Metal Man

Right, the bolded part of your statement is exactly what I said. The OP is about should 12th man be changed to that on the wall of fame. IMHO the answer is no because 12th man is on the wall for the impact the Bills fans actually in that stadium have made during successful Bills seasons. What is on the wall has nothing to do with what the world thinks about Bills fans, it is a nod to everyone who has been at a Bills game and cheered their guts out for the team. I have no issue with the term Bills Mafia at all. The Seahawks and their theft of 12th man can go pound sand, still doesn't change what we as fans accomplished in our stadium.

No. The 12th man is representative of how the fans attending the game could affect the outcome and essentially be another member of the team. This was especially true during the Super Bowl runs. Bills Mafia is just a generic term for Bills fans who at anytime could be anywhere in the world.

They started talking about enforcing the open container on the surrounding streets several years ago. I have come down from parking near Kettles many times with a beer since then. Like you mentioned above I always suspected that as long as you weren't acting the drunken fool they wouldn't go out of their way to hassle you.

Would be nice to think that Bills fans are on their way to passing Steelers fans as the best travelers in the NFL.

Based on the thread that Jack posted, This other thread about Nashville and the word on the street there should be somewhere around 15 thousand Bills fans in attendance for this game. That being said I am expecting to see a lot of Bills tailgates all over the place that morning.

People who are always trying to speculate that a different draft pick or a different play call would have definitely changed something in the Bills favor are falling into believing the fallacy of a predetermined outcome. There are always way too many variables involved that could have changed the outcome to assume one change would make a difference. The we should have drafted Mahomes crew is a prime example of this. Just saying that if the Bills had taken him doesn't guarantee that the Bills would be seeing the same results. Would he have played right away, who knows how much that year sitting helped his development? Would he have been successful in whatever offense the Bills put him in? Would he have had enough talent around him? We will never know the answer so to sit around and speculate that the Bills somehow messed up there is wasted energy.

The best idea I've heard floated was a 17 game season where the extra game is played on a neutral site. Would give the NFL 16 games to schedule in other locations like England, Germany, Mexico... and even cities in the US like San Antonio or maybe throw a bone to somewhere like St Louis and San Diego. The NFL still gets their growing the game events and no one has to give up a home game to achieve it.

They went pretty high on Gilmore, but I get what you're saying. That definitely was an anomaly as chasing the high end FAs is usually not what they do.

I think the OP needs to check his math. Seems like somehow there are a lot more losses than wins in his record predictions.

They were advertising it during the national broadcast of the Saints/Chargers game yesterday so it is probably safe to assume you will be happy.

There is way more to it than just the players. Personnel packages, formations, play book, and even basic game strategy aren't employed normally at all in the preseason. Not sure how you can judge a team by a contest where almost all the head coaches would go for a 2 point conversion instead of taking a chance at a tie or kick a field goal down 7 late in the game just to give the back up kicker some work. Just about everyone seems to understand that the preseason is just a glorified scrimmage. Practice and evaluation take precedent over winning for every team in the league during these games.

Booked the trip down but don't have tickets to the game yet. Right now the resale value is pretty nuts so I imagine a lot of people have been scooping them up. Hopefully demand will drop a bit as the date gets closer.

In the mid/late 80s my high school had a charity event where some of the Bills played basketball against a team of our faculty. A few years ago when going through some old boxes I found the program with a bunch of autographs on it and I didn't recognize most of the names. I can't recall who any of them were now though which probably goes to show how obscure they all really were.

That is an interesting thought. We see that the Russians are experimenting with creatures from the upside down so maybe there is some cross DNA stuff to make some kind of "super soldier"?

I really thought that big Russian soldier that kept fighting Hopper was going to turn out to be a robot. Especially when at the very start he was able to just hold up that other man by the throat until he choked to death.

It has lost a lot since Artie for sure. Those years were Howard's best IMHO. I still listen every day. I have an hour commute to work so it is a good time burner. I listen on demand a day or so late though which is nice because anytime there are segments I don't like or that are annoying me I can skip over them. The Dirt is fantastic, loved that book.

I think people were hoping for a little more substance around the transcripts, like some insight and thoughts mixed in with the actual interview. I have the book now. It isn't as bad as the reviews were making it out to be. There is a page or two before each interview with some introspection but after that it is just transcripts of the actual interview. He definitely was up front about what it was but I know I was hoping there would be a little more content covering some of his experiences and life since the end of his last book. The book is entertaining though despite having heard all the interviews already on the radio. The only thing that bugs me is he craps on the early part of his career and his older books. I get that he is happy to have evolved but he wouldn't have gotten to that spot without being the person he was before so he shouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.

Has anyone gotten through a copy of this book yet? The amazon reviews are pretty brutal. The main consensus being that it is for the most part literally just a collection of interview transcripts.

I moved from the Buffalo area to the Syracuse area about 10 years ago and this is pretty much how it is. It used to be easy to predict because the Bills only played two games a year on Fox, their two home NFC games, and if those weren't at the same time as the Giants there wouldn't be an issue. Now over the last few years how the networks split up their games isn't just AFC/NFC anymore so it isn't as predictable. Plus as someone mentioned above we had the strange instance where Fox chose the Cowboys over the Bills last season. I believe it was because that game still had playoff implications and the Bills/Lions did not. The old rules might not apply anymore but the way I used to understand it was that CBS was contractually required to air the Bills games in the Syracuse market as it was considered a Bills secondary market and CBS was the AFC affiliate where as Fox could choose to do as it pleases.

Someone posted on another thread that direct flights to Nashville from Buffalo were sold out. That got me wondering what everyone's plans are for the away games this year now that the schedule is out? It will be interesting to see which road games are looking to have the biggest contingent of Bills fans. For me I booked travel/lodging for the Titans game this morning.

Chan, especially if he can bring in Schwartz as his DC.

Looks like Fox changed Syracuse and most of CNY to Cowboys/Colts. I guess they figure that to have more of a draw than two bottom teams but that really sucks for us Syracuse area Bills fans.

I found a few in the day time trying to set up their wooden cross. When I tried to talk to them they were startled and the cross fell on two of the guys crushing them to death. The third tried to fight me but he went down after only a couple punches.

Everyone defending Sully and saying the Pegulas are trying to control the negative narrative might not have a clear idea about just how bad Sully has been during his time covering the Bills. There was a post on here a couple months ago that summed it up perfectly by describing a radio interview Sully did in which the host was asking him about the negative articles Sully kept writing about TO being a locker room cancer and what not. Despite the fact that there was no evidence that TO was doing anything other than trying to be a good teammate Sully just kept insisting he was a bad player and the Bills made a terrible move bringing him in no matter what kind of proof to the contrary the host kept offering. This is typical Sully over the years. Will just argue his negative take to his grave regardless of facts. It is definitely a valid argument that the dissenting voice should be given a chance to speak but Sully is so far beyond reason that it shouldn't surprise anyone that he isn't given team access anymore. Like someone else pointed out in this thread Sully is just that crusading negative Bills fan who can never stop posting pessimistic views on the boards so who can blame the Pegulas for putting him on their ignore list.

Maybe it will be like the self check out lines where they have someone around the lockers that has to approve before the door will open on booze. In any case it seems like a good idea or at least a step in the right direction. Anything new is worth a try to avoid the long lines at a lot of events/venues these days.