Cash

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."

Because bad teams often make bad decisions?

Based on what I saw last year, I'd say that Fitz's game has gone downhill since his time with the Bills.

Good post. For me, a lot of things like this come down to, "of course you have the right to be an a-hole, but why do you WANT to be an a-hole? Why choose to be?"

Maybe he needs to start coming in for extra practice at 5:30am instead of 6:30am?

I was told extensively in the Watkins thread that he has a massive catch radius and catches everything that he can get a hand on. What gives?

Good article. One minor nit-pick: Mel Gray made his Pro Bowls as a KR, not as a WR. Not a big enough hit to his data set to change his conclusions, though.

Where is this country going when old white men are no longer the sole arbiters of what is and isn't offensive?!?!

Agreed -- I was fairly impressed by Schwartz's press conference, and though I remain skeptical, he is definitely growing on me. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, of course. There's no excuses for him if the D sucks this year -- way too much talent, even if Dareus gets suspended. I am very curious to see how the secondary shakes out. I don't think Corey Graham will ultimately be moved to safety, and if he doesn't, then how is playing time split among him and Robey as slot CBs? The trends lately have been away from 4-WR sets and more toward splitting out athletic TEs to act as a 3rd or 4th WR. Defenses have responded by moving somewhat away from true nickel or dime defenses, and more toward "big nickel" (3 S, 2 CB) or dime defenses with extra safeties or hybrid players instead of CBs.

Yeah, loved hearing Schwartz talk about Robey. Robey can flat-out play, and if it's that clear to me, I would think it would be obvious to a coach watching game tape.

In practice, pretty much every play could be negative or positive. Example: we've heard about a bunch of long "TD" throws by Manuel so far -- that's good! But most of them have come on blown coverages where the deep WR was wide open -- that's bad! Nickell Robey got a sack -- that's good! But that means that the offense couldn't pick up a corner blitz -- that's bad! Given that Chris Brown will look at the positive side every time and Joe Buscaglia will about 90% of the time, I have no problem with someone consistently taking the negative approach. Of course, it's possible for a play to be all bad -- blown coverage, but an uncatchable throw or dropped pass. It's harder, but still possible, for a play to be all good -- really good coverage, but a great back-shoulder throw and tremendous catch by WR, maybe? I doubt it. There's a reason long snapper is its own dedicated position on basically every NFL team. If your LS is also your blocking TE, what happens when he gets rolled up on during a 1st quarter run play? You now can't punt or attempt place kicks. I think it's more likely that they're looking at guys who could potentially fill in in case Sanborn got hurt covering a punt or something. That's not to say that Sanborn's job is safe; I could definitely see him being replaced. I could even see his replacement being MacPherson, if Macky does a great job. But in that scenario, (my guess is) Macky would only come in to play C in a true emergency scenario, and wouldn't be considered as one of the regular 7 O-linemen active on game day.

Agreed about Graham, but the only problem with your Brooks logic is that he's bad at football and Robey isn't.

If throwing deep passes out of bounds to track stars is so helpful, why did our offense stink last year? I don't think defenses have a lot of respect for the deep ball until you actually complete a few.