May Day 10

He was really, really bad last season

I think i posted 1x in the bbmb and the comment was deleted. Never returned

This sums it up well. The sequence of events from the moment the rex rumors started the morning of the Pittsburgh game to the Pegula damage control 'interviews' were amateurish, unacceptable, and not surprising. I do believe these things have an indirect effect on the on-field product as well. The organization appears to be dysfunctional with self-inflicted and unnecessary errors such as these. It hits the mainstream. NFL media on a National level were hitting the Bills hard on how they forced Lynn to twist in the wind, and that Whaley "thing". These things weigh into decisions NFL personnel make when they look at Buffalo vs Denver, Tennessee, KC, etc... You want a well oiled machine. I also really think the organization.... especially on the PR and Marketing side, really are/were in need of fresh ideas and modernization. This seems like a great step

That is 1992. Pre internet sales, and pre John Doe can become a ticket broker Ticket sales in 2010's are a completely different business. Just the injection of Pegula insta-sold December games. A decent team with playoff priority and resale ticket value will have an indefinite waiting list. Anyways... it is a farce for any representative of the team to tell its fans that, let alone the team President. Very bad message, especially with a keystone capers organization.

I think this is great news. The more fresh air the Bills allow in the room the better. Berchtold represents the stale, egg fart-smelling air in one bills drive. To me, the Bills' public image have been abysmal and a lot of that falls on him. As mentioned, the sequencing and production of those recent press conferences was inexcusable. Stuff like that has been going on for years and years. It isnt hard for a PR executive to help get a couple guys to get their stories straight. Another one of their greatest hits was them saying during the playoff drought that Toronto games were justified because Bills fans and the market cannot sell out December home games anyways.

Ultimately, bob rich's arms got short when they told the bidders how much the expansion fee would be. At the time, i believe it was down to buffalo, denver, orlando, miami, and new orleans. They ended up talking to the gm and owner of the san francisco giants. They were fed up with candlestick park. The Riches had dinner with them and pitched the idea of them moving the team to buffalo and re-assume the "New York Giants" name. They were interested, but i dont think it got past one other meeting.

My Raspberry Pi/Retropie has been nearly flawless. 2 bluetooth controllers have worked and the whole thing has been pretty much seamless with 800 games for a few months. I also have a NES Classic that I got. It was very easy to hack and you can put up to around 90 games on it. I have about 80. I would give the nod to the Raspberry Pi though tbh for a few reasons. Obvious being, you also have Sega and SNES, atari, etc capability. Second, the bluetooth and controllers I have (8bitdo) is great. They run $30-$40 each though, I bought 2. The NES Classic's cord is like 2 feet. Mine came with a 3rd party wireless that has a split second lag (which makes the very challenging games impossible), and also will lose connection every now and then, resulting in certain death. They do have 8bitdo available now with an NES Classic Adapter. I dont want to spend another $60-$80 on controllers. Also, with NES Classic, you have to get up and press the reset button to change titles and/or save your game. With Retropie, it is all basically hot-keyed. However, I think I read that with the 8bitdo controllers, you can hot-key the reset button. So basically, if you want an NES Classic, get 1 or 2 8bitdo controllers. https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Controller-Bluetooth-Nintendo-Entertainment-System/dp/B01MTQ9QPB

To be honest, it would diminish fan-dom if my team went on a run like that. Most boston sports fans deep inside probably agree. You cant replace that first one, and the big games along the way. I am sure some of the playoff games, such as that raiders tuck rule game were more highly anticipated. Probably still was exciting for the runs vs carolina and philly. After that, it just seems expected and routine. The regular season is devoid of meaningful games. Playoffs... somewhat meaningful, but home playoffs games. If they lose, there is always next year. I am close friends with a few pats fans from ne. They dont seem to really get up for playoff games and superbowls like the past. For anyone else... the world stops at those events. For these people, its an excuse to don the brady jersey, gloat a couple days, then move on to next season that they feign caring. Living in ct in 2003, i used to root for the red sox a bit... as i loathe the yankees. Talking to red sox fans, we would all agree that being a yankees fan with the deck stacked and constant championship aspirations couldnt possibly be as fun as rooting for any other team. I wonder if they still agree. Its a diminishing returns thing. There are 21 year olds who know nothing else other than wild sports success. I think of this person as much less a fan than the old guard on boston who had to go through the crap. When things do turn south, these new generation of fans will have a lot of difficulty remaining engaged, and im sure many older fans have become a bit detached as well. The rallying cry is "bradys got 5 rings now!". Really not inspiring. They may try to claim that "this one is the sweetest"... but everyone knows it is not true. They will never again have those feelings and swings of those first runs.

That was nice of the players' families

The nfl is also a pinball machine now

With little research, I could probably write an essay on why/how buffalo is too small for the nfl, and how much more lucrative cities like toronto would be... they are most likely safe for the near and long term. The shadow of the stadium negotiation still looms a little bit, but i would say the pegulas' secrecy and silence on that front is a good sign. This article does not really make any valid points. He actually points at the attendance "problems" as a reason... ha.

I like the Pegulas a great deal... they all seem like nice, down to earth people for being a billionaire family. and I really appreciate the stability they provide these franchise in Buffalo. I also very much appreciate the resources provided to the teams... and take them at their word that they want to win championships. However, That does not give them a lifetime pass to continually fall short on the field. The Sabres, mainly due to Pegula's initial bumbling, are in the midst of their franchise-worst playoff drought... solely on their watch. They continue to refuse to employ someone to run the hockey organization, other than LaFontaine for 5 minutes before some kind of closed door disagreement ended that, and it was sealed shut by NDAs. They made the exact same mistake with the Bills, and I fear with current management, the team is headed toward darker days before the ship is righted. Like the Sabres, I feel the Bills need someone to run the football program. I fear we may have a form of Dan Snyder, who likes to be involved in, and make major decisions. The man with the money makes the rules, right? In both organizations, the most senior man on the operations side, is basically a glorified head scout. At what point does a drought fall on the Pegulas? Year 4 coming up for the Bills. We are almost through year 6 with the Sabres. Both teams desperately need a rudder IMO.

The Pegulas vs the Buffalo News have a 'blood feud' that stems back to when Pegula made the ludicrous suggestion that if TBN printed nothing but positive articles, Tim Connolly would play better. TBN made fun of him and it has been downhill since. WGR was in on it too. They started to play nice with the Sabres/Bills and as a result were given lots of access to Ted Black, Tim Murray, Whaley, and Pegula himself. WGR balances being critical and fair, while TBN is a bit one-tracked and vindictive. Also, that the three ring circus that the Bills pitched with Anthony Lynn and Doug Whaley was not the media's fault. That was piss-poor PR and a failure on the organization to provide a cohesive message. Self-inflicted wounds and it provided the media with lots of fodder. Either be secretive and be good at it with a closed ship... or just be straight forward. The bills try to be secretive, but with all the leaks and awful projection of their message, they end up with egg on their face.

Dont understand why the column would bring about such over the top criticism. It serves 2 purposes 1, to show what schopp is thinking pegula is thinking (which imo would be a good outlook) 2, to show how easy it could be to maybe put to rest the strange contentiousness between the bills and media. Even besides the adversarial role, often times the organization can appear foolish, even if they do have a plan. The column, if anything is pro-pegula and bills

Yes... the same folks who cherry pick excuses why they wouldnt want bill polian or tom coughlin "anywhere near" this organization.

Trust me. It has nothing to do with some sort of gratification of saying "I told you so" on a message board... I have been having this same conversation for a decade now and the organization has continue to fail to make significant changes, and has deliberately insulated itself from outside influence. This franchise is an all-time historically poor NFL franchise and needs significant building at its foundation. A green, although enthusiastic owner alone isn't going to do it. It seemed a no-brainer that Pegula would bring someone in to build the program and he simply kept the same lineage of executives/management. Nothing to do with being 'right' on a message board. I invest too much in season tickets, time, and emotion for such silliness. Instead of continuing to be 'right' on some message board, I would much rather go to a December home game with playoff implications (Not just staying on the in the hunt graphic one more week) than be eliminated by all logic by Thanksgiving. I know some members of the local media and they would love a chance to cover a good team. They don't enjoy the negativity. The Bills and Sabres are both in process of continuing franchise-long playoff droughts. I would like nothing more to be 'wrong' and have the Bills go on a great run. Ultimately, it is an internal locus of control on the Bills. Fans and media have nothing to do with it. Swapping out coaches and outsourcing all the blame has not helped in 17 years. Odds are strong that they wont magically get it right this time either. McDermott has me optimistic at this point, I like what I read, and generally liked his PC... but these guys lose a lot of luster once they drive off the lot and the footballs start flying.

lol, so it would just be a new shuffle, same result

I agree. The Jets and Miami games do nothing for me. It is less than a rivalry... dull. I would rather see a different opponent in the AFC. New England is more intense, just because it is the nature of a 'dynasty' like that and most of the AFC feels the same way anyway. I really hate the Division the Bills are stuck in. it's boring. That is 40% of the schedule every season and has been for 15 years. It has gotten stale. Sure, you have some rivalries league-wide... but mainly they are built on teams who happen to be good at the same time (Seattle/49ers)...

Also, add in that this franchise has a long history of vague responsibilities in the front office. They commit one grievous error after another, and simply outsource one scapegoat, everyone else takes one step to the left, and they keep the waters muddy. Everyone's alarms went off full blast when Whaley stammered and for good reason. It was easily preventable on the Bills' part. Instead, they appear as 'dysfunctional', then cry media

I do believe that they can go a long way with 'using' the media more to their advantage. Pegula has had a petty squabble with TBN since the day he arrived and was naive enough to think that TBN would agree to only print 'nice' stories... and their columns were preventing Tim Connolly from breaking out. Everyone agreed Rex needed to go... but they did it with such a lack of grace and direction in the public eye, it turned everyone back on the franchise and also made their GM look like a bumbling fool. It should be easy for a billion dollar organization to mitigate these disasters... and they predate Pegula as well

100% agree with these sentiments. It comes off and always has come off as an amateur outfit. It desperately needs coats of paint from professionals. Again, people dont want to hear it, but ultimately, team President should be accountable for this too. He does such an amazing job... why does the organization always suffer was bad PR 'incidents'. It isnt the media's fault either. It is 100x worse other places.

I would like it if they went with 4 conferences Lambeau Shula Buffalo Houston Cleveland Miami Pittsburgh Jacksonville Detroit Tampa Bay Cincinnati Carolina Chicago New Orleans Minnesota Atlanta Green Bay Tennessee Parcells Walsh New England Denver NY Giants Los Angeles Rams Washington Seattle Philadelphia Kansas City Baltimore Oakland Dallas San Francisco Indianapolis Los Angeles Chargers NY Jets Arizona It is treated more like NCAA football. Play each Division team 1x. rotate home/away year to year. Pair up 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 for an extra Divisional game to make 8 Divisional games. It would also keep teams at the top of the Division duking it out once more each season so you wouldnt lose the 'situational' rivalries that pop up. Then 4 from your other conference Division with typical home/away rotation, and 2/2 from each Division from the other conference with typical home/away rotation. Conference winners get byes. #2 and #3 in each division play in the wildcard round. Then play for the conference championships and re-seed for the final 4.

I have been in favor of this awhile. I like: 4 conferences, 8 teams.. play each team once, but pair up 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4 and so on for one extra game. Play 4 games vs your other afc conference... then 2 vs each nfc one Im sick of miami, ne, and the jets taking up like 40% of the schedule every season. Its boring.

He made an arm chopping motiin when he said russ brandon was business side only. Oh yeah... but then listed many scenarios that he would be involved... and how important it is that everyone needs to be involved in everything.

I have an open mind. It seems that Russ Brandon was (finally) far from the process, which has been my wish for almost a decade.