CodeMonkey

Based on my limited experience it was probably the lawyer that went to the family and not the other way around.

I bet it does. On the ceiling?

If it were possible without affecting the tv ratings at all, yes. But like you, I think it is way down the priority list. So far down in fact, as to basically not exist. They care about money, and tv ratings = money. They could not possibly care less, in my opinion, if some small market team like the Bills gets less rest between games than a popular team like the pats*.

If a bar serves a noticeably intoxicated person and that person dies and/or causes another person to die, then the bar can be sued. It has been like that for a very long time. This in theory is no different. If the family can prove this happened at the Ralph then I would think they have a case. I don't know what, if any, responsibility the establishment has other than not serving the person.

Because it is more important to the NFL to maximize TV ratings and therefore generate more revenue than it is to correct the schedule for time-between-games fairness.

Well to make your analogy the same, you would have had to have shot yourself in the foot ... on purpose ... and twice. So no, I would have no sympathy in that case. But I do see the point you were making, I just disagree with it

I think most understand the economic reasoning behind the TO series. But I believe it should get significant, not little, weight in this discussion. The reason being how can the Bills complain about a disadvantage some years regarding time between games when they knowingly and purposefully gave up one home game every season, which is a huge disadvantage. And not only once, they renewed the deal recently! If the Bills are concerned about disadvantages, they should cure themselves first before whining about scheduling.

I feel like an underachiever now because I only have one. I think for mine I used a bad word or phrase in a post that was not PG rated (and not filtered). IIRC at the time I didn't think the word/phrase was so bad (though to be honest I don't remember now what it was) but so be it. Kids can come here I believe so I was probably out of line.

Extremely embarrassing. As are the weekly posts during the season on how bad the officiating was biased against the Bills. What makes this particular one even worse is where it came from.

I could be persuaded to put money on 4 or better wins next season. Jets X 2, Browns, KC at home, Jags, Bucs. I can see 4 out of that mess.

I had missed that, thanks. According to that obvious marketing brochure ("countless constraints", really ), they do take "number of days off between games" into account. But right at the top, they list the overall challenge as "Develop a game schedule that maximizes television ratings and accommodates the teams and their fans" which states their main priority perfectly. I would love to have a more detailed look at it to see if things like nationwide popularity factor in to their maximize TV ratings constraint. Maybe I should try and get a job there and add a Bills positive bias to the formulas

I really have no use for sports writers and do not read their stuff, and I certainly do not follow any on Twitter or any other social media. I do not care about their opinions. I watch things like sportscenter to see scores and the highlights of things I missed. I generally don't even watch the talking heads on Sundays before games or during halftime. About the only sports opinions I read are on here

True. Liked I stated earlier, any third year computer science student could create that software (if it doesn't already exist, and it probably does).

People will cry every year.

With so few games to work with and profit being an extremely big motive, you may well be right if you mean they don't take after-the-bye into consideration at all.

Making a schedule, be it manually or done by software, comes down to what parameters are more important than others. Good, popular, large market teams playing in prime time is a high priority. What teams play more or less games against teams after their bye, is a much lower priority. So if a team needs to get "screwed" on the after-the-bye parameter in order for the overall schedule to put the better teams in a position to drive up profits, then so be it. With a relatively small number of teams and a very small number of games, the likelihood of this happening is increased. It's a pretty simple scheduling concept.

Quite frankly the easiest way to make it fair would be to eliminate the bye week entirely. It's only purpose is to extend the TV schedule by a week. But scheduling software like this could be done by any third year computer science student. I suspect the NFL could afford that expense if they wanted to. But, they don't want to. Their mission is simply to make as much money as possible. And their current scheduling method works just fine for that.

Better, more popular, teams playing during prime hours means higher TV ratings which translates to more money (via future TV contracts) as well as licensed products purchases etc. Taking this into account would be a higher priority to me if I were the NFL than worrying about if some teams play more teams off their bye than others. The fact that there even is a bye week, which extends the season by one more week (for extra TV) shows that. If there were no bye weeks at all, having "fair" schedules would be that much easier. But the NFL, like any good corporation, wants to maximize profits so the bye stays.

If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that not just draft order be biased based on the teams previous season standings, but the Bye-Bias and strength of schedule as well (as in the lower in the standings the team is the easier the schedule is made the next season)? That's an interesting concept. But I would think the draft bias would be enough to achieve parity if a team didn't have it's head up its ass. Plus as mentioned before, the primary concern of the NFL is making money, not achieving parity.

Neither of these two things help the reporters argument, so ...

So to summarize, the schedulers hate the Bills, the refs hate the Bills, King Roger hates the Bills, the media hates the Bills. Did I forget anyone? I expect to see whining from some fans, but to see it from the Bills media outlet a month before camp even opens is sad.

"Losers lose and make excuses--winners win."

Or try the non-adversarial approach of suggesting setting an early season timeline to negotiate a longer term deal while he plays under the tag this season. Many different ways to go about it. What's happening now is not good for either side.

A) No one knows what the Bills have or don't have this season. Too much new and/or unknown. B) Writers have to write something. An article stating " I don't know, I'll let you know after preseason" would probably get them on the unemployment line. C) After the last 13 years of suck, predicting a 14th year is the safe bet.

It astounds me that there are not more female posters here.