughes movie in the '80s, the ones who ultimately get their comeuppance, which last season karma provided in the form of Bernard Pollard. Funny how you didn't respond to the substance of my post....

Great video link--Brady seems to get a pass from the media on things like that. People made a big deal out of Burress's prediction of a Giant win as "smack talk" that he wouldn't be able to back up, but nobody said squat about Brady's diss of Plax (and the Giant D) before the game even though, IMHO, his statements were a lot more "bulletin board material" than Plax's were. Of course, we all saw how that played out, fortunately. Another great example was his Esquire interview last summer, when he came across yet again as a pompous, egotistical arse who enjoyed running up the score, including on the Bills. He must have some real great PR spin-meisters (no sh*t, huh) both inside and outside NFL HQ to keep his popularity up despite sounding like a jerk quite often when he opens his mouth. And before I get called a "Brady hater", I actually thought he had been (or seemed) pretty humble earlier in his career and was able to poke fun at himself (his SNL appearance a few years ago being a good example of that)....

For the umpteenth time here's something a little more relevant than quoting stuff from 30 years ago to show that "everyone cheats"--a NYT article from two years ago in which members of the NFL competition committee basically say New England was the main and, in some ways, only team that almost eveyone complained about when it came to pushing the envelope. A little more relevant, don't you think? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/sports/f...ttee&st=cse My favorites: In discussions of changes since 2000, one team, the New England Patriots, has surfaced more than any other, according to a longtime N.F.L. team executive with direct knowledge of the meetings. The committee heard accusations that the Patriots had taped opposing coaches’ signals, placed microphones on defensive players to steal quarterbacks’ audible signals and manipulated clocks and coach-to-quarterback radio systems. The N.F.L. team executive said the Patriots were the subject of most of the accusations discussed in the rules committee’s deliberations. The team’s recent success and tight-lipped approach, as personified by Belichick, has played a role. “They were the only team, really,” the executive said. “Clearly, they were the team mentioned far more than anybody else.” The Jacksonville Jaguars lodged a complaint against the Patriots about the failure of a coach-to-quarterback radio system during a January 2006 playoff game, a former Jaguars executive said. Funny how none of you Pats* fans really have a comeback for this one.....

BTW, whether you believe him or not, Stroud had a decent excuse for why he tested positive (an illegal substance in a supplement he took while rehabbing from an ankle injury, but allegedly didn't know had the illegal substance). That is at least potentially plausible. No such luck for Rodney, who out and out admitted that he ordered HGH knowing full well what he was doing, but then again, since he used his own name and address on the order form he really had no other alibi, otherwise, I'm sure he and Kraft would have used it. HGH is what it is and there was no masking or mistaking that. In your heart you, too, know that a bunch of your other boys are probably on that juice as well, starting with the guys I named, not to mention your other buddy, Nick Kaczur, who had enough Oxy on him to knock out a tribe of elephants when caught, yet suffered no punishment from the League (imagine that) and no inquiry as to who else he may have been buying for, since he admitted to buying what law enforcement would view as dealer quantities. I mean, if you literally did the math from what he admitted, he had a $400,000 per year habit. He did that all on his own, huh...

You, sir, are a joke. Haven't you read ANY of this thread? "Nothing of substance to attack"? Is that a f-ing joke? Being caught red-handed cheating (after being warned only two months earlier by the League of the EXACT SAME THING YOU GOT CAUGHT DOING) is more than a little "substance", don't you think? We don't even have to go into any of the shady officiating in your games (and believe me, that's one you don't want to start on this board or, frankly, any other in the League as a Pats* fan) or the fact that you've had a bunch of well past their prime players suddenly regain a step well into their 30s in New England and, oh yeah, a guy who got caught using HGH in the only way possible the League could catch you, since they don't test for it. Being dumb enough to use your own name in ordering the stuff. It's also funny that many of those guys who people suspect of using it (Seau, Vrabel and Bruschi all come to mind) all have melons that are so large that they have their own gravitational fields (another sign called the "bloat" of HGF and steroid use, BTW). You really do live in your own Bizarro World alternate universe, don't you. I've also got some news for you that if you think it's just "jealous Bills fans" that have this view of "your team", and I use that loosely, I challenge you to go to other team's boards, where you'll find the fans all hold you in about the same opinion that folks in this thread do...

Your reference to him not stopping cheating reminds me of a great post from one of our resident Pats* trolls a couple weeks back posting a link from right before the 2007 season that he was trying to use to support his position that everyone cheats, but which actually said that the potential for cheating via videocamera had gotten so bad due to suspicions that New England was doing it that the League had sent teams a warning memo about it. This was in July 2007. It hit me then how arrogant someone must be to be warned about cheating so publicly and specifically and still having no problem going ahead and actually doing it anyways. My suspicions are that someone who's as one-track minded as that would do much worse than videotaping. I honestly believe that in 20 years or so we'll finally find out the full extent of what the Pats* did under BB and it will be pretty scandalous, but of course, he'll be dead or senile by then, as will most of the others involved, which is why I expect the full truth to take a while to come out, but that's just me.

Really, who was it before 2001? The 'Pokes? Maybe the Giants? We all know for sure it wasn't the Pats* you rooted for before they began winning. That's the part I "love" the best about the New England fanbase--how almost none of them were there in 1992 when they sold 19,000 season tickets. That's right, 19,000, in a city 5 times the size of Buffalo. The Bills could go 0-16 and still sell twice that many. Pat*hetic if you ask me, but that best sums up their "fanbase". You go on a Pats* board and see all these posters from all over the country and you just know that they are almost all bandwagonistas, with a slight sprinkling of real Boston fans (who I can commiserate with and respect.) I also remember the absolutely hysterical threads last fall when Bills fans were winning shot bets in bars with Pats* "fans" about Pats* trivia that these "fans" couldn't get about their own team, yet anyone with any football knowledge would get. Like "fans" who literally didn't realize that the Pats* had lost two SB before they'd won any (funny, AFCEastFan isn't it, that your team doesn't actually have a winning record in the big game, unlike, say, the Steelers or Colts or Niners) or who couldn't name their starting QB in that Bears loss, yet Bills fans knew the answers to all those questions. Pat*hetic......

I've got a deal for you, pal--you can go back to being a Cowboys fan, no questions asked, once the Pats*' winning seasons end (I'd estimate about 1-2 more years) and I'll go back to watching for the umpteenth time the Giants absolutely hammer your team in the SB last year--I especially love the parts where Brady gets planted on his arse by a rookie D-lineman at the end and BB goes crying off the field......

Gotta go with the "No" and "Yes"-es above, that is, unless Bob Kraft's check to the NFL Official's retirement fund bounces. Interestingly, I read somewhere that Mike Pereira is retiring this year as head of the officials, which I'm hoping is a good thing. If you've ever seen him interviewed, he looks kind of like a combo of Frank DeFord (just pure physical appearance) and Al Davis, with gobs of ungainly jewelry thrown in. While I know well enough that one can't judge a book by its cover, there's something unseemly to me about the head of officiating of the League looking like a snake oil salesman. I'd prefer my head of officiating to look like one of those bean counters the Oscars rolls out every year to show that their results are counted correctly by a major auditing firm, but that may just be me. As for Kraft, while his company is private and therefore doesn't need to report its earnings publicly, it is, after all, basically a paper company (think Dunder Mifflin) and in this modern world, between newspapers folding and people just reading things more on screen (everywhere from the Kindle to getting their news from the net) his business has got to be feeling a major pinch. Why, my company just started to go to two-sided printing this year, which basically will cut our paper use in half. Throw in the fact that he self-financed the new Patriette Place* with non-permanent financing--good luck rolling that in these credit markets--and I personally suspect that he's worth a whole lot less than he was recently. That check may just bounce yet, one of these days......

The owners benefit from the continued popularity of their League, that would have been destroyed had further evidence of cheating been publicly disclosed. I also strongly suspect that (and the fact that Kraft had a major hand in selecting him--remember that Big Bob was on the selection committee and was one of the initial League mouthpieces introducing Goodell) was the reason Goodell destroyed the tapes before letting anyone see what was on them. Remember that? I also strongly suspect that if you go look up Matt Walsh in a year or three you'll find that he's living in a $2 million house on a local golf pro's salary--just a hunch....

Funny how that journeyman ran for about 130 yards against your mighty D last year in December when you knew he was coming and couldn't do anything to stop him. What does that say about your D? We lost that game, but it certainly had nothing to do with Fred Jackson's running.....

Sorry, but I can't let the bandwagonistas think they've won this argument, especially when they don't even acknowledge opposing points of view and more importantly, facts.....

Funny how you, like a typical Pats* bandwagoneer, complete disregard the rest of the article I quoted--you know, the part where NFL executives basically say that the Pats* have been accused of a ton more than Spygate and how they are really the main/only team that other folks complain to the competition committee about. But then again, I guess that goes against your "everyone does it" theory, no? Or how about the HBO Inside Sports report last spring which literally quoted an unnamed "former offensive star" on those Pats* teams as saying "Of course it helped us immensely--we knew exactly what was coming"? That was about literally the quote--I watched it 3 times on TIVO to make sure. How that didn't get taken and run with by the mainstream media just shows how in the pocket of the League (and the League, of course, is in the pocket of the Pats* and Kraft, as some columnists, like Dr. Z, have stated (although in not so many words, Dr. Z being a polite man)) is. When Marshawn said he was going to get suspended this year, I turned to my wife and said, I'll bet you $1000 that the Bills open the season with the Pats* (and this was well before rumors of such a game leaked) and sure enough...... It's enough to make one sick, it really is.

Those of you who think this will help us are delusional. I'm sure that this will not increase our budget by a single penny. What this WILL do, is let teams like the Pats* and Skins, who are close to the cap and who are owned by owners who basically have Goodell in their pocket, will now be able to spend more on the remaining FA's left. That will be the result here, mark my words.....

Seems like both an intelligent and decent guy, particularly considering he just turned 21 in April. More importantly, did you see the speed he flashed in those clips, especially where he ran the Wisconsin QB down fall the way across the field from the back side and just running by the OT? Incredible. If he really has jets like that in the bigs, we may have a reall Playa here......

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/sports/f...ttee&st=cse This article is about all you need to know about the Pats*-- Some nuggets: "The committee heard accusations that the Patriots had taped opposing coaches’ signals, placed microphones on defensive players to steal quarterbacks’ audible signals and manipulated clocks and coach-to-quarterback radio systems.... [Ask Marinelli and Del Rio about that one--I know both of them complained about radios mysteriously dying in Gillette at odd times.] The N.F.L. team executive said the Patriots were the subject of most of the accusations discussed in the rules committee’s deliberations. The team’s recent success and tight-lipped approach, as personified by Belichick, has played a role. “They were the only team, really,” the executive said. “Clearly, they were the team mentioned far more than anybody else.” Yeah, everybody does it--my arse......

LOL--I literally said to my wife when I heard about the potential Lynch suspension, "I'll bet you $100 that our first game is against the Pats*" and lo and behold. What a shock (not)--I'm just surprised they didn't try to give them a bye before that game to go along with it.....