zonabb

Been repeatedly saying it here multiple times.... it was cheaper and IS going to be in OP because of the added infrastructure and land acquisition costs for downtown. Anyone willing to approach this from a rational (i.e., not a fan's) perspective, understands the costs here. The city's sewer and water infrastructure sucks and needs a major upgrade to carry the capacity of a new stadium. Plus parking and other amenities. In OP, the county own's the land so land costs are effectivelty zero. Downtown they need to buy, or take via eminent domain, lots of property currently in private hands, or in govt/quasi-govt hands. Plus the added time and costs of any eminent domain process when the inevitable hold outs happen. In OP you simply extend the existing sewer and water systems to the new site, no offsite improvements needed, a la downtown. And because the Pegulas, I think, plan to ask for money but also not be greedy, OP has always been the place it will go. Unless the state and city, both bad at development and fiscal management, decide to waste money to build it downtown.

Not going downtown, period. Everyone here who thinks it is probably thinks other silver bullet ideas work, like a convention center, giving away $750 million to Musk for a factory that under-delivers on jobs and pays zero property tax, tearing down the skyway.... Nearly with unanimity, researchers and economists routinely slam stupid ideas like publicly-financed stadiums. People hear act like it changes things. It doesn't. Contort yourself into whatever corner you want to... the "it'll boost downtown" or "there's no amenities in OP" or "there's limited transportation options to OP" but the facts remain.... a downtown stadium would cost more to taxpayers and the Pegulas and the amount of money in the region that can and will support the Bills doesn't change the more you spend on a stadium. Meaning...profit doesn't increase. Further, there's no space downtown that doesn't require massive outlays of funds for land acquisition AND likely require eminent domain. Any ED proceeding drags this out, costing more time and way more money. Infrastructure costs skyrocket for a downtown stadium as existing sewer, water, and transportation systems lack the capacity. The idea of a stadium wedged in between I-190 and the Buffalo River is classic Buffalo dystopian thinking that falls in line with decades of bad planning and development schemes. It won't boost downtown outside of the 8-10 days its used. No one cares about amenities that goes to games...tailgating is the amenity and the culture. And transportation options? For who? Tickets are outrageously expensive, how many low or moderate income households attend games that suggest we need to link the stadium to public transportation? That's not a slam no low income households, it's actually a slam on the outrageous and exclusive costs to attend a game. Book it: Pegulas don't want to fleece the region more than that have to. They know they're getting money, they actually seek to minimize that costs, reduce the debt they care, without having a major negative impact on their revenue, i.e., profit. So the outcome here is crystal clear.

Boo hoo…millionaire cupcake uses his First Amendment right to push anti-social anti-vax position but whines when society uses its First Amendment right to boo him. I’ll never root for the guy or support him. I don’t have to root for you while you are a carpet bagger here for a few years. Should have stayed in Dallas, his schtick is on brand down there. Can't wait until this petulant baby is gone.

Garbage. This is why sports are losing people, myself included. Don't confuse the replacement of older fans with newer younger fans. Growth is based on retention of existing fans and gaining new fans. Older fans with higher incomes are what the NFL wants but lose. Why? Because the league has moved away from the product on the field to more of an "entertainment" industry, replete with screaming morons announcers, analysts, and "personalities" who can't put together a rational, well-thought out take based on information and data and instead rely on trying to out talk and out yell everyone in the room. The in-person games are trash....last year was going to be my final one as a STH, but I didn't want it to end on a dead year. This is my last. The stadium experience sucks. But ultimately, these players are just unlikable. This Jones guy and every single player making stupid money on a contract wants to *check notes" rip up the contractual obligation they committed to and get more money. How about we let the owners do the same, tell players to eat a bag of &*@%! and stay home until they're ready to negotiate a lower contract after a year like this joker just had. Every player should play on one year deals, based on last season's performance. Oh wait, they don't want that kind of accountability because they want to be paid their full salary on off years when they underperform. I love the game, I hate every single other things about it...players, coaches, owners, the media, idiot fans (who murders someone over sports?).

Being inspired by, or looking for inspiration from, athletes is what 5 year olds do. Oh, and adult man children.

Everyone except Beasley. Hope he gets cut.

A question about regression without a selected measure for regression and without defining what regression means as measurement. First, regress to the mean? As in you pick any measure you think indicates regression and he regresses to the mean of his first first two seasons? Second, what measure would be, which is implied, "regression." QBR? Yards? TDs? INTs? YPA? I'd bet he's pretty close to last year across all measures, some might be up, some might be down. So a few fewer TDs, maybe. But that could be a product of a more productive run game. I wouldn't be surprised by fewer INTs and an increase in both QR ratings. I just don't see a statistically significant derease in measures across the board.

Told everyone everywhere every time this came up. It will be open air in OP due to entire financial considerations. I worked in development and govt. I know people in development and govt. Pegulas want this team to be successful and not lose money here. They don’t want to take on tons of debt, they have zero on the team and it’s profitable. They want govt money but don’t want to saddle the taxpayers with more than necessary. In the end, as the beginning like I said, the costs for anything in Buffalo requires hundreds of millions of offsite upgrades to infrastructure-storm sewers, sanitary sewers, water, and roads-just to be able to build the stadium. That doesn’t even include the unquantifiable amount needed to acquire land, which every fool who owned property in the old first ward thought would make them rich. Waaay too many properties to acquire cost way too much time and money. They could buy some outright with honest offers but the hold outs who wanted double or wouldn’t sell at all require the city to undertake eminent domain proceedings, which is a lengthy and costly court battle (See: Kelo v. New London which was due to one property hold out that by the time the court case was settle, the developer decided against the project anyway!). They would be, literally, hundreds of millions into all of this and not a nickel spent on the actual stadium. Now jump southeast to Orchard Park and you have free land, saving millions in acquisition and eminent domain, and existing infrastructure that already supports a 73k seat stadium, saving hundreds of millions. It was a no brainer when this conversation started and remained that way the entire time. Like everything with Bills homers, the emotional and irrational dreamed and the dream of a downtown stadium was just that.

People watch ESPN? I can barely stomach 5 minutes of sports talk radio, be it WGR or ESPN. The constant need to scream takes makes it a cartoon profession. And ESPN basically turned into a giant ad for the NBA, primarily, and NFL secondarily. They minimized baseball and hockey and that cost them audience. They're biggest problem is, they de-professionalized what they do. They perpetually aim for 18-24 year old males and pop/hip hop culture, which excludes many people. So by trying too over tune for a specific young demographic, they turn off many sports fans who don't need or want to be shouted at by Stephen A. Smith of any of the other idiots on those shows. When screaming and talking over each other became the focus of their shows, it was over for me. Stuart Scott, rest his soul, and Berman, started the cartoonish nature of sports and ruined it for me. I watch more English Premier League stuff than NFL stuff by a mile. Guess I'm the bad guy for wanting intelligent, reasoned, analytical, detailed takes by people who know the game inside and out between the lines. Premier League pregame shows, halftime shows, and broadcasts put any show and league broadcast in this country to shame. Old media is old media... it's dying and I'm here for it.

I've said a million times to everyone everywhere pre-McBeane what she said...I believe in leadership and intellect over scheme. The analytics dorks on WGR55 and elsewhere in this town who want numbers to be all the matters when it comes to football and hockey fail miserable to consider that people are not robots, they react to different things differently and that like any walk of life, human psychology impacts performance. Period. We've all worked in jobs with bad bosses and bad leadership that either impacted our performance or performance of others negatively. To assume that because it's a "man's game" and players have to suck it up and do their best is such a neanderthal assumption and leads to a faulty understanding of how an organization impacts play on the field. I said it here over and over.... draft and sign intelligent, hardworking, team-focused talent. For every athletic freak this teams has drafted in round 1 the last 20 years who fell on his face, there were players at their position drafted later who were better PEOPLE with a better outlook on the game and who were clearly more motivated, disciplined, and dedicated to the team-first concept. From Mike Williams to Aaron Maybin to Marcel Dareus to Sammy Watkins this team loved the wrong players because it prioritized quantifiable attributes over qualitative attributes. And my entire livelihood is centered on quantitative analysis but it's faulty and limits our understand of complex systems, like a football team. True analysis of organizations means a mixed methods approach that combines the quantitative with the qualitative to create a robust data-driven decision making framework for success.

Imagine thinking that being the child of a successful person should disqualify you for a job. That's the argument here.

What's the over/under no the percent of time he spend talking about his wife, kid, or interjecting himself into everything instead of *checks notes* being unlistenable. Guy is the worst, I can't even stomach when he shows up for 5 minutes on someone's show if I am in the car. Last week on just a drive to the store he was talking about not making his wife his person of the day or whatever. Guy's a giant flag football playing, jock sniffing tool. I miss Joe B, who is what a real report is. Research, analyze, report and keep it impersonal. Between fantasy sports, gambling, and this dweeb, WGR55 is tough to swallow when you just want 5-10 of listening on the way to the store or office.

Take the rose colored glass off homer. It's Mahomes and everyone else. Allen is real good but not the best.

Battle tested? They lost the battle against two tops teams in the AFC. Those are the battles that matter and they got weighed, measures, and found lacking.

He's not good. Anyone who watches good MLBs and takes off the rose colored glasses, stops making excuses about injuries (the injury makes him make bad decisions?), and honestly assesses this dude knows he's not good. Physical freak, mentally not up to the task.

He's horrible. He tries really hard every time he's on to interject "me" into his stories. He often answers questions by making them about him, never simply answering the question. "Sal, what's the weather at the stadium this morning?" "Well, when I walked through the tunnel and onto the field..." He talks about himself way to much, and never prompted. No one cares about his kid either. He sounds and talks like a classic jocksniffer, which is basically what he is, wishing he was friend with the players, referring to them by their first name, which is poor journalistic form. But he does it because he is implying he knows them that way. He also cuts everyone off, not just callers but he interrupts and cuts off the hosts he's on with. He's unlistenable and if I am listening to WGR and he comes no, I turn it off. Shut up, answer the questions, stop interject "me" into every response and move on. Everyone lives him because he is a fan, a homer and when a reporter portrays that characteristic, the homers like him because they see their reflection in him. He's just so bad in so many ways.

As interested as I am in Pegula tennis match or anything about the Pegula's personal lives or in the continual roaring hagiographies of them here. Ok, not that disinterested but not really into it. No fans here as of now, foregoing ST this season, knowing this will probably go sides due to covid, the competitive advantage some teams have with fans in the stands, greedy NFL owners, racist NFL owners, perverted NFL owners. It's hard to care much about this season and sport anymore and I suspect that my STH days will end. And just like when you cut the cord with cable, you realize it opens your world up to a whole host of things you've been blowing off to waste away staring at a giant screen.

Does fandom have to extend to what the owners' kids do? Who cares, honestly. She is a mediocre tennis player basically playing professional tennis as a hobby because her parents can support her financially. Anyone her age, with the inability to climb to any substantial position in the rankings, would have retired into a real job by now. In other words, who cares. I don't. And I don't care about the other garbage they do, shops they open, businesses they buy. The hero worship is astounding.

My money is on the Pegulas and NFL intervening to add private lots to this because they won't get a cut. Guaranteed. And if I were the private lot owners, I would immediately file suit challenging the right of the Town to tell private land owners that they can't do this due to a pandemic when social distancing regulations allow people to visit parks and recreational amenities, bars and restaurants, etc. Seems like an arbitrary and capricious local law unfairly impacting select business (let's be clear, these are businesses). Again, this has the Pegula and NFL's fingerprints all over it. They can't have their cake in county owned lots due to their fear of liability, so they've most certainly stepped in so that others can't as well. So... who's throwing the first major off site tailgate in WNY and where????

Hate when any player goes down with an injury. But when the inevitable happens, I always wish it on this team and more so the owner. That guy's a giant sleazeball and I literally root as hard for him to lose as I do for the Bills to win.

Golfers. It's the most mentally challenging game, by far, requiring the mental toughness necessary to repeatedly make consistent swings and putts. And for pros, they're alone, no teammates, and are not guaranteed a paycheck. So take a job where you have to compete for a paycheck every week by being able to hit a little round ball into a little round hole by making the same, consistent swings week in and week out and you have an athlete that is mentally taxed in terms of mastering the physical requirements and psychologically challenged by the grind of having to earn a paycheck week in and week out, year in and year out. No contest.

Can't wait for the NFL to absolutely implode, gonna be awesome watching these guys lose mountains of money as it already stands, hope they lose more. Can't even put into words how much I want this to fail. Most arrogant, greedy group of owners in any major sport, willing to sell their players, coaches, and staffs' families for profit none actually needs.

Yep, over every TE on this roster. All day.

Great by them. Great they also suspended payments. I'm opting out, waiting for the official steps to be revealed. No way I'm going to that stadium with the attitudes too many people have about the danger posed by covid. Actually a really good test run to see if I'll actually miss the PITA security lines, cramped concourses, and obnoxious scoreboard. Could be the end.

You have multiple schools of thought on Allen, as follows: Blind Homerism - He's awesome. People are mean to him. He's going to get better. The data on him is wrong. He's the outlier, he'll get better he just needs time. These are the folks that find every and all excuses to shine a positive light. They ignore thinks like this shred from the story that dont' bode well or help their argument "In Allen’s final four games (he only played for a quarter against the New York Jets in Week 17), he failed to post higher than 53% passing, including a 24-for-46 performance in the Houston playoff loss." These folks rely on faith and emotion rather than ration and data (past and present). He'll Always Suck - those who want him to suck because they have been beating this drum since they drafted him and nothing he'll do positively will ever be mentioned, instead, a la Lombardi (if he's so smart, why is he a former GM?), cherry pick the data to support their agenda, as in the quote above and the complete unwillingness to recognize any improvement or give it any credence. Let's Wait and See - The in-betweeners. Those who recognize the flaws, see some improvement and think maybe, just maybe, he can be a really good QB. These people are the pragmatists and realists, those who tend to lean on the data that says he "can't improve because few if any have" while also leaning on his work that shows improvement. I would say these people also are certain he can't be a top 5 QB, but maybe a 5-12 kind of guy, good enough to keep the team competitive and in the playoffs and maybe with a ridiculous defense and conservative, mistake free offense, they can be the Dilfer Ravens with Allen.