The Frankish Reich

I wish the BN well (and losing a hometown daily is a major loss to a community), but I have to agree with you. This won't work. At 36 bucks a year, to bring in any serious revenue you've got to get subscribers into the tens of thousands. 10,000 subscribers = $360,000. But then you've got the bloated staff of writers (some of whom should probably be called "content providers"); even at post-internet cheapo pay, it adds up. Not to mention the marketing costs (including the salary of our fine facilitator of this discussion). I'm sure they'll keep subscriber numbers private/proprietary so we won't know until the plug is pulled. This strikes me as more of a Berkshire Hathaway pilot project - can we find a new model for newspapers? Inundate readers with content and hope that fear of missing out is enough to make them pay? Then adjust the price accordingly until you find a significant drop off in subscribers.

Is "too soon to say" still allowed in this world of hot takes? It's taken me 37 years to decide that Jimmy Carter really want that bad a president after all: inflation finally brought under control through his appointment of Volcker to the Fed (continued under Reagan) military buildup (continued under Reagan) in response to Soviet aggression in Afghanistan that prove essential to the collapse of the USSR, deregulating air travel, making it affordable to the masses (and, umm, miserable for all) ... I've gone from "among the worst ever" to a solid B/B- in my assessment.

93.8 84.4 (coming into tonight's game) That's the QB ratings for Tyrod as a Bill and Wentz as an Eagle! (I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing this argument too)

In retrospect, plus McCoy. By the way, two teams here tonight that were thought to have been so poorly mismanaged - meddlin' liddle Dan Snyder and his crazy coaching and personnel moves; the failed Chip Kelly Experiment going up in flames - that they'd be consigned to years of rebuilding. And yet, here they are, one team in a Bills-like always hanging around mode (including a few playoff appearances despite the Spurrier and Shanahan flame-outs and the "mortgaging the future" for 1 good year of RG3), one team now pulling away from the rest of the NFC. Meanwhile, we're on Year 18 of the rebuild. More than a little Aaron Rodgers in Wentz.

fivethirtyeight has the Bills as 11th on their ratings after Sunday's games. If the Redskins beat the Eagles on Monday night, that could slip to 12th, but here's the interesting part: 4th highest rating in the AFC. NE, KC, PIT ... [gap] ... then Bills. And the projected record now? 9-7. Right at a 50% chance of making the playoffs. Bills continue to be competitive in every game (and actually winning most of them) while the competition (Denver? WTF?) continues to backslide. So am I saying this is a legitimate playoff contender? Yes. Yes I am.

From where I'm situated - Colorado - I can assure you that McCoy and Musgrave are not terribly popular either. Somehow I think it comes down to "offensive genius" having a very strong positive correlation with "great quarterback."

Hey, where's Shamiel Gary? Sammy Seamster has a fine name, but he's no Shamiel.

Rule: until you make the playoffs at least once in the current millennium, you are not allowed to talk the "trap game" talk.

In Sully's defense: generally newspaper writers don't write the headlines. And the fact that they took this one down suggests that someone (Sully? A sports editor?) agreed with the OP here - a very misleading headline, and even the BN should know better.

Virgil, I'm calling BS on 2. Sure, you believe to your soul that you could never root for Brady. But the second he'd pull on that Buffalo helmet we all know you'd be right back, and so would the rest of us. So ... San Diego Bills would be o.k. (like Utah Jazz or something)?

Nice story, and that was the only proper response to abandoning Brooklyn. But really ... you could've waited for the Mets instead of switching to the Yankees ...

The Bills moving out of Buffalo. That would have done it. Immediately. None of this "I grew up in Brooklyn in the 50's so I still support the Dodgers" crap you hear from the occasional old timer. Other than that, or perhaps just losing interest in football someday, nothing will make me give up on Bills fandom. Come on, if we haven't already, what do you think would do it now?

I said "right now." In other words, without Matthews and Clay, with a still hobbling Cordy Glenn, etc. Reading comprehension is in decline. And that's why sometimes you just run straight ahead for 1 yard with 35 seconds left, in your own territory, with an unexpected 14-7 lead over the Pats.

So the sad fact is that the Jets offense right now IS better than ours.

Umm, but first we have to worry about playing the unexpectedly competitive Jets again ...

Is the Jets offense now better than ours? I'm starting to think so. Caveat: McCown will not last for 16 games.

I personally believe what's lacking is a Donald Jones receiver good for 41 catches/10.8 YPC (his 2012). And here's the sad part of that: I am not kidding. We actually do need a Donald Jones or two because sometimes a mediocre 4th receiver is an improvement, and this is one of those times. P.S.: I believe the OP when he says he talked to Jones. Really, if you were making this crap up, wouldn't you go a little larger than "I met Donald Jones?" I mean, you'd at least go with Eric Moulds or something ... EDIT: I mentioned "where the hell is Naaman Roosevelt when you need him" in a different thread. He's in Saskatchewan catching 76 and 75 balls in the last 2 seasons. Which says something about him, or about the quality of the CFL I guess. Probably both.

Agreed. Dylan always had that, umm, unorthodox nasal tone, but on some occasions - when he was younger, when he was trying - it worked perfectly. And you really should listen to a couple songs from the recent "Dylan Sings Standards" albums. Mostly bad reviews, but amazingly some people (even professional music writers) like it - a true Emperor's New Clothes hero worship phenomenon. Scores an 80 on Metacritic! http://www.metacritic.com/music/triplicate/bob-dylan On Murray: I saw a longer performance on CBS Saturday Morning yesterday. I kind of get it now, but it also has a kind of depressing "farewell tour" feel to it ... and looking quickly at a couple Dylan singing Sinatra reviews, it looks like people get the same vibe from that.

And now Nick O'Leary too!

I heard they also asked him to smoke more weed to counteract his tendency to jump offsides. They also asked him to wear that Captain's cap to signify his leadership role.

Well, I can't agree with that. Andy Dalton may be the whitest guy I've ever seen, and he's consistently (until last year) put up 10+ win seasons, but he's not exactly accumulated a ton of respect among Bengals fans or fans around the league.

Well, I don't think there's any disagreement here ... Jones was "expected to be that guy" because the depth chart was depleted. The 37th overall pick shouldn't be forced into that role. That's a lot of pressure on him, and it's showing. I do think he'll turn into a useful player - again, maybe a Justin Hunter type player (more of a red zone threat than anything else), and if we're lucky, more than that. But that just wasn't likely to happen in his rookie year no matter what. I feel bad for the kid because he was thrust into a role he simply isn't prepared to handle at this point in his career.

I don't know why anyone is surprised. He was the 37th overall pick. Curtis Samuel (40th) has 4 catches. The beautifully named Ju Ju Smith Schuster (62nd overall pick by PIT) has 12 catches. Of course, Cooper Kupp (69th/Rams) has 17 catches ... but still. It was always unrealistic to assume that a 2nd round receiver would make an immediate impact. People forget that Robert Woods was kind of the exception - a 2nd rounder who immediately produced - rather than the rule. The WR picked before Robert Woods in 2013 (in a seemingly more talented WR class) was Justin Hunter; the guy picked after him was Aaron Dobson (who? out of the NFL after 2015). When we drafted Zay I compared him to Justin Hunter. As usual, post-draft everyone is unrealistically optimistic about the quality of this year's class and the savvy of this year's GM and draft team, and I was dismissed as an idiot ...

Yep. Tate doesn't really fit in the discussion of the various castoffs and never-has-beens that we need to throw in at WR. He's actually proven himself to be a perfectly adequate NFL receiver. Hey, Naaman Roosevelt is playing in the CFL ... when's that season end again? I checked a couple weeks ago, and sadly the "I miss Hogan" thread is archived/closed. I really wanted to bump it up again since nothing on this board makes me laugh more than the unhinged Hogan haters vs. the Hogan fanboys. Count me as being somewhere in the middle - the rational, "better than the alternatives" camp ...

Yeah, but beware the Reggie Cleveland All Stars - guys with names that seem to say "I'm black" or "I'm white" and they turn out to be the opposite. http://proxy.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/020509 Yeah, but Briscoe famously never got the opportunity to play QB. (He could have been an early incarnation of Tyrod?) As for James "Shack" Harris (per his Wiki page, that was apparently his nickname, although I never, ever, ever heard anyone call him that. I do remember Howard Cosell -- in his 1970s phase of openly rooting for any black QB to make it as a starter (actually kind of a noble cause for him) -- calling him "Jamie," which was a name nobody (including Harris) ever used ... he also didn't get much of a chance with the Bills despite the fact that he only had to beat out Dennis Shaw and Joe Ferguson. The knock on Harris was (and I am not making this up) his arm was "too strong" and receivers didn't like having to catch those bruising fastballs. I don't think the late 60s/early 70s Bills were any more racist than any other NFL team, but looking back at those days, I do think Briscoe and Harris have a point when they've argued that it wasn't a fair competition ...