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flopagamo

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Posts posted by flopagamo

    Horrible fan's worst case scenarios

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    This has been some thread. Funny part: *I* am the original author of the OP's predictions.

     

    At the outset of each season, my brother and I exchange predictions (with oddly specific details thrown in here and there), game by game. Each year, his predictions are wildly optimistic. ("10-and-6! Playoffs baby! This is the year!")... and each year, I refute his wild optimism with a harsh dose of bitter cynicism.

     

    This year, I decided on a preemptive strike, hitting him with my grumpy take before he got his out. My knucklehead brother -- the OP -- was so entertained that he decided to share my outlook on four decades of Bills fandom with this community as if the predictions were his own... going so far as to defend its contents against the many slings and arrows... which is funny because he's actually the one of us who suffers from AEO - Annual Excessive Optimism.

     

    BTW, apologies for forgetting the Chargers' move to LA. I *don't* apologize for making fun of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms though.

     

    Like many in this forum, I've been a Bills fan for as long as I can remember. 70's Dolphin hate... We're talkin proud, Ground Chuck, Joe Cribbs... through the darkest of Dark Ages, aka the Kay Stephenson and Hank Bullough years... the glory years of Bruuuuce/Kelly/Thurman/Reed/Tasker/Levy/Bennett/Talley/Lofton, all those unheralded studs like Phil Hansen, and the best GM in the business, Bill Polian... and of course, the last two decades of mediocrity, peppered with glimmers of hope from guys like Doug Flutie, Eric Moulds, and Drew Bledsoe.

     

    I have college age kids who were not alive for the last Bills playoff win. My youngest son is asking if he can root for another team (answer: no! But I love that he asks for permission). I've gotten to the point where emotional investment is getting more challenging with each passing year. I've contemplated writing to the FO to say "I'm sick of this crap. I'm done. Call me when you're good again" but I stop short of that because (a) that would certify me as an old crank and (b) I don't buy stamps anymore.

     

    I'll keep pulling for the Bills. And I'll hang onto my cynicism until the boys on the field and in the front office convince me otherwise. Maybe this is the year!

    Chris Berman Will No Longer Cover the NFL after this Season

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

     

    I watched all that and I enjoyed it immensely.

     

    The shtick got old though IMO... maybe it was when he started doing the homerun derby and going over the top for that.

     

     

    Imitators also wore on the act. I want to slap anyone who says "Raidahs" like that.

     

     

     

    Not that I wanted or needed him gone... Something is going on at ESPN. NFL Primetime used to be the exclusive and universal meetingplace of all NFL fans. Now, with FNIA, a lot of people... probably most, tune in there instead. I havent watched Primetime in years if it still exists.

     

    ESPN is evolving I guess. Into what, I dont know. A lot of the programming is garbage, like someone said: Just panelists yelling at each other.

     

    Live sports though, ESPN is in a class of its own IMO.

     

    +1

    I enjoyed Berman in the NFL Primetime heyday... what Bills fan didn't love his 'nobody circles the wagons' bit? He was entertaining. His schtick did indeed get old though. His work in baseball was brutally bad... at his absolute worst at the Home Run Derby.

     

    He was a huge part of building ESPN into the giant it is today. But when your on-air presence is a series of gags, it is bound to grow tiresome. No one would call him a serious journalist, right?

    Perhaps Buffalo needs to Draft a competent Sports Media

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    Good reporting requires cultivation of working relationships with good sources, discretion on when and when not to run with something (lest you ruin those relationships), mutual respect with your sources (i.e. the understanding that you each have a job that you must do), and of course the ability to write well. How many in the local media who cover the Bills meet these requirements?

     

    Sports media (nay, media everywhere) has gotten lazy. (How many utterly bogus stories have made national news in the past couple months? Eager for the scoop, reporters run with unverified info, and further undermine confidence in themselves.) Sports media engenders a different kind of laziness though. There are guys who have been at it in WNY for a very long time, tasked with covering a perennial mediocrity. Some of them fancy themselves as the voice of the fans, and they get jaded and bitter like fans do. Can an obviously jaded and bitter sportswriter have a mutually respectful relationship with sources in/around the team? I think not.


    I should clarify: I agree with others who've said it here... Sal Capaccio and John Wawrow fit the description of good reporters!

    One More Comeback - Frank Reich

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    I look at it this way. Right know when you mention Frank Reich to me I immediately think comeback game. The td to reed sliding across the endzone. Im sure most of you do too. Frank is a super hero. Please Buffalo, dont change that memory. I dont need the first thing I think of when you mention frank reich to be some stupid decision to punt in a game that costs the playoffs. Cause you know thats what will happen

    I hadn't thought of this...

    One More Comeback - Frank Reich

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    FRANK REICH 2017

     

    I'm a DC area transplant and extremely infrequent poster here... a WNYer from the 70s and 80s who serves as the sobering voice to fellow transplanted Bills fans in my area who get caught up in the playoff scenarios year after year with unwarranted optimism. I'm the guy who says to them, "Fellas, just stop it. It's not going to happen." I would love to be optimistic about the Bills, but I've reached a point where I can't get all that fired up anymore. And I hate that! I'm getting old. I've grown weary of the annual disappointment.

     

    The Buffalo Bills have almost made me hate NFL football. They're not even good at being bad... they manage to get middling draft picks every year by being just good enough to miss the playoffs by a game or two.

     

    I've been down on pretty much every head coach since Marv, and none more so than Rex Ryan, especially after he dumped a very successful d-coordinator, then later hired his own bumbling brother (he of the reverse midas touch) to commence ruining what was once a very good defense. Good riddance, Rex. Who knew the NFL coaching ranks were nothing more than a jobs program for incompetent family members?

     

    I need a reason to get excited about this team again.

     

    Frank Reich seems to be on nobody's short list... and perhaps he doesn't deserve top-dog consideration yet. That said, given all the mediocrity that Bills fans have endured for so long, would anyone really object to the Pegulas giving one of the region's favorite guys a chance to pull off another kind of comeback?

     

    FRANK REICH 2017

    LET'S CALL IT A COMEBACK

    Best Brady .gif ever

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    For all the Brady hate here, not many could pull off what he did yesterday. If we play the Martians tomorrow and he's starting.

     

    Great throw at the end. BTW, I re-read a bunch of SpyGate yesterday. Whenever I see the Pats pull off something improbable (especially at home), I think of the oddities (Why are they switching Brady's helmet during the game?) and wonder what rules they broke to get there.

    Oh Jabari.......

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    I would like to know why Tom Brady changed helmets a few times during the game (I can't be the only one who noticed this). I'd also like to know if the NFL monitors what they do to said helmets.

     

    If the Saints could have managed a first down or two during their last two possessions, that would have been nice... Jabari would have been spared that moment entirely.

    No Tasker :(

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    After Marv Albert and his numerous errors, I will welcome Wilcots!!

     

    Marv Albert is one of my all time favorite announcers in any sport... but he definitely is no longer on his game. He is 70 years old now, and sounded like he was having trouble keeping up.

     

    He ith thtill light yearth ahead of Dan Dierdorf, of courthe...

    CJ Spiller

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    So far, spiller is NOT doing particularly well. He has not been finding the holes and struggles moving forward following contact. The idea that we should compare him to other backs as equal after we remove their longer runs is frankly moronic. He appears to me to be hesitant and spends more time dancing than committing to the run. I was giving up all hope when he did produce the TD run. Gave me hope. Way too early to identify as a bust, but seriously what has he shown so far? He did average 4.5 in the preseason..... I really don't think Freddie loses any sleep hearing footsteps

     

    He more likely loses sleep over how much money he is not making.

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