Categories
Sports

On Sean Taylor

The Bills play the Redskins this weekend, and the importance of the game has been seriously diminished by the killing of safety Sean Taylor. Taylor is one of the Redskins best players, leaders, and loved by all of his coaches and teammates.

A lot of people think that will motivate the Skins this weekend, but from what I have read, and especially heard and seen in press conferences and interviews, they are not thinking about football. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling the Bills will end up winning – maybe easily – and they won’t get the credit for it. The Redskins are definitely mentally and emotionally somewhere else.

There is a bit of “good news” regarding the murder. I found this article today which says that the police have charged three suspects and detained a fourth. The “good” is that they have the people who are responsible (and confessions from them) but it’s really sad that these guys are just teenagers. And, according to the story, were not intending to kill Taylor, just got “unlucky”.

Not sure I’m buying that.

So, it’s a really sad series of events, and certainly overshadows any of the fun of this game. It was going to be kind of fun, two 5-6 teams, Trent Edwards starting, London Fletcher playing against his old team, Derrick Dockery for the Bills doing the same… but sometimes there are things more important than football.

Categories
Family Sports

Picks

NFL FootballThis season I have been asked to join a panel of “experts” in predicting the outcome of each week’s NFL games. So far I am in second place, behind my Buffalo Bills Review partner, Dave Drake, and another guy who are tied for first.

This week, after hearing the boys subtly add their voice to the discussion of my picks each week, I decided to let them in on it! So I made up little sheets for them to each make their picks and we’ll see who ends up with the best record by the end of the season. 🙂 (Actually, you might be surprised… there’s a good chance they will!)

It’s fun to see how excited they are about it 🙂

Even funnier was seeing how Alex changed a couple of his picks after announcing the games he was not going to get right – only to find out he could still change his picks up to kickoff time. 🙂 He’s pretty cute. He now assures us that he will go 16-0 this week.

The big game of course is tonight, where our Bills face the New England Patriots. Ian and I have our Bills winning in the end (good boy, Ian!) and Alex changed that one… which will of course help him go 16-0.

We’ll see!

Go Bills!

Categories
Sports

Interesting Articles: Space, The Web & Miracles

I found a couple articles that interested me in my news feed this morning…

One Small Step Toward a Mars Landing … at Sea
Reid Stowe and Soanya AhmadReid Stowe is a “professional adventurer” (what exactly is that?) who is 100 days into a 1000 day stay on a small boat in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. His goal is to help NASA prepare for what it will be like to have a very small group of people on a small vessel for close to three years. Interesting research project. He also has a website aptly named 1000 Days At Sea.

How Mark Zuckerberg Turned Facebook Into the Web’s Hottest Platform
FacebookWith my recent delve into the world of Facebook (finding and reconnecting with friends whom I have not had any contact with for over 20 years!) I noticed this headline, and found the article quite interesting. I had heard earlier that Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, had refused a $1 Billion purchase offer, but did not know the rest. Including the estimate that Facebook is now worth at least $5 Billion. Good job, Mark.

‘Minor Miracle’ For Everett
Bills TE Kevin EverettThis is the best article, at least regarding the substance of its content. As you likely know, Buffalo Bills TE Kevin Everett suffered a life-threatening spinal injury on Sunday during the Bills/Broncos game. We were there. It was awful. Even worse was the report from the doctor who performed surgery the next day. (Watch Monday’s press conference at BuffaloBills.com.) But last night, reports began surfacing that Everett was able to move his arms and legs, and doctors are actually optimistic that he will walk out of the hospital. That’s just insane!

If it’s true.

I would suggest guarded excitement as I am having trouble corroborating this story. There are no updates on BuffaloBills.com, which is extremely suspicious. I’ll keep digging, but the linked article above does seem quite hopeful, and credits a few trustworthy sources. We shall see. From what I heard on Monday, even Kevin’s survival is a “minor miracle”.

More Kevin Everett Links:

Categories
Family Sports

Bills Lose More Than a Football Game

Kevin EverettWe were four of the 74,000 fans in attendance at yesterday’s home opener for the Buffalo Bills, and we were four of 74,000 shocked fans at the end of the game thanks to a winning field goal with only one SECOND left on the clock (which was still running down when they snapped the ball!)

Unfortunately, we were also four of 74,000 stunned and silent fans when Kevin Everett made a tackle that may have paralyzed him for the rest of his life. He suffered a cervical spine injury (I believe that’s a neck injury) when he tackled the return man on the opening kickoff of the second half. He was down for around 15 minutes, and when I saw the hit I reacted audibly, thinking it was a super hit. A little too super. The ambulance came out on the field, and I was just hoping he was not dead.

He’s not dead, but I bet he’s scared. A lot.

The Buffalo News reported last night that he had surgery, and the doctors want to wait till later today to make any further diagnoses. We can still hope for the best. Certainly God can heal/restore anything. But for now, it does not look good for this young man. So sad.

We’ll be doing a show tonight, and I’m sure talking about that. Strange how that is in the forefront of the minds of most Bills fans today, rather than the shocking last second loss by one point on a day when the Bills led for 59 min and 59 seconds of the game.

Perhaps our priorities are actually in the right place.

Categories
Sports

Countdown To Opening Day!

Buffalo BillsI am writing a series of short articles for the Buffalo Bills Review highlighting what I think are probably the top four questions (at least, they are for me) heading into the 2007 season. Stop by our articles page to read them all. I posted the third of four articles today. I’ll link them individually below.

4: Can We Stop The Ru(i)n?
3: RB By Committee… Will It Work?
2: Moss & Chambers & Coles… Oh My!
1: Are We Too Young?

Categories
Family Sports

Go Bills!

I just noticed that it’s been three days since my last post! (Not really, but by the calendar days here, it looks like that!) That’s crazy! Didn’t really take a vacation, just been writing elsewhere. It’s Buffalo Bills season! So, in addition to my article following Friday night’s game, I’ve been spending a little time chatting with fellow Bills fans on the Buffalo Bills forums. (As well as some other forums – here, and here.)

Tomorrow night (um… tonight, if you’re going by the date posted…) we’ll be heading up to St John Fisher College with the boys to go to the Bills’ night practice! Never been to one of those. I hear they are a blast. Some more “real” action than the daytime practices. A bit more for the fans.

Then Friday night we’ll see our first live action of the season. We’ll be in attendance (with our boys again!) at Ralph Wilson Stadium for the Bills/Falcons game! It’s just pre-season… so, definitely not the same as regular season. But you try telling that to our five and eight year old boys. 😉 I’m sure they’ll be having “regular season” fun!

Never been a better time to subscribe to our Buffalo Bills Show! New hosts, more articles, even new t-shirts (info coming soon). You can use the regular old RSS feed, or subscribe at iTunes!

Go Bills!

Categories
Sports

BUFFALO BILLS FOOTBALL IS HERE!!!

Buffalo Bills Helmets
Yes that’s right… it’s officially here. The Buffalo Bills 2007 season begins tonight. The first official game, although technically “pre” season. They will play the New Orleans Saints on their home turf… on national TV! That means YOU can see it. It will be on CBS at 8pm EDT. I hope you’ll stop by and watch a bit. There are some exciting new players on this team.

We’ll be watching Marshawn Lynch, who will get a good number of carries/touches. We’ll be watching Paul Posluszny, our 2nd round pick, rookie LB. We’ll be watching DT John McCargo, coming off a bad foot injury. We’ll be watching new O-linemen Langston Walker and Derrick Dockery. We’ll be watching Trent Edwards… rookie QB battling for the back-up job. Should get a good bit of playing time.

But mostly we’re just happy to be watching!

The BILLS ARE BACK!

Go Bills!!!

Categories
Sports

Thurman Thomas in the Hall of Fame

Thurman Thomas and Marv Levy at 2007 Hall of Fame Enshrinement
If you missed it, Thurman Thomas was enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame this weekend! That’s fun stuff for Bills fans! Thurman was definitely one of the key elements of our FOUR CONSECUTIVE Super Bowls. He and Jim Kelly definitely deserve to be the first two from that team (besides Coach Marv Levy) to be added to the Hall of Fame.

There’s a bunch of great stuff about Thurman online… check out the article I posted tonight at BuffaloBillsReview.com. There are several links there including a couple to videos of his speech given yesterday at the NFLHOF in Canton, OH.

He was an incredible player, and it was fun to re-live the memories as I read the articles and watched the videos this week. Congrats, Thurman!

Categories
Entertainment Sports

This Is New…

I was checking out our Buffalo Bills Review page at the iTunes store tonight. A few people have added some reviews of our show, which I think helps people find and decide to subscribe to the show. That’s cool, and we appreciate the comments/reviews.

But I noticed in the “bread crumb” navigation at the top that there was a new main category called “Amateur”. That’s new. One of the amazing things about iTunes for podcasters is that everything is equal. Our show is just as available as one put out by ESPN. And, it still is that way… but I wonder if they might be moving toward separating them?

Just for fun, I clicked on the Amateur tab and found out that our show is one of the Featured Podcasts! So, that’s pretty neat.

But overall, I really hope they don’t separate the “amateur” and the “professional”. I know I don’t get paid to do BBR, but man, I think it’s (at least pretty close to) professional quality? (Have a listen if you’ve never caught an episode. Good stuff… especially for Bills fans.) There are way too many super bad amateur podcasts on iTunes, so I understand the idea of separating them, but I would hope that they don’t ever completely separate them. We’ll just have to see…

But for now, we’re a featured Amateur podcast! Sweet! 🙂

Categories
Sports

Zero Days

Zero DaysDo you know how long I have been waiting for my countdown calendar widget to show me this??? —->

Buffalo Bills football IS BACK!!

Whoohooo!!! Reports from camp coming soon!