Mango

I was working on how to respond, but really the only thing you provided was “aggregate data”. You’ve offered no meat to any opinion. So I am just going to leave it to @Hapless Bills Fan Right? Unsure what the point is. We should start the season? We shouldn’t wear masks? Most of the 1200 people sitting in cubicles at Ingram are just a little more out of breath chasing their kids, so Stefon Diggs shouldn’t be worried?

Jerry’s failure is as owner. He can’t relinquish any control on game day, practice, play call, game prep. He’s done a good job at assembling a roster.

This is a long read. But it is an important look. For those who think this thing is two weeks and your done. Below is the story of a friend, 4 time World Champion and Olympic gold medalist. Less than 6 months from the Tokyo games, in literally the best shape of her life, is now pushing to just get back on pace to where she was back in February/March. For those of you not keeping track, it’s July now. This isn’t two weeks of the flu, and get back on the horse. NFL/NCAA players are going to get this, and it will cost them money, careers, and seasons. My COVID experience: This is going to be a long post, but I've seen so many people talking about how the age of people infected with COVID has trended downward and that means we're fine. So I thought it was a good time to share my experience with the virus so that people connected to me could read a 1st hand account of the impact of a mild/moderate case of COVID on a young, healthy, fit individual. In case you don't know me, I am an elite athlete, a 4 time world champion in rowing and I won a gold medal at the 2016 Olympic games. I'm currently training for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in 2021 now. Back in March everything was changing so rapidly. The virus started spreading in the Northeast US where our team was training for the Olympics. It was an incredibly stressful time and we were entering our last 2 month stretch of selection. Everything started getting canceled, my dad found out he was going to need surgery and radiation to remover cancer from his face, and officials were insisting that the Olympics would definitely go on as planned. We were told that the Olympics don't get canceled (turns out they can be postponed though). Our team continued to train following the local guidelines as they rapidly changed throughout March. I was definitely concerned about the virus and what we were hearing was happening in Italy and other countries, however I considered myself and my teammates low risk individuals. I couldn't tell you the last time I was at a bar or another crowded place. Everything I do, especially in the Olympic year is all about recovery and being in the best position I can possibly be in to make the team. So my social circle is really small, almost completely limited to my team and USRowing employees. NJ issued a stay at home order on March 21st. Our entire team took ergs and weight lifting equipment home with us and I started training on my porch. 2 days later we received an email that a USRowing employee that most of our team was in close contact with tested positive for COVID. We were instructed to quarantine for 2 weeks following our last interaction with that employee. I had worked with the employee who at the time was not showing any symptoms 3 days earlier. I started my quarantine and was so thankful that I had done a massive grocery haul a day earlier. One by one my teammates (ages 23-37) started showing symptoms of the virus. I didn't think I was having any symptoms, but I did notice that I was having a hard time breathing when the intensity of my workouts started increasing and that I was starting to sleep close to 12 hours a night, but I didn't have a fever. So, at the time I attributed the difficulty breathing to erging outside in the cold and the extra sleep to the fact that the Olympics had just been postponed and my entire focus for the last four years was no longer close to 100 days away. As most of my teammates started to recover from their acute COVID symptoms, I started noticing a fever on April 1st. That was Day 12 of my quarantine. Our team doctor told us to look out for anything over 99.0 because their practice had seen people testing positive with fevers as low as 99.0. On the night of Day 12 I had a baby fever of 99.2, so I texted our team Dr. to let him know. I genuinely thought it was unlikely that I had COVID because typically people were showing symptoms days 4-5 after exposure. So I thought that the elevated temperature was probably just a fluke. The next morning I woke up, I felt great, and I never had a fever that entire day. Friday April 3rd was a completely different story. I slept over 12 hours that night and when I woke up it was painful to breathe and my entire body ached like I had done something really wrong while I was practicing the day before. That day my fever ranged from about 100.4-101.7. I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without needing to sit down and take a nap. Not only did I sleep for 12 hours that night, but I also took a 3 hour nap. I was too weak to make myself food that entire day until I forced myself to make pancakes that night because I knew I had to eat something. The next night I slept for 12 hours again. It was still painful to breath and I was still extremely exhausted and unable to do simple household tasks. Thankfully, though, my body aches were gone that day. These were the 2 days where I had the worst symptoms, but just because these symptoms improved after 2 days doesn't mean I was fully recovered from COVID. It took the rest of April for me to be able to train normally again. I took 4 days off from training while I was sick and in hindsight I wish I had given myself the freedom to take more days off if I needed them. When I first started trying to work out again I tried doing a 30 minute jog. My heart rate was really high and I felt like I was running through water. The jog was meant to be light and a small attempt to get my body moving again, but it was so difficult I had to stop after 20 minutes. I am used to doing workouts that range from 80-120 minutes. I don't give up easily and I was just near my peak closing in on final selection for the Olympics. Now I couldn't even jog/walk for 30 minutes. The next day I tried an easy erg. The best way I can describe what I was feeling is when you crash and burn on a workout because you didn't fuel your body properly. My legs felt fine, but I felt physically feint and shaky and not ready to do the workout. I completed the workout by taking one stroke at a time and allowing myself to be as slow as I needed to be. The entire month of April was a big struggle for me to workout. Things improved to where I was able to workout consistently, but I had to go 10-15 splits slower that I normally would on easy workouts to control my heart rate and make it through workouts. And for refrence, 10-15 splits is a ton, that basically meant I was erging at a pace of a slow college student or average high school girl. I still didn't feel like myself and always felt like I was carrying 50 extra pounds when I was working out. Things didn't really improve until I went for a run the morning of May 2nd. All of a sudden I felt light and like I was in my own body again. It felt like a complete 180. While I felt normal in my body again, it has been a long journey to get back into shape. As of today, over 3 months after my symptoms went away, I am working on getting back into the shape I was in in early February and March before all of the setbacks. While it only ? took me a month to feel like I was in my own body again, I have teammates who were dealing with complications from COVID for over 2 months. So if you don't think the virus is that big of a deal because you are young, healthy, or fit, please consider my story. My guess is that my teammates and I are at a minimum healthier and fitter than most of you and it knocked many of us down hard. I have personally never experienced any other illness like this. I have never been knocked off of my feet for an entire month before. Please wear a mask to protect yourself and the people around you. I am hoping to donate blood plasma to help a person in need. We're all in this together and the more we can do small things the sooner our lives can get back to something resembling normal again.

Oh for sure. I mean, I have a house I really like here, but my career had to get to a certain point before I got it. WE would have gotten something in Buffalo a little cheaper if we didn't have to leave for my SO's job. But the median income here is about 30k higher per year than Buffalo, so by that metric it isn't too bad. I don't get how the average person does it. Buffalo is infilling at the moment. Sort of filling in the donut hole. So as my friends have gotten really comfortable in their careers, they have bought houses on Richmond, Dorchester, etc. because it was trendy. Less are going to OP and East Aurora, Clarence. My more middle income friends who were renting in the city but can afford to buy now are pushing into first ring suburbs like Kenmore. It will be interesting to see what happens.

They let Russ Brandon decide on the HC and not their GM. Extended Whaley after hamstringing his HC hire. Fired their choice in HC, Rex Ryan, who was not Whaley's choice. Hired a McDermott Fired their GM, Whaley Hired Beane. A lot of this reads a TON like the decade of Sabres futility, this one just happened to work out. None of it implies any sort of mastery of how to run an org.

Ha! I just moved out of Buffalo and have been in the capital region (Saratoga)for the last year. I agree, I think it’s probably already starting. Lots of foreclosures in Buffalo at the moment.

This is a larger conversation, but you touched on something really critical for the region. Buffalo is seeing a HUUUUGE cost of living increase, but wages keep staying stagnant. The employment demographics (job opportunity not race, gender, etc.) have not budged. We aren't seeing a large influx of highly paid workers, increased wages, or highly skilled workers to justify it. Buffalo has hyped (fooled) itself into an expensive city that keeps lining the same pockets for generations (Macaluso, Sinatra, Savarino, Paladino, Montante, etc.). A few years ago I was looking to change employers. I found an opportunity at PSE that fit my skill set and career path. I have a friend who works for Labatt in the same building as PSE and knows a bunch of those guys who are higher up. So we go and grab a beer to chat and see what the deal is. They wanted to pay me about 40% of what I was making at my job at the time. They were also pretty candid and said there is very little room for movement internally at PSE. You basically get your job and stay in your job. Obviously I didn't look any further with PSE and moved into my current job that was a 20% increase in pay out of the gates and resulted in a few awards, promotions, and raises along the way.

It’s out of touch with reality in general. Like, which employees are taking public transit to work? For the Bills? In OP, or the Sabres? Not to be a dick, but Buffalo is relatively cheap town with absolutely terrible public transit. Nobody is taking the bus to one bills drive who is a full time employee. Hell, if you’re a full time employee for either the Bills or the Sabres you should make enough to not rely on public transit. It’s not expensive here. She just sort of said things that didn’t add up. She mentioned the Sabres a bunch of times actually.

Maybe it’s PTSD, but it feels like BB has wet dreams of signing a guy like Cam off the streets, then having him beat up on his old DC in a division rivalry. Then a stoic post game presser saying something like “All the credit to Coach McDermott. They do a great job and show up prepared. We knew how ready they would be for what Cam could do, And we know what a quality unit he has there in Buffalo. We knew we had to be ready for today. Our guys put in the work today. Of course you’d like some plays back, but we made enough of them today. On to Baltimore” All after CN drops 350, 2PTD, 82 yards on the ground and 1 RTD.

You don’t have to be cheap and lazy to be really bad at your job. You can bust your ass with tons of cash and still fail.

This is a super valid point. But it also needs to be separated from the average Buffalo income of $55k. Vet minimum ranges from $500-900k. 4-5 months away from your family to earn a million bucks is a different conversation. Now if they don’t want to risk their health given the pandemic, I get it. But earning a mil then zero is quite the loss for, well, everybody. My GF and I have joked she’ll send me away for a year for a million bucks.

Not just that, I found it a bit manipulative. I worked for a family like this for a number of years while I started my career, waiting tables and bar tending to help pay the bills. They assume that their employees can’t take care of themselves, then hold it over their head. Specifically speaking to the Feliciano (I think it was him) story about chattering a plane for his pregnant wife. The Pegulas didn’t charter a plane for them. They didn’t donate their plane. They helped make the contact. JF is a millionaire with an agent, who represents other millionaires. Who is part of an agency that represents even more millionaires. It’s like bragging about being a good neighbor for helping the guy next door find somebody to work on his transmission. It’s silly. Literally the entire thing was damage control. For their layoffs and a decade of failure with the Sabres. She said almost nothing.

Some good points here. But a point of contention. I actually don’t see much of a change from Terry “scheming” with Regier without looping in Ted Black. They continue to push a flat management structure, even mentioning it on their zoom call a few weeks ago. They continue to hire people they are comfortable with rather than people who are good at their jobs and elevating them to be better. They quite literally keep doing the same exact thing and producing the same terrible results. I have questioned some of the moves from McBeane. But holy hell, if the Sabres are the basement of what this ownership is capable of, lock up McBeane for whatever the hell they want for the next 30 years.

This might be a great topic for another thread. But I think you’re right. Mario Williams was fine here. George Edwards wasn’t. By the time his luster wore out off after some highly productive years, he wasn’t the highest player in the league anymore. Dareus was one of the best DT in the league. His fall from grace was tragic and I feel for the guy. Hating on him is hindsight criticism at its best. Tre will be fine. They are a very good unit but lack a lot of star power. He plays with a lot of good enough at CB but not a ton for good. If we can keep a very good and cost efficient safety pairing it’s worth the cost. Josh Allen. Boy this one will be contentious unless he turns out to be a stud. If in 2 years Josh signs at 33M average we’ll be fine, assuming the cap starts to increase again. It’s actually probably a steal once you factor in a cap increase or two. But if it starts to push substantially more than that, he’ll have to make up for much lesser talent at OL and WR and this board will get rough. Then of course Gilmore was too much according to Bills fans. He’s currently a stud. Marshawn has a registered gun in his trunk, and searched while parked for no real good reason, he gets run out of town. Bob Woods wasn’t worth his LA contract, he was, and it was reasonable. We could go back decades with this.

This. Depending on up front bonus money, he could invest and get the possibly the same or greater return on compounding interest compared to fajita chasing market value.

Yes and no. Part of the issue that makes it trickier is that the NHL is not all that popular to begin with. Where as the Bills can basically break even just from the TV contracts alone. ($255M per year and $198M salary cap) It isn't that different than most teams in the NHL. They need to have lots of butts in lots of seats just to hit a break even point. What is happening to the Sabres is just 10 years of futility catching up to them in a bit of a niche sport. Not necessarily that Buffalo cannot support an NHL team unless there is some wild set of circumstances. The Pegulas are actually in an enviable situation professionally. They have a market that will support their team and make them millions without much issue as long as they are even average at your job. But they can't get out of their own way. They are tanking their own business. Sure, maybe LA could make them more money, but Buffalo isn't a town where it should be costing them money to run the team. If they just made the playoffs every other year, people would literally camp out overnight to get tickets and buy merch. Could you imagine you go to work and people are begging you for your product already, there is almost no customer acquisition costs, no consumer education, no real key verticals. Just a base of people that already want your product. All you have to do is hire people who are about average at their job and get out of the way. Then you can make millions. Most of us are not that lucky. They are actually in complete control of their destiny here. This is their problem, not the towns. They have been absolutely miserable owners of the Sabres. Like one of the worst owners in all of professional sports. It's not the market (albeit there are some issues with comparative profitability to other franchises)

I actually used to sell signage like this for a bit. I think it is funny that they used a picture with the test screen to make sure all of the "cabinets" are working properly. Like there wasn't somebody there from Samsung with some football content loaded on a player to show of the new install.

Jesus, my new puppy kept me up ALL night last night in the crate, after a weekend of no crate hanging at the lake. Normally I am pretty good with this stuff. I appreciate you pointing out the my WA debacle using old data. My CA reference was more in comparison to the size of the population and total population sprawl across the state (mostly along the coast). They are definitely trending up, but not at the rate of say Texas or Florida in total cases and they only have 50-60% of the total population. I totally agree with you here, I was just painting with a broad brush. California is an interesting case study for all sorts of issues. As much as everybody wants to think that CA is all hippy-dippy and surfer dudes, there are large communities that are not. CA should see another large pop early this week. No reporting from San Diego or LA this weekend with the 4th.

Sorry, I misread the article from CBS News. It is Yakima County, which is SE of Kings County. They are moving patients from Yakima to Kings County. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/washington-state-require-face-mask-hospital-beds-coronavirus/

This is actually less from you, and more for everybody trying to make some wild, "BuT tHe PrOtEsToRs" and "MuH FrEeDoMs" claim 1. Protests were outdoors 2. 99% of people there are wearing masks So fine, abide by CDC guidelines. Everybody HAS to wear a mask or they are booted and/or fined. Also no attendance at indoor stadiums. Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta, Minnesota, Detroit, Arizona, Indy, Vegas, LA Rams, LA Chargers. Playing by the same rules, here are the other stadiums that cannot host any games because their hospitals are pushing too close to capacity. Miami- Hospitals are 75% + Carolina- Hospitals are at 75% + Tampa- 4 hospitals in the county are at 100% capacity Seattle- Ran out of beds 2 weeks ago. San Fran- Taking patients for neighboring counties who are at capacity. Cannot afford to lose beds. Oakland- See SF So here we are. Only football that is left is basically from the coalition of states with everybody's least favorite "DiCtAtOr" Andrew Cuomo. All the places where there was some big government conspiracy. But turns out, had everybody across the country just effing listed, instead of whined like entitled little babies, we could actually be talking about going to games in some capacity. Here are the home teams of games that we can go to: Browns, Bengals, Steelers, Bills, Pats, Jets, Giants, Ravens, Skins, Eagles, Chiefs, Broncos, Bears. ...but edit that down, because I am not sure they would want a bunch of fans in Kansas City, from Tampa Bay.

Can somebody help me clarify this one. I am reading this at first as, "She organized this "Listen, Learn, Love" group. Which is great. But then says all the participants were black? Did she mean all the speakers were black? When I read "participant", I read that all people, attendies, presenters, etc. If that is the case, is this just an echo chamber of POC telling each other what it is like to be a POC. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to be gained from a group therapy model, especially in trying times, but it almost reads like she organized her own focus group to explain to her what living as a minority is like. She organized the whole damn thing and named it "Listen, Learn, Love" I would imagine that having white people their to, ya know, "Listen, Learn, and Love" is imperative for this entire exercise.

Literally one city, in a state that is on a steady decline, is your big "contact tracers are infected by politics". Cool, DeBlasio sucks, always has. He was wrong here. Reads a lot like you are implying protests are leading to spike, which is silly. But oddly enough most states spiking are generally not a bastion for liberal protest on a large scale. You know Arizona, still locking kids in cages, they love to protest to help protect POC. New York is continuing to trend down. Minnesota has been trending down. Washington State is trending down. California has remained largely stagnant, but high as the largest state in the country. Florida and Texas will probably pass California this week. All these places that are making headlines for the size of their protests have seen a continued and significant downward trend in infection rate.

That was only in NYC, and is so incredibly irrelevant. You are trying to make a point that has no basis in any sort of reality. 1 week before protests began in NYC there were 2000 cases in the entire state. A week later we were down to about 1000, and now we are in 6-800 area. It is almost as if the people who marched for George Floyd also believe in science and protecting their fellow man.

Just put it this way, if people stopped making up some load of crap about "PeRsOnAl FrEeDoMs" and how a mask somehow impairs that, there is a good chance that they could go to a football game in September with minimal risk of killing people.

It may not “do anything” but they are the largest TV draw of the week, and they’re making a public display of which side they stand on. People don’t like their side, not their action in this.