Whites Bay

I think he needs his medication dosage monitored more frequently. This having been said, of course I love his final conclusion, as would almost anyone else on this board. Interesting second-to-last point. This team "needs to learn how to finish games". True enough. I wonder how much of that stems from dumb coaching in the fourth quarter on both sides of the ball last year, as well as physical conditioning? Given the little I've seen in Spring Camp(s) this year, it looks like Marrone et al are stressing the fact that the guys are going to be run into the ground, and that they'd better plan to get in shape early and stay that way.

First off, welcome to the Wall. Strap yourself in. As I've said in a prior post, I'm still not convinced Stevie Johnson is a bona fide Number One receiver. I'm not taking ANYTHING away from him, particularly given the atrocious QB (and play calling) situation over the last couple of years. The guy deserves a medal for what he's done. But we've all been barking for a legitimate Number Two for ages, and this year the Bills might actually have a solid #2, #3, #4...(keep going...). Johnson might end up at #3 by the time this season ends. This coaching staff has nothing invested in him. It's time to play your heart out, or end up on Special Teams. My mystery player is Rogers. I'm probably buying into the story line, and bathing in Kool Aid. And I would forewarn anyone that the first few games are going to be brutal vis-a-vis the passing attack. But we could actually see the top get taken off a few defenses this year. And I don't mean crap defenses like Toledo or Air Force. You might see the Bills whip Baltimore pretty hard this year. No more Eight-in-the-box crap. "Beautiful Boy" - John Lennon

Probably the one to which you were invited? Besides, tell me it was a bad game! More importantly, what did it tell you about Geno Smith's performance in the wind and rain of...wait for it...The Meadowlands?

And how's about you spend a little more time reading and a little less time attacking the viewpoint of someone with whom you disagree? Sounds so...you know..."Germany 1936"..

I get the same thing! That must a hell of a big ad buy. That guy Ailes is on a mission.

I'm suggesting that Fox News is what gave him this idea, and that he should probably look to other sources of information to round out his world view. Which seems sorely lacking in depth beyond cocktail napkin.

I've been to Sydney, LA, Salt Lake and Lillihammer post-Olympics. (I mean "recent" post-Olympics. Melbourne 1956 and Mexico City 1968 don't count). They've just grown bigger. I lived in Salt Lake during the build-up to the 2002 games. I remember hearing the announcement on a radio at work in 1995. Everyone cheered. About 5 minutes later the whole valley became a construction site. As a Salt Lake taxpayer at the time, allow me to extend ALL of you on the board a belated "Thank You" for the tax money you shipped out there. Thanks for the new freeways, the new light rail line, the new airport terminal, the new 5-star hotel. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And that's coming from someone on the receiving end. Having now been down that road, I don't EVER want ANY city in the U.S.A. EVER getting an Olympic venue AGAIN. EVER. We can NOT afford this crap.

I don't usually frequent this forum because of the usual result of peeing on an electric fence, but this one really left me shaking my head. Weird coincidence. Last week, I had the good (?) fortune to visit the Gestapo Museum in Cologne, Germany. Here's the link: http://www.museenkoeln.de/ns-dok/ Want to talk "creepy"? Prison/torture cells in the basement, prisoners' pleading writings still preserved on the wall ("I don't know why I'm here. I've done nothing. These people are sadists."). Unbelievably, someone actually escaped from there through a coal chute. And then came back under a different name to make sure his girlfriend, also in the prison, survived. They both died as old people some 40 years later. Do you know what the Nazis used to do to innocent people? You know, like, say, handicapped children? They would tell the parents that they were taking the children to a summer camp. They would put them in a bus, pump the fumes into the bus, and drive around for awhile. No more handicapped children. The parents were told that they had a heart attack. There were photographs of these busses in the museum. And this douchebag doesn't understand that a Nazi flag would be considered reprehensible? This douchebag feels that the President of the United States - regardless of your political views - is cut of the same cloth? There are idiots, and there are uninformed idiots. This guy is missing chromosomes. He needs to lay off the Fox News and pick up a history book. Or a few history books. And then squeeze them around his head. Because that's what the Nazis would do.

Anyone who references The Tubes deserves a shout out. Well done. Simply well done. I want the baby's arm, holding an apple.

Uh huh. Yeppers. In today's world, your farts are watched in infrared cameras at airport check-in. Good luck with that "I didn't know" crap.

That's a fair comment. I'm saying that Stevie Johnson is a damn good receiver who should be Number 1. I'm saying that a bad back is very hard to heal quickly. I'm saying that training camp is a very competitive environment in which careers are made and broken. I'm saying that his bad back won't be well enough to propel him to the "lock" Number 1 status at the end of training camp despite a solid career with the Buffalo Bills because of the POTENTIAL talent coming up behind him. I'm saying the reason for this "drop in status" is going to be the result of not being able to clearly outshine this crop of young talent in training camp. I'm saying that said diminution will result in Stevie Johnson dropping on the depth chart to Number 2 or Number 3. I'm saying that this drop will be the result of physical debilitation, coupled with a lack of professional investment on the part of the current coaching staff and front office, neither of which were responsible for drafting him or extending his current contract. I'm NOT saying he's going to be cut. I'm using hyperbole that he's going to be traded to Oakland for having a shoe untied, and you're correct in calling me on it. And....your top two receivers against the Pats* on Opening Day would be....? Perhaps I should have started this as another thread. My apologies for hijacking. And I like your stuff, MRW. I just realized to whom I was responding.

This is just awful all the way around for Hernandez. Truly. There's nothing good that is going to come from this. I hate the Pats* as much as anyone (okay, more than most), but talk about screwed, blued and tatooed. It's one thing if "Hey, I was coming out of a bar when the shooting started". Fine. Good person. Wrong place. But, tell me, Mr. Hernandez...the vehicle was rented in your name. Think about the last time you rented a car. Did you give them your WIFE'S license? Did you give them your BOSS' license? Did you give them your VETERINARIAN'S license? No. You gave them YOUR license, didn't you? Bad day at the ranch.

I'd be VERY comfortable with Stevie Johnson in the slot. I think he'd be unstoppable. I've been VERY uncomfortable (like - you can't WALK) with a ruptured disc. Unstoppable? I don't know how the guy gets out of bed. Cortisone or not. He's not going to be 100% in camp. He's going against Robert Woods. He's going against Da'Rick Rogers. He's not going against Ruvell Martin. He's not going against Donald Jones or David Nelson (and I apologize to everyone if I got their first names backwards, but you get the message). A loose shoelace will drop you from Reciever #1 to Receiver #2 in this league. A broken back? The phone rings and you're playing Special Teams in Oakland.

Okay, so I'll go out on a limb here and accept the blindfold and cigarette as I'm led to the firing squad. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Stevie Johnson ends up as the second, or third, wideout. (Cue - flames). Here's my logic, and the MDs on the board can correct me. He's just announced that he's cracked a vertebra. Holy crap. That's pretty hard to fix. Not as bad as a tailbone, but pretty hard to immobilize effectively. You're not talking a tibia or fibula that can be locked up in a cast. This is...you know,...your back. A cracked vertebra? Try performing challenging physical stunts with THAT injury - like "breathing". His participation in training camp, by my highly uneducated guess, is going to be limited. It doesn't mean that he's going to be a no show. It means that he's going to be 80%. So...you're Stevie Johnson, and you're going into the final exam having missed the last two chapters of the course. You're going to do well, because you've piled on a lot of positive material. But crapping out on the final is never a good path to becoming the valedectorian. Add another aspect to the muddle. Dick Jauron, Chan Gailey, Buddy Nix (am I forgetting anyone?) are gone. You know, the people who drafted Stevie Johnson, the people who invested part of their credibility in Stevie Johnson, the people who signed the contract bump/extension. Whaley, Marrone, Hackett have HOW much invested in this guy? Okay, a lot in the sense that he's a big player, a big name, a proven commodity with multiple 1,000-yard seasons under his belt. But the antics? "Why So Serious?" The "Shot-in-the-leg-heard-round-the-league"? Does Doug Marrone want to be a part of that? I don't know. I doubt it. He sure didn't show a lot of patience with Da'Rick Rogers' antics last month, did he? Stevie Johnson is the most accomplished receiver on this team, and SHOULD BE, by all rights, the designated Number One receiver. But if he's not kicking ass and taking names in Summer Camp, my gut call is that this NEW coaching staff, backed by this NEW Front Office, have to go with whomever is proving themselves Top Dog in Week 1. Me? I'm in for Woods and Rogers. Flame away. I could use the tan.

The details are a little unclear in my addled brain, but work with me. Whenever I think of Merriman, I think of the day that his name was called at the beginning of (I think it was) the Chiefs game a few years back. The crowd went wild. He was finally back! He pounded his chest and did his Sack Dance. And he did it with such emphasis that he reinjured his shoulder. Idiot.

Propofol is an amazingly powerful drug (ask Michael Jackson). Don't worry, he didn't feel a thing. But he will now. I'm SO glad he's through the surgery, and through it successfully. THIS is the time you'll want to offer your prayers (if that's what you do). Our Jimbo is going to be f-ing miserable for a number of days. And I don't mean a minor headache. Go Jim Go. We're with you. If you're reading this, every day is going to get just a little better. Can't wait to see you walking on the field on Opening Day!

That was a sink?

I dunno. For me, it's all about that guy Rogers. Maybe because everyone wants to find a diamond in the rough. Everyone believes that someone's cast off is another person's treasure. But this guy could be BIG. Everyone on this board has had a few scrapes. If Rogers has cleaned things up...Holy Crap. And we'll see in a few weeks.

I had the great good fortune to go on a real-honest-to-God safari in Botswana in 1998. The real deal, in the wild - not a stupid game park with domesticated animals. Elephants, giraffes, cheetahs, rhinos, lions, the whole shooting match. In fact, it WAS the whole shooting match. The guys that ran the safari also ran a hunting expedition service (in which we weren't partaking), so they knew their schit. It's pretty cool. I was there for about 5 days, and one very quickly adapt/reoriented oneself to the solar clock. We'd get up first thing in the morning - before dawn - and go for a drive in the back of a Toyota Land Rover flatbed. We'd then come back for breakfast, and, frankly, go back to bed! Nothing moves in the middle of the day (too damn hot); they only get moving at crack-o-dawn and at the end of the day once the sun has begun setting. So then we'd go back out again after an early dinner. Very "au natural". The first rule was that if we ever saw ANY large predatory cat - and we saw a CRAPLOAD of them - we were told not to move. The cats looked at us as part of the truck, so it was cool to slowly turn your body and snap photos, but DON'T stand up. They were intimidated by something that was, in essence, the size of two elephants. But DON'T screw with them. Dig it? The drivers carried 30/30s across the windscreen in case the guests didn't get the message. The coolest part as relates to lions was one night in which we went out for our nightly cruise, and came across a pride of 5 lions stalking "something"..Pretty cool, but we didn't see the actual kill. We went back the next morning at daybreak, and sure enough we came upon the whole pride sitting around the carcass of a zebra (the South Africans pronounce it "zeb - ra" with the short "e", not the long "e"). Basically, all that remained was everything from its stomach forward. The boys had pretty much consumed everything south of the rib cage. My God, they were gorged, stomachs distended. They were panting the way we do after Thanksgiving dinner. Jesus, their stomachs were bloated. They did NOT look like the "Kings of the Jungle". They were beasts. Carnivorous machines 20 feet from the truck. We then drove further along, and came upon a solitary male sitting in one of the ruts of the road. He saw the vehicle and just snarled. I mean - snarled. We waited 15 minutes until he decided to move. Oddly enough, no one decided to get out and attempt to reason with him. Here's the deal, ladies and gentlemen. I would NOT "F" with something like that. I don't care WHAT you saw on an F-ing YouTube tape. I mean, words have not been INVENTED that can describe how little I care about what you saw on a goddamn videotape. If you're out in that situation, you don't "F" with the lion. Frankly, my money's on the lion. The hunter was a douchebag. He's lucky he's not looking at life from the inside of the lion's stomach. Which would be a very short film clip.

Forgive me if it's already been stated in three pages of responses. Not THIS fan.

I have to agree. Not to be gratuitous in this "pile on" vis-a-vis Jets fans, so I'll speak as a parent. My daughters have now contracted the virus, and attend far more Bills games than do I. I have pictures of them at The Pinto, okay? I've warned them about Jets fans. If you want historical rivalry, go to a Dolphins game. If you want bitterness and frustration (and exhultation upon victory), go to a Pats* game. If you want fights in the stands, go to a Jets game. Those fans represent a lower form of life. Deride me if you will, but you know it's true. Do you want to see the guys in the yellow-green vests at work? Go to the Jets game, and keep your beer close to your chest. They tend to spill it as they drag the idiots down to the drunk tank.

I'm counting on the O-Line to keep "WonderLuck" on the sidelines. Assuming everyone's healthy: Glenn Levitre Wood Urbik Hairston This is the line I've been dreaming about since spring training. Talk about being built to maul people. ASSUMING we get away from the "3rd-and-1-let's-throw-it" crap that got Gilbride fired a long time ago, this line is going to keep the chains moving all day long. And I agree with the point above vis-a-vis Chandler. Fitz could have a HUGE day in play-action.

It makes all the sense in the world. That little sliver of Nevada? It's Area 51. What other team besides the Bills would get beamed in there? I wouldn't be surprised if some tech out there was from Buffalo, and hijacked the transmitter.

Not meaning to "bounce" anyone, but the story of "Why did they choose Neil Armstrong" is far too detailed to be covered on a blog site. Please read "First Man" by James Hansen. Also, I'd recommend to everyone that you watch Ron Howard's "In the Shadow of the Moon". I am so proud of my younger daughter. As part of a "Space" class at college last year, she got extra credit by interviewing Al Bean, the fourth moonwalker, via telephone. Imagine talking to a man who walked on the moon! These men are giants. Simply put, they are giants among us. Oh, what a loss.

A couple of things: 1) I can't see tonight's game. I have the Bears-Giants. Manning looks unflappable. 2) I watched the Pats*-Iggles game the other night. That Pats* O-line was getting creamed. Are you serious? 3) It pains me to admit it, but my older daughter is dating a Pats* fan. (Chill the peanut gallery. He's a good kid). I texted her while she was watching the game with him, and his friends. They admitted that they were "moderately concerned" about the Bills upcoming pass rush (this was in the first 5 minutes of the Iggles game). I texted her back to tell her that they'll be getting "seriously concerned" by halftime, followed by "I need a new pair of underwear" at the end of the third quarter, followed by "Who are we drafting in 2013" by game end. Arrogant turds.