Cash

Practice time. Quality, consistent long-snapping is a lot harder than holding for FGs, and requires a lot more practice time. There's probably a bunch of regular players who could develop into decent long snappers, but they wouldn't be able to practice with their units enough to make it worthwhile. You slept with Garrison Sanborn last night? Well done!

Hogan and Easley, duh.

I miss Stevie. Best of luck to him in SF, except when playing against the Bills!

I agree that Spiller will likely not be traded. The only thing that gives me pause/doubt though, is Marrone's recent declaration that he's not comfortable using more than 2 backs in a game. That's weird. My hope is that he was lying or somehow misinterpreted or something. But if we take him at face value, here are the possible conclusions: The coach and GM are out of sync (i.e., why sign Dixon to a decently sized contract and trade for Brown if your coach won't use them?) The coach and/or GM are VERY worried about RB injuries At least 1 of the top 4 RBs on the roster is seen as expendable. (But it wouldn't be either of the guys they just acquired this offseason, nor could it be the guy whose contract they just extended, so that leaves Spiller.) Other

Yup. Three quick entries for reading fails up top.

My counter to that would be that isn't it a poor OC/QB coach who allows his QB to only run plays that he's bad at running? Let's face it, long throws down the sidelines were not EJ's strengths last year. We could all see it -- why couldn't Hackett? If those were the only plays EJ was comfortable with, then Hackett needed to work with EJ to get EJ comfortable with other plays. It really is a mystery to me. I don't know why EJ hardly ever runs -- how much of that is on him, and how much on his coaches? Last year, EJ consistently handed off the ball on "read-option" runs regardless of how the D reacted. On the rare occasions that he did keep it, it usually went for a nice gain. That seems to be on him. But he also seemed more comfortable running play-action and rolling out, but those plays seemed to get less frequent (or at least not more frequent) as the year went on. That seems to be on the coaches. Poor execution of deep sideline passes is definitely on EJ. But why did Hackett keep calling four verticals plays? There are other ways to beat press man besides deep fades. If EJ has trouble reading a defense and going through progressions, then why not give him half-field reads, or plays with "tuck the ball and run" as the second progression? The only thing I know is that the offense overall and QB specifically weren't nearly good enough. I don't know how much of that goes on the QB and how much on his OC/QB coach. (Definitely some on each, though.) The good news is that both of them are very young and inexperienced, and so you'd expect both to get better with experience. I respectfully disagree. No offense can consistently execute at a flawless or near-flawless level, especially against good defenses that are executing at a very high level themselves. And regarding our skill players, I agree with you when it comes to RBs -- it's a supremely talented group. But WRs and TEs? No. Not saying they stink, because I think it's a decent crew overall. But sometimes we tend to get caught in the fishbowl of our own team. Chandler is probably about the 20th-best TE in the league, give or take, and there's nothing behind him. Even if Moeaki was healthy, which he isn't and probably won't be, his best season was 47 catches for 556 yards and 3 TDs. Nice, but nothing special. He's not another Jordan Cameron waiting to happen. As for WRs, we definitely stack up better there, but I still don't think it's a crew that can be counted on to just win 1-on-1 battles without help from a clever gameplan. Mike Williams' career bests are 65 catches and 996 yards -- great numbers for 30 years ago, mediocre for now. He does seem to have a knack for winning 1-on-1 battles in the end zone, which is good. Watkins is a rookie. Yes, he's the most-hyped rookie WR since Julio Jones, awesome. Julio's rookie numbers? 54 catches for 959 yards and 8 TDs. Very good for a rookie, and I'll be pretty happy if Sammy matches them. But again, that's pretty much mediocre production. I don't think the goal we aspire to should be a league-average offense. Woods I honestly do not get the love for. Not to say he sucks -- he's pretty decent -- but I'm not seeing the same player as some of the other posters on here. He seems to me like a nice WR, but nothing special. And Goodwin I love, but he's very much a part-time player.

Great post! Regarding this bit, I actually think it's more likely that the Bills would be more patient with EJ in one sense, but less patient in another. What I mean is that if EJ looks about the same this year as last year (which, let's face it, was bad), I think the Bills will and maybe should re-commit to him as a starter in 2015. Maybe bring in a token vet to compete for the starting job, but that would be someone like Matt Schaub if Oakland cuts him after another terrible season. Either Manuel turns it around in year 3 (great!), or continues to be mediocre or worse. In the latter scenario, the Bills draft a QB high in the 2016 draft and move on from Manuel.

How Marrone handles the press doesn't directly matter very much. It will piss off the press corps, and that's not necessarily good for his career, but the much bigger factor on his career prospects is his W-L record, and that's unaffected here. BUT! His W-L record is 6-10. That's bad. Guys like Belichick or Popovich can get away with being surly a-holes to anyone with a microphone because they've built up a ton of caché through winning. Marrone doesn't get that same caché, nor does he deserve it at this point.

Not only was it a run, it was always a run to Reed's side. They never even countered off it, much less play-action. Nor did they have any other plays they ran out of that formation/motion combo. That's really pathetic. I dunno, I'm not super-optimistic about Hackett's pro offense. (I did like him a lot at SU, but I don't follow them as closely.) Last year, our run/pass ratio on 1st down was outrageously predictable. I would imagine that the run frequency was something like 80% or more when the score was tied. Once last year, I was so sick of seeing runs on every first down that I started counting -- I think 12 straight 1st down plays (over about 6 drives) were runs. I get the rationale of "let's establish the run and take some pressure off our rookie QB", but running every 1st down only puts more pressure on the QB, because you're so predictable that you wind up in 2nd-and-long all the time. The scripted start to the KC game was actually a MUCH better example of "let's take pressure off our rookie QB" -- started with some play-action, a couple of easy and low-risk throws, got a first down or two. So the potential (coaching-wise) is there, but why didn't we see it more often? Why were we so maddeningly predictable on first down? The other thing that worries me, and makes me think that this "tell" is real, is that -- from what I saw last year -- the Bills' pass plays were very limited/predictable as well. Now, I don't have the full playbook, and I haven't "reviewed the tape" to confirm every pass play the Bills called. (PS: Stop saying tape. There is no tape. Unless you're watching on a VCR, you aren't watching tape. And film? You wanna spool up a projector, then you get to watch film. Until then, you're stuck watching videos like the rest of us.) But when Buffalo Rumblings or similar sites would break down Bills' plays from the previous week, there seemed to be a massive amount of overlap in the pass plays. Almost every play was either a "four verticals" with one checkdown, or two fly patterns down the sidelines with a couple of slants or crossing routes underneath. It just seemed really basic, like the kind of stuff you'd draw up for a sandlot game. I'm sure that there's more complex stuff in the playbook, and probably even in the gameplans, and I'm even sure that some of the complex stuff got called and ran some of the time. But I just didn't see much of it, whereas I did see a lot of the simple stuff. And the simple stuff didn't work well enough to get repeated that often. The one big mystery -- that may never be solved -- is how much of this is on Hackett, and how much is on Manuel? The playbook can have the best plays in the world, but if the QB is only comfortable running Techmo Bowl stuff, then that's all that's going to get into the gameplan, and that's all that the offense will run. Similarly, a play (whether simple or complex) can open up great opportunities, but unless the QB takes advantage of them, it won't work.

Seems like (potentially) an obvious repeat of the Sonics/Thunder situation. Clay Bennett paid a decent amount of lip service to keeping the team in Seattle, but -- surprise, surprise -- stadium talks fell through, and poor ol' Clay had no choice but to pack up and move to his hometown, which everyone expected in the first place. Difference here is that JBJ is from New Jersey, not Toronto, but given that the group is all Toronto based except for JBJ, I think the analogy still holds very well.

I've been as anti-Graham as anyone, but it's now coming so far that I feel bad for him more than anything. It wasn't his fault he was drafted 2-4 rounds too high. He's trying the best he can; he's just not good enough. He's not a natural football player, or at least not a natural WR. He's a good enough athlete to be in the NFL, but so are a lot of guys who haven't made it. I do wonder if he could be a candidate to convert to defensive back.

1.) Because when you're a pro athlete/public figure, every inch of your life is already overexposed and dissected, and it might be nice to enjoy a tiny shred of privacy for once. 2.) Because the second you say anything, there'll be 20,000 a-holes on twitter playing amateur physician and telling you when you can come back, and there'll be 4 idiots on ESPN discussing your medical condition during First Take. Count me out for both of those.

Yeah, Smith really stood out with his ability to time the snap count, and generally looked pretty good. Maybe he just has Nassib's timing figured out, but if he keeps this up, I think he'll make the team.

Post of the year.

Also, choosing the right agent is one of the most important decisions a player can make. He's better off taking his time to make sure he finds someone who's both a good fit for Spiller personally, and who has a credible history of competence. I.e., not Master P.

I think the rationale would be that just getting arrested makes the league look bad, and since every player is an entertainer and league ambassador, anything that results in bad league PR is punishable. Of course, that logic should also apply to Ray Rice's situation, which makes these 2 punishments look really ridiculous side-by-side. I wonder if the league is going to start making Reefer Madness mandatory viewing at the rookie symposium? Yes, that's outrageous, but even worse is that Goodell is also the sole arbiter of appeals. Goodell: "You're suspended for 4 games." Player: "That's unfair! I'm going to appeal." Goodell: "Appeal denied. I was right the first time."

Nice! Looks like a good deal for both sides. I wouldn't be surprised to see Spiller leave, but I don't think this means much in that regard. A 1-year extension at not-very-expensive money doesn't exactly lock down the position forever. Now if Bryce Brown was given a new contract, I think that would all but guarantee that Spiller's gone.

Or more specifically, one the the custom jerseys from the "player locker room" -- i.e., players not popular enough to have jerseys pre-printed in bulk. If so, I have two questions: 1.) Do the jerseys have the actual full collar, or is it still that horseshoe nonsense? The pre-printed jerseys I've seen in stores have been fixed, but my worry is that they have a backlog of blank horseshoe jerseys and that's what I'd get. Especially because that's what's pictured on the website: 2.) Do the jerseys have the "RWS" patch? I think it's great that the team is honoring Ralph in that way, but they're only going to wear the patch for a year. I plan to wear my jersey for at least 4-5 years, and I'd rather not have that patch on there. I'm less worried about this one, since the regular custom jersey section has separate links for jerseys with and without the RWS patch. So obviously they have non-patched jerseys in stock.

But Dorkington's list pointed out when we beat a 9-7 non-playoff team (twice). That makes me think that if we'd beaten any 10-6 or 11-5 non-playoff teams, it would've been mentioned. You do bring up a fair point about frequency -- you can only play who's on your schedule, and you might only play a couple of quality opponents on the road. But given that our record has been 7-9 or worse in each of the last 9 seasons (and 8-8 or worse in 13 of the last 14), I think it's pretty fair to say that we haven't beat a lot of quality opponents, whether at home or on the road.

So I'm getting married this year (yeah!), and I've decided to build my bachelor party around a Bills game/tailgate (double yeah!). The game in question is the Vikings game on October 19th. We're in pretty good shape for nightlife Friday/Saturday (although suggestions are always welcome), but what I really could use some help with is the tailgate itself. My typical pilgrimage to RWS is with a small Rochester-based crew. We usually have 1-2 carloads of people, drive from Rochester Sunday morning, tailgate pre and post game, and drive back to Rochester in the evening. But for this game, there's going to be 11 or 12 of us, and most of us will be flying into and out of Buffalo. There might be a car or possibly 2 coming from Rochester, but we definitely won't have nearly enough space for all of us. Plus, no one really wants to DD on the way back. So my question is: What's the best way to get us to & from the stadium? We're hoping to hit Hammer's lot and the Pinto tailgate (never been -- always get to the stadium after Hammer's is full). I've found some charter bus shuttle thing for $35 a head, and it seems doable, but it doesn't get to the stadium till 10am, which is a little later than I'd like. We could always suck it up and take cabs to and from the stadium, but then our ability to bring (and cook) food and booze is severely limited. I was thinking one option could be convincing one of the Rochester guys to suck it up and DD, so we'd at least have one vehicle. He could bring the supplies (Blue Light, food, grill, etc.) and as many guys as he can fit, and the rest of us could cab it. I'm very open to alternate suggestions if anyone has any. This should be an awesome time as long as the logistics don't get in the way.

I'm at FF capacity this year, but based on the massive amounts of interest in this thread, here's a suggestion: Why not start a 2nd-tier league with the hopefuls who can't get into last year's league? Then introduce a soccer-style promotion/relegation system, where the bottom 2 teams in the old league switch with the top 2 from the new league? Or maybe 3, or maybe just bottom team and champion? Just throwing it out there. Could be a fun way to get more people involved without diluting the fantasy talent pool.

That Tom Bardy fellow is pretty good, huh?

The icing on the cake is how PK is worried that giving up the first-rounder means missing out on RON DAYNE.

My annual game pilgrimage is probably going to have a bigger turnout than normal this year -- like 8-12 people. Is that enough to deal with group sales, or do they need more like 20? Never actually done this before; usually a buddy of mine is the ticket buyer.

Note that Belichick didn't actually deny anything -- just tried to deflect things onto Pettine. '"You've got to talk to Mike Pettine," Belichick said. "I don't know."' He didn't say, "that's ridiculous," or "of course not," or even, "I won't dignify that kind of accusation," but he did say, "I don't know." That's a weird thing to say if the answer is actually "no."