The following is the City of Falls Church's crime report for the week of January 12 - 18, 2010:

Robbery, Nasa Federal Credit Union, 1130 W Broad St., January 15, 12:32 p.m., unknown person(s) entered the establishment and demanded money by passing a note. The suspect is described as a B/M, approximately 45 years old, 170 – 175lbs, wearing a black leather jacket dark jeans and a buffalo bills baseball cap.

-- from the Falls Church News-Press

As I understand it, pretty much the greatest tax benefit of them all is the deduction for donated appreciated property. I'm not a tax expert and invite anybody who is to comment. But the way appreciated property works, if you sell it you pay a big capital gains tax. If you die holding it, you pay a big estate tax. But if you donate appreciated property instead, not only do you not have to pay those taxes. You get an income tax deduction for the full value of the donation. If Ralph were to donate all or a significant portion of his equity interest in the Bills he and his family could continue to control the team, he and his family could use the asset to fund whatever charitable endeavors they wish to support, and they would get the mother of all tax deductions. It would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Again, I'm no accountant, I guess he'd only enjoy a benefit if he has a lot of taxable income from other sources. But assuming he has other sources of taxable income, the amount he saves on his tax bill is like cash in his pocket.

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and the Fins beat the Pats on Sunday will we be talking playoff hopes Monday morning? We'd be two games out with four to go and one of them head-to-head and the tie-breaker at stake.  Of course we would have to win out but keep in mind the Colts aren't likely to want to field their A team at the Ralph Jan 3. How much you wanna bet the thought has crossed Fewell's mind: just keep winning and the job is mine.

Who would disagree with the proposition that the Bills would be 3-2 at least, maybe 4-1, if they had everyone healthy. We would be looking at the season thus far from a completely different perspective.

Brad Butler, Derek Schouman, James Hardy, Leodis McKelvin, Paul Posluszny, John McCargo, Demetrius Bell, Donte Whitner, Bryan Scott, Marcus Buggs, Kawika Mitchell, Jonathan Scott. And there are others. After only five games! And this is basically a repeat of the disastrous spate of injuries the Bills have faced the previous two seasons.

Individual injuries are a random event. But groups of injuries, patterns of injuries, are not. Injury prevention is the function of strength and conditioning coaching. In fact, there is almost no other function for strength and conditioning coaching. Think about it. Athletes do plenty of work -- in practice and on their own time -- on the muscle groups they use to perform the tasks assigned to their positions. All the motions that are required in the normal course of their jobs, they do. You don't really need a strength and conditioning coach to tell professional athletes how to work their primary muscle groups. That stuff's fun, that's exciting -- most athlete's will do that on their own. The focus of strength and conditioning should be to train the weaker muscle groups, the overlooked muscle groups, muscle groups that are NOT primary to the functions performed at an athlete's position. The boring stuff. Why? Football injuries are not the result of repeated use. Football injuries usually happen as a result of odd, unexpected movements.  A balance of supporting muscle groups that are strong and flexible reduces the chance of injury when an athlete is thrust into these unfamiliar, unexpected movements. And not just muscle injuries, either -- all injuries. Ligaments. Tendons. Broken bones. They're all prevented by stronger, flexible, more balanced muscles.

There's no such thing as bad luck in football. None of us think that fumbles are bad luck, or interceptions, or sacks -- or penalties. Well, neither are injuries.

If injuries aren't being prevented, there's only one place to point the finger. I don't know the details of what the Bills have their players doing. But we can all see the results and they aren't good. There's only one thing to conclude: whatever the Bills are doing for strength and conditioning isn't working.

Every press conference Coach Jauron starts with an update on injuries, so it's clear he knows how important they are. But then there's no discussion of what to do about it. They're just viewed as an act of God, I guess.


Injuries are not an act of God. They're preventable. The Bills aren't preventing them.