May Day 10

If you want to make everything perfect and fair from a players' standpoint... sure. Scrap the CBA and make every player an independent contractor. Every decent player will have a guaranteed contract and everybody will be a UFA whenever their contract is up. No draft, no trades, no salary cap, no franchise tags, etc. We will probably see a huge stratification of the league and teams like the Bills will not be able to compete on any sort of consistent basis (if they ever could). While not perfect, the system now overall is fair and it promotes league growth. The players get a % of the revenue and it is facilitated between a cap roof and cap floor.

If you still had a cap, it would be a bit unfair to the veteran players who earned their way through service term, as every dollar that gets added to the typical ELCs would come out of their potential pay. You would probably see quite a bit more early retirement and shorter career spans. Because of this, players in the NFLPA and their leadership would probably have abolishing the draft as an extremely low priority in their CBA negotiation wish-list. They actually bargained the ELC structure down for incoming players in more recent years. It was bad before, i cant imagine if incoming players had all the leverage a UFA enjoys, if not more because you are bidding on potential and speculation.

It could probably be negotiated out of a CBA. Im sure it would be a hill owners certainly die on as competing with contracts for upcoming draft picks would be a disaster and a cap would be unsustainable without ELCs. Ive never seen it as something players' associations have ever have gone after or even brought to the table. It is probably a thrilling process for many players. Overall it would be bad for the parity of the league and it would grow weaker and turn into haves and have-nots financially and the Bills, Browns, Steelers, Lions, Packers, etc would be sent into oblivion.

I dislike the finale. In fact, I didnt even like the last 3-4 seasons so much. I realize that isnt a popular opinion. I mean, it had its moments and we loved some of the characters, but really it was a lot that went nowhere, and a lot of plot lines just fizzled. The main reason I hung on until the end was to see how it ended. Then, they really didnt end it, at least in any conventional way. I think Tony got shot, based on the forensic frame by frame analysis we have seen online for years. Thank god for people who can break down a screen by screen forensic analysis of who is shown from what point of view in sequential order in order to figure out what in the hell happened.... as opposed to actually showing it on the show.

I have only been watching the box scores. The box scores look better

I dont believe they have any interest in doing that. That AA league was really aligning themselves with this, practically begging. The NFL has a farm league right now that is fully funded. The players dont get paid.

best way to make a ton of money is to merge with whatever XFL exists at the time

Terrible. Sux having a gm who has no business sitting in that position

Its going to be a hot ticket I think

Its tough. I didnt 'dislike' many Bills that come to mind. The top one I guess is Trent Edwards. Once things were going south he really came across as a baby in his interviews and such and he became such a soft, low-compete player as a QB. The one who I underappreciated the most, or never really had a positive opinion of, despite his place in the history of the team stat-wise was Aaron Schoebel. The guy got like 80 sacks and had 14 one season, and I can't say I can recall any particular play or highlight of his. I really didnt like Rian Lindell either. Nothing against the guy...but the NFL had evolved into the league where nearly every kicker can boot 50+ yarders pretty regularly and Lindell was still a decent 1990s kicker. That carried over a bit with Carpenter although he had a little more of a leg, but they still burned a roster spot on a kicker who can get touchbacks Oh. I hated Brad Smith. Again, not the guy, just his roster spot waste. They would bring him out for a wild cat. The entire stadium knew the play, and he would be tackled for a loss. yay

IMO, the best scenario in both terms of cost and logistics is to build a new, reasonably priced stadium somewhere on the current campus/nearby lots. They should have an overhanging roof of some sort with the thing engineered to reduce wind. The infrastructure is there, its county land. The delta between a renovation and a new facility would not be large enough to justify a renovation.

NFL Stadiums do nothing to rejuvenate a municipality. Sometimes owners pine for a 'retail shopping area' built within the stadium funding which they directly benefit from. That can be built without a stadium. If you have 70,000 people in downtown NF coming or leaving around the same window of time, it is going to be a horrific traffic nightmare. It is a landlocked peninsula of sorts without good arteries to get out of there (and Im sure the GI bridges and NF Boulevard would also be at a standstill) and people would be jumping in the river instead of sitting on the Robert Moses. I guess if we pay more billions we can just build highways. Niagara Falls has been mismanaged by corruption and terrible politicians for decades and decades. Gifting them a football stadium would change nothing. Imagining Niagara County ponying up any percentage of the money also seems like an impossibility. A stadium wouldnt help downtown either. You need a Fortune 500 company (or 2) to headquarter down there. It is cart before the horse. An MLB stadium with 81 dates could be a different story if there were decent attendance. I also think a nice amphitheater would work out better than a Football Stadium because you would get a ton of dates between May and September. You would put Darien Lake out of business, attract new acts, and other possibilities.

Teams at #30 dont move to 4. They would probably need to make a series of moves to incrementally climb up the draft board. The aggregate being too pricey

Ullmark is a UFA. he is a goner. And if they brought in Rutherford and Karmanos, then yes, I would defer to their wisdom and experience on Granato, and feel overall better about the organization. Adams and Pegula? lol. This organization is such a heavy lift right now. Zero trust going at it with zero experience anywhere (in the places that are actually staffed). I want nobody there to witness a few good games or even a good month and decide that the ship is righted. Its stunning to me that the Pegulas decided to make Kruger the 5th highest paid coach in the NHL when they hired him.

It seems that the team and league are optimistic. I believe if all things go accordingly, there will be a full stadium by opening day. However, some of these variants are a bit troubling, and if the right variant gets out it could undermine the whole progress made by vaccination.

I would say Montour is a big part of the 'turnaround'. He cant wait to get out of here. Also guessing Ullmark is counting down the days. The team has been doubling down on inexperience or giving a shot for too many years. They need someone, somewhere with real NHL experience in their roles. They are in need of something significant to happen in their organization. I also think it will be very difficult to continue this trend. It is better than an 18 game losing streak, but their R wins are against the Flyers who are a train wreck currently and the Devils, who the Sabres should be 10x better than on paper. I dont mean to disqualify their wins, but waiting to see what happens after the deadline and how they play against the real teams. They have shown little small-sample-size glimpses in the past that mean nothing and seem to give ownership an excuse to stick with the status-quo and resist much needed changes. The league is designed to make almost every team believe they are over .500 and 'decent'. The Sabres are up against some really good front offices and coaches in their (typical) division. Going at it with Don Granato and Kevyn Adams isn't going to be competitive.

or its a group of players trying to play their way out of here at the deadline and also for their UFA. Been fooled before. Organization still sucks. Stick with Granato and pretend everything is fine on the cheap, we will be right back here in a year.

A renovation to Rich Stadium would be unlike anything that has previously taken place and quite possibly could displace the team for a portion of a season (or more). Maybe the closest thing was the 1998 renovation when they added the clubs. It would basically be rebuilding a new stadium in-place, much like they did in Chicago, Green Bay, and Kansas City. The latest thing in 2013 or whatever, was largely cosmetic.

Pilot Field was originally designed, ready to remove the green roof and put in another deck and also expand the right field bleachers into more and permanent seating. Buffalo was a finalist, along with Denver, Washington DC, and (Orlando/Miami/St Petersburg) (it was a no secret 1 of the teams was going to be put in a Florida location, it was just a matter of which one. Right around the time that the Finalists were announced, I believe Rich publicly stated reservations about the cost of doing business as an MLB team including the $95 million expansion fee. I dont believe the Riches really pursued it down to the wire. It would have been a disaster here anyway and they may have been relocated by now. Buffalo is/was too small for MLB with how the economics of the league are set. It would be a dream for me and I would almost certainly be a STH. The corporate dollars are not there, and the RSN fees would not be anywhere near competitive. The Riches have enough $ to sustain losses, but they don't really seem to be willing to get their noses dirty (were very silent during Sabres and Bills sales). I still hold out hope for a miracle of a fortune 500 or 2 downtown with a revival and an MLB team. Its a little known story, but apparently before all that, the Riches had dinner with the owner of the SF Giants. The Giants' owner was bitching about Candlestick Park as well as the weather they had to deal with playing there. The riches proposed moving or sharing the team in Buffalo and calling them the New York Giants. There were a few meetings on that but it didnt get too far.

What the city could use is a real brick and mortar amphitheater downtown. That could bring a lot of people down there multiple times a week during the Summer months.

I would prefer renovating the current stadium. I love the sightlines and I believe the NFL experience there is truly unique and it is a draw for fans of other teams. We have history there. I like the elements. I love Bills games, they are hopefully going to remain competitive and game experience will be that much better. I am proud of what we have and every year that is preserved it will be more and more special and more of an attraction. Second choice is an outdoor stadium with more of a roof in an adjacent parking lot in OP. Third choice would be the outdoor stadium with roof downtown. Fourth choice is an indoor stadium but with an open-air feel to it with natural light and a unique setup (that would be downtown no matter what IMO) Last choice would be a Ford Field style sterile indoor where it feels like the games are played in about 80% light and every single game looks the same, devoid of atmosphere. I dont think retractable is a realistic possibility for the cost and the climate.

I think everyone on the planet gets it, with the exception of 2 people. There are rumors ripping around that Adams is hiring Peter Karmanos' son as AGM... but there is a package deal with Jim Rutherford to be some sort of VP/Advisor/etc. Right now Rutherford and the Pegulas are negotiating the parameters of ownership involvement and Rutherford is tentative about jumping in because of that.

OK, I did say McDermott was a lucky hire. That is a bit un-fair. Credit is deserved to some degree. A head coach in the NFL is very similar to a team-president role in the NHL. They seem to have nailed it with McDermott who radiated out with Beane and everything else. They tried the same model in the NHL which is laughable. Krueger was empowered like an NFL coach would (NHL coaches mostly have a short shelf-life). They went with a guy Krueger and the Pegulas liked working with as a GM, and went with some extreme cut-back efficiency model. Not to mention Krueger's questionable/non-existent track record in the NHL. I have said it before, but building an NHL organization takes longer and is a bit more challenging than the NFL. Drafting 17-18 year old kids from all over the world playing in different levels of competition is tough. Then the whole development thing. On the NHL-level, salary mistakes can haunt you for 8 years. Not saying it is 'easier to win' in the NFL, you can just hire a coach and turn everything over within 2 years.

Not exactly true. LaFontaine was an un-paid advisor for the Islanders to assist his good friend Neil Smith who was hired as GM. That lasted a month and Neil Smith was let go by dysfunctional ownership who hired Garth Snow as GM and LaFontaine walked away.

For me, it was surprising the pegulas went into buying the Sabres cold. Didn't really have any plan or any help. If it were me, I would be day 1 introducing my team president who was going to right the course of the franchise. So they didn't and every move since then has been terrible and made at the wrong time. When they were buying the Bills, I was certain they learned their lesson and had someone on their team who was going to come in and build the bills organization that was sitting on moth balls in Ralph Wilson's closet for 20 years. Instead, no plan. They just decided to continue with russ brandon as team president because he knew his way around the building and that was impressive. Doug Marrone walking away should have been a wake up call and the bills showed their belly for the pegulas to make absolute change. Instead they allowed russ brandon to help steer them into more bad decisions, culminating with an embarrassing pr run, capped with whaley's "privy fest". They got McDermott which seems to be a stroke of luck. He seems to have been clear about walling off russ brandon and the pegulas.