Mango

Also the narrative that the team wasn't going anywhere, so it didn't make a difference. The Bills had one of the highest paid OL in the entire league at that point, but didn't pay Peters. This was during a really dark time for Buffalo, probably the worst in franchise history when it came to managing and acquiring personnel. Our GM's were TD, Marv, and Russ. We got a back of footballs for Peters, overpaid Walker and Dockery by a mile. Another bag of footballs for Lynch. Of course the team was bad, but you don't keep making it bad. The need to draft Glenn was because of the mismanagement of Peters. Same thing for Levitre during that time. We could run through 100 roster decisions that all stacked on top of eachother that made the team terrible. Then tried to fix it by trading away all of our draft picks. The Bills in the early 2010's-ish were basically an expansion team without an expansion draft, and they did it to themselves.

I am fully aware of where it was. The reason he was searched was trash. It wasn’t the police that ran Marshawn out of town, it was fans. Point was that the same FANS that put Kaeps face in cross hairs are the same fans that were clamoring to move him because he was “one step away from being kicked out of the league” it was a BS dog whistle/narrative at the time, and it’s a BS narrative now. He was never close to being booted from the league or a year long suspension.

I am super unsure if you are trolling. So the Bills are keeping 4 kickers, 3 QB's, plus Dimarco, Taiwan Jones, and Andre Roberts because of their ST ability not because they provide any usefulness on their side of the ball. That is like 20% of our final roster. Who are the other 10 players you cut from the 53? Or don't dress as part of the 46?

I can get behind almost all of this. The Murphy one is a tough pill to swallow, but honestly I would have to go back and watch a lot of old games to take a side on it. So I will defer to you since I agree with the others. The Poyer one though, I saw yesterday on PFR that Poyers QB Rating when targeted is 117. It is by far the worst on the team. His Made Tackle % is pretty low as well. But I have literally never looked at that stat before and that could be super useless information. ha.

Not much of a hot take. He had the job last year. Also E.J. Gaines opted out. Who is left Taron Johnson? He generally plays in the nickel and does a good job there. The only one close to upsetting Wallace is Norman. He’s a total wild card at the moment. It does sound like he picked off JA today though. The hot take might be what you mean by “lock it down”

Meh, tomato tomato. I generally agree. I was just saying that Marrone is Greggo lite. He isn’t as good of a coordinator (what I meant by coach) and he isn’t as good at being an arrogant prick. Maybe Marrone is a better HC but GW is the better coordinator. Maybe not. That’s a different thread. I also don’t think we “missed the boat” by getting rid of him at all. I will say those were the Donohoe years though. We had some good defenses if I recall, but we also spent 3 1sts, a 2nd, and a 4th on Rob Johnson, Doug Flutie, and Drew Bledsoe. At one point Flutie and Johnson accounted for 10M of our cap. The highest paid player in the league at that point was Bledsoe at $8.5M. Don’t worry. We traded for Bledsoe later. And our top 5 players accounted for about 50% of our entire cap. The team was destined for failure too to bottom. (I just posted something similar about TD earlier in the thread. I was happy to use it again. Ha)

I think he is the Meh version Gregg Williams. Like he isn’t even as good as Greggo at the bad things. Marrone is an OK HC, but can’t get out of his own way, and most importantly his douchey, arrogant, schtick gets old quick. He’s a good interim coach for a franchise in turmoil but you can’t hitch your wagon to him. Greggo is actually a much better coordinator and coach than Marrone I think, at least when it comes to the actual X’s and O’s. Gregg is also an A-hole, so is Marrone, but in addition to not coaching as well as Gregg, Marrone isn’t as good at being a dick.

Bad choice of words I think. She is much more than a token. It took 13 years to get to barstool to a 15M valuation with Dave at the helm. It took Nardini 3 years to grow 30x. And most likely would not have become a bit softer on women with woman specific content if not for her and Cherin. I would argue that today’s Barstool is closer to Dave’s image than it was 10 years ago. The rest is just press and marketing so that he can push gambling. He’s pretty open about that being the whole reason he started the thing. Now with sports betting crossing state lines, he can bring everything back to that. I wouldn’t be shocked if he started sponsoring a weekend of racing in Saratoga (or wherever) rather than just showing up to spend money. Traverse Weekend by Barstool. And the entire thing is just content pushing online gambling, hard seltzer, whatever. Maybe some premium paid content where he runs through his next days picks. Especially given the loss of revenue from Covid for cities not allowing people at the track. Somebody might bite next year.

Lynch was easily the better back. Hot take I don’t take back: Buffalo, the same city that put Kaeps face in cross hairs, ran Lynch out of town. Dude was parked on the side of the road in a rich neighborhood in a Mercedes. Cops came to the car for no reason. Claimed to smell pot. Searched the car, found no burning or burnt weed, but did find a registered gun in a backpack in the trunk along with a couple of joints in the bag. It was a giant nothing burger. It wasn’t some thugged out incident threatening his career. Oh yeah, he clipped a drunk girl dancing in the street in the rain. Not condoning that, but this isn’t any wild uncontrollable behavior. That was a stupid trade.

Let me start by saying Portnoy is a frat bro prick. Barstool is a weird case study. I think you’re both close. Portnoy is most definitely Barstool. I don’t think you can argue that. He puts all those pieces in place. He identifies and brings in talent. I think it’s important to acknowledge that. His current title is chief of content. I think he has his hands all over everything. Barstool is his baby. It would sort of be like if you said Howard Stern had nothing to do with Bubba the love sponge years back. Or Dave Thomas. Howard identified them and chose them to provide content on his channel. Does he “manage” their shows, maybe some mild oversite and listens a lot. Steps in when needed. But largely not. But they still fall under his brand. He still gets them their paycheck because he chose them to do that specific job. Barstool is gigantic, so I don’t think they’d fail by any means, but cutting Portnoy would be cutting of your nose to spite your face. Terrible idea and would be tough to fully recover from. Regarding Nardini. Cherin absolutely knew when they bought controlling shares for barstool that they needed somebody to control the barn if they were going to increase their valuation from the $15M. They also knew that Portnoy and Co. at the time had a history of misogyny. It’s not a coincidence they hired a woman. She’s also done a tremendous job. In some ways, barstool has gotten a little softer. Portnoy is still the ring leader of the wack pack that he created. And Nardini has recently increased the valuation of barstool from $15M to $450M. Worth noting that between Nardini, Portnoy, and other employees, they actually only own a combined 28% of the company.

Im not a huge Portnoy fan, but they were just valued at nearly a half a Billion dollars. All they do is advertise. Their content is just advertisement. They have the $5 mil.

It’s that ***** Cuyahoga water.

Nobody wants to admit it because it’s more fun to crack jokes, but Buddy Nix and Chan Gailey were integral first steps to righting the nearly 20 years of wrong with this franchise. It took longer than we wanted, but the team had come off of a run at GM that included the corpse of Marv Levy, Russ Brandon, and Tom Donohoe running our drafts. George Wilson was our starting SS and the dude was a WR like 12 weeks before the season. Think about that. That’s the depth chart Gailey and Nix inherited. Your best Safety could also be your slot receiver. There is literally nobody else on the roster...on a franchise in the NFL. Let’s not forget before that Tom D. Traded a first for Rob Johnson. Then had 20% of the cap tied up in Flutie and Johnson in 2000. Later cut RJ and took a larger dead cap hit on top of that. Our top 5 players are like 50% of the cap at that point. Then he traded ANOTHER First round pick for Drew Bledsoe. But wait, we aren’t done yet, in 2004 we traded a 1st and 2nd round pick to trade back into the first for JP Losman. What a total disaster. Gailey and Fitz are remembered better than Jauron because we had real football players, real football coaches, and a real football exec in the FO (granted with flaws). What those guys inherited in hindsight was not a professional football franchise. It reads almost like “Major League”.

Terrible hot take: EJ Manuel could have been a good QB. He had all the tools, the right head on his shoulders, over drafted, but the right situation could have developed him properly. He just needed more time and better coaching. Hackett and Marrone were destroying him. Thoughts today: He was never going to be good. But was good enough to bounce around as a career back up if he wanted. Marrone didn’t ruin him. But didn’t do him any favors either. EJ is the best QB in his draft class still. I’m not going to hate on taking the best QB in the draft at 16, even though he turned out crappy. You take that shot 100 times out of 100. He only left the league because he wanted to be a starter and he wasn’t, and he got a job in broadcasting. Hot take 2: Bills should have hired Schwartz over Rex. Thoughts today: Had we done that we would have McD, so I am OK with it. No idea how that would have turned out. But at the time it was still 100% a better decision than Rex Ryan

It is not a pie, one doesn't cancel the other out. If anything they are stackable. Win the super bowl, also be covered on social media by a major SM company.

Possible, but I am sure that the contract would specify the name, and wouldn't be, "Here is $5 million, we will name it what we will name it". Unsure how that generally works. If it is a bid on a county contract, unsure how the county then declines the highest/lowest bidder. It is a reasonably point to bring up, but I would actually think with Brady gone and how much Portnoy hates Goodell, if he did something like that he would push for something like "Goodell is a Clown Stadium".

This is actually a really good point I didn't even think about. It has the possibility for a ton of press. If I were Erie County and/or the Pegulas, I would mandate it as part of the contract.

It was Rich Stadium, then we went to the Ralph, watched games at the Cap. What will we do now, head to the Stool?

Dave Portnoy is a tough guy for me to pin down. He is absolutely a "bro-ey" arse hat. Huge pats fan. I think he has created a bit of a toxic culture around him and pushes that out with his "stoolies" But he is also a pretty smart (or at least smart enough?) dude, the guy hustles a ton. Some of his content is pretty good. He has created an empire for himself and by himself. Portnoy has been reasonably kind to Buffalo. Some ragging as a pats fan, but largely likes the Bills and us as fans. He also HATES Goodell. So I am sure he is absolutely itching to get his name on any NFL stadium. I am torn on this one.

They will all get criticized as they learn to mature into the league for whatever their shortcomings are. McD mentioned this today or yesterday. Something along the lines of, it happens in the league, it is fair to question, and it will be up to Josh prove people wrong. In his experience the good ones always do, Cam and McNabb. Baker has a history of acting kind of like a frat boy prick, so when the season goes awry, and he is continuously a douche, people are going to wonder if he can play the game with the maturity needed at a pro level. Can Baker manage football like an adult along side other men? He won't get worked on his game too much because he was very accurate in college and set the rookie record for TD's the year prior. Allen, the super raw dude with amazing measurable's and questionable accuracy struggles to get the ball out on time, or misses a receiver, or can't average more than 200 yards per game, he is going to get questioned a ton as to whether he can put it all together in year 3, especially as the Bills put together a top flight WR corp and a fresh backfield. Lamar has a ton of wiggle room here. He would have to be reeeaaalllllyyy bad in 2020 for the masses to start questioning him. But if he has a year or two where he struggles as a pocket passer, people will start questioning. Darnold. I mean, its the Jets, they are in the NYC/NJ market. Adam Gase is their HC. Gregg Williams can't get out of his own way when it comes to PR. Everything is a disaster. He will get some shrapnel, but probably will get less criticism because everybody is pointing tons of fingers at everybody else in the FO and coaching staff. They're all getting it in their own way. But they don't have the same historical deficiencies as Josh, they have their own, so their criticism is different.

Are you talking about this? Something along the lines of "look at you always trying to record people. What do I look like, the police? "

Last year we watched Josh Allen in a playoff game run at full speed and attempt a lateral with the game on the line. That same game also featured a 50 yard bomb to a double covered full back. What other throws are there left for him to attempt? ?

Article basically ends with, “Mario Addison abuses Cody Ford all day.”

I agree with you. MT is not as powerful of a runner as Allen is and Trubisky definitely regressed (statistically) from 18/19 compared to Allen, it is why they are view differently, even though one didn't really play much, if any, better than the other in 2019. Funny, though, the last line you could replace Allen and Mitch and it would be the same. Also, Buffalo and Chicago's 3rd down conversion rate are nearly identical. 35.7 and 35.9%. Slightly related, just going though some numbers, Buffalo had the 6th most offensive drives in the league last year, but 20th in total plays, and 24th in points per drive. 8th best in average starting field position, but 26th in trips to the red zone. It seems like the biggest difference between the 2019 Bears and Bills, would be Buffalo falling from a top 5 down to a top 10 defense. It seems we should at least be able to maintain from last year with shoring up a more complete backfield, a much improved WR corp.and an improved JA should be able to get us a pretty large leap. I think the OL is good enough (about average overall). Sustainability of being top 3 in multiple categories is really difficult defensively. I think if the Bills can maintain their league rankings across the board on defense, we would be very lucky. Not uncommon to go from 3rd to 5th or 8th year to year.