May Day 10

That team will always be a Tyreek Hill pulled hamstring away from complete disaster. If they can hold it all together, gel, and get fortunate with injuries, they are absolutely in the top class.

I like Martin. Bad punting is a pet peeve of mine, an inexcusable deficiency, and drives me up the wall. I thought he was very solid.

The Jets and Patriots would actually give the Bills fits at certain points in their '90s run'. Based on just my memory, they would usually thump the Colts pretty well.

The NFL is a wildly profitable venture. I can be an NFL owner and spend to the cap and make a load of money... Should the owner get to hoard all the revenue/profit? Or should a fair percentage of it go to the players who are getting their heads bashed in and joints ground to dust? Baseball is a different enigma as it is an un-capped league with little guard rails for someone like a Cohen or George Steinbrenner madly spending to amass all stars. NFL, NHL, and NBA have spending tied to overall revenue and the players are due a % of that (actually not sure what NBA system entails).

I haven't really trashed the project yet... But all these unnecessary angles, giant facades, and voids really bother me. Im not a fan of this

They have given very little though other than some very broad/general concept art designs. I wouldn't even classify these as renderings. We really have seen nothing other than some far-away shots of the seating area, the roof, and some of the facade. No amenities or specific seating areas/concepts have been provided at all.

I don't like how blocky and segmented the seating areas appear, along with voids. Those gigantic blue facades seem unsightly too.

If the Bills gave Poyer the money and term he wanted at the beginning of the season, he would appear perfectly content. The problem is, at his age, and with the Bills' cap situation, signing him at that money and term is a poor investment. Poyer does deserve it. He was fantastic here and played through a lot of ouchies. Love the player and his place in the history of this team.

This was all part of my original comment referring to my knee jerk feelings on those signings. When we got those guys, Hyde in particular, I saw a castoff/unwanted safety from Green Bay. Possible special-teamer. Same-old Bills. Poyer didnt move the needle for me either. Fast-forward to today and they are both wall-of-famers. I dont mean to imply that will always be the case, or even with Anderson... but with this coach, especially with the defensive backfield, I am willing to let them do their thing. I am hesitant to criticize an acquisition lest be made the fool (again).

I laughed at both the Hyde and poyer acquisitions. I know nothing

Indoor clubs are terrible. Its like you are watching the game from somewhere else (so I have heard). The sideline clubs are great, although pricey. You get some heat and a great vantage point. The indoor areas are nice, especially for breaks for the bathroom and concessions. One of my favorite things about them is they remain open for quite a bit following the game. You can sit there, grab a slice of pizza or 2, and watch the 4PM games for awhile until traffic clears.

We also don't have as much of the downtown residency that a typical city enjoys. We are largely a spread out suburban region with a somewhat poor downtown population spread away from downtown proper. If we had a lot of people living downtown in a sustaining community with grocery stores, etc, things like an MLB pipe dream or more anchor tenants in the arena would be feasible. People aren't in a hurry to drive 25 minutes from West Seneca to watch an Arena football game. Especially if they just did so the other night for a Sabres game. Not to mention finding parking and worrying about traffic getting out of there.

I agree on schopp. Overall, I appreciate his approach to sports. Everything needs to be backed up and proven. Nobody has any time to suffer through some fan's trade proposal for connor mcdavid. But man, I can't listen to the constant gambling and fantasy talk. It's just boring radio. Maybe have an hour dedicated show to it or something.

Sal and White would be a terrible combination. I also agree that I dont think his career/other obligations would allow him to be a 6-10 daily host.

I trust Lee Smith's opinion. Comes across as a smart and grounded guy. Has experience in this room. I'm cool with what he says.

Some version of this would be fine IMO. Its an unpopular take, but I think NFL games are very well officiated. Its an impossible job and these guys do it as well as humanly possible. Mistakes happen, its the human element and part of sports.

Mahomes is a freakishly good quarterback. He has the MVPs and Lombardis. Its unimpeachible. Brady wasnt spectacular at all early in his career. He was a decent game manager, but New England had great special teams, defense, and coaching (and maybe a little something else*) that got them through that first superbowl and the early 00s. My eyeballs saw that Payton Manning was 10x better as a QB but was shouted down due to 'rings'. Brady really never showed any superlative skill. He was just really well prepared, dedicated himself to his craft, and had ice in his veins. Belichick out-coached the opposition nearly every game too. Then you add the various bending of the rules allegations, and brady's wooden public persona. It is tough to like him. I just dont know why we couldnt have Scantling, JuJu, and/or Toney. They gave Josh crap to work with this year.

For MLB, I would shake the whole thing up now they have the universal DH. Put the cross-town and regional rivals in the same Division: Mets/Yankees, Orioles/Nationals, Cleveland/Cincinnati, Tampa/Marlins, etc... I don't mind seeing the current # of teams in. 162 games is a long season, and the more teams with meaningful games for the stretch-run, the better. NHL is trashed. Not sure what they did with the Divisional alignment, names, and playoff format, but woof. Go immediately to the 3-2-1-0 points system. Change out of the current Division-heavy playoff system where you only play some divisional opponents 3 times (while playing an irrelevant team in the other conference 2x). I think the NHL could do the 8-Division format the NFL has with 2 conferences. Play each team in your division 8x, other 3 divisions in conference 3x each, and other conference 1x. That would be a 76 game schedule which I think is fine. If they want those 6 extra games, blend them into the rest of the conference or Division on a rotating basis. They could also choose to play 2 divisions in the other conference in a home/away, flip-flopping every year with the other 2 divisions. Division winner makes the playoffs, 4 wild-cards in each conference. Seeded 1-8 in each conference for round 1. After Round 1, seed the remaining teams 1-8, regardless of conference, and play it out. That way, any NHL Final is possible. NBA, Im not sure, I dont follow it close enough, but I think they are doing a good job. That play-in round concept is neat. NFL I am torn. I like the 4 team Divisions, but Im entirely bored with the Jets, Dolphins, and Patriots. I was fine with 12 teams making it, although I dont hate the idea of 2 additional teams. I do dislike the current format of only 1 team getting the top seed as well as the bye. I honestly would think about giving the choice to the #1 seed: Bye OR top-seed/home field.

I'm tired of the afc east as well. The nfl alignment as a whole is stale and has been the same for 20+ years.

I was spoke to a lot of football fans in the past few months and they say mahomes is like Otto Graham, Allen is Bobby Layne, burrow ya tittle, and Herbert norm van brocklin

I went last year. I thought it was good. I saw them back in the 80s as a kid and this time it didn't seem to have quite the hilarity.

I strongly disagree with this. I probably watched about 98% of every minute of every Sabres game from about 1987-maybe 2013. Win or lose, bankruptcy, even eliminated from the playoffs. Long time multiple-decade season ticket holder too. There was a time that it was not worth it to watch anymore. Through the slog of some of the end of the Ruff/Regier era. Boring uncompetitive hockey, and then the tank. Why bother. I began to miss a lot of games, and I didn't miss watching... Mind you, this coincided with having kids too. In the Phil Housley and Kruger time, I think I missed entire seasons other than attending a few games. I was a very early adopter of knowing who Jack Eichel really is and it bled into the entire organization, and no manager knew how to handle it or step up to him. The 3-hour time commitment of watching an irrelevant hockey team in an irrelevant game where nothing interesting will happen just wasn't worth it. Going to the game was even worse, even for free and I got rid of my season tickets. I like this team and direction, however, it is still hard for me to get back into that habit of watching entire games 82 times at 3 hours/pop. I have issues with the NHL product as a whole too. I tend to follow how they are doing on the ESPN app... and if its close in the 3rd I will tune in. I have been to about 6 games this season (and also jumped in as a STH because a great location was available and the Sabres wined and dined me)

This is the biggest factor IMO. The team fell into an artificial demand trap. Golisano slashed STH pricing at the perfect time. The team went on 2 deep runs and the ticket pricing was a huge value. In 2007 they sold out of STH because you could literally sell only the Leafs games and finance the rest of the season. They slowly but surely (some increases were somewhat aggressive) increased the pricing. People did not want to miss out as there was a 2-5K person waiting list for season tickets, and the box-office pricing was oppressive. There was a FOMO for the STH. People were ready to start bailing at a few junctures, but there were massive moments and the STH continued with FOMO. First was when Pegula bought the team. People were fed up with status quo and he came in promising resources we never were able to enjoy. Huge hooplah. Then, people got sick of it again with Regier/Ruff and we had the master plan of getting McDavid and building a Chicago/Pittsburgh type dynasty. Eichel came along, with a few other splashes and we were energized. People got sick of it, then the promise of Eichel and Dahlin.... cant miss! However, this last juncture, there was no hope left to sell. Just before Covid, STH finally started to bail and it was clear the STH waiting list were electing NOT to buy season tickets. All along, the Sabres aggressively increased the pricing based on a sold out STH base. Once that bubble burst, it is a huge challenge to get it back at these prices in this area. Ticket prices are actually higher here in many price levels than they are in many large markets, including teams who have won recent Stanley Cups. I think the Sabres need to slash pricing, at least in some categories to get the base built, fill the building, make it fun, then build on that, again increase pricing.... and this time, act like they value their STH (I bailed in 2019 due to being neglected since Ted Black was sent packing for that snake Russ Brandon, I returned this season and it is a completely different animal).

I was a DTV subscriber for years. I did appreciate the ability to speak to a friendly person every year, and get my bill down to a reasonable amount, and also some free premium stations for a few months. AT&T took over and all the charm went away. They acted like all the other telecoms. They had me and would take whatever $ they could get away with. I looked at my bill. Im 'renting' about $40 in equipment alone every month, along with all sorts of other service fees for those. Plus the service itself. Why am I doing this? About 2015, we took the plunge and went all streaming. I'll never go back. I tried both Hulu Live and YouTube TV. YouTube TV is a little better, mainly due to the interface. We have Netflix, and my Verizon Phone plan includes Hulu, ESPN+, and Disney+. We do not have a TV subscription service at this time. I borrow my FIL's Spectrum password and can log into any of the apps to get content and live TV. My TV consumption has turned into a life of 'on-demand'. Its liberating in my busy life. Any of these services, you can just subscribe to, or cancel with the click of a button. No annoying retention, no contracts, no difficulty. You can also just log in and watch TV from any device you have. We did beef up our Spectrum Internet and purchased a good modem and router (so we dont have to lease them from Spectrum). We have had 3+ TVs, phones, tablets all on at once and never have we had any sort of internet issues. There are a few inconveniences. The Sabres/MSG is annoying. They need to get off that platform. You can only get it through Fubo TV I think. I watch it on the MSG Go app. Sports though are these telecoms' last grip on owning the monopoly, so I am not going to allow whoever owns MSG to bully me into paying Spectrum or Directv money. We watch much less live television like the News, but honestly, I don't see that as a bad thing at all.