tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49228244002809941092024-02-18T18:32:47.601-08:00We Want MarangiAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.comBlogger224125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-46949820969810186112017-12-13T10:33:00.001-08:002017-12-13T10:33:03.563-08:00Snow Angels<p dir="ltr">(<b>NOTE:</b> <i>I had held off writing about the Buffalo Bills for most of the season, mostly because the idea of putting new names in the same basic columns for an 18th straight season seemed slightly more appealing than removing my own teeth with a claw hammer.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Sunday’s 13-7 run-off victory against Indianapolis, the most surreal game of Buffalo’s 17-plus years in exile from the National Football League's postseason exile, though, seems as good a place to start as any.</i>)</p>
<p dir="ltr">Almost a year ago, I wrote that Rex Ryan deserved to be fired for punting on fourth down with a little more than four minutes left in overtime against Miami, dooming Buffalo's 2016 season.</p>
<p dir="ltr">On Sunday, Sean McDermott chose to punt on fourth down with a little more than four minutes left in overtime against Indianapolis, keeping the Bills in the midst of the playoff race for at least another week.</p>
<p dir="ltr">McDermott's call worked, while Rex's blew up in his face. Which, as usual, was the difference between brilliance and idiocy.<br>
There were a few key differences, of course.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Ryan put his confidence in a defense that hadn't stopped anybody all year, over an offense in the midst of a team record-setting day led by Tyrod Taylor, who was delivering his best professional performance.</p>
<p dir="ltr">McDermott’s sudden-death quarterback was Joe Webb III, who had not, until Sunday, completed a regular-season pass since 2011. Webb was only allowed to touch the football due to injuries to Taylor’s knee and Nathan Peterman's brain, and because the Bills were legally required to do something between Colton Schmidt's punts.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Then there was the snow. And the snow. And the snow.</p>
<p dir="ltr">For most of the first half, little of which could be seen clearly even on television through the lake-effect band that settled in less than an hour before kickoff, the Bills and Colts appeared more concerned with remaining upright than attempting to advance toward the opposing end zone.<br>
Visibility was almost non-existent. Punts burrowed in the growing pile blanketing New Era Field and stayed there. And the handful of passes attempted by Peterman and his Colts counterpart, Jacoby Brissett, generally also wound up being dug out of the drifts.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Then came the most unlikely hurry-up drive I’ve ever seen, given the conditions.<br>
The Bills took over with 1:42 left before halftime.</p>
<p dir="ltr">LeSean McCoy managed to keep his feet while teammates and defenders around him were losing theirs, twice, for gains of more than 20 yards. Peterman then heaved a pair of throws toward Kelvin Benjamin. The 6-foot-6 trade-deadline acquisition somehow saw the ball and came down with it both times, the second in the end zone.</p>
<p dir="ltr">For most of the afternoon, it looked like that would be it. With neither offense doing anything, I envisioned a column that read something like this:</p>
<p dir="ltr">“It snowed (repeated 241 times).</p>
<p dir="ltr">Then LeSean McCoy made a couple nice runs and Kelvin Benjamin came up with a couple sweet catches.</p>
<p dir="ltr">And it snowed some more (repeated another 100 times).”</p>
<p dir="ltr">Instead, the Colts got the ball at their own 23 with 9:53 left in the fourth quarter. And embarked on the most unlikely drive I’ve ever seen, period, given the conditions.<br>
Brissett, who last year was unable to lead the New England Damn Patriots to a single point against the Bills (the lone shutout of Ryan’s Buffalo tenure), suddenly put it all together. He completed six passes, one more than he would the rest of the day. One connection with T.Y. Hilton converted a fourth-down situation, with Brissett scrambling for another.</p>
<p dir="ltr">After Brissett threw to Jack Doyle for a touchdown on the 19th play of the march, then again for an apparent two-point conversion to give the Colts an 8-7 lead, it looked like the Bills were going down in the Billsiest of possible ways – falling to a terrible team quarterbacked by a fill-in during a the sort of storm that stereotypes Buffalo for the rest of the world.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Then came the flag. The offensive pass interference call was questionable, at best. But no doubt, it saved Buffalo's season.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Adam Vinatieri somehow made the ensuing 43-yard extra point, though he missed a field goal from the same distance after Webb threw one of the ugliest interceptions you will see this side of Peterman’s debut in Los Angeles a few weeks back.</p>
<p dir="ltr">All of which set up McDermott's big choice in overtime. His decision cost the Bills 24 yards in field position and nearly two minutes of a dwindling clock.<br>
But his defense held (thanks in part to three straight passes by the Colts).<br>
His quarterback, mainly known as a special-teams guy until Peterman left with a concussion in the the third quarter, hit Deonte Thompson, who joined the Bills in late October, with a 35-yard bomb that would have been unthinkable for most of the day.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Three plays later, McCoy shot up the middle for 21 yards, making his team a winner and his coach a relative genius.<br>
With three games left (one in New England and two against the Dolphins, who stunned the Patriots on Monday night) the Bills are tied for the final playoff spot.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Stranger things have happened. Not sure the same can be said of what went on Sunday in Orchard Park.</p>
<p dir="ltr">(<i>As always, readers are </i><i>mildly</i><i> </i><i>encouraged</i><i> to follow </i><i><a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/davidstaba">@David Staba</a></i><i> on the </i><i>Twitter</i><i> for more semi-informed commentary and random cheap shots</i><i>, mostly related to football</i><i>.</i>)</p>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-1604680850344102522017-10-01T07:24:00.000-07:002017-10-02T05:37:06.895-07:00On Quarterbacks, Presidents and Generals<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiATy8hr-FU2G3ARGXSf8Y6E6CXid8QLiEyzvldIqTj_BpFYRLKWQKV5GIjLbWH7AUXJhKQwDE1e1YEpIFZjx78UaKZfpwWzDLywL6WP6HPt4QeuvnjE7E2HUqyjsj5E85mbPeCtAzkPAak/s1600/marvin-gaye-national-anthem-nba-1983_8col.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="746" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiATy8hr-FU2G3ARGXSf8Y6E6CXid8QLiEyzvldIqTj_BpFYRLKWQKV5GIjLbWH7AUXJhKQwDE1e1YEpIFZjx78UaKZfpwWzDLywL6WP6HPt4QeuvnjE7E2HUqyjsj5E85mbPeCtAzkPAak/s320/marvin-gaye-national-anthem-nba-1983_8col.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
(<b>Editor's note:</b> In case you are wondering why there is a picture of Marvin Gaye at the top of a column about football and related topics, the editorial board of We Want Marangi firmly believes this whole Star Spangled Banner mess could be alleviated by simply replacing all live performances before sporting events with video of Marvin absolutely killing it before the 1983 NBA All-Star Game. Everyone would be too busy grooving, or trying not to, to argue. Watch for yourself.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QRvVzaQ6i8A/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QRvVzaQ6i8A?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br />
I walked into a gin mill out in the country shortly before the Buffalo Bills kicked off the 2016 season against the Baltimore Ravens.<br />
<br />
It was a different world then.<br />
<br />
You could still still hope that Rex Ryan could direct the Bills to victory as often as he won press conferences.<br />
<br />
O.J. Simpson was still in prison.<br />
<br />
And the thought of a reality-television star with a proven disinterest in serving his country, as well as a well-documented history of <a href="http://time.com/4523257/donald-trump-central-park-five/">saying and doing things</a> that suggested a less-than-enlightened view of race relations and a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-unearthed-footage-trump-says-of-10-year-old-i-am-going-to-be-dating-her-in-10-years/">highly creepy view of roughly half the American citizenry</a> seemed like little more than a brand-building goof. Even to the reality-television star himself.<br />
<br />
A couple weeks earlier, a backup quarterback for San Francisco, previously best known for leading the 49ers to a surprising Super Bowl run following the 2013 season, sat during the National Anthem before an exhibition game. Colin Kaepernick made the motivation for his demonstration <a href="http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000691077/article/colin-kaepernick-explains-why-he-sat-during-national-anthem">pretty clear at the time</a>.<br />
<br />
Neither major-party candidate for president made an issue of Kaepernick's protest. After all, this is America, the land of the free, right?<br />
<br />
Of course, this also being America, the home of the easily outraged, there were those who were pissed off about Kaepernick's stance -- or, more accurately, lack thereof.<br />
<br />
So, with the real season starting, I wanted to hear what fans had to say. And what they did.<br />
<br />
There were about a half-dozen locals sitting at the bar, all but one wearing baseball caps. Let's just say more than one noted Kaepernick's race during the discussion. As the barmaid served me, the television issued the traditional directive to "Please rise for the playing of our National Anthem."<br />
<br />
I was already standing, as I prefer to do in such settings. I took off my baseball cap and set it on the bar.<br />
<br />
No one else in the joint stood, or doffed.<br />
<br />
Which wasn't a big deal. Hypocrisy is also a very American tradition. The Bills set about boring everyone watching into submission, grinding out a 13-7 defeat by the Ravens.<br />
<br />
We all know how things went from there.<br />
<br />
Ryan never did get it right, or even last the entire season, getting canned with a week left in the season, after failing to make sure his defense <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2016/12/27/13876386/rex-ryan-fired-buffalo-bills">had enough players on the field for what turned out to be the decisive play in an overtime loss to Miami</a>.<br />
<br />
As of this morning, <a href="http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/20877682/oj-simpson-released-nevada-prison">The Juice is loose</a>.<br />
<br />
And the reality-television star is the President of the United States.<br />
<br />
Having spent the majority of my adult life making something approximating a living writing about both sports and politics, among other things, I really, really like to keep the two separate whenever possible.<br />
<br />
The president's demand for compulsory Anthem-standing (<a href="https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/09/23/trump-nfl-fire-players-who-protest-during-anthem">made immediately after calling for more brain damage in the National Football League</a>, it has to be noted) detonated that particular wall, though.<br />
<br />
I am not kick-starting this little bit of vanity journalism in order to engage in the same kind of pointless arguments you can find in just about any corner of the internet (plus, that's why we have Twitter). I believe what I believe, you what you believe, and there is an infinitely minuscule chance we are going to change each other's mind.<br />
<br />
Whatever you believe, though, it would be a good idea to read what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hayden_(general)">Gen. Michael Hayden</a>, who served in the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, <a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/352419-michael-hayden-in-trump-versus-nfl-standing-up-for-free-speech">had to say about the whole mess</a>.<br />
<br />
Gen. Hayden's op-ed, published by The Hill, has not gotten nearly as much attention as you would have expected in more normal times. Probably because he looks at both sides of the issue and takes all perspectives into account, neither of which draws many clicks on either side of any topic these days.<br />
<br />
The 39-year veteran of the United States Air Force did not like Kaepernick's protest when it began, but argues that the president's effort to suppress it poses a much greater, and much more un-American, danger:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2c30; font-family: "graphik web" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"><i>As a 39-year military veteran, I think I know something about the flag, the anthem, patriotism, and I think I know why we fight. It’s not to allow the president to divide us by wrapping himself in the national banner. I never imagined myself saying this before Friday, but if now forced to choose in this dispute, put me down with Kaepernick.</i></span></blockquote>
(In case you missed the link to Gen. Hayden's op-ed above, <a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/352419-michael-hayden-in-trump-versus-nfl-standing-up-for-free-speech">here it is again</a>. Do yourself a favor and give it a click.)<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
<br />
In another under-reported matter, this blog's patron saint was mentioned in a national forum. As usual, it unfairly centered on the <a href="https://www.pro-football-reference.com/play-index/tiny.fcgi?id=OP2sw">unfortunate statistics Gary Marangi compiled in his half-season as Buffalo's starting quarterback</a>.<br />
<br />
The always-excellent -- and incredibly thorough -- Bill Barnwell mentioned our namesake while <a href="http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/page/Barnwellx170918/nfl-quality-play-worse-2017-colin-kaepernick-make-better">looking at quarterbacks under the age of 30 who threw more than 200 passes in a season, then never played in another regular-season game</a>.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #48494a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: 16px;"><i>Consider that Marangi went 0-7 as a starter and set a still-standing league record for lowest career completion percentage. The Packers still tried to trade for him, only to be rebuffed when Marangi failed a physical. The Browns signed Marangi anyway.</i></span></blockquote>
<br />
(<b>Editor's note</b>: As always, readers are strongly encouraged to follow <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidStaba">@DavidStaba</a> on the Twitter for semi-informed commentary and random cheap shots, mostly related to football.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-71834179083432365542017-02-05T09:14:00.000-08:002017-02-05T09:14:47.840-08:00'The Precision Jack-Hammer Attack': A Hunter S. Thompson Super Bowl Reader, Again<div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVC844NW5uISiz_o1-iTmaepjd5t-ds6bn4ncbzXSG3toO5oNAfHP2U_CDivOi1B4XxHCgMe6mpLei-KKR4JKFhPBEMA7VB_va5aHl8WEkHp45p7ZIrMsFdvafi2pTPNWFOz30oguJimZl/s1600/377426_Fear--Loathing-at-the-Super-Bowl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVC844NW5uISiz_o1-iTmaepjd5t-ds6bn4ncbzXSG3toO5oNAfHP2U_CDivOi1B4XxHCgMe6mpLei-KKR4JKFhPBEMA7VB_va5aHl8WEkHp45p7ZIrMsFdvafi2pTPNWFOz30oguJimZl/s320/377426_Fear--Loathing-at-the-Super-Bowl.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="221" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
(<i>It's Super Bowl Sunday, so the staff at We Want Marangi is taking a break from taking a break that lasted for most of the 2016 season, and once again re-posting our look at Hunter S. Thompson's thoughts on one of the most uniquely American institutions. The following was first posted here in February 2013, thereby explaining the Ray Lewis and Harbaugh Brothers reference in the introduction.</i>)<br /><br />Hunter S. Thompson wrote about a lot of things -- bikers, bluegrass, police corruption, high-powered weaponry and horse racing, to name a few.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
Mostly, and most successfully, though, he wrote about politics and football. At his best, both at the same time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
In particular, presidential elections and Super Bowls were his twin inspirations, regularly scheduled events that embodied what he hated and loved about America and Americans. Even his suicide note was entitled <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4227508.stm" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">"Football Season is Over."</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
I'm not going to try to write about his writing here, because doing so would be an exercise in ego and pointlessness, other than to introduce a few of my favorite passages you can enjoy while, or instead of, sitting through the four-hour pre-game show leading up to the epic struggle between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers. It's got to beat getting force-fed yet another <a href="http://wewantmarangi.blogspot.com/2013/02/apologia-and-loathing-at-super-bowl.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">fond farewell to Ray Lewis</a> and further exploration of the brotherly love <a href="http://tinyurl.com/bkaveqr" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">shared by the Harbaughs.</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
As a recovering sportswriter, I've never read an analysis that captures the profession's spirit, or lack thereof, as this bit from Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, a collection of Thompson's Rolling Stone articles on Richard M. Nixon's final run for office:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b>There is a dangerous kind of simple-minded Power/Precision worship at the </b><b>root of the massive fascination with pro football in this country, and sportswriters are </b><b>mainly responsible for it. With a few rare exceptions like Bob Lypstye of The New York </b><b>Times and Tom Quinn of the (now-defunct) Washington Daily News, sportswriters are a kind </b><b>of rude and brainless subculture of fascist drunks whose only real function is to </b><b>publicize & sell whatever the sports editor sends them out to cover. . .</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b>Which is a nice way to make a living, because it keeps a man busy and requires no </b><b>thought at all. The two keys to success as a sportswriter are: (1) A blind willingness to </b><b>believe anything you're told by the coaches, flacks, hustlers, and other "official </b><b>spokesmen" for the team-owners who provide the free booze. . . and: (2) A Roget's </b><b>Thesaurus, in order to avoid using the same verbs and adjectives twice in the same </b><b>paragraph.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b>Even a sports editor, for instance, might notice something wrong with a lead that </b><b>said: "The precision-jackhammer attack of the Miami Dolphins stomped the balls off the </b><b>Washington Redskins today by stomping and hammering with one precise jackthrust after </b><b>another up the middle, mixed with pinpoint precision passes into the flat and numerous </b><b>hammer-jack stomps around both ends. . ."</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b>Right. And there was the genius of Grantland Rice. He carried a pocket thesaurus, </b><b>so that "The thundering hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen" never echoed more than once in the </b><b>same paragraph, and the "Granite-grey sky" in his lead was a "cold dark dusk" in the last </b><b>lonely line of his heart-rending, nerve-ripping stories. . .</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b>There was a time, about ten years ago, when I could write like Grantland Rice. Not </b><b>necessarily because I believed all that sporty bullshit, but because sportswriting was the only thing I could do that anybody was willing to pay for.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;" />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
A few paragraphs earlier, Thompson served up a brutal parody of every hack who ever filed a game story (present company included):<br /><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They came together on a hot afternoon in Los Angeles, howling and clawing at each other like wild beasts in heat. Under a brown California sky, the fierceness of their struggle brought tears to the eyes of 90,000 God-fearing fans.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They were twenty-two men who were somehow more than men.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They were giants, idols, titans. . .<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Behemoths.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They stood for everything Good and True and Right in the American Spirit.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Because they had guts.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>And they yearned for the Ultimate Glory, the Great Prize, the Final Fruits of a long and vicious campaign.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Victory in the Super Bowl: $15,000 each.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They were hungry for it. They were thirsty. For twenty long weeks, from August through December, they had struggled to reach this Pinnacle. . . and when dawn lit the beaches of Southern California on that fateful Sunday morning in January, they were ready.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>To seize the Final Fruit.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They could almost taste it. The smell was stronger than a ton of rotten mangoes.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Their nerves burned like open sores on a dog's neck. White knuckles. Wild eyes. Strange fluid welled up in their throats, with a taste far sharper than bile.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Behemoths.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Those who went early said the pre-game tension was almost unbearable. By noon, many fans were weeping openly, for no apparent reason. Others wrung their hands or gnawed on the necks of pop bottles, trying to stay calm. Many fist-fights were reported in the public urinals. Nervous ushers roamed up and down the aisles, confiscating alcoholic beverages and occasionally grappling with drunkards. Gangs of Seconal-crazed teenagers prowled through the parking lot outside the stadium, beating the mortal shit out of luckless stragglers. . .</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<br />A year later, Thompson referred back to the 'The precision-jackhamer attack of the Miami Dolphins ...' lede in a lengthy Rolling Stone piece entitled "Fear And Loathing At The Super Bowl: No Rest For The Wretched." Gonzo Journalism at its finest, Thompson blends his thoughts on Watergate, labor relations and fortune-telling with a mini-profile of Oakland Raiders strongman Al Davis, trademark accounts of substance abuse and a pre-dawn sermon based on Revelations 20:15 from the 20th-floor balcony of his hotel.<br /><br />As in the best of Thompson's work, he cuts the psychedelia and free-form association with some remarkably precise description of the physical and psychic impact of Miami wide receiver Paul Warfield:<br /><br /><br /><b>This was what happened in Houston with the Dolphins' Paul Warfield, widely </b><b>regarded as "the most dangerous pass receiver in pro football." Warfield is a </b><b>game-breaker, a man who commands double-coverage at all times because of his antelope </b><b>running style, twin magnets for hands, and a weird kind of adrenaline instinct that feeds </b><b>on tension and high pressure. There is no more beautiful sight in football than watching </b><b>Paul Warfield float out of the backfield on a sort of angle-streak pattern right into the </b><b>heart of a "perfect" zone defense and take a softly thrown pass on his hip, without even </b><b>seeming to notice the arrival of the ball, and then float another 60 yards into the end </b><b>zone, with none of the frustrated defensive backs ever touching him.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b>There is an eerie kind of certainty about Warfield's style that is far more </b><b>demoralizing than just another six points on the Scoreboard. About half the time he looks </b><b>bored and lazy -- but even the best pass defenders in the league know, in some nervous </b><b>corner of their hearts, that when the deal goes down Warfield is capable of streaking </b><b>right past them like they didn't exist. . .</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b>Unless he's hurt; playing with some kind of injury that might or might not be </b><b>serious enough to either slow him down or gimp the fiendish concentration that makes him </b><b>so dangerous. . . and this was the possibility that Dolphin coach Don Shula raised on </b><b>Wednesday when he announced that Warfield had pulled a leg muscle in practice that </b><b>afternoon and might not play on Sunday.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b>This news caused instant action in gambling circles. Even big-time bookies, whose </b><b>underground information on these things is usually as good as Pete Rozelle's, took Shula's </b><b>announcement seriously enough to cut the spread down from seven to six-- a decision worth </b><b>many millions of betting dollars if the game turned out to be close.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b>Even the rumor of an injury to Warfield was worth one point (and even two, with </b><b>some bookies I was never able to locate). . . and if Shula had announced on Saturday that </b><b>Paul was definitely not going to play, the spread would probably have dropped to four, or </b><b>even three. . . Because the guaranteed absence of Warfield would have taken a great </b><b>psychological load off the minds of Minnesota's defensive backs.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b>Without the ever-present likelihood of a game-breaking "bomb" at any moment, they </b><b>could focus down much tighter on stopping Miami's brutal running game -- which eventually </b><b>destroyed them, just as it had destroyed Oakland's nut-cutting defense two weeks earlier, </b><b>and one of the main reasons why the Vikings failed to stop the Dolphins on the ground was the constant presence of Paul Warfield in his customary wide-receiver's spot.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<b>He played almost the whole game, never showing any sign of injury; and although he </b><b>caught only one pass, he neutralized two Minnesota defensive backs on every play. . . and </b><b>two extra tacklers on the line of scrimmage might have made a hell of a difference in that </b><b>embarrassingly decisive first quarter when Miami twice drove what might as well have been </b><b>the whole length of the field to score 14 quick points and crack the Vikings' confidence </b><b>just as harshly as they had cracked the Redskins out in Los Angeles a year earlier.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<br /><br />The above represents Thompson at the peak of his powers, the writer who produced <i>Hells Angels</i>, <i>Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</i>, and "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent And Depraved." Over the three decades before his suicide (for which I remain pissed at him), his genius unraveled, whether due to fame, wealth, drugs, the internal victory of cynicism over hope for his country, or a swirl of all four.<br /><br />But the Super Bowl remained his personal Holy Day, and he could still <a href="http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1016761" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">reach back</a> and find the groove <a href="http://espn.go.com/page2/s/thompson/030120.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">when writing about it.</a><br /><br /><b><br /></b><b>Whoops. Strike that. Leeches are not rodents. They are blood-sucking members of the Hirudinea family, a sub-species of the hermaphroditic sucker-worm that is frequently applied to headache-victims and other human wounds. Leeches used in human treatment range in size from three inches to 13 inches when fully bloated. They have two ugly mouths, one on each end, filled with tiny, razor-sharp teeth by which they attach themselves firmly to the flesh, prior to sucking. The leech has many eyes.</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>The Oakland Raiders are the only team in football that still routinely uses leeches for treatment of serious injuries. It is an old-timey medicine, deriving no doubt from the team's Bay Area roots, with its powerful Italian community and its many neighborhood grocery stores and exotic foreign delicacies, along with sausage, fresh fish and leeches ... I have many fond memories of hanging out in North Beach at elegant Italian restaurants with Raiders players in the good old days of yesteryear, when the silver-and-black dynasty was just getting started, long before they turned into the gigantic, high-powered winning machine that they are today.</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>Things were different in those years, but they were never dull. Every game was a terrifying adventure, win or lose, and the Raiders of the '70s usually won -- except in Pittsburgh, where cruel things happened and many dreams died horribly. You could see the early beginnings of what would evolve into the massive Raider Nation, which is beyond doubt the sleaziest and rudest and most sinister mob of thugs and whackos ever assembled in such numbers under a single "roof," so to speak, anywhere in the English-speaking world. No doubt there are other profoundly disagreeable cults that meet from time to time in most of the 50 states ...</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>But so what? There is nothing more to say. I have obviously made my decision about the Raiders. They are simply a better football team than the Buccaneers, and they will win. A realistic line for this game would be 10 or 11, but right now it is hovering around 5 or 6.</b><br /><br /><br />For all Thompson's gifts, football prognostication was not one of them. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers stomped the balls off the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII, 48-21.<br /><br /><i>(NOTE: If, for some reason, you do not already own </i>The Great Shark Hunt, <i>an anthology of the first and best two decades of Thompson's writing career which includes the full articles from which the first two passages above are lifted, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Great-Shark-Hunt-Strange-Tales/dp/0743250451" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">you can do so here</a>. For only $11.87, for God's sake. Or, if you are a lazy and/or cheap bastard, you can <a href="http://www.undergroundbound.net/filedepot/hunter%20s.%20thompson%20-%20the%20great%20shark%20hunt.pdf" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">get the whole thing in .pdf form here</a>.)</i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-42493987772122041212017-01-01T08:08:00.000-08:002017-01-01T08:08:02.276-08:00Rex's Reign Ends In Ruin, Scarring Teen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpM1ueOrqOBlSrxTYDwRMqAUCTyK1MfPO6WfRUzdDWmig5inG-2jUbfwZchllNQfugpk1cWtFMfJ6swp9duJt0UXst6kDZcNcu0XxJxdBFstI5OcGkHsv6QhGvdaJCUH5n7l311YUdtp01/s1600/rextimeout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpM1ueOrqOBlSrxTYDwRMqAUCTyK1MfPO6WfRUzdDWmig5inG-2jUbfwZchllNQfugpk1cWtFMfJ6swp9duJt0UXst6kDZcNcu0XxJxdBFstI5OcGkHsv6QhGvdaJCUH5n7l311YUdtp01/s320/rextimeout.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
For whatever other lousy traits I may have passed on to my sons, Bills fandom has not been one. At least until Christmas Eve.<br />
<br />
My 13-year-old has always been more into baseball, with his 10-year-old brother mainly considering Buffalo football games as three-plus hours that the Xbox and/or Playstation are unavailable.<br />
<br />
As far as their football loyalties go, Jackson (the 13-year-old) has always been something of a Patriots kid -- due to his maternal ancestry, which lends itself to Boston-centric thinking -- and an instinctively contrarian nature, which I guess is one of those aforementioned lousy traits passed down from his old man. His younger brother, Oscar, also a bit on the contrary side, loves animals, including the marine variety. So, he considers himself a Dolphins fan, as far as that goes.<br />
<br />
None of which usually leads to much football talk on game days, with the exception of the occasional, "Is it almost over?"<br />
<br />
Last Saturday, though, the three of us wound up watching the <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2016122400/2016/REG16/dolphins@bills#menu=gameinfo&tab=analyze">Bills-Dolphins fiasco</a>, or at least the second half and overtime, when things got interesting. It was the first time I think that has ever happened -- at least since both were fully ambulatory and able to focus on anything more than a few feet away for more than a couple of minutes.<br />
<br />
During the fourth quarter, as Tyrod Taylor was having the game of his career while bringing Buffalo back from what had been a two-touchdown deficit as recently as midway through the third, I noticed something different about Jackson.<br />
<br />
He was getting into it, reacting viscerally to each big play and arguing with his brother about whether Oscar was allowed, as a kid who grew up within half an hour of the stadium in which the game was being played, to cheer for Miami (for the record, he is).<br />
<br />
There were even high-fives after Taylor connected with Charles Clay for the touchdown that put Buffalo ahead with 1:20 remaining.<br />
<br />
Having been a Bills fan since I was way too young to know better, and despite having my own loyalties tempered by years of writing about the team (first due to the semblance of objectivity required of a beat reporter during my stint in that gig in the 1990s, then the soul-sucking grind of finding new things to write about during the past 17 playoff-free seasons), my emotions while seeing this transformation were mixed, at best.<br />
<br />
It was good to see him getting passionate about something relatively new to him but long important to me, the way I felt earlier in the fall when Oscar asked for his own copy of <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePuZpMkK2qM">Quadrophenia</a></i> after hearing The Who's vintage rock opera for the first time.<br />
<br />
But it also felt like seeing the first tell-tale signs that your offspring is coming down with something, like the runny nose that turns into a nasty cold, or the simultaneously pale-and-flushed sweats that turn into the flu.<br />
<br />
Hoping to nip the illness early, I explained that one minutes and 20 seconds was way too much time remaining to celebrate too much, particularly when the Bills are involved. Especially these Bills.<br />
<br />
Sure enough, one long kickoff return and a couple completions by the immortal Matt Moore later, the Dolphins lined up to try the tying field goal.<br />
<br />
Which Miami kicker Andrew Franks, of course, managed to push between the uprights.<br />
<br />
He would have been forced to do it twice in a row had Rex Ryan been able to manage what pretty much ever other professional and college head coach has done routinely in similar situations for the last decade or two -- get a timeout called before the snap.<br />
<br />
The recently deposed Buffalo coach can complain all he wants that he was ignored by the official (and Corey White was frantically making the universally accepted hand signal well before the snap), but the sideline replay sure looked like Rex was waiting for the last possible second, then somehow allowed the snap to take him by surprise.<br />
<br />
After Dan Carpenter missed yet another field goal to end Buffalo's first possession in overtime, Jackson got up from the couch and announced, with sad fatalism, "I'm going in the other room. I can't watch this."<br />
<br />
Which is when I made perhaps my biggest mistake as a father.<br />
<br />
"And if they win, you'll miss it," I said. "And if they lose, they'll lose whether you're watching it or not."<br />
<br />
He sat back down.<br />
<br />
I am sorry, Jackson.<br />
<br />
I could have spared you perhaps the single dumbest decision I have ever seen a Bills coach make. And I have lived through the wisdom of Lou Saban, Jim Ringo, Chuck Knox, Kay Stephenson, Hank Bullough, Marv Levy, Wade Phillips, Gregg Williams, Mike Mularkey, Dick Jauron, Perry Fewell, Chan Gailey, Doug Marrone and Rex.<br />
<br />
But this. This was pretty spectacular, even by Buffalo standards.<br />
<br />
On fourth-and-2 with four minutes left in overtime, needing a win to keep his team's slim playoff hopes from vanishing altogether, on a day when Taylor's offense had already set a franchise single-game record for yardage and his own wildly over-hyped defense couldn't solve Matt Fucking Moore, Rex decided to punt.<br />
<br />
Maybe he thought the defense that had spent much of the previous three-and-a-half hours getting shredded had a better chance of forcing a quick three-and-out than his single-game-record-setting-offense had of advancing the football six feet.<br />
<br />
Or, maybe Rex simply didn't know that a tie would officially snuff his team's season. Given that he apparently did not remember that he was allowed, but not forced, to field 11 defensive players at the same time on THE VERY NEXT PLAY, the latter seems a lot more feasible.<br />
<br />
I've never been much for calling for a coach's firing in print, mainly because I don't much like the idea of someone demanding that I lose my job. But as the ball left Colton Schmidt's foot, I said, "That's it. Rex has to go."<br />
<br />
Forget the blown icing attempt, and the 10-man thing, and the failure to instill anything resembling a two-minute offense until the final game of his tenure, and all the botched replay challenges, and keeping Carpenter around no matter how many kicks he missed, and everything else that added up to equal the two most disappointing consecutive Bills seasons I can remember.<br />
<br />
Punting in that situation showed that, at the end, Ryan was completely oblivious to what was required to get his team into the playoffs, that he though there was some advantage to finishing 8-7-1 as opposed to 8-8 or 7-9. After all, then he could brag about being the first Bills coach since Marv Levy with a career mark above .500, thanks to the scintillating 8-8 season he produced in 2015.<br />
<br />
"This is so ... Billsy," Jackson said, correctly.<br />
<br />
"You don't have to watch the rest of this," I told him, knowing we'd just seen Rex keep the playoff drought alive.<br />
<br />
He got up off the couch and headed for the kitchen. So at least he missed Jay Ajayi running free through Buffalo's undermanned defense and down the sideline for 57 yards, setting up Franks' game-winner.<br />
<br />
At least if I have, in fact, infected my son with this chronic regional malady, he's going into the battle without any illusions. I've already explained to him how the <a href="http://deadspin.com/looks-like-thats-it-for-tyrod-taylor-in-buffalo-1790595139">front office's mishandling of Taylor's benching</a> has all but ensured the team's search for a quarterback will continue unabated.<br />
<br />
And later today, he and his brother will experience another Buffalo tradition -- watching the Bills <a href="http://wewantmarangi.blogspot.com/2012/12/your-jets-bills-open-thread-nobody-but.html">run for the proverbial bus</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-89882018849738690092016-12-10T12:13:00.002-08:002016-12-10T12:13:37.403-08:00Rexual Inadequacy, Season 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS_TwHs3yL_EowafjlrF4LyduPqL2Btf9kzNYAUTd1AJZCffOQmNfdNmeKWHCUSCYbyAW8Fgm1B6kY5heRNcj9nLBTwOmH-TJzbXyBuXTpANnfIDUzlAZc-396ga92snBo0zfUxUBuPObE/s1600/FB_IMG_1481039131398+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS_TwHs3yL_EowafjlrF4LyduPqL2Btf9kzNYAUTd1AJZCffOQmNfdNmeKWHCUSCYbyAW8Fgm1B6kY5heRNcj9nLBTwOmH-TJzbXyBuXTpANnfIDUzlAZc-396ga92snBo0zfUxUBuPObE/s320/FB_IMG_1481039131398+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
While trying earlier this week to come up with something interesting to say about <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2016120408/2016/REG13/bills@raiders#menu=gameinfo&tab=recap">Buffalo's come-from-ahead, probably playoff-exile-sustaining disintegration in Oakland</a> last Sunday, it was hard to shake the feeling I'd written it all before.<br />
<br />
Didn't have to dive too deeply into We Want Marangi's archives to realize that I had done exactly that, about a year to the day earlier.<br />
<br />
Rather than risk accusations of self-plagiarization, and still have time to finally get started on Christmas shopping, the WWM Editorial Board has decided rerun a post from Dec. 6, 2015. All you really need to do to fully enjoy it at home is substitute the words "Oakland" and "Raiders" for "Kansas City" and "Chiefs" and "end-of-half clock management" for "replay-challenge situations."<br />
<br />
Most of the rest still stands up, including Tyrod Taylor coming undone after a strong start, a Buffalo defense that has never performed well enough for long enough under Rex Ryan to even qualify as overrated getting shredded while giving up a double-digit-lead and Ryan and his coaching staff again failing to remember than in-game-adjustments to the game plan are, in fact, perfectly permissible in the National Football League.<br />
<br />
If there is a single hallmark of Ryan's 28 games since buying that blue, white and red pickup truck, it is the weekly failure to effectively counter opposing strategy shifts. If Buffalo's initial game plan works on either side of the ball, the Bills are in great shape as long as the other team doesn't make any adjustments.<br />
<br />
They almost always do, however, at which point Ryan and his staff appear stunned that such strategic shiftiness is not only allowed, but encouraged. Instead, they and the players they coach showed all the flexibility of the electric football players pictured above.<br />
<br />
Similarly, Taylor and the rest of the offense again showed that there does not seem to be any institutional understanding that the game changes as the clock winds down at the end of each half. No one should be especially surprised about Buffalo's failure to even try adding to its then-eight-point lead just before intermission, as the Bills have not demonstrated much sense of urgency at the end of games since Taylor and Ryan arrived, either.<br />
<br />
Like Ryan's first-season production, these Bills are still technically alive for the postseason. All they have to do The simplest route is winning their final four games, starting <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2016121100/2016/REG14/steelers@bills#menu=gameinfo&tab=preview">Sunday against Pittsburgh</a> in what could wind up sounding like a Steelers home game, even though it's being played at New Era Field (quite possibly the most misleading stadium name in the history of corporate sponsorships), while the four teams above them in the race for the two AFC Wild Card slots (eight if you count the four division leaders), simultaneously collapse.<br />
<br />
Hashing out such improbable scenarios has become a holiday tradition in these parts, much like authoring Facebook posts blaming Elf On The Shelf for the death of the American Dream and dangerous levels of exposure to Trans-Siberian Railroad, or Grand Funk Orchestra, or whatever that bunch is called.<br />
<br />
It's not like a loss to <a href="http://www.buffalorumblings.com/2016/12/6/13853470/buffalo-bills-playoff-scenarios-elimination">Pittsburgh puts an end to such contortions, since Buffalo's official elimination can't occur until next week</a>, when Cleveland brings its quest to become the second team to go 0-16 to Orchard Park.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, enjoy the following evidence that, even in a year as chaotic as this one, some things never really change.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://wewantmarangi.blogspot.com/2015/12/rexual-inadequacy.html" style="color: #888888; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; text-decoration: none;">Rexual Inadequacy</a><br />
<div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">
<div class="post-header-line-1">
</div>
</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5592425013611819788" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 546px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguGMVojaf9QKcc2t_XqZnU_qMdJUeP01nkZWEkIdxjunHPq0KT6YziA4qx8yCxt-j5apz57bTf5AFqLyWvIoYf7ghOyWpdtFE6PhUU9RIDO12acHzjbdD9r8Ikio1qpVcsma5ee2Rhm0ud/s1600/rexy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguGMVojaf9QKcc2t_XqZnU_qMdJUeP01nkZWEkIdxjunHPq0KT6YziA4qx8yCxt-j5apz57bTf5AFqLyWvIoYf7ghOyWpdtFE6PhUU9RIDO12acHzjbdD9r8Ikio1qpVcsma5ee2Rhm0ud/s1600/rexy.jpeg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede">It would be easy, maybe even fun, to spend the next few hundred—or thousand—words ripping Rex Ryan for the <a href="http://www.syracuse.com/buffalo-bills/index.ssf/2015/11/rex_ryan_explains_bad_challenges_mistake_cost_buffalo_bills_loss_kansas_city_chi.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">managerial inattention that led to going 0-for-5 in replay-challenge situations</a>, which played a major role in <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2015112908/2015/REG12/bills@chiefs#menu=gameinfo%7CcontentId%3A0ap3000000590657&tab=recap" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">Sunday’s gut-twisting loss to Kansas City</a>.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
As damaging as Rex’s red-flag issues were, though (<a href="http://bills.buffalonews.com/2015/11/29/ryan-trapped-into-no-challenge-on-hogan/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">and seeming to defer to the team’s chaplain at one decisive moment does not instill confidence in anyone</a>), the disintegration of his defense—once universally considered Ryan’s area of unquestioned expertise—hurt a lot more.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
A week after thoroughly flustering Tom Brady in perhaps their best overall effort of the season, Buffalo’s defenders allowed one of the National Football League’s less-explosive offenses to wipe out a double-digit deficit and score 17 straight points en route to a 30-22 win.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
That collapse put these new-look Bills right where they have been for most of the past 16 years at this point in the season—likely needing to run the table while multiple upstairs neighbors in the standings falter.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
Buffalo’s two-game losing streak, leaves them tied for fifth (with the less-than-fearsome Oakland Raiders) in the chase for the AFC’s two wild-card berths, while saddled with an apparent inability to make effective in-game adjustments.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
The initial game plan could not have worked much better. For the game’s first 15 minutes, Tyrod Taylor and Sammy Watkins thoroughly flummoxed Kansas City’s defense, while Ryan’s injury-riddled defense looked very much like the unit promised since his hiring last January, with the Bills ending the opening quarter up 10-0.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
Watkins continued to look like he just might justify the high cost the Bills paid to get him in the 2014 draft in the second, hooking up with Taylor—who showed little sign that the shoulder injury suffered a week earlier in New England was hampering him in any way—for their fourth deep connection and second touchdown of the game putting Buffalo ahead 16-7.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
Then it all fell apart.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
After Dan Carpenter missed his second extra point in three games, and third of the year, Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith shattered the myth that he can’t, or won’t, throw long, lasering a 41-yard touchdown to Jeremy Maclin (whose 37-yard “catch” on one of Ryan’s replay blunders set up the first Kansas City touchdown) to make it a two-point game at the half.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
Watkins, whose second score gave him six catches for 158 yards, never caught another pass, largely because Taylor threw just one more his way.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
Buffalo’s defense, which had yielded a single first down on the first three Kansas City possessions, surrendered points on six of the next seven, with a 54-yard field goal attempt hitting the crossbar as time expired in the first half marking the closest thing Ryan’s crew managed to a stop until Smith kneeled away the game’s final seconds.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
In the process, the Bills somehow made the much-maligned Smith look better than Tom Brady had a week earlier, while also allowing someone named Spencer Ware to run for 114 yards.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
Things were no better for the offense, with Taylor—who was 16-of-24 for 236 yards and those two touchdowns to Watkins in the first half—hitting on just five of 14 throws for 55 yards after intermission, while looking very much like the career backup he was until this year in the process.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
Through it all, Ryan and his coaching staff appeared as overwhelmed as a fact-checker at a Republican presidential debate. Not to mention completely overmatched by Andy Reid’s staff on the opposite sideline, unable to cope in any meaningful way as another highly winnable game slipped away.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
All of which leaves Buffalo needing at least four wins in its final five games, and quite possibly five straight, to have a shot at ending the franchise’s playoff-free millennium. This is especially troubling for a team that has not been able to win three in a row all season. And one with a coach whose shortcomings in the areas of clock management, in-game strategy, and now replay-review competency have made a difference in several galling defeats.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
Say this much for Rex—his team seems to be committing fewer stupid penalties at crucial moments, though it still managed nine slightly smarter infractions to gift the Chiefs with an extra 91 yards.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
That’s kind of a lot of problems to fix during the season’s final month. On the bright side, none of the remaining five opponents presents a Patriots-style mismatch.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
The best of the bunch, <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2015120601/2015/REG13/texans@bills#menu=gameinfo&tab=preview" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">Houston (one of the four teams Buffalo trails by one game in the chase), visits Orchard Park on Sunday</a>. Another contender now at 6-5, the New York Jets, comes to town for the season finale on Jan. 3, 2016.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
For that potential play-in game against Rex’s former team to matter, though, his Bills have to get by the Texans, followed by trips to Philadelphia and Washington and a post-Christmas visit from Dallas (as quarterbacked, most likely, by Matt Cassel).</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
And they have to do so while operating with almost no margin for error, as they try to save a season in which they, and their coach, have made way too many of them already.</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-18595496748207931542016-12-04T11:19:00.001-08:002016-12-04T11:19:16.734-08:00Bills Try Authoring Different Ending To Same Old Story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzaD5UwIGJpSuvzw3fV-flfIAr8hXEvEgJwg2KIcyjXFH8h4GlicB2OGVsAHCNVmol2gKiKfh3JU2GZVGpIycylwixfO60wHr4-3du3hQ5OJ5uc2wJIDI0yNXaZwXNunc2PQmV0c7Jdziq/s1600/billsraiders16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzaD5UwIGJpSuvzw3fV-flfIAr8hXEvEgJwg2KIcyjXFH8h4GlicB2OGVsAHCNVmol2gKiKfh3JU2GZVGpIycylwixfO60wHr4-3du3hQ5OJ5uc2wJIDI0yNXaZwXNunc2PQmV0c7Jdziq/s320/billsraiders16.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
(<b>EDITOR'S NOTE:</b> <i>The editorial staff of We Want Marangi has been been busy for much of the fall promoting the campaign of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrDDkKPUFa4">its favored presidential candidate</a> and coming to terms with that candidate's shocking loss on Election Day. Time to get back to work.</i>)<br />
<br />
Please, stop me if you've heard this one before.<br />
<br />
The Buffalo Bills may not have participated in an actual playoff game since Frank Wycheck launched that alleged lateral nearly 17 years ago, but <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2016120408/2016/REG13/bills@raiders#menu=gameinfo&tab=preview">this afternoon's contest in Oakland</a> serves essentially the same purpose.<br />
<br />
Upset the 9-2 Raiders, the AFC's biggest surprise so far, and the competitive portion of the 2016 season continues for at least another week. Lose a crucial December road game, as the Bills have been wont to do through the Phillips/Williams/Mularkey/Jauron/Gailey/Marrone/Ryan Era, and everyone can start looking forward to the draft and trying to find someone willing to pay anything for tickets to that Christmas Eve game against the Dolphins.<br />
<br />
At 7-5, the Bills would come home for three winnable games at New Era Field, followed by the season finale on New Year's Day, 2017, in New Jersey against the smoldering ruins of the New York Jets.<br />
<br />
OK, you've definitely heard this one before. Like nearly every year since Home Run Throwback, save the handful of truly execrable seasons in which the Bills spared everyone the torturous math required to see a path to the postseason and eliminated themselves by Thanksgiving, or before.<br />
<br />
But this is where we are, and this is what we do around here.<br />
<br />
It's not all that tough to talk yourself into a win over the Raiders, either. Oakland's run defense ranks 26th in the NFL and will be missing three regulars up front. The pass defense has been better, rating an impressive-looking fifth, but will be without cornerback D.J. Hayden, their primary slot defender in pass coverage.<br />
<br />
Given Tyrod Taylor's inability or unwillingness to throw the ball over the middle, the absence of Hayden might not mean much. But the battered line should further weaken a pass rush that has managed an NFL-low 17 sacks.<br />
<br />
Buffalo won't be especially well-equipped to exploit holes in coverage, with Robert Woods out and Charles Clay missing the trip<a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/news/with-child-on-the-way-bills-te-charles-clay-doesnt-make-road-trip-to-oakland-183902087.html"> in order to be present for the birth of his child</a> (as a side note, if you have a problem with the tight end's decision, you either don't have any children or shouldn't).<br />
<br />
The Bills' three primary playmakers -- LeSean McCoy, Sammy Watkins and Taylor -- are all healthy, though, or at least as uninjured as anyone can be at this point in the season. This is the sort of situation where seven-figure contracts are earned.<br />
<br />
It is also where coaching reputations are bolstered. Or debunked. Derek Carr has produced most of Oakland's offense, carrying the Raiders to their last two wins despite a marginal running game and, last week in a wild 35-32 win over Carolina, a mangled hand.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2016/12/4/13833708/derek-carr-raiders-injury-pinky-glove-dislocated">Carr's dislocated pinky is reportedly fine</a>, but if Rex Ryan's defense can take away the run, it makes it easier to pressure a quarterback who has been sacked an NFL-low 12 times.<br />
<br />
At this point, it doesn't much matter how the Bills win, just that they find a way to pull one out in the stadium where their 2014 playoff hopes imploded against a relatively feeble opponent.<br />
<br />
Otherwise, this season starts to feel even more like most of the 16 that came before it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-48758505247018776342016-10-16T06:05:00.002-07:002016-10-16T13:34:25.457-07:00Living In Distant Past Fueling Bills Revival <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNHQVcO9kBusR0uyVzSk-oSFwfMxP-XyFQzgE0AAVWC_pAwp5dyMnQ1yaBJ8IZjNlsnKZa34IAEfh40ytlRqtjWX8jgrB_3VfMlKSm68DUBIvCJeGgiEyOZG2SKWcEU1qqfTvM_lV6IwEB/s1600/bills49ers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNHQVcO9kBusR0uyVzSk-oSFwfMxP-XyFQzgE0AAVWC_pAwp5dyMnQ1yaBJ8IZjNlsnKZa34IAEfh40ytlRqtjWX8jgrB_3VfMlKSm68DUBIvCJeGgiEyOZG2SKWcEU1qqfTvM_lV6IwEB/s320/bills49ers.jpg" width="213"></a></div>
<br>
It's been a while.<br>
<br>
Last week, the Buffalo Bills' 30-19 win over the Los Angeles Rams (thanks, Rams, for moving homemarked the first time they've managed the modest achievement of three straight victories since 2011. Since then, they've labored under three head coaches and four starting quarterbacks.<br>
<br>
Today, with the San Francisco 49ers in town, they have a chance to make it four in a row for the first time since 2008, which they accomplished shortly before the world economy collapsed as George W. Bush finished his second term.<br>
<br>
Neither of those streaks went anywhere. The '11 Bills, helmed by Chan Gailey, collapsed shortly after Ryan Fitzpatrick signed a contract extension, with the lovable-but-inevitably-inept quarterback demonstrating the form that forced five franchises to give up on him during his first 10 NFL seasons and presently has him leading the league in interceptions for what will be very soon be the sixth. They wound up 6-10, one of five times they've done so during the ongoing 16-season string of not making the playoffs.<br>
<br>
The high hopes generated by the 4-0 opening in '08 <a href="http://artvoice.com/issues/v7n41/season_ticket.html">disappeared along with Trent Edwards' consciousness and confidence moments into the season's fifth game, courtesy of unblocked Arizona blitzer Adrian Wilson</a>. Those Bills staggered to their third straight 7-9 finish under Dick Jauron.<br>
<br>
Of course, this is a different Buffalo coach, with Tyrod Taylor not having yet shown definitively that he is or isn't a viable starting quarterback for the long-term, and Rex Ryan still offering at least a glimmer that the high point of his coaching career might not have taken place six years ago.<div><br></div><div>If nothing else, Rex has his team playing in his preferred style, executing game plans transported in a time machine from the early 1970s. Big-play defense and a LeSean McCoy-heavy offense with enough of Taylor's passing to keep opponents from swarming the line has been enough. To revive what was looking like a lost season five days in over the last three weeks, at least, and probably this one.</div><div><br></div><div>The Bills and 49ers are certainly playing like their ancestors from 1972 (pictured above), coming into the day with the NFL's least- and second-least productive passing offenses, respectively. Each averages a shade more than half the passing yards per game being put up by league-leading Atlanta.</div><div><br></div><div>They're not the only ones. Whether it's a product of evolving defenses, crappy quarterbacking (most the superstars of the past few years spent most or all of the season's first third suspended, retired, injured or getting their brains beat in) or coaching that hasn't adjusted to either, plenty of games have been unwatchable throughout the league during the first five weeks.</div><div><br></div><div>Unless your team is winning.</div><div>
<br>Beating the 49ers won't prove a whole lot, beyond reinforcing the idea that Ryan's defense can smother offenses led by a quarterback who is either completely immobile (like Arizona's Carson Palmer), painfully inexperienced (Jacoby Brissett of New England) or wholly unqualified (the Rams' Case Keenum).<br>
<br>
San Francisco's Colin Kaepernick, who gets his first start of the season due more to Blaine Gabbert's Blaine Gabbertness than anything the former Super Bowl starter has accomplished on the field since that Super Bowl start, doesn't fall into the first two categories. But he may still wind up in the third, given his regression since his electrifying tear through the playoffs following the 2013 season.<br>
<br>
Buffalo's pass rush, led by the league's most unlikely breakout of 2016, Lorenzo Alexander, has finally started looking like the dominating wave promised by Ryan when he arrived in Buffalo 21 months ago.</div><div><br></div><div>Aided by a crowd whose hostility level may approach the ongoing slog toward Election Day, given Kaepernick's polarizing expression of his political views, Rex's throwbacks had better be able to bludgeon another feeble offense at home, and do the same next week against the backsliding Dolphins in South Florida.</div><div><br></div><div>After that, one of the NFL's few teams living in the 21st Century comes to town. And they'll have that Brady guy this time.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-15733085752421152922016-10-01T12:11:00.001-07:002016-10-01T12:11:06.395-07:00Bills, Patriots Head Into The Unknown<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfLvKtZSj7KcpDiA3wWvvaMqNZmAHAZpeomdw1NHNs_n5xQTL63whRW1y-ulmSyLznYtqosdAfGrR8P4IlwBFl2n33SKnpIbxHgTNMEqkJbvTNCJpAxkwaKWAjVaX89a73cRi2Q77ygQUJ/s1600/edelman2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfLvKtZSj7KcpDiA3wWvvaMqNZmAHAZpeomdw1NHNs_n5xQTL63whRW1y-ulmSyLznYtqosdAfGrR8P4IlwBFl2n33SKnpIbxHgTNMEqkJbvTNCJpAxkwaKWAjVaX89a73cRi2Q77ygQUJ/s320/edelman2.jpg" width="303" /></a></div>
<br />
Let's be honest here.<br />
<br />
I've got no frigging idea what's going to happen when Buffalo takes the field in Foxborough on Sunday for what has become, for the most part, an annual humiliation by the New England Patriots.<br />
<br />
That's no surprise to anyone familiar with the sort of speculation published by We Want Marangi and its predecessors over the years, or <a href="http://wewantmarangi.blogspot.com/2016/09/rex-honestly-answers-questions-not-asked.html">even just last week</a>. But neither do you. And neither does anyone else, with the possible exception of Bill Belichick.<br />
<br />
The Bills' offense and defense -- aided and abetted by the decision-making of Rex Ryan and other former and current coaches -- took turns handing over achievable wins against Baltimore and the New York Jets in the season's first two weeks, only to put together a close-to-complete game in <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2016092500/2016/REG3/cardinals@bills#menu=gameinfo%7CcontentId%3A0ap3000000710451&tab=recap">mashing Arizona, an NFC finalist a season ago, in Week 3</a>.<br />
<br />
The Patriots, meanwhile, have run off three straight wins without Tom Brady, a development that's really only surprising if you haven't been paying much attention through Belichick's reign in New England.<br />
<br />
On Friday, Sammy Watkins' absence for this Sunday -- and at least seven more after that -- was assured when the <a href="http://bills.buffalonews.com/2016/10/01/bills-put-watkins-on-injured-reserve/">Bills placed him on injured reserve</a>, meaning he has to sit out eight games before becoming eligible to return.<br />
<br />
While Watkins' injury leaves Tyrod Taylor without his most threatening target, at least Buffalo knows for sure who will be throwing the ball.<br />
<br />
The Patriots know Brady is out, serving the final game of the silliest suspension in NFL history. Backup Jimmy Garoppolo did a reasonable Brady imitation for six quarters before departing with a shoulder injury, while third-stringer Jacoby Brissett handed off and ran efficiently enough for the Patriots to slog the pathetic-when-it-matters Texans, despite breaking a thumb in the process.<br />
<br />
Both substitute quarterbacks took snaps this week. Wide receiver Julian Edelman (pictured above), who hasn't played quarterback in a game since college, is the emergency option if one can't go, or keep going.<br />
<br />
Under most circumstances, most teams facing an opponent with such disarray at the game's most important position would have to feel pretty good about their chances.<br />
<br />
But these are the Bills. And those are the Patriots.<br />
<br />
Would it really surprise anyone if Edelman started, if only so Belichick could prove his evil genius in yet another way, and threw for a couple of scores and ran for another in an offense that looks something like this?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3FmoT1RKPhs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3FmoT1RKPhs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Or Garappolo lit Buffalo up for 300 yards, popping his shoulder back into the socket between completions?<br />
<br />
Or Brissett, operating with one hand, was still able to successfully transfer the ball about 40 times to LeGarrette Blount, who continued to <a href="http://www.espn.com/nfl/boxscore/_/gameId/331229017">gash the Bills even though they knew it was coming</a>? Without Brady, these Patriots have simply decided to lead the league in rushing through the first thee games.<br />
<br />
Then again, it's altogether possible, given the circumstances, that the Bills could produce that rarest of accomplishments by a Ryan-coached team -- a dominant performance with and without the ball.<br />
<br />
A theoretically high-pressure defense like the one Ryan has promised since arriving in Buffalo, but only occasionally delivered, should swarm an inexperienced passer like Garoppolo or Bissett, and quickly bury a non-quarterback such as Edelman.<br />
<br />
New England's run defense ranks in the NFL's Top 10, as it did in 2015, but hasn't been so dominant that new offensive coordinator shouldn't be able to come up with a game plan at least nearly as effective as the one that tore up the Cardinals. A heavy dose of LeSean McCoy seems in order, with some relief from Mike Gillislee. Maybe Lynn can come up with a constructive use for Reggie Bush, who has not touched the ball from scrimmage since three carries in the opener moved the Bills back a total of four yards.<br />
<br />
And you would think that, at some point, Taylor has to throw the ball over the middle, maybe even incorporating Charles Clay into the passing game, at long last.<br />
<br />
Given the uncertainty for both teams, this one figures to come down to coaching. This does not benefit the Bills.<br />
<br />
Oddsmakers seem to agree. Even without knowing who will quarterback the Patriots, or if they'll actually field a quarterback, New England was a consensus 7.5-point favorite at press time.<br />
<br />
Playing at home is generally worth about three points, so the people setting the lines see Belichick being worth close to a touchdown, in comparison to Ryan. Which is probably pretty generous to Rex, given their histories. Belichick's Patriots are 11-4 all-time against Ryan-coached teams, with three of the losses coming in Rex's first two seasons with the Jets.<br />
<br />
Reverse that trend, and Ryan and the Bills pump new life into a season that looked lost after getting shredded by Ryan Fitzpatrick -- who followed up the game of his life by Fitzing away six interceptions in Kansas City last Sunday -- just 16 days ago.<br />
<br />
Lose to a team without a healthy professional quarterback, though, and the future of the team, and its coach, is as uncertain as Sunday's outcome.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-87777212932599314942016-10-01T12:03:00.001-07:002016-10-01T12:03:17.148-07:00Rex Wins Another Media Day Recalling First-Round Fizzle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_e60Sf7JmqNbDMFWaJXdL5g_1XL6H8YJnqUSx1ww04F457C7uI-pzJc1islBJtxBya8_-xNDaahThHjxCkjWh4NT1J7ROufdRbyDw2kZLg-kRLTb4BjKDP6cySv_ZOvjVgGcRSVVMSSOO/s1600/Walt-Putalski.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_e60Sf7JmqNbDMFWaJXdL5g_1XL6H8YJnqUSx1ww04F457C7uI-pzJc1islBJtxBya8_-xNDaahThHjxCkjWh4NT1J7ROufdRbyDw2kZLg-kRLTb4BjKDP6cySv_ZOvjVgGcRSVVMSSOO/s320/Walt-Putalski.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Since taking over as the Buffalo Bills' frontman, his teams have won nine games and lost 10 heading into Sunday's trip to New England, which has served as an annual death march for the franchise throughout the millennium.<br />
<br />
With his previous group, the New York Jets, Ryan's teams went 46-50 in the regular season and 4-2 in the playoffs, with all the postseason activity taking place within his first two years.<br />
<br />
Add it up, and Ryan is 59-62 as a head coach in the National Football League.<br />
<br />
In a business dominated by coach-speak, excessive praise of opponents and pour-mouthing one's own team, though, Rex is the undisputed champion of press conferences.<br />
<br />
His enthusiasm and lack of the filter that makes most of his colleagues painful to listen to (his opposite number on Sunday, Bill Belichick occasionally ranks as an exception, having raised use of the cliches inherent in the system to an art form) provided the basis for most of the enthusiasm that surrounded his hiring by the Bills in January 2015. It didn't hurt that he was following Doug Marrone, who anonymous sources tell We Want Marangi had his personality surgically removed as a teenager.<br />
<br />
Once his Bills took the field, however, they quickly reinforced the reality that led to his ouster in New York: Winning big on Media Day doesn't mean much on Sunday afternoon.<br />
<br />
With the 2015 season teetering as the Bills prepared to hit the quarter-pole, though, Ryan defended his title on Wednesday.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3Hw1qaxwRfc/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3Hw1qaxwRfc?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
Ryan's choice of a fake name to butt in on the area media's conference call with Julian Edelman, who may or may not wind up playing quarterback for the first time since college, raises an important question, especially for anyone under 50.<br />
<br />
Who is Walt Patulski?<br />
<br />
Until the first-round selections of Mike Williams in 2002 and Aaron Maybin in 2009, Patulski was the easy call for a generation of Bills fans as the franchise's worst pick ever.<br />
<br />
Unlike Williams or Maybin -- or Booker Moore (1981), Perry Tuttle (1982), or other underachieving top choices throughout Buffalo's sordid draft history -- Patulski was the first overall selection in the NFL draft, earning him more notoriety -- fairly or not -- than anything he would accomplish in uniform during a five-year professional career.<br />
<br />
Looking back, it was almost a no-brainer pick going into the 1972 NFL draft.<br />
<br />
Patulski was a 6-foot-6, 258-pound defensive end from Notre Dame. As a senior, he not only won the Lombardi Trophy as the nation's best defensive lineman, but was so dominant that he finished ninth in the Heisman Trophy balloting, the lone defender in the Top 10 (no defensive player won the award until Charles Woodson in 1997).<br />
<br />
The marketing angle didn't hurt for a franchise coming off a 1-13 season and still struggling to find an effective way to use its first overall pick from 1969, an injury-plagued running back named O.J. Simpson. Patulski was Polish, grew up in Syracuse and went to Notre Dame.<br />
<br />
Had his performance as a professional matched his collegiate pedigree and demographic appeal, he would have provided Buffalo with a defensive superstar to pair with Simpson in a Bills Golden Age to rival the AFL champions of a decade earlier, or the Super Bowl teams of almost 20 years later.<br />
<br />
That never came close to happening, though. Patulski had his moments -- though sacks were not yet an official statistic, he was credited with 21.5 in his four seasons with the Bills.<br />
<br />
And considering this is the same franchise that drafted Al Cowlings in the first round two years earlier on the basis of his friendship with O.J. Simpson, Patulski wasn't even Buffalo's worst choice of the 1970s.<br />
<br />
Given the expectations surrounding him, though, he would have needed to record twice as many sacks to avoid the scorn of fans who never saw their team win a playoff game during his Buffalo career, despite Simpson's five-year run as the NFL's dominant runner.<br />
<br />
It didn't help that the coach who chose him didn't like him much, at least as a player.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14px;">In tough situations, he would take the easy way out," <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1993-04-24/sports/sp-26723_1_walt-patulski">Lou Saban told Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times in 1993</a>. "To be aggressive, it just wasn't him."</span><br />
<br />
The same knock plagued Williams and Maybin during their short Buffalo careers. The variety of injuries he endured plagued him later in life, he went on to a career in banking back home in the Syracuse area. He told Plaschke that business success had not yet blotted out his NFL washout.<br />
<br />
"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14px;">I will go to my grave feeling that I didn't do all I could," Patulski said in 1993.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">Now 66, Patulski was aware of his legacy, fair or not. The coach who name-checked him is running out of time to improve his.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-39731247048612491722016-09-25T05:56:00.004-07:002016-09-25T05:56:55.233-07:00WWM Flashback: Bye, Bye, Brian<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0_NRKDM4HWrCxqzF1HjIzVqw7PUYWN5L1a8O0B1G0u47oBcR_ZPQ3KC_wW_bvnocotdaiyk1CtTiuJrtdjCpUg0LZ7dK7Z0NuqGSnU58F3feO7N6BGX7ctLcoE8epcwnNJg296jGU1ZSO/s1600/moorman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0_NRKDM4HWrCxqzF1HjIzVqw7PUYWN5L1a8O0B1G0u47oBcR_ZPQ3KC_wW_bvnocotdaiyk1CtTiuJrtdjCpUg0LZ7dK7Z0NuqGSnU58F3feO7N6BGX7ctLcoE8epcwnNJg296jGU1ZSO/s1600/moorman.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">(<b>Editor's Note:</b> <i>Believe it or not, the greatest Buffalo Bill of the Drought Era was released four years ago today. The following was originally posted on Sept. 25, 2012.</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">The Buffalo Bills cut the best punter they have ever had on Tuesday.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">By any <a href="http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/MoorBr24.htm" target="_blank">measurable standard</a>, Brian Moorman outkicked Chris Mohr and Paul Maguire, the only other<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>two Buffalo punters in the conversation, by a good distance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Moorman was three games into his 12<sup>th</sup> season in Buffalo, putting him more than a year ahead of his predecessor, Mohr, on the Bills’ punting longevity chart. Moorman’s replacement, rookie<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shawn Powell, will be only Buffalo’s third punter since 1990.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">He did not merely hang around, though. Moorman’s ability to kick long, high and to precise spots on the field made him Buffalo’s most valuable player in more than a few games, particularly during the depths of the Mularkey-Jauron years, which spanned the second half of the preceding decade.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">While this says at least as much about the feebleness of those teams as it does about Mohr’s ability to kick a ball that he had just intentionally dropped before it hit the ground, he routinely provided a field-position advantage to teammates who desperately needed it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Moorman’s value earned him a prominent place in <a href="http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/billstuff9.19.06.html" target="_blank">a column I wrote long ago, and far away.</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Back in August, while walking up to Ralph Wilson Stadium for the exhibition game against Cincinnati, I noticed that the ticket provided by Gary, BillStuff's gracious host for the evening, bore the image of Brian Moorman.</span></div>
<table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="mso-cellspacing: 1.5pt; mso-table-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-table-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-table-left: right; mso-table-lspace: 2.25pt; mso-table-rspace: 2.25pt; mso-table-top: middle; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;"><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;"><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><br /></td></tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;"><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><br /></td></tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Usually, such high-profile placement is reserved for the quarterback, or running back, or a star defender. Not the guy who only gets to do his job when his teammates have failed at theirs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"You know, putting your punter on the tickets doesn't exactly instill confidence," I said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"No," Gary said. "No, it doesn't."</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Moorman more than earned such recognition in the game I was writing about, Buffalo’s 16-6 win over Miami in September 2006. Five of his six punts landed inside the Dolphins’ 20-yard line, with four pinning them inside their own 10.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There were more than a few days like that. He also kicked with a consistency that kept him around for more than 11 years. He was also the greatest fake-field-goal holder the Bills have ever had, throwing a touchdown pass in 2008 and another in 2009, giving him a perfect passing rating of 158.3 for both seasons.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">His off-field work with various local charities, particularly his own <a href="http://www.brianmoorman.org/" target="_blank">foundation to benefit children with cancer and other serious diseases,</a> helped make him as popular as a punter could possibly hope.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This summer, he almost lost the punting job to Powell, a first-team All-American at Florida State last year, in training camp. Evidently, the Bills decided this week that Moorman had lost a few feet on his kicks, or could no longer place the ball exactly where it would be most beneficial to their coverage schemes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The 6-foot-4, 248-pound Powell has a big leg, averaging 44.8 yards per kick in the preseason. Moorman’s value, though, came just as much from his consistency catching the ball, on punts and field goal attempts, and kicking it away quickly (just two blocked punts, nine years apart, blemish his statistical resume. Like Mohr before him, he thrived in the swirling winds and icy rain and snow of late fall in Western New York.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Can a guy who has done all of his big-game punting in the relatively balmy American Southeast bear up as well under the weather? The answer will be as important as the strength of Powell’s leg in determining whether he lasts nearly as long as the best punter in Buffalo’s football history.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-13401610233536959532016-09-25T05:44:00.001-07:002016-09-25T05:44:56.417-07:00Rex Honestly Answers Questions Not Asked<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4zAq5ZjS4poJTLj4VJKiEpwvnIsgVJyVoGLImBxuriuOUqarJQgfAu8wJdBIQ_xGkGfQdsHQJCBnxC2L8YNjMQ5_i1vPAfhmSSHjV2vzd0F8GWFJeCnQFObyAPn_0vrHzkVo0UodCbqX9/s1600/rexdiscouraged.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4zAq5ZjS4poJTLj4VJKiEpwvnIsgVJyVoGLImBxuriuOUqarJQgfAu8wJdBIQ_xGkGfQdsHQJCBnxC2L8YNjMQ5_i1vPAfhmSSHjV2vzd0F8GWFJeCnQFObyAPn_0vrHzkVo0UodCbqX9/s320/rexdiscouraged.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
"Probably not real good," Rex Ryan said in answer to a question after Friday's walk-through in preparation for Buffalo's <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2016092500/2016/REG3/cardinals@bills#menu=gameinfo&tab=preview">increasingly ominous-looking game against Arizona</a> on Sunday.<br />
<br />
He was talking about the likelihood of Sammy Watkins taking the field against the Cardinals after the wide receiver's already-balky foot got stepped on earlier in the week, causing him to miss each ensuing practice.<br />
<br />
Given the state of his 0-2 football team, which managed to lose both <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2016091101/2016/REG1/bills@ravens#menu=gameinfo%7CcontentId%3A0ap3000000702845&tab=recap">a defensive struggle</a> and <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2016091500/2016/REG2/jets@bills#menu=gameinfo%7CcontentId%3A0ap3000000705588&tab=recap">an offensive shootout</a> by identical six-point margins within a five-day span to open the season, Rex could have answered any number of questions using the same four words. Especially with the annual trip to New England, which is off to a 3-0 start without Tom Brady so much as strapping on his shoulder pads since August, looming a week after Arizona's visit.<br />
<br />
Those four simple words are all Buffalo's beleaguered coach really needs to accurately assess most of his team's problems: "Probably not real good."<br />
<br />
For example:<br />
<br />
"What are the chances of upsetting a conference finalist if you couldn't beat <a href="http://wewantmarangi.blogspot.com/2013/11/we-just-lost-to-expletive-deleted.html">the fucking New York Jets</a>, even while scoring 31 points -- including two scoring passes of 70-yards-plus and a defensive touchdown, all in front of a raucous Thursday night crowd?"<br />
<br />
"How do you expect your allegedly elite cornerbacks to look against Larry Fitzgerald and the Cardinals' other fast, rangy receivers after getting torched for more than 100 yards by two big Jets wideouts and nearly 100 by a third?"<br />
<br />
"What's the possibility of your pass rush, one of your supposed areas of expertise, generating consistent pressure on Carson Palmer, as opposed to allowing him to calmly survey the field for most of the day?"<br />
<br />
"What's your assessment of 'Bills Run Deep' as a franchise slogan?"<br />
<br />
"How about as a football-related term that even makes sense to anyone but the marketing types who came up with it?"<br />
<br />
"What kind of performance to you expect from Tyrod Taylor without Watkins (who was ruled out officially a few hours before game time) to target, or at least draw coverage away from your other, far lesser receivers?"<br />
<br />
"What kind of outcome did you expect from repeatedly diving into the heart of New York's short-yardage run defense, especially when it barely worked the first time?"<br />
<br />
"What kind of defensive game plan are you and your brother going to come up with?"<br />
<br />
"Speaking of game plans, any chance your new offensive coordinator will be able to establish any sort of consistency beyond punting a lot and hoping Taylor can hit a long bomb once in a while?"<br />
<br />
"How did you feel when you found out your bosses like to have meetings with your employees without you around, like the sessions reportedly held right before your old offensive coordinator got canned?"<br />
<br />
"What sort of impact do you think that sort of thing has on your credibility with those employees?"<br />
<br />
"How would you rate your team's chances of making the playoffs for the first time in so long that sportswriters are running out of comic comparisons to make?"<br />
<br />
"How about the likelihood of just staying in the postseason race until the final week of the season for the first time since 2004?"<br />
<br />
"At least until after Thanksgiving?"<br />
<br />
"Halloween?"<br />
<br />
"Thanks, Rex. One more question. What are the odds of you and your brother still having jobs when the playoffs start if you don't get this mess figured out in a hurry?"<br />
<br />
(Note: You can follow <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidStaba">@davidstaba on the Twitter</a>, if you really want.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
"<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-73151586536501207992016-09-16T11:20:00.002-07:002016-09-16T11:20:15.000-07:00Rex: The Buck Stops ... Over There<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRZEb48Rt58xBsxLrJUYXTOT9p_7ou7lp6XlLeiJr3792lALGcn1neYx5MnWCXOU8VFGuGUYIMM9zV55j1jpN1WlNhpWdnJ4Bk_stTnQQmPFe8AOiCLpUiO7pH-3kd8AY3VzQDBcAYjDfA/s1600/bills-gallery-rex-ryan-patriots-91915_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRZEb48Rt58xBsxLrJUYXTOT9p_7ou7lp6XlLeiJr3792lALGcn1neYx5MnWCXOU8VFGuGUYIMM9zV55j1jpN1WlNhpWdnJ4Bk_stTnQQmPFe8AOiCLpUiO7pH-3kd8AY3VzQDBcAYjDfA/s320/bills-gallery-rex-ryan-patriots-91915_0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
What do you do when your defense gives up 37 points and allows a quarterback playing for his sixth NFL team to throw for 374 yards, including more than 100 to two receivers and 92 to a third, while still finding time to surrender 100 yards and three touchdowns to the same team's running back?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/17563148/buffalo-bills-fire-offensive-coordinator-greg-roman-2-games">Fire the offensive coordinator, of course</a>.<br />
<br />
Apparently, Greg Roman was responsible for the defensive scheme, such as it was, that somehow managed to let Ryan Fitzpatrick's receivers run free down the middle AND along the sidelines in the New York Jets' 37-31 victory at New Era But Same Results Field on Thursday night. And also the lack of gap control and tackling technique that permitted Matt Forte to grind out that aforementioned 100 yards and trio of scores.<br />
<br />
Yes, the Bills might still have pulled out an unlikely and largely undeserved win had what turned into an apocalyptic short-yardage situation in the fourth quarter been handled in just about any other way imaginable. And maybe the whole backup-quarterback sneak, timeout, speed-back-dive-up-the-middle fiasco went exactly the way Roman drew it up.<br />
<br />
Seems like the head coach usually has the final say on such potentially game-wrecking and possibly season-sabotaging decisions, though.<br />
<br />
To place the blame anywhere but on Roman, though, would mean Rex Ryan diving on that grenade, or at least tossing twin brother and co-defensive guru Rob in that general direction.<br />
<br />
Instead, Roman -- <a href="http://bills.buffalonews.com/2016/01/23/249621/">who received ample credit for Tyrod Taylor's development</a> from career backup to possible quarterback-of-at-least-the-immediate-future in his first season as a starter, as well as turning Buffalo's running game into the league's most productive in 2015 -- is looking for a job.<br />
<br />
If the Ryan Boys, with the help of new offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn, can't figure out a way to pull at least one upset in the next two weeks (with Arizona and New England poised to double the futility level of the 0-2 Bills) they should join him.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-61624456242396676852016-09-15T12:24:00.000-07:002016-09-15T12:26:43.940-07:00Bills Rushing To Avoid 0-2 Start<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyL6jt0tUa_fl0lz2HdHq6Q5oxgqYdlo9gbB6IAjpiwGescgZ9tPWkhTEMyUK6UjezAKs0J6NSZeiRXa6677_VmmXclEBYAdKDzPXcDZeQ9EGp2S4fCxMEbTy9K5EgfSg5Njs-FFi3o8T/s1600/bills-color-rush.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyL6jt0tUa_fl0lz2HdHq6Q5oxgqYdlo9gbB6IAjpiwGescgZ9tPWkhTEMyUK6UjezAKs0J6NSZeiRXa6677_VmmXclEBYAdKDzPXcDZeQ9EGp2S4fCxMEbTy9K5EgfSg5Njs-FFi3o8T/s320/bills-color-rush.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
(<b>EDITOR'S NOTE:</b> <i>In an effort to pay homage to Bruce Smith, who will have his iconic No. 78 retired during tonight's home opener against the New York Jets, the editorial staff of <a href="http://wewantmarangi.blogspot.com/2015/11/careful-what-you-chant-for-we-want.html">We Want Marangi</a> took the summer off, relaxing while the Buffalo Bills sweated under the hot sun. Since largely contact-free practices and exhibition games in which almost no one who matters come September gets much playing time bear little resemblance to the sport of American football, we don't think we missed much.</i><br />
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i>We bring this up mainly to quell rumors that one or more WWM staffers were suspended for Week 1 after testing positive for excessive levels of Kaopectate, Flinstones Chewable Vitamins and/or horse tranquilizers</i>.)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Late one spring afternoon a few years back, a friend called, asking if I wanted a free ticket to see Bob Dylan perform that night at the University at Buffalo's Alumni Arena.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Since a few other friends were going, I accepted, but had no real expectations one way or the other. I'd heard a Dylan concert could be either a flashback to the genius that made him a legend, or a total shitshow.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
However it turned out, I figured it was a chance to see one of the most influential musicians of the past century perform live, as well as a spontaneous opportunity to hang out with some buddies. But I didn't really have a strong sense how it would turn out.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That feeling, or lack thereof, returned as the Bills' season opener approached. Buffalo's 2015 campaign was, by any measure, a crashing disappointment, a letdown at least as big as any the Bills had perpetrated during their 16-season playoff-free skid.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The offseason didn't bring much more good news. Buffalo's first two draft choices, Shaq Lawson and Reggie Ragland, who were expected to bolster a defense largely responsible for last season's letdown, were lost to injury before the first exhibition. Then starting linebacker Manny Lawson, who reportedly had a league suspension following a domestic-violence charge looming, was cut.<br />
<br />
Most preseason optimism hinged on the continued improvement of quarterback Tyrod Taylor, heading into his second season, and an offensive line that cleared the way for the NFL's top running attack in 2015. The only significant addition on either side of the ball still ambulatory for Opening Day was Reggie Bush, who won the Heisman Trophy 11 years ago, but hadn't done much over the past two seasons in Detroit and San Francisco.<br />
<br />
A 1-3 exhibition record, including a shutout on each side of the ledger, didn't offer much in the way of what the regular season would bring. Still, as it always does around here, things were pretty optimistic around here, as well as <a href="http://www.buffalobills.com/news/article-1/What-theyre-saying-2016-Bills-season-predictions/20cbfae1-91ac-4bb5-89a9-d102b69e2f46">among the national pundits</a>.<br />
<br />
Nobody sane predicted a serious challenge to New England for the AFC East title, but contention for a wildcard berth, representing Buffalo's first playoff appearance since 1999, was a common prediction. Taylor would get better in his second season while a second full year in Ryan's system almost had to yield results on defense, the consensus held.<br />
<br />
The defense did look improved in Baltimore, allowing Ravens runners just 3.0 yards per carry and sacking Joe Flacco four times. There was one breakdown, when Mike Wallace got behind Stephon Gilmore for a 66-yard touchdown early in the second quarter for Baltimore's lone touchdown.<br />
<br />
As it turned out, it was the only one the Ravens needed.<br />
<br />
One long pass, made possible by Taylor's athleticism when he escaped a sack and connected with Charles Clay for 33 yards, set up the only Bills touchdown, which came on a 1-yard LeSean McCoy fourth-down dive.<br />
<br />
That dazzling play by Taylor turned out to be the only one he and his offense managed all day. The rest of the time, the Bills looked like they were marking time through another exhibition, failing to establish themselves on the ground or in the air.<br />
<br />
The No. 1 rushing game of a year ago managed just 65 yards, while runners were dropped behind the line five times for 18 yards in losses. McCoy and Taylor couldn't break free, while Bush's three tries added up to four yards in reverse.<br />
<br />
Bush's lack of impact has even led to speculation that <a href="http://www.buffalorumblings.com/2016/9/13/12908408/cj-spiller-bills-reunion-so-should-bills-sign-him">Buffalo should consider bringing back the newly released C.J. Spiller</a>.<br />
<br />
Other than the hookup with Clay, Taylor completed 14 of 21 passes, which would be good numbers if those completions had added up to at least double the 78 yards they covered. Under pressure much of the day, Taylor's willingness, and ability, to throw deep marked his first year as the starter, but on Sunday, he resorted to the sort of quick, safe dump-offs that earned Trent Edwards the "Captain Checkdown" nickname during his largely forgettable stint in Buffalo.<br />
<br />
Taylor's offense did nothing after entering the fourth quarter trailing by three, going three-and-out on its final three possessions, while the defense wore down enough to let Baltimore hold the ball for nearly 12 minutes in the fourth quarter, including the game's final 4:29, while tacking on an insurance field goal.<br />
<br />
Buffalo's familiar-but-allegedly-improved attack wasn't any more effective earlier, failing to do anything after a huge break, when a botched shotgun snap created the game's lone turnover, setting the Bills up at Baltimore's 47-yard line midway through the first quarter. Three snaps and four yards later, Buffalo punted.<br />
<br />
The seven points the Bills managed were the fewest scored by any team Sunday. Only the once-again-Los Angeles Rams accomplished less, getting blanked by San Francisco during the Monday-night finale.<br />
<br />
Back to that Dylan concert. That night, the old man and his band killed it. Raw and bluesy, they were the best bar band you could want to hear.<br />
<br />
But then, non-existent expectations are easy to exceed. Somehow, on Sunday, the Bills failed to do even that.<br />
<br />
Which, of course, leaves them with even less to live up to tonight in front of a sold-out, likely well-lubricated crowd at newly renamed New Era Field.<br />
<br />
The Jets started off 2016 with an even more painful loss, as Nick Folk's first career missed extra point proved the difference at home against Cincinnati. And Ryan Fitzpatrick showed why New York took its time in re-signing him, starting off this season as he ended the last one, snuffing his team's chances with a late interception.<br />
<br />
New York's defense figures to keep Taylor under pressure, having sacked the Bengals' Andy Dalton seven times, intercepting him once. And the Jets featured new running back Matt Forte in Week 1, with the ex-Bear piling up 155 yards from scrimmage on 27 touches.<br />
<br />
All of which gives tonight's game <a href="http://bills.buffalonews.com/2016/09/14/a-must-win-in-week-two-believe-it/">extraordinary importance for a mid-September contest</a>. Maybe Taylor will resume arcing long throws to Sammy Watkins, McCoy will prove as elusive to the Jets defense as he was to the Philadelphia police who wanted him charged after <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/bills/2016/04/04/lesean-mccoy-no-charges-nightclub-incident/82608818/">an offseason bar brawl</a>, and New York's quarterback will again Fitz all over the turf in Orchard Park.<br />
<br />
If not, it might be tough to not start thinking about expectations for 2017.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
One thing about tonight's home opener is certain.<br />
<br />
The Bills' uniforms, imposed by the NFL's Color Rush mandate, will be heinous. All-any-color duds make professional teams resemble high-school squads, with Buffalo's red pajamas particularly painful to watch.<br />
<br />
Mercifully, the league is not forcing the Jets to don the all-green unis that, in combination with the Bills, particularly tortured colorblind viewers last November. If aesthetics mattered to the league office as much as selling more officially licensed jerseys (SPOILER ALERT: They don't), it would have dressed Buffalo in white, since the Bills' white-on-white combo might be the sharpest get-up in the game, especially when topped with the throwback standing Buffalo helmets.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
This being America and all, WWM believes those who have spent a remarkable amount of time on social media raging about Colin Kaepernick's refusal to stand during the pre-game playing of the national anthem, as well as an increasing number of his peers offering similar protest, are every bit as entitled to their opinions as the second-string San Francisco quarterback and his like-minded colleagues are to theirs.<br />
<br />
It was interesting, though, to note that only two people out of about 20 in the room where we watched the first half of Buffalo v. Baltimore stood during "The Star-Spangled Banner" -- and to be fair, we were already on our feet -- and only one of us took off his baseball cap.<br />
<br />
(<b>ANOTHER EDITOR'S NOTE:</b> <i>If you're the type who likes to fill the gaps between actual action during an NFL telecast, you can always follow</i> <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidStaba">@davidstaba</a> <i>on the Twitter for WWM-style semi-informed commentary and gratuitous cheap shots</i>.)<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-55095329971217644862016-02-14T15:21:00.002-08:002016-02-14T15:21:33.116-08:00The Loss Generation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMIUhUR1Pb2jOsOZZPuzOzxt-qmcsP5919h-maVRsnekXOLkyqUP9GNyfjKq3viuhluBXgDLPT1gLh4xYHXrogfQuWrIsriTuxIDqO_ftCffX4jmMQ0xfVt-crO5Oo_C-owUtztbVFtDIV/s1600/buffaloThings-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMIUhUR1Pb2jOsOZZPuzOzxt-qmcsP5919h-maVRsnekXOLkyqUP9GNyfjKq3viuhluBXgDLPT1gLh4xYHXrogfQuWrIsriTuxIDqO_ftCffX4jmMQ0xfVt-crO5Oo_C-owUtztbVFtDIV/s320/buffaloThings-14.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="subtitle" style="font-family: 'Poiret One', Arial; font-size: 1.5em;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="subtitle" style="font-family: 'Poiret One', Arial; font-size: 1.5em;">Sixteen Years of Mediocrity Produce Few Football Memories</span></span><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<em style="background-color: white;">(Note: In keeping with longstanding policy, We Want Marangi does not publish the last names of Buffalo Bills fans, believing that they suffer enough regret and shame without enduring public humiliation, as well.)</em></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Tyler is 22. He grew up somewhere between Buffalo and Rochester (WWM is also keeping his precise location undisclosed, for the reasons cited above). A three-sport athlete in high school, he’s been a Bills fan as long as he can remember.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">What he can’t recall, though, is much of anything his team has done right during that span. He was an infant when Buffalo reached its fourth straight Super Bowl. He has no memory of The Music City Miracle, the Bills’ last appearance in the National Football League’s post-season, which ended with Tennessee’s Kevin Dyson catching the most infamous lateral in the game’s history and delivering it to the Buffalo end zone 75 yards away.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Since that day more than 16 years ago? To be fair, there isn’t a hell of a lot to remember.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Asked for the high point of his fandom, the game he remembers most, Tyler has to think about it. And think about it. Finally, he comes up with one.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">“That time they blew out New England in the season opener,” he says. “What was that, 2008?”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">His team’s recent history has been so bleak, even the relatively vivid memories are vague. The only time anything like that has happened this millenium was in 2003, when the Bills, fortified by the game-week signing of banished Patriots safety Lawyer Malloy, dismantled New England 31-0.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">A great day, to be sure. Drew Bledsoe led the Bills to touchdowns on their first two drives against his old team, while Malloy helped the defense batter Tom Brady into one of the worst games of his career. The then-26-year-old completed just 14 of his 28 passes for 123 yards, while the Bills picked off four of them. with 350-pound defensive tackle Sam Adams thundered 37 yards with one of them for a touchdown that put Buffalo ahead 21-0 in the third quarter, seemingly shattering the Patriots’ hex on the Bills, then just three seasons old, in the process.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Satisfying as it may have been, though, it was only the first game of a long season. The next one went pretty well, too, as Buffalo drilled Jacksonville – then a perennial AFC contender, believe it or not – 38-14 to inspire Super Bowl talk both locally and nationally.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Highly premature Super Bowl talk, as it turned out. Bledsoe and the Bills went 3-11 from there, getting obliterated by New England in the finale by a highly appropriate score – 31-0.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">That Tyler’s best memory of his team stems from an ultimately meaningless game pretty well sums up his generation’s experience with the Bills. But at least it was directly football-related.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Jackie, age 24, has to go back even further for her high point as a Bills fan, to Dec. 1, 2002, when the Bills beat the Dolphins 38-21 on their way to an 8-8 finish (which, it should be noted, is the second-best record the franchise has posted during its playoff exile).</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Not because Bledsoe threw for 306 yards and three touchdowns, or because Travis Henry ran for 151 yards long before embarking on a less-successful career as a drug trafficker and deadbeat dad, or even because Buffalo won despite a career-best 227-yard rushing day by Miami’s Ricky Williams. The game is indelible for Jackie (and she’s not alone – it’s the only 21st-century contest on the list of most-memorable Bills-Dolphins game compiled by buffalobills.com) because of the steady, heavy snowfall that led it to be dubbed “The Snow Globe Game.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">“I just remember the whole crowd singing, ‘Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow,” she says.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Her friend Nevada, 23, cites a more recent Buffalo-Miami clash, the Bills’ 19-14 win on Nov. 15, 2012. Not that it had much significance for either franchise, but because it was the first Thursday night home game played at Ralph Wilson Stadium (for the record, the Bills were technically the home team against the Jets in a 2009 Thursday-nighter at Rogers Centre, but UFR refuses to officially acknowledge that the whole Toronto debacle ever occurred).</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">It’s a pretty stark contrast with their peers around the league. Take the combatants in last Sunday’s Super Bowl. You’re forgiven if you’ve already forgotten a game overshadowed by whatever that was at halftime and Peyton Manning’s post-game focus on his endorsements and business holdings, but the Wade Phillips’ defense won 24-10, with Manning and the Denver offense largely staying out of the way.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">So the Broncos have made two Super Bowl appearances in the last three years, along with seven other playoff appearances since the Bills made it to the NFL tournament. The Panthers, who didn’t exist when Buffalo lost its fourth straight Super Bowl, have also gotten there twice during the Bills’ non-playoff skid.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">None of which is nearly as galling to the local faithful as the Patriots and their dominant run -- six Super Bowl berths, four Lombardi Trophies and 12 playoff appearances in the last 14 seasons.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Buffalo fans over 30 can relate, if bitterly. They remember their team going to the Super Bowl four straight years and reaching the playoffs six times in a row, eight out of nine and 10 out of 12 from 1988-99, as well as the big regular-season wins that got them there.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">If you fall in an older demographic, you might also recall Jim Kelly getting motorcaded to training camp in Fredonia. Or Joe Cribbs jumping to the USFL, then returning. Or the 1980-81 playoff teams who inspired an incredibly cheesy theme song. Or the years when O.J. Simpson was known solely as the best football player on the planet.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Those who sat in War Memorial Stadium have Jack Kemp, Cookie Gilchrist, Elbert Dubenion and the most dominant defense the American Football League ever produced, along with two league titles, to look back on with fond nostalgia.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Tyler’s generation, meanwhile, remembers weather and the calendar. And Bledsoe and J.P. Losman and C.J. Spiller. And, of course, the sprawling pre-game tailgate party that has kept the stadium in Orchard Park sold out through most of this bleak era, despite widespread harrumphing from some older scolds among the fan base.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">“Any home game at the Ralph is awesome,” says 21-year-old Austin.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Even slightly older Buffalo fans have some memory of Bills games that mattered, even if they’re not the most pleasant.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Josh, now 28, was 12 years old and grounded, due to some infraction lost to the ages, and therefore forced to watch Buffalo’s Jan. 8, 2000 visit to Nashville on a 4x4-inch black-and-white television in his bedroom. When Steve Christie’s 41-yard field goal pushed the Bills ahead of the Titans with 16 seconds remaining, he made a break for it.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">“I came running out of my bedroom, yelling, ‘Oh my God, they won!’ I got yelled at by my dad, ‘Get back in there – you’re going to jinx them!’ Before I could, the Music City Miracle happens. He’s blamed me for it ever since.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Maybe a traumatic memory is better than none at all.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-82217339789472084132016-02-07T08:14:00.001-08:002016-02-07T08:14:33.623-08:00'The Precision Jack-Hammer Attack:' A Hunter S. Thompson Super Bowl Reader<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVC844NW5uISiz_o1-iTmaepjd5t-ds6bn4ncbzXSG3toO5oNAfHP2U_CDivOi1B4XxHCgMe6mpLei-KKR4JKFhPBEMA7VB_va5aHl8WEkHp45p7ZIrMsFdvafi2pTPNWFOz30oguJimZl/s1600/377426_Fear--Loathing-at-the-Super-Bowl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVC844NW5uISiz_o1-iTmaepjd5t-ds6bn4ncbzXSG3toO5oNAfHP2U_CDivOi1B4XxHCgMe6mpLei-KKR4JKFhPBEMA7VB_va5aHl8WEkHp45p7ZIrMsFdvafi2pTPNWFOz30oguJimZl/s320/377426_Fear--Loathing-at-the-Super-Bowl.jpg" width="221" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(<i>It's Super Bowl Sunday, which means it is time for We Want Marangi's annual re-posting of our look at Hunter S. Thompson's thoughts on one of the most uniquely American institutions, first published in February 2013.</i>)<br />
<br />
Hunter S. Thompson wrote about a lot of things -- bikers, bluegrass, police corruption, high-powered weaponry and horse racing, to name a few.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mostly, and most successfully, though, he wrote about politics and football. At his best, both at the same time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In particular, presidential elections and Super Bowls were his twin inspirations, regularly scheduled events that embodied what he hated and loved about America and Americans. Even his suicide note was entitled <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4227508.stm" target="_blank">"Football Season is Over."</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm not going to try to write about his writing here, because doing so would be an exercise in ego and pointlessness, other than to introduce a few of my favorite passages you can enjoy while, or instead of, sitting through the four-hour pre-game show leading up to the epic struggle between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers. It's got to beat getting force-fed yet another <a href="http://wewantmarangi.blogspot.com/2013/02/apologia-and-loathing-at-super-bowl.html" target="_blank">fond farewell to Ray Lewis</a> and further exploration of the brotherly love <a href="http://tinyurl.com/bkaveqr" target="_blank">shared by the Harbaughs.</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a recovering sportswriter, I've never read an analysis that captures the profession's spirit, or lack thereof, as this bit from Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, a collection of Thompson's Rolling Stone articles on Richard M. Nixon's final run for office:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>There is a dangerous kind of simple-minded Power/Precision worship at the </b><b>root of the massive fascination with pro football in this country, and sportswriters are </b><b>mainly responsible for it. With a few rare exceptions like Bob Lypstye of The New York </b><b>Times and Tom Quinn of the (now-defunct) Washington Daily News, sportswriters are a kind </b><b>of rude and brainless subculture of fascist drunks whose only real function is to </b><b>publicize & sell whatever the sports editor sends them out to cover. . .</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Which is a nice way to make a living, because it keeps a man busy and requires no </b><b>thought at all. The two keys to success as a sportswriter are: (1) A blind willingness to </b><b>believe anything you're told by the coaches, flacks, hustlers, and other "official </b><b>spokesmen" for the team-owners who provide the free booze. . . and: (2) A Roget's </b><b>Thesaurus, in order to avoid using the same verbs and adjectives twice in the same </b><b>paragraph.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Even a sports editor, for instance, might notice something wrong with a lead that </b><b>said: "The precision-jackhammer attack of the Miami Dolphins stomped the balls off the </b><b>Washington Redskins today by stomping and hammering with one precise jackthrust after </b><b>another up the middle, mixed with pinpoint precision passes into the flat and numerous </b><b>hammer-jack stomps around both ends. . ."</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Right. And there was the genius of Grantland Rice. He carried a pocket thesaurus, </b><b>so that "The thundering hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen" never echoed more than once in the </b><b>same paragraph, and the "Granite-grey sky" in his lead was a "cold dark dusk" in the last </b><b>lonely line of his heart-rending, nerve-ripping stories. . .</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>There was a time, about ten years ago, when I could write like Grantland Rice. Not </b><b>necessarily because I believed all that sporty bullshit, but because sportswriting was the only thing I could do that anybody was willing to pay for.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
A few paragraphs earlier, Thompson served up a brutal parody of every hack who ever filed a game story (present company included):<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They came together on a hot afternoon in Los Angeles, howling and clawing at each other like wild beasts in heat. Under a brown California sky, the fierceness of their struggle brought tears to the eyes of 90,000 God-fearing fans.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They were twenty-two men who were somehow more than men.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They were giants, idols, titans. . .<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Behemoths.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They stood for everything Good and True and Right in the American Spirit.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Because they had guts.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>And they yearned for the Ultimate Glory, the Great Prize, the Final Fruits of a long and vicious campaign.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Victory in the Super Bowl: $15,000 each.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They were hungry for it. They were thirsty. For twenty long weeks, from August through December, they had struggled to reach this Pinnacle. . . and when dawn lit the beaches of Southern California on that fateful Sunday morning in January, they were ready.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>To seize the Final Fruit.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They could almost taste it. The smell was stronger than a ton of rotten mangoes.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Their nerves burned like open sores on a dog's neck. White knuckles. Wild eyes. Strange fluid welled up in their throats, with a taste far sharper than bile.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Behemoths.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Those who went early said the pre-game tension was almost unbearable. By noon, many fans were weeping openly, for no apparent reason. Others wrung their hands or gnawed on the necks of pop bottles, trying to stay calm. Many fist-fights were reported in the public urinals. Nervous ushers roamed up and down the aisles, confiscating alcoholic beverages and occasionally grappling with drunkards. Gangs of Seconal-crazed teenagers prowled through the parking lot outside the stadium, beating the mortal shit out of luckless stragglers. . .</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<br />
A year later, Thompson referred back to the 'The precision-jackhamer attack of the Miami Dolphins ...' lede in a lengthy Rolling Stone piece entitled "Fear And Loathing At The Super Bowl: No Rest For The Wretched." Gonzo Journalism at its finest, Thompson blends his thoughts on Watergate, labor relations and fortune-telling with a mini-profile of Oakland Raiders strongman Al Davis, trademark accounts of substance abuse and a pre-dawn sermon based on Revelations 20:15 from the 20th-floor balcony of his hotel.<br />
<br />
As in the best of Thompson's work, he cuts the psychedelia and free-form association with some remarkably precise description of the physical and psychic impact of Miami wide receiver Paul Warfield:<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>This was what happened in Houston with the Dolphins' Paul Warfield, widely </b><b>regarded as "the most dangerous pass receiver in pro football." Warfield is a </b><b>game-breaker, a man who commands double-coverage at all times because of his antelope </b><b>running style, twin magnets for hands, and a weird kind of adrenaline instinct that feeds </b><b>on tension and high pressure. There is no more beautiful sight in football than watching </b><b>Paul Warfield float out of the backfield on a sort of angle-streak pattern right into the </b><b>heart of a "perfect" zone defense and take a softly thrown pass on his hip, without even </b><b>seeming to notice the arrival of the ball, and then float another 60 yards into the end </b><b>zone, with none of the frustrated defensive backs ever touching him.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>There is an eerie kind of certainty about Warfield's style that is far more </b><b>demoralizing than just another six points on the Scoreboard. About half the time he looks </b><b>bored and lazy -- but even the best pass defenders in the league know, in some nervous </b><b>corner of their hearts, that when the deal goes down Warfield is capable of streaking </b><b>right past them like they didn't exist. . .</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Unless he's hurt; playing with some kind of injury that might or might not be </b><b>serious enough to either slow him down or gimp the fiendish concentration that makes him </b><b>so dangerous. . . and this was the possibility that Dolphin coach Don Shula raised on </b><b>Wednesday when he announced that Warfield had pulled a leg muscle in practice that </b><b>afternoon and might not play on Sunday.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>This news caused instant action in gambling circles. Even big-time bookies, whose </b><b>underground information on these things is usually as good as Pete Rozelle's, took Shula's </b><b>announcement seriously enough to cut the spread down from seven to six-- a decision worth </b><b>many millions of betting dollars if the game turned out to be close.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Even the rumor of an injury to Warfield was worth one point (and even two, with </b><b>some bookies I was never able to locate). . . and if Shula had announced on Saturday that </b><b>Paul was definitely not going to play, the spread would probably have dropped to four, or </b><b>even three. . . Because the guaranteed absence of Warfield would have taken a great </b><b>psychological load off the minds of Minnesota's defensive backs.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Without the ever-present likelihood of a game-breaking "bomb" at any moment, they </b><b>could focus down much tighter on stopping Miami's brutal running game -- which eventually </b><b>destroyed them, just as it had destroyed Oakland's nut-cutting defense two weeks earlier, </b><b>and one of the main reasons why the Vikings failed to stop the Dolphins on the ground was the constant presence of Paul Warfield in his customary wide-receiver's spot.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>He played almost the whole game, never showing any sign of injury; and although he </b><b>caught only one pass, he neutralized two Minnesota defensive backs on every play. . . and </b><b>two extra tacklers on the line of scrimmage might have made a hell of a difference in that </b><b>embarrassingly decisive first quarter when Miami twice drove what might as well have been </b><b>the whole length of the field to score 14 quick points and crack the Vikings' confidence </b><b>just as harshly as they had cracked the Redskins out in Los Angeles a year earlier.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
The above represents Thompson at the peak of his powers, the writer who produced <i>Hells Angels</i>, <i>Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</i>, and "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent And Depraved." Over the three decades before his suicide (for which I remain pissed at him), his genius unraveled, whether due to fame, wealth, drugs, the internal victory of cynicism over hope for his country, or a swirl of all four.<br />
<br />
But the Super Bowl remained his personal Holy Day, and he could still <a href="http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1016761" target="_blank">reach back</a> and find the groove <a href="http://espn.go.com/page2/s/thompson/030120.html" target="_blank">when writing about it.</a><br />
<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Whoops. Strike that. Leeches are not rodents. They are blood-sucking members of the Hirudinea family, a sub-species of the hermaphroditic sucker-worm that is frequently applied to headache-victims and other human wounds. Leeches used in human treatment range in size from three inches to 13 inches when fully bloated. They have two ugly mouths, one on each end, filled with tiny, razor-sharp teeth by which they attach themselves firmly to the flesh, prior to sucking. The leech has many eyes.</b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>The Oakland Raiders are the only team in football that still routinely uses leeches for treatment of serious injuries. It is an old-timey medicine, deriving no doubt from the team's Bay Area roots, with its powerful Italian community and its many neighborhood grocery stores and exotic foreign delicacies, along with sausage, fresh fish and leeches ... I have many fond memories of hanging out in North Beach at elegant Italian restaurants with Raiders players in the good old days of yesteryear, when the silver-and-black dynasty was just getting started, long before they turned into the gigantic, high-powered winning machine that they are today.</b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>Things were different in those years, but they were never dull. Every game was a terrifying adventure, win or lose, and the Raiders of the '70s usually won -- except in Pittsburgh, where cruel things happened and many dreams died horribly. You could see the early beginnings of what would evolve into the massive Raider Nation, which is beyond doubt the sleaziest and rudest and most sinister mob of thugs and whackos ever assembled in such numbers under a single "roof," so to speak, anywhere in the English-speaking world. No doubt there are other profoundly disagreeable cults that meet from time to time in most of the 50 states ...</b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>But so what? There is nothing more to say. I have obviously made my decision about the Raiders. They are simply a better football team than the Buccaneers, and they will win. A realistic line for this game would be 10 or 11, but right now it is hovering around 5 or 6.</b><br />
<br />
<br />
For all Thompson's gifts, football prognostication was not one of them. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers stomped the balls off the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII, 48-21.<br />
<br />
<i>(NOTE: If, for some reason, you do not already own </i>The Great Shark Hunt, <i>an anthology of the first and best two decades of Thompson's writing career which includes the full articles from which the first two passages above are lifted, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Great-Shark-Hunt-Strange-Tales/dp/0743250451" target="_blank">you can do so here</a>. For only $11.87, for God's sake. Or, if you are a lazy and/or cheap bastard, you can <a href="http://www.undergroundbound.net/filedepot/hunter%20s.%20thompson%20-%20the%20great%20shark%20hunt.pdf" target="_blank">get the whole thing in .pdf form here</a>.)</i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-44739163724347828882016-02-07T08:05:00.001-08:002016-02-07T08:05:09.036-08:00Peyton's Last Stand<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_t-d8qdYfQHeLNL64NOIaAL6oRVZlHKWdEFEpjWsytgMhrqvgZ6z5BvusF3VwP0dSPDI_BiHBvulnYrWKbBVUK3StFTALa2HOqA_Mug7kKjxJje2-qSg8oakDyU3d91VfvM7BT-1kfQll/s1600/tittle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_t-d8qdYfQHeLNL64NOIaAL6oRVZlHKWdEFEpjWsytgMhrqvgZ6z5BvusF3VwP0dSPDI_BiHBvulnYrWKbBVUK3StFTALa2HOqA_Mug7kKjxJje2-qSg8oakDyU3d91VfvM7BT-1kfQll/s1600/tittle.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It says a lot about the peculiar appeal of professional football that one of the sport’s most iconic images is that of a bald man—who looks far too old to be playing such a brutal game—on his knees, bleeding and dazed.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The concussed player in question is Yelberton Abraham Tittle, whose Hall of Fame web page and nearly every other reference abbreviates as Y.A. Appearances to the contrary, he was only 38 when the photo was taken by Morris Berman, a <em>Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</em> photographer known slightly less widely for a close-up of the mutilated bodies of deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress after they had been killed and dragged through the streets of Milan by the fascist ruler’s former subjects.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So Berman knew a powerful image when he saw it.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I remembered his Tittle photo (the Mussolini shot is one you would only try to forget) while thinking about Peyton Manning’s starring role in the buildup to Super Bowl 50 on Sunday, when the Denver quarterback will attempt to keep his crumbled 39-year-old body upright, ambulatory and effective in the face of Carolina’s highly predatory defense.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Manning’s place in football history is already secure, even if he doesn’t catch up to brother Eli by winning a second Super Bowl ring. He has easily surpassed Little Bro, and every other quarterback ever, in every significant career statistical category, from yards to touchdowns to endorsements.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This year, though, Archie’s boy missed six games with plantar fasciitis and has admitted he has no feeling in the fingertips of his throwing hand, following neck surgery that caused him to miss the 2012 season and get bounced from Indianapolis, where he spent his first 14 NFL seasons. As a result, he produced the worst statistical regular season of any starting Super Bowl quarterback ever, according to FiveThirtyEight, the analysis site known for predicting electoral races with remarkable accuracy before transferring from the <em>New York Times</em> to ESPN in 2013.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Manning’s numbers—especially the 17 interceptions he threw, compared to just nine touchdown passes—and general feebleness are major reasons the Broncos are a consensus six-point underdog as of press time. In the NFC Championship game, the Panthers pressured and pummeled Arizona’s Carson Palmer into six turnovers in Carolina’s 49-15 curb-stomping of the Cardinals.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tittle’s bludgeoning came in the second game of the 1964 season, his 17th as a professional. As a rookie with the Baltimore Colts of the old All-America Football Conference, which merged with the NFL in 1950, he was the losing quarterback in a playoff game against the original Buffalo Bills, who bear no resemblance other than name to the current edition. Except that those Bills, of course, went on to get smeared 49-7 in the AAFC title game by the Cleveland Browns.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After the merger with the NFL, Tittle wound up with the San Francisco 49ers, who he quarterbacked with little distinction until 1961, when he was traded to the New York Giants. Like Manning after his arrival in Denver, Tittle experienced a rebirth, leading the Giants of Frank Gifford and Sam Huff to three straight NFL Championship games.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Having lost all three, two of them to Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers, Tittle and his Giants had just opened their campaign for a fourth when 6-foot-7, 280-pound Pittsburgh defensive end put his helmet into the ancient quarterback’s chest. The impact left Tittle without a helmet and with a concussion, cracked sternum and pulled rib muscles.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Berman’s image captured what is commonly, and incorrectly, remembered as the end of Tittle’s career, which earned him induction into the Hall of Fame. Somehow, in the days long before concussion protocols or, it seems, any other sort of medical oversight, ol’ Y.A. was taped up and sent back out to start again the next week. He wound up playing in every New York game that season, even though the Giants fell all the way from the sport’s biggest game during the pre-Super Bowl era to a 2-10-2 record. He even thought about coming back for the ’65 season before yielding to his wife’s pleading and finally hung it up.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Manning has hinted he plans to do the same after Sunday, according to multiple reports. If you’re the betting type, you can even place a wager on whether or not he will announce it during his inevitable post-game interview. Not that we encourage betting on sports, or anything, but if you bet $100 that he will, and he does, you win $500. But you have to bet $1,000 to win $100 that he won’t.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While there are also available bets on whether Manning throws at least one interception that gets returned for a touchdown or if he will be named Super Bowl MVP (he’s a distant second-favorite to his Carolina counterpart, Cam Newton, mainly because quarterbacks have won the award in 27 of the previous 49 Big Games), you can’t wager specifically on whether he finishes the game making a well-paid vow to visit a famous amusement park, on the sideline scowling under his trademark pink forehead, or under a doctor’s care.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, it’s possible that—if Denver’s Wade Phillips-masterminded defense can somehow contain Newton, the game’s most dynamic quarterback—Manning can use his unquestioned mental mastery of the game, while mustering enough of his faded skills, to pull off the upset. After that dismal regular season, he has cobbled together two playoff games solid enough to keep advancing.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It would be a great story, especially if you are the type whose heart is warmed by happy endings for famous people you'll never meet. But story lines rarely stand up to the reality of superior force, and Carolina's is the fiercest defense Manning has faced this season, and Newton the most uniquely talented quarterback Phillips and his defense have tried to throttle.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Given how Manning and his opponents look heading into Sunday, a more Tittle-like conclusion seems like a much better bet.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-68205851434630593842016-02-07T07:55:00.000-08:002016-02-07T07:55:26.720-08:00Wade Makes Peyton Super Again<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, as you might have heard (and certainly will approximately 2,384 times in the run-up to Super Bowl 50), Peyton Manning is going back to the Big Game one more time.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He should really buy something nice for Wade Phillips.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If not for the positively brilliant game plan designed and implemented by the former Buffalo Bills head coach last Sunday against New England, Manning’s role in the Feb. 7 telecast from Santa Clara would be limited to his trademark 30-second aw-shucks appearances endorsing insurance, colored sugar water and crappy pizza.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That Manning’s rotting corpse was even on the field against the Patriots stands as a testament to the job done all year by Phillips and the most dynamic defense fielded by the Broncos since the Orange Crush carried another feeble Denver offense to Super Bowl XIII in January 1978.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Phillips’ defense was, without any statistical dispute, the National Football League’s best in 2015. The Broncos gave up the fewest yards overall and the fewest passing yards, while finishing third against the run. They led the league with 52 quarterback sacks, without exposing themselves to the big plays that can result when the pass rush doesn’t get there. No defense gave up fewer passes of 40 yards or more than the five yielded by Denver. In case you were wondering, the Bills, as coached up by Rex Ryan, finished second-from-last with 21 sacks, while giving up 11 40-plussers to tie for 17th in the rankings.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As impressive as they were in the traditional statistical categories, which do not take into account game situation, field position or anything else besides pure counting of yards, Denver was even better by the more sophisticated analytic numbers. Rather than attempt to accurately paraphrase the Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) system devised by Pro Football Outsiders, the most widely cited Moneyball-For-Football metric, we’ll simply quote footballoutsiders.com:</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“It takes every single play during the NFL season and compares each one to a league-average baseline based on situation. DVOA measures not just yardage, but yardage towards a first down: Five yards on third-and-4 are worth more than five yards on first-and-10 and much more than five yards on third-and-12. Red zone plays are worth more than other plays. Performance is also adjusted for the quality of the opponent…Because DVOA measures scoring defenses are better when they are negative.”</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Broncos led the league in Defensive DVOA, as well as Weighted Defense, which puts more emphasis on games played later in the season, when more is at stake. Again, as a point of comparison, Buffalo finished 24th and 29th in those two categories.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The numbers, impressive as they are, don’t come close to capturing how dominant the Broncos looked throttling Tom Brady for most of the AFC title game. Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware didn’t just seem to be hurrying, flustering and/or flattening Brady on just about every pass attempt—they really were. According to Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com, Denver hit Brady 20 times and made him hurry at least 10 other times.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And they did it without frequently blitzing linebackers or defensive backs, a tactic long a vital part of Phillips’ defensive approach. Instead, Phillips positioned the likes of Danny Trevathan, Brandon Marshall, Aqib Talib and T.J. Ward to jam New England’s receivers at the line and smother their short routes, denying Brady the quick options he has been using to thwart pass rushes for a decade-and-a-half.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Phillips even used a three-man rush on 14 pass attempts, according to Barnwell’s ciphering, confusing Brady to the degree that he managed just four completions for 41 yards in those situations, while getting sacked once and throwing an interception to Miller, the fearsome pass rusher who had dropped into pass coverage on the play.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hear that, Mario Williams?</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Phillips’ success with Denver comes after spending a year out of football, just the second time he was without a job for a full season since 1976, when he started his NFL coaching career running the defensive line for his father, Bum Phillips, with the Houston Oilers.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">His masterpiece against New England seems to have generated more media praise than any achievement across those 40 seasons, which has to be especially gratifying for a guy who got barbecued locally during his three-year stint as head coach in Buffalo and nationally throughout three-plus seasons running the Dallas Cowboys.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Given Manning’s physical decline and Denver’s general offensive struggles (the Broncos have been outgained by their two playoff opponents), Phillips will need to produce another pièce de résistance to give his team a chance against Cam Newton and Carolina, which was a five-point favorite at press time.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That’s a far more likely route to a Denver win than a suddenly revitalized Manning. Both Phillips and Manning are scions of 1970s NFL legends, it’s the 68-year-old Son of Bum (as he self-identifies on his highly likable Twitter account @SonofBum<a href="https://twitter.com/sonofbum">https://twitter.com/sonofbum</a>) who remains at the top of his game.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-22084798951827184132016-01-09T07:42:00.000-08:002016-01-09T07:42:04.429-08:00It Can Always Be Worse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTIK9b2ujtC_OsWcRYnJTQbT_n5pPZVGLG1Z2tojRfQcYYbm2yy2TM36HjdKnd5kDtHmxvhHnyUKhvtzEh_kg9F_zomeR9wlAT2skCAhYixMOjXnu26leKRRsVz4rQYtykOtFVnVoDXXZD/s1600/Bills-Browns-pre-season-preview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTIK9b2ujtC_OsWcRYnJTQbT_n5pPZVGLG1Z2tojRfQcYYbm2yy2TM36HjdKnd5kDtHmxvhHnyUKhvtzEh_kg9F_zomeR9wlAT2skCAhYixMOjXnu26leKRRsVz4rQYtykOtFVnVoDXXZD/s320/Bills-Browns-pre-season-preview.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="subtitle"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="subtitle"><span style="font-size: large;">Ryan's Promises Proved Empty, But 8-8 Allows For Schadenfreude</span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />The 2015 Buffalo Bills were far from the worst bunch to wear the franchise’s various uniforms during its extended exile from the National Football League’s annual postseason tournament.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The 8-8 record compiled during Rex Ryan’s first season in Buffalo ties this year’s model with the 2000 and 2002 editions for the second-best ledger during the 16 seasons since the Bills chased Kevin Dyson into the end zone in Nashville to end their most recent playoff appearance. Admittedly, that’s a pretty low bar, since Buffalo has failed to win more than nine games in one season during that stretch, finishing under .500 a dozen times.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth by fans, particularly those with disposable time to spend on social media (where declaring almost anything the best or worst EVER has become a requirement) during the holiday season, it fails to qualify as the most disappointing campaign during that span, either.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That dishonor is shared, more or less equally, depending on your taste, by:</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>2003—</b>After destroying the then-much-less-hated New England Patriots 31-0 to open the season and trouncing Jacksonville a week later to inspire national “are the Bills Super Bowl contenders?” discussion, they snuffed such talk by going 3-11 the rest of the way as the never-nimble Drew Bledsoe fully fossilized, guiding a steadily disintegrating offense to a shade over 12 points per game in the process. The 1971 Bills, who get this vote as the worst team in franchise history, averaged 13.1 on the way to a 1-13 mark.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>2004—</b>The Bills, and Bledsoe, aided by the emergence of Willis McGahee and an inordinate amount of defensive and special-teams touchdowns (nine), got as close as Buffalo has gotten to playing January games that matter this century. Needing only to get by Pittsburgh, which had already clinched home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs and rested just about everyone anyone had ever heard of, the Bills gave away the lead in the fourth quarter and lost 26-24 to a team quarterbacked by a sixth-stringer named Brian St. Pierre, even though he misfired on the only pass he threw—his last in the NFL until 2009.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>2014—</b>After their defense—one of the league’s best in just about every important statistical category—throttled Aaron Rodgers and Green Bay in their 14th game, the Bills had but to beat 2-12 Oakland to set up a win-and-in situation for the finale at New England, which, like Pittsburgh a decade earlier, would have no incentive to do anything but avoid injuries. So naturally, they faltered against the Raiders, also by a 26-24 count. Also like their ancestors from 2004, these Bills finished a highly disappointing 9-7.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Expectations for this year’s Bills inflated under the power of a hype machine that started churning on January 12, the day Ryan was named the organization’s 18th head coach. The idea of Ryan, whose defenses had carried the New York Jets to the AFC title game in each of his first two seasons as their coach, taking over a team built around a defensive line with four Pro Bowl-caliber starters which had stifled some of the NFL’s best quarterbacks down the stretch in ’14, was enough in itself to get the locals more fired up than they had been in years.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Two days later, when Ryan was formally introduced at a Wednesday press conference, things got downright frenzied around here.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">“I’m not going to let our fans down,” Ryan said, before making an even bolder vow regarding the team’s postseason-free era. “I know it’s been 15 years. Well, get ready. We’re going.”</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which did not seem unreasonable at the time. Kyle Orton’s below-average quarterbacking and a running game that ranked near the bottom of the NFL did at least as much to keep Buffalo out of the 2014-15 playoffs as any opponent, so it stood to reason that any improvement when the Bills had the ball would finally get them in.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Well, the offense did get better with Tyrod Taylor at the controls—particularly once he realized throwing to Sammy Watkins a lot was a pretty good idea—and LeSean McCoy, Karlos Williams and, late in the year, Mike Gillislee combining to stage the league’s most productive running game.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But Ryan’s promised bullying defense, widely considered a given heading into the season, never materialized for any length of time. Once again, the sum total was not quite good enough.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As you watch this year’s playoffs, and see teams like Houston, Washington, Minnesota and Carolina—all of which had worse records in 2014 than Buffalo—try to capitalize on their shot at reaching Super Bowl 50, you can take some small solace from this:</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Things could always be worse. You could, for instance, be a fan of the Cleveland Browns. Their owner, Jimmy Haslam—whose truck-stop company paid out $92 million in fines after admitting to bilking customers out of $56 million with a fraudulent rebate scheme—just fired his third head coach and third general manager in the four seasons since buying the team. One of the candidates to be the fourth coach fired by Haslam is none other than <a href="http://www.foxsports.com/ohio/story/cleveland-browns-interview-search-former-buffalo-bills-head-coach-doug-marrone-010816">former Bills runaway coach Doug Marrone</a>.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The two first-round picks they got in the Sammy Watkins trade, cornerback Justin Gilbert and guard Cameron Irving, have been more spectacular busts than any Bills selection since Aaron Maybin.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And another 2014 first-rounder, Johnny Manziel, reportedly spent the weekend of the last game of his second season skulking around Las Vegas in a blond wig and fake mustache while introducing himself as “Billy” in a futile effort to avoid yet another firestorm over whether or not he actually wants to play professional football.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">OK, so that’s not much in terms of consolation. But around these parts, at this time of year, being able to look down on the Browns is about as good as it gets.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-28761895253885612272016-01-03T08:09:00.000-08:002016-01-03T08:58:22.536-08:00WWM Flashback: It Was Twenty (-Three) Years Ago Today<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDOUCjsznCFMAToS3ORR1RV0tyxVXETZpX8jh9SL3HEy3zWfnnj73KirGNsZ6WdG8UsTvIIM2oASF9_9TBXzfYJRHPhcik0mmTbd_8sc9ump2m1UXRmWtY54P3YIxakXbFwR-J-yWmFZzE/s1600/comeback-story-cp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDOUCjsznCFMAToS3ORR1RV0tyxVXETZpX8jh9SL3HEy3zWfnnj73KirGNsZ6WdG8UsTvIIM2oASF9_9TBXzfYJRHPhcik0mmTbd_8sc9ump2m1UXRmWtY54P3YIxakXbFwR-J-yWmFZzE/s320/comeback-story-cp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
(<b>Note:</b> <i>Because the members of the We Want Marangi editorial board would prefer having our fingers forcibly run across a cheese grater, then soaked in lemon juice, to rehashing last week's <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2015122709/2015/REG16/cowboys@bills#menu=gameinfo%7CcontentId%3A0ap3000000611499&tab=recap">unsightly win over the Dallas JV</a> or previewing <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2016010300/2015/REG17/jets@bills#menu=gameinfo&tab=preview">today's Rex Bowl II</a>, we decided it would be better for everyone concerned to go with a re-run. So we offer this one from the WWM archives (originally published on Jan. 3, 2013), commemorating the then-20th anniversary of what remains, in our view, the most gratifying couple of hours in Buffalo Bills history.</i>)<br />
<br />
We are at the only bar in Brockport we could find showing the pirated broadcast of the wildcard playoff game between the Bills and the Oilers.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The place is packed, but very quiet as Warren Moon hits every pass he throws, moving Houston to touchdown after touchdown, while Frank Reich scatters passes around like, well, like a backup quarterback.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm working as a news reporter after occasionally covering the Bills through the 1990 and '91 seasons, so my rather perverse childhood loyalty to the team has seeped into my staunch objectivity. I stand at the bar, in the midst of a group that included the most intense Steelers fan I've ever known, two Dolphins fundamentalists, a Long Island native who has a contentious relationship with the Jets, and my girlfriend, genetically predisposed to all Boston-area sports teams.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So there are more than a few biting comments about the demise of the Bills, who have been to and lost two straight Super Bowls, as the score hits 28-3 by halftime.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"The problem," I say, to one of the Dolphins fans, "is that we're not drinking enough."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This provided us with common ground, despite our denominational differences.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
While ordering a round, I looked about the bar and noticed something interesting.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
No one was leaving.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Granted, it's early on a cold day-after-New Year, and most of the mix of townies and college kids who had hung around town through Christmas break don't have anything better to do or anyplace better to do it, but it still makes for a striking contrast to the shots of fans streaming out of Rich Stadium.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Shortly after the bartender brings over another half-dozen drafts, Bubba McDowell grabs a tipped Reich throw and returns it 58 yards for a touchdown.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Thirty-five to three.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Still, the bar door stays closed.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And it starts.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Reich can't miss his suddenly wide-open receivers, and Moon can't keep his feet still, or his passes on target.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Kenneth Davis goes in from a yard out. 35-10.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Some sarcastic rumbling around the bar.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
An onside kickoff. What? Beebe sneaking inbounds. 35-17.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Hey, you never know.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Reed, backing in. 35-24.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Are you kidding?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Reed again, diving. 35-31. With a whole quarter left. The cartel of loyalists of Buffalo's arch-rivals are yelling themselves hoarse for the Bills.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Reed, of course, one more time. 38-35, Buffalo.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Holy crap.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
By this point, Buffalo winning -- impossible an hour earlier -- is inevitable. No anxiety or drama, just joyful disbelief.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Even when Houston ties it, or wins the overtime coin flip.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And Nate Odomes picks Moon and Steve Christie ends it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Buffalo 41. Houston 38.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Dolphins hugging Steelers, Jets and Patriots because the Bills won. Despite our disparate belief systems, we had willed it, with a superstitious boost from the stack of empty cups in front of us. Every anguished, delusional hope of every Buffalo loyalist had been validated over a rapidly escalating two hours.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The feeling, 20 years later, was the best I have ever had as a fan. I saw my other inexplicably favorite team, the New York Mets, win a World Championship and pull off the second-greatest comeback I've ever seen on the way. And it wasn't quite the same.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I can't imagine a Super Bowl win being any better.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
(Recapture a little of it with ESPN's recap from Jan. 3, 1993.)</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EjHGAvkQlkk/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EjHGAvkQlkk?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="text-align: center;">(The New York Times asks whether it was the </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/sports/football/bills-oilers-game-in-1993-is-greatest-comeback-that-ever-was-and-was-not.html?ref=football&_r=1&" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">greatest comeback, or the greatest choke</a><span style="text-align: center;">.)</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<div>
</div>
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-13961786082917454982015-12-27T07:38:00.002-08:002015-12-27T07:38:44.655-08:00Comic Relief<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAVxPMzRG26PGiH4LxV92N-sH1Qr6FH-y3v6zrPQP9BRg1cxCKIklCHvg-QmnVYYgsTfYZ5mIKf5ChlBUL0hk1z2Cn9NHZ8FmuXSClAOa9XtGx3jVLky8hoqzlZ8LnFNFOWDo2mIajs4Zn/s1600/billsredskins.2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAVxPMzRG26PGiH4LxV92N-sH1Qr6FH-y3v6zrPQP9BRg1cxCKIklCHvg-QmnVYYgsTfYZ5mIKf5ChlBUL0hk1z2Cn9NHZ8FmuXSClAOa9XtGx3jVLky8hoqzlZ8LnFNFOWDo2mIajs4Zn/s320/billsredskins.2015.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="p2" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p2" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">G</span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">etting slapped around FedEx Field for most of Sunday afternoon made it official—the Buffalo Bills’ season will end, as it has for each of the last 16 seasons, when the regular-season schedule concludes.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As local native, former colleague and stand-up comic Ernie Green put it, “The #Bills playoff drought is so old, you can legally have sex with it in 30 U.S. States.”</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Green’s Tweet (you can find more of his material @RealErnieGreen, right after you follow @DavidStaba) nailed the bright side of the local football team’s unyielding futility. The Bills have found so many ways to raise, then snuff, expectations that you have to laugh. That, or work yourself into a froth and call a radio show and/or post poorly spelled online diatribes on your message board of choice.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You could also just try to ignore them.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That was the plan on Sunday, and it worked out pretty well.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Since Buffalo entered Sunday’s game at Washington with a 2.5 percent mathematical probability of qualifying for the playoffs for the first time since a few days before HBO debuted a mob-procedural series called <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Sopranos</i>, plans were made that did not involve a careful watching of the game.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My sister, Lori, visited from out of town for The First Annual Buffalo Musicians Christmas Party at the Sportsmen’s Tavern on Amherst Street (which was terrific, incidentally), and we decided warm up by meandering in from our headquarters at Gary Marangi Tower in downtown Darien, catching what we could of a thoroughly futile contest along the way.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We started at The Blue Dog Saloon in suburban Attica, so I could introduce Lori to the life-changing lasagna soup developed by the joint’s owner, Shannon. As we sat down, I looked at a television for the first time all day, just in time to see Kirk Cousins toss his second touchdown pass of the afternoon to Jordan Reed, putting Washington ahead 21-0 not even midway through the second quarter.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We had avoided seeing Rex Ryan’s increasingly permissive defense allowing three long touchdown drives on as many Washington touchdown drives, as well as Colton Schmidt’s badly botched, grass-cutting 17-yard punt. Ignoring the game to this point had clearly been the right decision.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The soup lived up to the hype I had given it on the way there (I’m pretty sure you could survive on nothing but—OK, you might need some water, too). Since we were kids, Lori has actively loathed football, so it was easy to not pay attention to the screen. The next time I looked up, the Bills were driving with a chance to cut the margin to two touchdowns by halftime.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which looked like a sure thing, when they got to second-and-goal from Washington’s 1-yard line. But these are the rapidly disintegrating Bills we are talking about here. Even given an extra crack at it by a defensive offsides penalty, LeSean McCoy got stuffed three times before travelling the required 36 inches. Then, Tyrod Taylor—whom you would think would been a viable option on one of the previous three plays—sailed his fourth-down throw over the head of Sammy Watkins.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So Lori and I headed for Buffalo, full of lasagna soup and very confident we were not going to miss anything.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By the time we reached Hertel Avenue and settled in at M.T. Pockets about 45 minutes later, McCoy’s medial collateral ligament had been torn by a shot from Washington’s Mason Foster; his replacement, Mike Gillislee had run 60 yards for Buffalo’s first touchdown; and Taylor had accurately thrown a much deeper pass than the fourth-downer he botched to Watkins for a 48-yard score.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, we missed a little. But, as it turned out, nothing that really mattered.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That was because, desperately needing a stop to have any hope of wiping out the rest of Washington’s <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>now-11-point lead and saving their spiraling season, the Bills promptly surrendered a 13-play, 80-yard drive, which included Cousins hitting Pierre Garcon for an 18-yard gain on third-and-16 and again for 5 yards, his fourth touchdown throw of the afternoon. Of course, Buffalo was glad to help with a pair of penalties worth 20 yards because, well, that’s what this team does.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fortunately, our chicken wings were served shortly thereafter. I’ve long considered the wings at M.T. Pockets, particularly as prepared by Cheryl, our bartender on this and just about any Sunday afternoon, to be Buffalo’s finest. Perfectly crisp skin surrounding perfectly moist chicken, nicely sauced and drained of excess grease, Cheryl’s wings shame the offerings of some of the area’s more famous wing factories.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As we were finishing up our mediums (and a shared steak sandwich, which was also very, very good), Taylor directed the sort of late scoring drive that has been making Buffalo losses seem far more competitive than they actually are since the 20th century.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When Taylor connected with Watkins for a 20-yard touchdown, then ran it in himself for a two-point conversion that made the score 35-25 with 1:26 to play, our fellow patrons who were still paying attention issued the first real reaction I had heard all day, a louder cheer than seemed appropriate under the circumstances. Looking over, I realized most of them were laughing.</span></span></div>
<div class="p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 1.75em;">
<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which is about all there is left to do.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-55703501617080162262015-12-20T08:41:00.000-08:002015-12-20T08:41:04.094-08:00Deja Blue, Red and White<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9iKHVz3DXuu0pTxcEO9j88pDXfr4XUm7MhOaY_3VQcGc0I1D1sJ2HmCw2LHpapkI-tMfOZZD-ByDSQ4GFtiX_1s_ERFxwmawO7mk5hxoDZh1B5lLIbcpCet0dSNg-6_coLueH0-49bwA/s1600/nextyear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9iKHVz3DXuu0pTxcEO9j88pDXfr4XUm7MhOaY_3VQcGc0I1D1sJ2HmCw2LHpapkI-tMfOZZD-ByDSQ4GFtiX_1s_ERFxwmawO7mk5hxoDZh1B5lLIbcpCet0dSNg-6_coLueH0-49bwA/s320/nextyear.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;">(<b>Note:</b> <i>The editorial board at We Want Marangi was unable to muster the level of delusion necessary to treat Sunday's game at Washington as if it were part of a realistic playoff bid. Instead, let the wailing and gnashing of teeth over what 2015 might have been begin.</i>)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;">This was the season it was all supposed to be different, but it turned out just the same in the end.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">And make no mistake, <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2015121300/2015/REG14/bills@eagles#menu=gameinfo%7CcontentId%3A0ap3000000603269&tab=recap">Philadelphia’s 23-20 snipping of Buffalo</a> last Sunday marked the end of the 2015 season for the Bills, as well as the continuation of the longest playoff-free run in the National Football League.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Yes, Buffalo could theoretically reach the postseason for the first time since the 1999 season. All it would take is for Rex Ryan And The Disappointments to win their final three in a row, something they have not yet managed through the first 13 games, while two of the AFC’s three hottest teams—Pittsburgh, Kansas City and, believe it or not, Ryan Fitzpatrick’s New York Jets—implode utterly and completely.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">As an indication of how long it has been, the Bills’ most recent playoff appearance ended with their kickoff-coverage squad futilely chasing Tennessee’s Kevin Dyson into the end zone at the then-Adelphia Coliseum in Nashville after being thoroughly confused by the Titans’ physics-defying execution of a play known as Home Run Throwback.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Yes, Adelphia. The collapsed cable-television monolith was in the news this week when John Rigas (for all you kids out there, he was sort of a 20th-century Terry Pegula—a billionaire out of Pennsylvania whose money was going to save Buffalo sports, commerce and culture) requested an early end to his 12-year prison sentence on conspiracy and fraud convictions, citing a terminal cancer diagnosis. He is 91 years old.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">So, yeah. It has been a while since the Bills made it to the National Football League’s postseason tournament.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">The second-lengthiest droughts after Buffalo’s inevitable 16-year exile belong to the Cleveland Browns, who reached the playoffs in 2002, three years after the Bills last did so, and the Oakland Raiders, who got disemboweled by the Tampa Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII. For those who struggle with math, that was XIII years ago.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Which means Buffalo has been more inept for three seasons longer than Cleveland, a franchise run by a convicted felon which is apparently spending the final month of 2015 attempting to finally prove to itself that Johnny Manziel will never, ever be a starting quarterback in the NFL; and Oakland, which was micromanaged by a man operating under the belief that it was still 1968 until his death a few years back, when his only slightly more hep children took over.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Taking a longer-term view, only seven franchises have ever spent a longer time without qualifying for a playoff game: The Chicago/St. Louis (now Arizona) Cardinals (1948-73), Washington Redskins (1946-70), Pittsburgh Steelers (1948-71), New Orleans Saints (1967-86), New York Giants (1964-80), Philadelphia Eagles (1961-77), and Denver Broncos (1960-76).</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">All of those skids, save the Saints’, took place mostly or wholly in a time when reaching the playoffs was a much more impressive accomplishment. Until 1966, only two teams reached the NFL or AFL postseason, which consisted of only the championship game or, in a handful of seasons, a tiebreaker divisional playoff. After that, no more than eight teams reached the playoffs until 1978, when the number hit 10. Since 1989, 12 teams have extended their seasons annually.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">So you could certainly make the argument that no tackle football team has been less successful for longer than your Buffalo Bills. The continuation of this distinction becomes particularly remarkable when you consider that the team was considered the undisputed champion of the 2015 offseason, at least in the socio-economic boundaries of Western New York.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">It started in January, when Pegula and his wife Kim hired the sort of high-profile, big-salary head coach studiously avoided during the latter-day reign of the team’s founder and owner for its first 54 seasons, the posthumously beloved Ralph Wilson Jr.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Rex Ryan thoroughly dominated his introductory press conference and continued knocking it out of the park, from having beer and wings with Jim Kelly at the Big Tree Inn in the shadows of Ralph Wilson Jr. Stadium to buying a pickup truck splashed with the team colors and logo.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Then along came LeSean McCoy, a former league rushing leader acquired for promising, but injured, linebacker Kiko Alonso, to provide ground support to whoever emerged from a three-way quarterback competition.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">With Ryan taking over a defense that had carried the Bills as close as they had gotten to the playoffs in more than a decade despite the unwatchable quarterbacking of E.J. Manuel, then Kyle Orton, the offense barely seemed to matter to fans who still believed winning games by scores like 6-3 and 13-7 was still a sustainable formula in the modern NFL.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">As we all learned, it is not. So Rex and his team head toward yet another empty-feeling offseason wondering what is.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-7699166273467405622015-12-13T08:27:00.003-08:002015-12-13T08:27:39.953-08:00Tyrod's Tear<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCCDNojoMdak_GAnXHLEZwBDK7PpVoggUj-3j_cU-EqgMdyqQIlme5TGfGpsagOT5ZGcgZSRDca5HMDQFKi_Vyl9see6eY3OhO5mqmR7nfa3Ay7nZCtU0VJYDo4JZob8rXNOQeMKXKVAr5/s1600/tyrodeagles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCCDNojoMdak_GAnXHLEZwBDK7PpVoggUj-3j_cU-EqgMdyqQIlme5TGfGpsagOT5ZGcgZSRDca5HMDQFKi_Vyl9see6eY3OhO5mqmR7nfa3Ay7nZCtU0VJYDo4JZob8rXNOQeMKXKVAr5/s320/tyrodeagles.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;">When Tyrod Taylor arced a perfect 53-yard throw to Sammy Watkins for the second time during last Sunday’s season-sustaining 30-21 win over Houston, a few questions came to mind:</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">1) Who was the last Buffalo quarterback to throw a better deep ball, or even one nearly as pretty on a consistent basis?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">2) How nice is it to have questions about a Bills quarterback that do not amount to some variation on “How much does he suck?” or “When will the sucking start?”?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">3) Is there really any good reason—beyond the utter futility at the position for lo these past 16 years and the pessimism it naturally engenders—to doubt whether Taylor is, if not a future superstar, a perfectly functional centerpiece to build around?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Let’s address those in order:</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">1) We’ll start by crossing every Bills thrower since Drew Bledsoe off the list. J.P. Losman had the strongest arm of anyone in the interim, but was as likely to fling the ball to an assistant coach as get it within 10 yards of a receiver.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Bledsoe could certainly chuck it, but did more of his damage on intermediate throws, with true bombs coming much less frequently, as compared to his total attempts. And most of his truly memorable performances came in the first eight games of 2002, the first of his three years in Buffalo.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Before that, you have the standard by which all Bills quarterbacks will be measured forevermore, Jim Kelly. For all his arm strength and gunslinger bravura, though, Kelly was hardly a mad bomber, with more of his big plays coming via the catch-and-run route with Andre Reed than deep strikes to Don Beebe or James Lofton.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">What makes Taylor so effective at times is his ability to at once stretch a defense deep and force it to constantly account for his running ability up front. Bledsoe, by comparison, was a statue and Kelly, while slightly more mobile, forced approximately zero opposing defensive coordinators to worry about his speed or elusiveness.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">None of this should be taken as a suggestion that Taylor is anywhere near as good as Kelly now, or will be over the long haul. Or even in the same class as Bledsoe, early 2002 edition, although maintaining his current level of play (and health) over this year’s final four regular season games would make that a reasonable conversation to have. But in his first season as a starter, Taylor has shown a blend of arm strength, accuracy and athleticism unseen around here since, well, ever?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">2) It’s very nice. One reason I took a few seasons off from writing about the Bills, beginning in the late aughts, was the inability to conceive of finding new and different ways to describe either the ineptitude of the latest Buffalo quarterback or the signs of his inevitable demise, and finally, the unwillingness to even try.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">When I got back into it in 2012, at least Ryan Fitzpatrick offered a different flavor of insufficiency. That, however, got pretty old pretty quick, too.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Instead, the talk about Taylor in the wake of his three-touchdown-pass, one-scoring-run, zero-times-body-slammed-by-J.J. Watt performance against the Texans centered on his deep strikes to Watkins, his franchise-record string of 187 straight passes without an interception, which dates to the loss to the New York Giants on October 4, and his sideline-avoidant 8-yard scoring run in the second quarter.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">3) Other than perfectly understandable Losmanesque and Manuelian flashbacks, no.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">There has been nothing fluky about Taylor’s performance. Instead of starting solidly and regressing, like so many before him, he has steadily improved as the season has progressed, particularly since returning after missing two games with a knee injury in October.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">After back-to-back weeks with three touchdown passes, he has 17 on the season, with just four interceptions. And three of those came in Week 2 against New England. He ranks fourth in both the NFL’s passer-rating category and ESPN’s Total QBR, which grade quarterbacks using significantly different metrics. For a guy who threw all of 35 passes in his first four professional seasons, that borders on amazing.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">A good friend of this column and its predecessors in various publications loved to rework the line by The Police, “Every girl I go out with becomes my mother in the end,” as “Every Bills quarterback becomes Rob Johnson in the end.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">That’s been true throughout the playoff drought. Bledsoe tore the league apart for half a season, then steadily devolved to the point that releasing him after the 2004 season, during which he led Buffalo as close to the playoffs as it has been this century, in favor of a thoroughly untested Losman seemed like a good idea at the time.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">The Losman, Trent Edwards, Fitzpatrick and Manuel eras are still too annoying to rehash here, but they all followed the same spiral from early hope to utter resignation, with varying amounts of success in between.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">I have written something positive about every Bills quarterback since Kelly, and they have usually responded by immediately, and successfully, proving me wrong. And Taylor could well start doing just that Sunday in Philadelphia.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Still, while not predicting the month-long winning streak that would be required to lead his team out of its playoff exile, I will say this much: </span><span style="background-color: white;">Wherever Taylor goes from here, he has not shown any reason to believe he will become Rob Johnson in the end.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-55924250136118197882015-12-05T08:03:00.002-08:002015-12-05T08:03:31.685-08:00Rexual Inadequacy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguGMVojaf9QKcc2t_XqZnU_qMdJUeP01nkZWEkIdxjunHPq0KT6YziA4qx8yCxt-j5apz57bTf5AFqLyWvIoYf7ghOyWpdtFE6PhUU9RIDO12acHzjbdD9r8Ikio1qpVcsma5ee2Rhm0ud/s1600/rexy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguGMVojaf9QKcc2t_XqZnU_qMdJUeP01nkZWEkIdxjunHPq0KT6YziA4qx8yCxt-j5apz57bTf5AFqLyWvIoYf7ghOyWpdtFE6PhUU9RIDO12acHzjbdD9r8Ikio1qpVcsma5ee2Rhm0ud/s1600/rexy.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;">It would be easy, maybe even fun, to spend the next few hundred—or thousand—words ripping Rex Ryan for the <a href="http://www.syracuse.com/buffalo-bills/index.ssf/2015/11/rex_ryan_explains_bad_challenges_mistake_cost_buffalo_bills_loss_kansas_city_chi.html">managerial inattention that led to going 0-for-5 in replay-challenge situations</a>, which played a major role in <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2015112908/2015/REG12/bills@chiefs#menu=gameinfo%7CcontentId%3A0ap3000000590657&tab=recap">Sunday’s gut-twisting loss to Kansas City</a>.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">As damaging as Rex’s red-flag issues were, though (<a href="http://bills.buffalonews.com/2015/11/29/ryan-trapped-into-no-challenge-on-hogan/">and seeming to defer to the team’s chaplain at one decisive moment does not instill confidence in anyone</a>), the disintegration of his defense—once universally considered Ryan’s area of unquestioned expertise—hurt a lot more.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">A week after thoroughly flustering Tom Brady in perhaps their best overall effort of the season, Buffalo’s defenders allowed one of the National Football League’s less-explosive offenses to wipe out a double-digit deficit and score 17 straight points en route to a 30-22 win.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">That collapse put these new-look Bills right where they have been for most of the past 16 years at this point in the season—likely needing to run the table while multiple upstairs neighbors in the standings falter.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Buffalo’s two-game losing streak, leaves them tied for fifth (with the less-than-fearsome Oakland Raiders) in the chase for the AFC’s two wild-card berths, while saddled with an apparent inability to make effective in-game adjustments.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">The initial game plan could not have worked much better. For the game’s first 15 minutes, Tyrod Taylor and Sammy Watkins thoroughly flummoxed Kansas City’s defense, while Ryan’s injury-riddled defense looked very much like the unit promised since his hiring last January, with the Bills ending the opening quarter up 10-0.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Watkins continued to look like he just might justify the high cost the Bills paid to get him in the 2014 draft in the second, hooking up with Taylor—who showed little sign that the shoulder injury suffered a week earlier in New England was hampering him in any way—for their fourth deep connection and second touchdown of the game putting Buffalo ahead 16-7.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Then it all fell apart.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">After Dan Carpenter missed his second extra point in three games, and third of the year, Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith shattered the myth that he can’t, or won’t, throw long, lasering a 41-yard touchdown to Jeremy Maclin (whose 37-yard “catch” on one of Ryan’s replay blunders set up the first Kansas City touchdown) to make it a two-point game at the half.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Watkins, whose second score gave him six catches for 158 yards, never caught another pass, largely because Taylor threw just one more his way.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Buffalo’s defense, which had yielded a single first down on the first three Kansas City possessions, surrendered points on six of the next seven, with a 54-yard field goal attempt hitting the crossbar as time expired in the first half marking the closest thing Ryan’s crew managed to a stop until Smith kneeled away the game’s final seconds.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">In the process, the Bills somehow made the much-maligned Smith look better than Tom Brady had a week earlier, while also allowing someone named Spencer Ware to run for 114 yards.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Things were no better for the offense, with Taylor—who was 16-of-24 for 236 yards and those two touchdowns to Watkins in the first half—hitting on just five of 14 throws for 55 yards after intermission, while looking very much like the career backup he was until this year in the process.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Through it all, Ryan and his coaching staff appeared as overwhelmed as a fact-checker at a Republican presidential debate. Not to mention completely overmatched by Andy Reid’s staff on the opposite sideline, unable to cope in any meaningful way as another highly winnable game slipped away.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">All of which leaves Buffalo needing at least four wins in its final five games, and quite possibly five straight, to have a shot at ending the franchise’s playoff-free millennium. This is especially troubling for a team that has not been able to win three in a row all season. And one with a coach whose shortcomings in the areas of clock management, in-game strategy, and now replay-review competency have made a difference in several galling defeats.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Say this much for Rex—his team seems to be committing fewer stupid penalties at crucial moments, though it still managed nine slightly smarter infractions to gift the Chiefs with an extra 91 yards.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">That’s kind of a lot of problems to fix during the season’s final month. On the bright side, none of the remaining five opponents presents a Patriots-style mismatch.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">The best of the bunch, <a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2015120601/2015/REG13/texans@bills#menu=gameinfo&tab=preview">Houston (one of the four teams Buffalo trails by one game in the chase), visits Orchard Park on Sunday</a>. Another contender now at 6-5, the New York Jets, comes to town for the season finale on Jan. 3, 2016.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">For that potential play-in game against Rex’s former team to matter, though, his Bills have to get by the Texans, followed by trips to Philadelphia and Washington and a post-Christmas visit from Dallas (as quarterbacked, most likely, by Matt Cassel).</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">And they have to do so while operating with almost no margin for error, as they try to save a season in which they, and their coach, have made way too many of them already.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-3830555226068713332015-12-02T05:44:00.002-08:002015-12-02T05:44:48.984-08:00Terrific Tom Tortures Bills Once Again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqqARqRt-2OU99qT6Snrk1slS3NUkx2zM0UbH9AnyBOFpTVk1ob4IQ6pjPDKMPvRZffc_ppORWknC4RQpJBElv3PC20pCT7-1x6QrJWpKEvahKlcVKL-gGmWCx1bop-fEuaCA7F0F7hCvL/s1600/brady.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqqARqRt-2OU99qT6Snrk1slS3NUkx2zM0UbH9AnyBOFpTVk1ob4IQ6pjPDKMPvRZffc_ppORWknC4RQpJBElv3PC20pCT7-1x6QrJWpKEvahKlcVKL-gGmWCx1bop-fEuaCA7F0F7hCvL/s320/brady.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>(<b>Note:</b> The following should have been published last week, but was not, due largely to ongoing conflict between management and labor in the We Want Marangi offices. But, please, join us as we journey back to the gentler days before Rex Ryan lost his grip on the vagaries of the National Football League's replay system.)</i></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="article-lede" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Buffalo Bills beat the crap out of Tom Brady on Monday night.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And still, he found a way to get the better of them.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Buffalo’s defense produced its best overall game of the season. Though the Bills only sacked Brady once, they pounded on him all night, reducing him to throwing the ball into the Gillette Stadium turf and spiking his helmet in frustration on the sideline.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Brady narrowly out-performed Tyrod Taylor statistically, completing barely half his passes (20-of-39) for 277 yards, while his counterpart in white went 20-for-36 for 233.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I was pretty agitated all night,” Brady told a Boston radio station Tuesday morning. “For three hours and 20 minutes, I was pretty agitated.”</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At the same time, Rex Ryan’s game plan and the players who executed it snuffed New England’s running game, such as it was, keeping LaGarrette Blount and the rest under four yards per carry and allowing just four first downs by way of the run.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Buffalo even neutralized Rob Gronkowski, limiting the least-stoppable tight end since Kellen Winslow Sr. to two catches for 37 yards.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet it wasn’t enough. For all of that, the Patriots still came out with their 10th win in as many starts this season, taking a 20-13 decision that ended any pretense of a race for the AFC East title, as well as hamstringing Buffalo’s hope of reaching the playoffs since Johnson-or-Flutie was still a thing.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Brady got the necessary people focused on at least two plays—a 20-yard touchdown pass to James White with 13 seconds left in the first half, and a 41-yard catch-and-run hookup with Danny Amendola that set up White’s 6-yard touchdown run that put New England ahead to stay.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Both plays were made possible by shoddy tackling from the Bills, with Corey Graham getting stiff-armed on White’s touchdown catch and Duke Williams (to the surprise of absolutely no one) whiffing on Amendola’s big play.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And by Brady’s greatest strength—the ability to impose his will not only on the opposing defense, but on his own teammates.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You see things, and you want to try to create some urgency, and see if we can get into the game and start to tighten things up,” Brady said of his sideline intensity. “You’ve got to figure out, when things aren’t going well, how to rally. When things don’t seem to be going well, how are you going to find that rhythm? And just making sure everyone’s focused, and letting them know I’m focused, and they need to be focused, and that we can all be more focused together.”</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And that was really about it. Other than those two breakdowns (and another excruciating kick-return fumble by Leodis McKelvin), the Bills outplayed and outhit their longtime dominators, doing everything they needed to do—harassing Brady, swarming his receivers on their trademark short routes, and running the ball efficiently, especially when lining LeSean McCoy and Karlos Williams up on either side of Taylor.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Still, none of it really mattered.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because—and no qualifiers or hedging should be needed any more—they were facing the greatest quarterback to ever play the game of tackle football.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That debate ended—or should have, at least among reasonable folk—when he rallied his team from the largest fourth-quarter deficit in Super Bowl history, against game’s best defense and using the most closely monitored footballs in National Football League history, to win XLIXth edition last February.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Monday night was not Brady’s best game of the season, or even his top performance against the Bills in 2015. For most of the evening, he barely resembled the guy who filleted Buffalo for 466 yards and three touchdowns while completing 38 of his 59 throws in September’s 40-32 win in Orchard Park, successfully demonstrating that it is not, contrary to commonly held knuckle-dragging belief, necessary to even try to run the football in order to win.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Bills flustered and hurried Brady on almost every drop-back, but he was still able to come up with as many pinpoint throws as the Patriots needed to win the game.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just like he always does.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Meanwhile, all the physicality and emotion displayed by Buffalo puts the Bills at 5-5. That’s the exact record they had a year ago 10 games into the 2014 season, with Doug Marrone coaching, Kyle Orton quarterbacking (to use the word loosely) and the same bunch of guys playing defense.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Bills did not embarrass themselves on Monday. If anything, they emerge from the defeat looking more like a legitimate wild-card contender than they did going in. Their performance makes winning the at least four, and probably five, victories they need in their final six games seem feasible. If, that is, the obvious shoulder injury Taylor incurred Monday does not put their playoff hopes in the highly erratic hands of E.J. Manuel.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The first of those six, on Sunday in Kansas City against the suddenly streaking Chiefs, serves as a test of whether the team that came up just short in Foxborough was the real thing, or if Monday night was little more than the ultimately disappointing (and horrifically officiated) high-water mark of yet another lost season.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<em style="background-color: white;"><br /></em></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: start;">(</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: start;">You too can follow David Staba</i><i id="yiv4852335225yui_3_16_0_1_1447255161581_2754" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: start;"> on the Twitter at</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: start;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/DavidStaba" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;">@DavidStaba</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: start;">.)</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922824400280994109.post-28802106311499974942015-11-21T06:19:00.001-08:002015-11-21T06:19:15.029-08:00Bills-Pats A Good Bet For A Bad Beat<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW7rWvhep_J3krimeKq8r-cdKDG1kmgcz4L3Fh1qXmmIWX2lpGNJrPcFSYmdsFOH6fEuTZwlXlsBsTwDhx1TG0ctqRutLZHZKsCwfJyG00OIN0OrNvhOBV6MqPycNe99V06cPR_cB61gkH/s1600/holcomb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW7rWvhep_J3krimeKq8r-cdKDG1kmgcz4L3Fh1qXmmIWX2lpGNJrPcFSYmdsFOH6fEuTZwlXlsBsTwDhx1TG0ctqRutLZHZKsCwfJyG00OIN0OrNvhOBV6MqPycNe99V06cPR_cB61gkH/s320/holcomb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">I’m sitting in a sports bar in downtown Las Vegas (the gambling mecca’s smaller, seedier, much cooler tourist district, relative to the more popularly gaudy Strip), watching the Buffalo Bills take on the dreaded New England Patriots in a Sunday-night game with my brother-in-law.</span><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">It’s the evening before Halloween 2005. The Patriots have won the last two Super Bowls and three of the most-recent four, but are not yet the unstoppable offensive power they would become a couple years later.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">A season earlier, the Bills came as close as they have come since Home Run Throwback to reaching the playoffs, going 9-7 but losing to Pittsburgh’s third- and fourth-stringers in the season finale. So, being the Bills, they released Drew Bledsoe after the near-miss, handing the veteran’s job to thoroughly untested J.P. Losman, who promptly lost it to journeyman Kelly Holcomb.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Buffalo is somehow only a game behind the 4-3 Patriots heading into the Sunday nighter. I wrote a weekly column picking games against the spread for various newspapers through the 1990s and early 2000s, but, beyond the occasional whim-based parlay card of the type sold in your less-reputable gin mills, had never bet real money on football games until this first trip to Vegas.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Emboldened by coming out ahead on the daytime contests, as well as Saturday’s college-football action at $5 or $10 per bet, I decide to go a little bigger on the Sunday-night game. I figure that if there is such a thing as an absolute lock in the National Football League, it is New England stomping Buffalo in Foxboro in prime time (<a href="http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2015112300/2015/REG11/bills@patriots#menu=gameinfo&tab=preview">the same situation the present-day 5-4 Bills find themselves in on Monday</a>). So I put a $100 on the Patriots, considering the relatively small seven-point spread a bargain for such a sure thing.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">So, of course, Buffalo dominates the first three quarters, with Holcomb excelling at handing the ball to Willis McGahee again and again, helping keep the ball away from Tom Brady for 35 of the first 50 minutes. Holcomb even manages to hit a big one, his 55-yard touchdown pass to Eric Moulds putting the Bills ahead 10-7 early in the third quarter.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Buffalo’s defense does its part, keeping New England’s running game, then the dominant factor in its offense, in check, while sacking Brady three times back when such an accomplishment was feasible.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Aaron Schobel gets two of those three sacks, the second coming early in the fourth quarter, jarring the ball loose to be recovered by the immortal Lavale Sape. That sets up Rian Lindell’s second field goal of the quarter, giving the Bills a nine-point lead with 10 minutes to play.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">My bet virtually doomed, as the Patriots would need 17 points to cover the spread, I felt the karma incurred by betting against the hometown team filling the crowded bar.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">“Watch,” I says to my brother-in-law. “The Bills are going to find a way to lose the game AND the Patriots are going to lose my bet.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Adam, a devout Steelers fan, cackles and nods.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">“You’re probably right. These are the Bills.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">I am. And they are.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Brady immediately hits his longest throw of the night, a 37-yarder to Deion Branch to set up a 1-yard Corey Dillon run, cutting Buffalo’s lead to two.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Two plays later, inevitability kicks in. Holcomb is sacked and fumbles.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Patriots ball. Brady throws to Branch for 22. Dillon rolls into the end zone again.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">In a minute-and-a-half of game time, a nine-point Buffalo lead turns into a five-point deficit. This being in the time before Brady and Bill Belichick began choking out vanquished opponents well after the competitive portion of a game had ended, that leaves me hoping for Holcomb to throw a pick-six.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Which he does not. Bills lose. I lose.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">There have been other agonizing Buffalo defeats in Foxboro over the past couple decades. There was Leodis McKelvin’s fumbled kickoff return in 2009, which gave the Patriots a win in a game Buffalo led by 11 points with five minutes remaining. And the first game of the Dick Jauron era, in which the Bills led the 2006 opener by 10 at halftime, yet wound up losing by two, with an end-zone sack of J.P. Losman providing the final margin. And Ryan Fitzpatrick’s comeback-snuffing fourth-quarter interceptions in 2010 and ‘12 (it should probably be noted that in between, on New Year’s Day 2012, in the 2011 season finale, Fitz threw two touchdown passes as Buffalo jumped out to a 21-0 first-quarter lead, then tossed up four interceptions as the Patriots scored 49 unanswered points).</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">There could well be another coming on Monday. The 2015 Patriots are unbeaten, but no longer torching the league as they were during the season’s first month, with three of their last five wins coming by a touchdown or less, including last Sunday’s one-point escape in New Jersey against the Giants.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Their two biggest weapons not named Brady or Rob Gronkowski in their 40-32 win over Buffalo in Week 2—running back Dion Lewis and wide receiver Julian Edelman—are out with injuries, while their offensive line and secondary are banged up to varying degrees.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">So the possibility of an upset exists, particularly if Rex Ryan can find a way to get the most expensive defensive line in football history to make the investment worthwhile. The Giants’ blueprint for beating New England both times the teams have met in the Super Bowl has been pressuring Brady up the middle, preventing him from stepping into his throws, and Buffalo’s defensive front should be capable of doing that to some degree.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">After the way he shredded the Bills’ pass-defense schemes in Week 2 (38-of-59 for 466 yards and three scores, in case you’ve forgotten), it’s also very possible Brady will adjust to the loss of Edelman as well as he did against New York, throwing even more to Gronkowski and Danny Amendola. Shifting to a run-heavy game plan featuring LaGarrette Blount would also be a very Belichick-y thing to do.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">The most likely scenario would be Brady, Belichick and the various wounded and previously anonymous Patriots toying with the Bills for a while, even spotting them a sizeable lead, before pulling things out in a morally and/or legally questionable manner.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">New England is, at press time, a seven-point favorite, just as it was on that Sunday night 10 years ago. While I won’t be betting on the game (and, of course, strongly discourage illegal gambling in any form), if I were, it would be tough not to play it the exact same way.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">(<b>Editor's Note:</b> <i>You, too, can follow</i> <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidStaba">@DavidStaba</a> <i>on the Twitter. Come on. You know you want to.</i>)</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16774821049038189637noreply@blogger.com0