No drama

Here's a problem for Buffalo Bills' fans after the team's ninth game of the season.

There's no drama left.

National Football League seasons essentially answer question that come up from the start. The big one, naturally, is, who will win the Super Bowl? But there are sub-plots along the way as well. The idea is for the season to slowly go toward a climatic moment.

Don't look for any climatic moments here, unless you are interested in knowing if the team will run for the bus the rest of the way. In the Bills' case, we wanted to know back in September if the team was capable of making a playoff run. With seven weeks left and a 3-6 record, it looks almost certainly like the answer is no.

There were other questions. Would Terrell Owens fit in and make the Bills better? Um, it's fair to say that Owens isn't going to make the season memorable for Buffalo for the right reasons. He still has a chance to make it memorable for the wrong ones. Right now his signing looks like an interesting but less-than-successful and expensive gamble.

Is Trent Edwards going to be the quarterback of the future? You'd have to guess no. The Bills would have to come up with some major dollars to sign him long-term in the coming offseason, and that doesn't look like a good idea. In other words, it's about time to start from scratch at the position ... again. The Bills apparently haven't made a great long-term decision about a quarterback since Jim Kelly; Doug Flutie and Drew Bledsoe merely had short-term moments.

Was not re-signing Jason Peters to a big contract a good idea? Based on the problems on the offensive line, it's fair to say Peters might have helped somewhere. Unless you like false starts and concussed quarterbacks.

Is Dick Jauron going to make it to next year? My guess is that it would take a winning record at this point to keep the fan base even a little happy, and that would mean 6-1 down the stretch ... with games against Indianapolis and New England, among others. I don't like his odds.

So here we are, in mid-November, and the story of the season seems more or less written. We're going to just have to wait to see what shoes will drop come early January in terms of some sort of top football executive, new coach, new quarterback, etc.

We've seen a lot of anger about the Bills in the first part of the season. It's easy to wonder if those feelings are about to turn into apathy for the rest of the calendar year, which is never a good sign. Put another way, I'm glad I don't have to sell Bills' tickets for a living the rest of the way.

Educational process

Does it seem like that we heard more about Veterans Day today than we have in a long time? This isn't just a case of the usual TV pictures of ceremonies involving men and women in uniform, which come every Nov. 11.

Every sporting event this week has taken time out to honor veterans. ESPN set up shop at West Point today. Applebee's gave away meals to service personnel. A local barber gave out free haircuts to military members. My Facebook page is filled with tributes.

All well and good. But I think there's something else at work here, and it's something good. My guess is, we've learned something.

One of the few good things about getting older is that you have a personal memory for history. I am old enough to remember our involvement in Vietnam in the 1960's and early 1970's, a military action that dragged on indefinitely with no end in sight. Let me know if this sounds familiar.

How did Americans react to that? By protesting in the streets in some cases, and I'm a little surprised there hasn't been more of that in the last few years. (I talked to an Army vet who served in the Sixties about this, and he absolutely agreed with me.) There was a lot of anger back then, though, and some of it was directed at the people doing the actual work in Vietnam. As a result, we forgot about Vietnam veterans for too long a time. They didn't get enough "thank yous" for their thankless work, let alone parades and recognition.

This time around, there are a lot more "thank yous." You can argue about past and present policy decisions by the commanders, but you can't argue with the fact that today's military members are volunteering for jobs that the rest of us are less than anxious to do.

You're never too old to learn something. Consider this one more salute to those who deserve one.

Survey says...

I recently read about a survey done by the College of Communications at Penn State University on the ethics involved in sports writing. And let's not have any smart remarks that it was an extremely brief paper. Being the inquisitive type, as the title of the blog says, I wrote Penn State to get a copy of the results. It's interesting stuff.

The survey authors surveyed 285 sports journalists across the country. More than 91 percent were male, 85 percent were white, 91 percent were college graduates, and almost 96 percent were full-time sports journalists. That sounds about right, based on personal observation.

In terms of career conditions and outlook, about 39 percent of sports writers say they have been threatened with violence by athletes, coaches or fans. Well, John Muckler once shook his finger at me, but otherwise I think I've been lucky. About 53 percent have considered quitting the job, which sounds low if anything to me. About 94 percent say they are satisfied with their job, which seems something of a contradiction to the previous answer. And almost 75 percent say they have a good job future; those people must not have looked at the business climate in journalism these days.

Next up is the conflict of interest behaviors, as it is called the survey results. A total of 11.6 percent say they have given free tickets to friends. I was a little surprised by that; most sports organizations don't even ask that question any more. More of a surprise was the fact that 26.3 percent of respondants got free tickets for their supervisor. I could argue that it's good that the sports editor attend events when possible; it's always nice to be on the scene. But that should be in the form of a press pass and not tickets (and note the plural form, ndicating "company.")

For the record, we have a policy of not accepting anything of value. So a box of popcorn at HSBC Arena is OK, which may tell you something about its taste. However, I have turned down all offers of free entries to area running races, which usually go for about $20 each.

Now comes the most surprising part. Care to guess what percentage of sportswriters gamble on sporting events? Try 41.1 percent. Breaking it down a little more, 4.6 percent of sportswriters say they gamble on sports that they cover. I'm not sure that covers fantasy sports, but my guess would be that it doesn't.

Statistically speaking then, if you see 21 sportswriters covering a particular game, the odds are pretty good that one of them has bet on the contest you both are watching. And remember that hardly anyone is covering horse racing regularly these days, where betting is legal and predictions of winners are more or less expected and frequently followed by trips to the betting window.

Here's one last survey result. Respondants were asked to grade from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree) on the statement, "If I were to gamble on a team or sport that I was covering, I think it would have an effect on my ability to cover that team or sport objectively." The median score was 3.45. That sure sounds like some writers are going to be angry if the team they bet on loses, no matter what the actual outcome is. As in "That last-second field goal cost me $500, so I'm not going to make him sound like a hero."

My guess is that the industry may have to be a bit more vigilant on this issue. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Getting punchy

Dave Kindred has an interesting column this weekend about fighting and the media. As in, punches exchanged between media members, or between a media member and an athlete. You can find it here; it is worth your time.

Kindred has seen a lot more of this stuff than I ever did. But I do have a couple of stories along these lines.

Once at then-Rich Stadium, the Bills were going through the postgame ritual of interviews at their lockers. One time, a newspaper writer was alone with one of the players. Then, a television reporter turned on the camera and stuck in a microphone, which showed a little impatience but does happen. But then the TV guy had the player turn away and do a one-on-one into the camera, leaving the newspaper guy behind.

Our print scribe patiently waited for the television interview to end. Then, and only then, did he launch a tirade against the electronic type. It's good thing the television guy got out of the way; he might have gotten a punch in the face.

The Sabres' original trainer was Frank Christie, a crusty old sort who used to challenge new, young reporters just for the sport of it. I saw an argument or two start up, but not many 20-somethings were willing to smack a 60-something, short, 140-pound trainer.

But speaking of hockey, Jerry Sullivan represented his profession well one time when working in Binghamton. He wrote a column that was critical of one of the Broome County Dusters, the local minor league team. Jerry went into the locker room for the next home game. The Duster in question looked at Jerry and said, "I ought to knock you into the wall."

Jerry paused for effect, and replied, "Well, if you do, it will be the first thing you've hit all year." The rest of the Dusters went wild, as their teammate was silenced.

We all should be so quick as Jerry was that night.

And in other video...

Elizabeth Lambert of New Mexico has once again demonstrated the power of the media. The women's soccer player turned up on ESPN today, and those clips quickly spread to the Internet. Tonight she received a suspension.

Here's the video:



This is not a woman to be trifled with.

You make me feel like dancing

One of my favorite college basketball moments ever was preserved on YouTube and popped up today on SportsbyBrooks. It came when Tim Ryan and Al McGuire were interviewing the Syracuse basketball team after the then Orangemen had just won to advance to the Final Four. Al couldn't contain himself.



We still miss Al.

In olden days

There was an item in The Boston Globe's sports section today on an old friend of mine. In fact, it was a good reminder about how the sports business has changed over the years, and how old I am.

The item was on a player from Bridgewater, Massachusetts, who is now a pitching coach with the Philadelphia Phillies. I don't know the coach in question, Rich Dubee, but I do know the other Massachusetts player in the story, Glenn Tufts.

Tufts was an absolute terror when it came to high school baseball. I think he hit about .625 in school, playing mostly first base and doing some pitching when needed. He graduated in 1973, which was my senior year in high school as well.

Here's the coincidence: Tufts dated the daughter of my father's best friend. So when my family went up to Massachusetts around the holidays in 1972-73, I had the chance to spend a little time with Glenn. Good guy. In fact, while the grown-ups went out on New Year's Eve, the best friend's kids took over the house for the night. I had the chance to talk to Glenn for quite a while about what it was like to be one of the nation's top high school players. As I recall, he complained about not getting many pitches to hit. And remember, he still hit about .625. I saw him one or two other times as well during trips there.

Now comes the quaint part. Tufts was taken fifth overall in the baseball amateur draft in the summer of 1973. The debate was to take the signing bonus offer from the Cleveland Indians, which probably was something along the lines of $50,000, or to take a full scholarship from the University of North Carolina. The parents argued for college, saying that the education was a good safety net. I recall saying that the bonus wasn't a bad safety net either, and that you could still go to school with some of that money.

My side of the argument won, not that I ever made the case personally, as he signed with the Indians. Unluckily, he had some injury problems -- I think there was an auto accident involved -- and he never did quite fulfill his potential. Tufts stayed in baseball as a career and became a great scout and coach, I believe. But he never did grab the brass ring.

Let's compare that to today. I looked on-line at some recent signing bonuses. The number five pick in 2007's draft was Matt Wieters, taken by Baltimore. He was a special case because he had signing issues, but he eventually agreed to a $6 million bonus with the Orioles. The fourth pick, Daniel Moskos of Pittsburgh, picked up a check for $2.475 million. It's a little tough for the colleges to compete with that.

Sometimes you're just born 35 years too early.