May Day 10

I hate Eichel and was a very early adopter of that. Thought they should have (needed to) trade him years ago. The team is way more likeable without him on it. The dynamics of the team with him as the captain must have been awful.

Wentz is the new Sam Bradford. Everyone seems to think they can make him work for them.

I dont think I completely agree. IMO it would have been AAC or bust and its clear why the AAC made their choices. CUSA seems like a downgrade at this point and Sun Belt makes zero sense geographically for the reward. MAC seems like a pretty good safe-haven for now. Can compete near the top in both sports. Geographically optimal. Wait-and-see. hopefully grow. As you said, the CUSA is a sinking ship. There is going to be more shake-up in the coming years. We may see a mid-major shake-up that sees a some of these conferences collaborating and coming together. Maybe a few more members of the AAC get absorbed and the conference decides they would like to add to its Northeast/Mid-west footprint.

Brandon was with the marlins in 97 I believe as a low level employee Came to the bills after that. To his credit, he sold the heck out of premium seats when they were re-doing the lease and major reno... and was a trailblazer in monetizing and regionalizing training camp (although that trend has almost fully receded). Ralph loved him and thought he was a hard worker and innovator. Brandon rested on those laurels the remainder of his career. In ralph's advanced age he gave him the keys to the kingdom. Brandon really wanted to be a pro sports gm and Ralph even had butler showing him the ropes.

Yeah, it does appear that Gard confronts Howard in a somewhat aggressive posture. People piled in there. Words were said, coach threw a punch, got in trouble for it. should be end of story, IMO.

Im personally rooting for the USFL to become a longer term league. Im sick of the XFL, McMahon's delusion that he could create a competitor to the NFL, the Rock, Russ Brandon, etc... I like the USFL teams in place. The format seems like it could be a cool league. I also agree with a few posts above... why are these leagues done in 2's? IMO, if the NFL thinks they need a development league and they think it can turn a profit, then one will happen. Until then, they will allow these investors to take all the risk and probably fizzle out. They have their cake and get to eat it too with NCAA football. They dont need to spend any money on the talent and reap the rewards.

Im close friends with someone who worked in the FO in the early 00s... even in his actual Director of Marketing days and the rumblings around the office was he was relating with a secretary (who was/is like a 4/10). I knew of this long before the business with PS&E and that news didn't surprise us.

"People would ask, 'What are the opportunities to look at the game through a different lens from a player development standpoint?'" Brandon told ESPN. "'How can you be an incubator or an accelerant in many different verticals, from officiating to rules innovations to playing surfaces, to player development?' You can go on and on." Lol, this wind bag of middle management speak. He has always been a guy who sounds like he is fresh out of a management 101 course at a local college who tries to sound impressive by crowbarring as many terms as possible into everything. And he "sold us" nothing. The lawless party atmosphere and cheap tickets sold the games.

I have more interest than ever maybe. I have an appreciation for NFL history now too and there is so much great stuff out there from the 50s-on. Its wonderful that the Bills are relevant and a part of the league. It no longer feels like I am watching something my favorite team has become untethered to. The sport itself is highly entertaining. It actually seems to be entering somewhat of a Golden Era with all these ridiculous young quarterbacks.

Wasn't a bad game, really. Wasn't a knock your socks off memorable superbowl... but it was a tight competitive game. I'd take 10 of those before one of those 80s/90s mcneely/Tyson like games

When he first was introduced, I had figured/expected Lalo to have a pretty rapid and violent demise... but man, he became one of the best characters in a universe loaded with great ones.

Going in to the show, I was intrigued. I have always been an Odenkirk fan... but I figured it would be a somewhat independent show centered around Saul... which was fine. I did not expect it to be a full-on prequel to Breaking Bad. It is nearly as good. At some points it almost feels like it is better. Regardless though, thusfar it is a near perfect execution of a prequel to a show that didnt need one. It also seemed impossible to maintain that standard.

Niagara Cafe. Awhile back I worked at a hotel downtown where the visiting teams stayed who were playing the bisons. Without fail all the Latin American players would bee-line to that place the minute they arrived. Imo that is the best endorsement you can possibly see. Italian, I would do either Fortunas in Niagara Falls or Ilio D'Paolos

Was going to post this. Im sure the NFL owners agreed to make Spygate go away to benefit the league as a whole and the Patriots agreed that the nonsense was over. This football thing happened and behind closed doors the other owners were irate. Deflategate was in some ways a correction on spygate leniency.

Botterill too. And you can argue Kruger and Adyms until this past Summer. There isnt/wasnt much choice to do what they have done. The tear-down is also the easy part. The challenge is actually improving on the NHL stage. I really do hope we see it next season. The prospect of having a team of Dahlin, Thompson, Cozens, Krebs, Quinn, Paterka, Power, Samuelsson, Mittelstadt, Tuch, Skinner and UPK may be exciting. You would also hope that the analytics team there can find the best buys of Free-Agency. The team does need a little bit of sandpaper in their organization. Botterill was completely averse to that and Adams hasnt done much to fix that yet.

Luck is an interesting case. His career was very short and had injury issues. They really never got rolling/realized his potential. Had some good seasons and a decent playoff run to lose to the Pats in the AFCC What if they chose to clear cap that tank season and give manning the tools to win? Manning and the broncos got more done the next 4 seasons than luck and the Colts did his entire career.

My first reaction the the Miami and Cleveland allegations were that a lottery is necessary Thinking about it though. No. I'm not sure tanking has ever worked. There is still a lot of luck involved, and more often than not, the 1OA player is not the best nfl player chosen. Even if it works there is a lot of luck involved. Look at Andrew luck and the Colts. If you go "full tank", you are digging a deeper hole to build out of. I like the bills for the last Tyrod and allens rookie year and flores' dolphins. Lose some position in the draft, but building a competitive culture and learning how to win seems to be more valuable

Feliciano is from the NYC area. I get why he would be/could be turned off by Buffalo pizza..... or at least be one of those people who have so much pride in their local fare, they put down others' attempts. The older I get, the more I think I prefer the NY style to be honest over the sloppy Buffalo style, although its tough to really poop on the quality and variety of Buffalo pizza. Ive lived in a number of places and pizza can really be awful.

At what point do we question Mittelstadt's ability to physically hold up to the NHL? I do agree that on paper, things seem to be looking promising for pulling out of the rut... but they have been here before. They need to actually pull out of the rut before congratulations are in order. That's the hard part. Prospects/young players always appear to be awesome until you drive off the lot with them. With that said, it isn't hard to imagine a youth influx next year along with some savvy FA buys based on data translating to actual wins and competing This season is a joke though with all the postponements, covid 'injuries', etc.

Just saw that they apparently mashed their recruiting class. Thats great news.

Definitely not. They might have pretended at first in order to keep people engaged and happy... but I'm sure the stadium demands would come quickly and would be unreasonable. This would give them their pretense and buy them enough time to relocate. It also helped our case that the paint was barely dry on the renovations and the lease extension when the team went up for sale.

Ha agreed Part of the awesomeness of the show is how leveraged the Byrds were on all fronts, and were relatively helpless... but managed to keep all the plates spinning in the air. But now we are at the point where leaders of the FBI bend to Wendy Byrd's will because she makes a mean face at them.

Its tough. Who is out there right now? Tough time to find a replacement. Les Miles? Orgeron?

This is (another) lost season. Throw away season I guess. They really need to take some sort of step next season. Id say >80 points is reasonable in a parity driven league like this that has shootouts and points for losses. The last full season NHL only had 7 teams come in below 80 points. More than a reasonable expectation. The season after that, they really need to be in the 90s. Be in the conversation for the Wild Card spot(s) until at least the last weeks of the season. Show they are able to compete and are an average NHL team in year (4?) of this rebuild and of Adyms. If next year begins and they flounder. Whatever the reasons/excuses. Losing streaks mount up, etc. I think they really need to make changes. I cant tolerate 'they are supposed to be bad', 'what did you expect' much longer, and sick of being in year 1 of a perpetual 4 year rebuild.

I hate this story and it is revisionist. All of us here were onto Bon Jovi and his connections to MLSE and toronto and rejected him long before Trump. The intention by all parties, likely even preference of the NFL itself was for Rogers and/or MLSE group with Bon Jovi as the friendly face to buy the Bills and move them to Toronto. It was in the works/hopes since the mid-2000s and even Ralph himself was culpable. Being in tune and obsessed with our team's future here, we were onto Bon Jovi and called it for what it was. Trump had nothing to do with it, despite him claiming so. I could see him jumping on board after the fact and maybe printing some flyers or helping that group out. Also, the biggest factor was the existence of the Pegula family and them having a ton of liquid cash available to them that could not be reasonably outbid. Anything Bon Jovi said at any point about keeping the Bills in Buffalo is lies to save face and to keep his own PR in case of another opportunity.