Buftex

The Oilers final years in Houston were similarly ugly. I won't say that Oilers fans were as die-hard as Browns fans, but they had a great following...it really was simply a situation of an owner demanding a new, state of the art stadilum, and the city was in dire economic shape...they had just invested a healthy chunk of change in gussieng up the Astrodome... their last season in Houston, they played in front of crowds as small as 10,000. Oilers games were not shown or radio broadcast, outside of Houston..which is crazy for a football starved state like Texas... I find it interesting that in both cases (the Browns and Oilers) the city refusal to buckle to demands for a new stadium, played a large part in both teams leaving their original cities, despite a rabid fan base....interesiting too, both cities ended up with a team shortly thereafter...I am afraid, as others have noted, Buffalo won't be so lucky, should that terrible event ever occur.

Good, solid, consistant playing translates to 5200 yards for you? That is 325 yards per game...Currumba...your bar is high... I would be happy if he breaks 3,000... that is about 190-200 yards a game... you are wanting him to put up Drew Brees kinda numbers...that isn't going to happen...this is a running team, first and foremost...

Yeah, but here in Buffalo (I am actually in Texas) people complain when they talk about teams other than the Bills...we need to hear the same tired analysis over and over and over again....

I think he just needs to be consistently "decent", and throw in a few great moments from time to time...not unlike he was in about 7 of his 10 starts next season. Protecting the ball is important, no doubt...but I think he was actually pretty decent in that area...IIRC, half of his turnovers came in 2 games...

Okay..okay... I can deal with the hockey talk, and I enjoy the Sabres almost as much as the Bills...but lets not get delusional about which of the two franchises is more relevant to WNY..a few years ago, the Sabres were, perhaps, more the "buzz" team in Buffalo, because they were having lots of on ice success, at least in the regular season...and lets face it, the Bills were square in the middle of this current futility streak...all things equal, I think WNY would get a lot more swagger out of a Super Bowl victory than we would a Stanley Cup championship..nearing 50, I'll settle for either at this point..

I'd like to think that I would bail right away.... but the Bills of Buffalo have been too big a part of my life, for too long... I think I would root for them right up to their final minutes as the Buffalo Bills...just couldn't pull for them as a Canadian team. Of course I say that, not knowing if they will be any good in 2020. I don't forsee cheering for them in Toronto, in fact, if I still give a proverbial !@#$ about the NFL at that point, I would likely hate them more than any other team in the NFL. As I have gotten older, I have gotten leery of the way the NFL treats its' fans in general, this would likely only crystallize my already negative feelings about the league. If I were to pick another team, it would likely be the Browns, Bengals, Chiefs or Broncos. Been a detached Broncos fan since the Craig Morton era, the Chiefs kinda remind me of the Bills for some reason.....but I feel a strong kinship with Cleveland and Cincinnati. I have only my experience, at 13, of losing the Buffalo Braves, to compare. The Braves were my favorite team in all of sports. I was crushed... devastated. I tried, halfheartedly perhaps, to root for the Clippers in San Diego.... not easy to do in Buffalo in 1979. I just didn't care though.... I started rooting for the previously despised Celtics... the only team you could really follow closely, in a non-NBA city on the east coast at that time. Basketball was my game as a lad....favorite game to play, and the only one I personally had a modicum of personal success with... I had to have a team to pull for.....at nearly 50, as much as I love the Bills and as much as I enjoy football, I don't feel as personally connected to the actual game, only the Bills. I'm also one of those curmudgeons who thinks the NFL is dangerously close to suffering from over-saturation (do we really need 16 weeks of Thursday night football?).... and I don't think it as good a game as it once was....

:wallbash: :wallbash: They are talking hockey, two hours every weekday, whether you like it or not...they have a Buffalo Sabres show...just like the they a 2 hour Buffalo Bills show, every week, all year...the Bufflao Sabres (there is another pro sports team in town) are having the NHL equivalant of their rookie mini-camp...some people are actually interested in the Sabres and the Bills...hard as that may be to fathom.... it seems like somebody starts this !@#$ing thread every other week....

Willie Nelson?

You know, I love fantasy football, but I am really starting to not like the way it has changed the way we watch the games. I miss the old days, kinda, when fantasy football was not crammed in your face... I hate the constant streaming of stats while I am watching a game... i kinda like looking them up myself...I have been playing so long (1987 was my first FF season), I remember that the USA Today was considered the "official stat source" for all scoring. The first season I would compile all the stats for our leauge. I had Monday mornings off, so I would spend about 3 or 4 hours every Monday, pouring over the USA Today stats...then add the Monday night stats on to that on Tuesday morning....you would know if you won on Wednesday morning. I kinda miss looking and disecting the stats for myself..when the networks just keep blasting me with them, I don't even know what they mean after a while...much as I love Fantasy Football, I still enjoy the actual games, especially Bills games. I am not gonna say I don't pay attention to it all, but I don't really feel like I have any option. Generally though, when I am watching a Bills game at noon (I am in the Central time zone), I have no idea how my team is doing against whatever team I am scheduled against, until about 4pm. Of course, I may be the only person alive who does not like the Red Zone channel either...I think it is cool, with the sound down, in a bar, when you are watching your game...but to just sit and watch it, as opposed to an actual game, is not a pleasurable experience for me. Hear hear! Especially when it comes to Fantasy sports. Last season, i spen hours listening to ESPN's FF podcast, because I felt like I just didn't have enough time to reasearch everything the way I would normally do it... in the end, it did me absolutely no good...Matthew Berry is, indeed, living the Fantasy life!

Just Learn Baby!

Again with the avatar...I'm out on this one... I will say, I like Jaws, and like his game film breakdowns... but, a few years ago, he started taking money from young QB prospects, and young NFL QB's and ran them through these "camp" things. This is outside his ESPN duties. I first became aware of this with JP Losman..it may have been going on longer. Once he started taking money for this, his opnions on QB prospects became a little tainted..what is he going to say, this kid I just spent all this time with, who paid me, is going to suck? Once they pay, he has nothing but good things to say about them. But jeepers...lets not gang up on him...he is hardly the first inaccurate prognosticator of future QB success, and hell, he is the Polish Rifle...one of our own!

EJ must not have paid him to "work with him" this off-season...that is one way to impresses Jaws!

So funny....most here were ready to tar and feather him before last season...

I hear it was really good...been meaning to rent it someday soon.

In other news, I started reading "The Sound and The Fury" about 20 years ago..I know it is probably pretty good...I may finish it someday!

Thanks...I will never understand the NBA salary cap stuff... but, "LeBron watch" is sort of becoming like the Olympics... what you say makes perfect sense, but I will say, as much as I love LeBron going back to the Cavs, it is one of the truly surprising moves I can remember in all of sports...when I started this thread a month or so ago, I was blasting him (sort of) for bailing on the Heat (though I loathe them), never imagining he would really ever return to Cleveland. I was assured by many, "no way" he leaves Miami...they said he, Bosh and Wade were all angling to make the Miami salary cap more beneficial to sign better free agents...it seemed logical... Of course, I never thought LeBron would leave Cleveland four years ago...great basketball player that he is, he is pretty hard to read. So, while what you say makes sense, I guess I won't be shocked if there is another LeBron watch in 2016, or 2017. He has yet to do anything I expected him to do. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but if you think about it, maybe LeBron had this planned all along...figured the Cavs weren't going to get past Boston in the East, swing over to Miami for a few years to play with Wade, hopefully win a championship or two, and give the Cavs time to get their salary cap back in shape, get some high draft picks, and then he can comeback when they are re-loaded... either way, I hope it works out in Cleveland. Provided they aren't playing Boston (my team, a long way from contending for anything I fear), I can always root for the Cavs. Pulled for them when LeBron was their the first time around...he is a better player now than he was then...this could be fun. The East being as weak as it is, the Cavs should be a serious threat to the finals in the next year or two...

So, I just heard (sorry if I am late to the party on this) that LeBron signed a two year deal with the Cavs, with an option after the first year.... what do you think? Back to Miami in 2016? Or 2017?

Some of the greatest corners in NFL history started out as the worst DB people have ever seen on any team in any NFL game... cliche as it is, the corner position is the toughest position to make the leap from college to the pros, outside of QB. There have been some great DB's over the years who have failed miserably their first season or two... remember the mass hysteria here over Aaron Williams not too long ago?

It's official...LeBron is a Cavalier again!

Jboyst, I thought McKelvin was mostly excellent last year...what games are you referring to? As I recall, it was the other corner position that was the most erratic last season.

Yes.,, Bills top play shoule be the "hit heard arond the world", or Carlton Baileys' pick-6 to win the 1991 AFC Championship game against the Broncos...

I like Joe B too. I don't always agree with him, and I know some here don't like him because they think he comes off as a "know it all", but I think he is the best that GR55 has to offer for Bills coverage. I like Sal Cappacio too...but he has been on the radio way too much as of late...sometimes too much is not a good thing... As for the whole Robey Vs McKelvin thing..who cares? Ranking the top 20 players on the team, regardless of position, is kind of a silly task anyways. I like both players quite a bit. That said, Robey was a real UDFA find last season, and impressed most (not you I guess)...McKelvin has taken 5 years to finally be the complete corner they thought he was going to be...if one is ranked 17th, and the other 14th, who cares?

I just don't see a problem there...

Don't tell Fezmid that...

I'm taking my talents to Al Qaeda...