Neo

I’ve had this vision for some time. It came to me in March of 2021. I bought an 85 inch Samsung TV for +/- $3,200. Say you add another $1,000 for surround sound and you get to $4,200. Hubs, remote, Sonos, install and I was in for $8,000. This was quite a leap for me in terms of size and cost. I’d never had more than one television in my house and my largest was 52 inches. I thought THAT was huge. With today’s pricing, the same thing would cost $6,000. At approximately the same time, the Bills and other franchises were talking about $1.2 to 2.0 billion stadiums for 8 to 12 games a year. Sure, that cost is amortized over 20 years, but it remains huge relative to usage. Football is a made for television sport. With multiple game options, sponsorship and advertising money, slow motion, instant replay, split screens, freeze frame, high definition, and fantasy interest, you have a great product for broadcast. It occurred to me that the league could build four stadiums in a destination city and play four games at 1 pm, 4 pm and 8 pm on a Sunday. That’s 12 of the sixteen played each week. Toss in Monday and Thursday, and you could get a full schedule played in each week for the cost of four stadiums. The economics seemed compelling to me. You may decide building 40,000 seat arenas makes sense and sell “all day” packages for one, two or three games. Let’s say the league chose Las Vegas with all of its entertainment, dining, resort and gambling. I see substantially more revenue and substantially less cost. The obstacle in my mind was fandom and team loyalty. The Buffalo Bills, and its Mafia, have Buffalo. How would that translate if the “Buffalo Bills” played in Las Vegas? Not perfectly and you’d have fallout. Now, I see this. There would have to be a transition period, but I can see the Bills becoming the Apple iBills, or the Nokia Bills. There’d be grumbling and you’d lose some interest. But, like most things, there’d be an evolution. There are 8 billion people in the world to find replacement interest among fans content to stay home, pay less, lose the tailgate experience, and watch the world’s first essentially all broadcast sport. Ladies and gentleman, enjoy your living room and home entertainment system (with it’s smart home, work from home, concert, movie and news capabilities) presented by the suddenly much more profitable and valuable World Football League. The arena would have fast food, fine dining, casinos and concert halls. Today’s game features the Apple iBillls vs Volkswagon Fahrvergnugens.

Well, it IS a Performance Enhancing Drug …. so I hear.

From time to time, we talk about individual members of the team.

More, please.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/chiefs-bills-trade-that-landed-kansas-city-patrick-mahomes-paid-major-dividends-for-both-teams/ Tre'Davious White (CB), Tremaine Edmunds (LB), Dion Dawkins (T), Zay Jones (WR), Siran Neal (CB) for Patrick Mahomes Removing the hindsight goggles, I think I vote “yes” on this trade. I’m no NFL scout, but I remember watching the highlight film of Mahomes. My takeaway was “that freelancing magic doesn’t translate, but oh, what fun.”

I think Mahomes DOES score on the last drive. Bringing his team within 37 points as time expires.

A defensive PI called in the playoffs AGAINST the Chiefs is sending all of the conspiracy theorists back to the drawing board. Call, team, circumstance … it can’t be!

Or, maybe not ….

Romo … tsk, tsk, tsk … Just said that’s the second time a quarterback was disrupted by a great Chris Jones play as the QB was about to throw a TD pass. Silly Romo, he doesn’t understand the check down option and a QB error. Hero Baller, Purdy ….

Mr. Irrelevant. First by slot, second on merit.

Well, it became your point after I posted. Your original point that it’s not special isn’t’ diminished by others that, too, are special. It’s the usage of “silly and juvenile” in your original post that inspired mine. If I understand where you are now, you’ve gone to not unique among the most ravenous fans in the world from nothing special, silly and juvenile. If the Bills could move goal posts like you did, we’d be playing tonight.

I think it’s a heck of a lot more than silly and juvenile. Somewhere between “so do a number of other franchises” and “nothing special” lies a wonderful camaraderie unique to Buffalo and recognized nationwide that isn’t “completely silly and juvenile.” There is a myopia, it seems to me, in Buffalo that doesn’t allow its citizens to see some unique opportunities for pure joy associated with living in the 716 and following the Bills. Everything is particularly special. I can say that and recognize other fans have their charms, too. I can tell you fans in Florida, the Carolinas, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas and California certainly think The Mafia is special. SEC fans, especially, recognize a kinship. I have colleagues in NFL cities from Miami, Jacksonville, Houston, New Orleans and Dallas. We touch all the SEC and most of the ACC. THOSE are fan bases. Our group texts are Geaux Tigers, Go Gators, Roll Tide, War Eagle, Hottie Tottie, and Go Bills. Lastly, I was in Miami January 7. Try telling that crowd the Mafia’s not particularly special.

Imagine that … a generational talent we failed to build a team around ….

1970 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year

I think Lamar’s MVP is easy to understand, also. I’d choose Josh, but only by a nose this regular season. Lamar had a great regular season, no doubt.

We’re on a three way teeter totter whenever we debate MVP. One poster talks individual player. The next counters with supporting cast. A third brings up championships. All three mix in the other two criteria while championing his number one. Give me a mystery 52 man roster and coaching staff absent one player. I’ll take Mahomes over Allen looking at six years. I’ll take Allen this last year over Lamar.

You’re exactly right. Then, what happens the play after that, and the play after that, and the play after that, and the play after that, and the play after that, …. and the play after that. I don’t know you from Adam, but I do know that the check down Allen was never a thing, isn’t a thing, and will never be a thing. Thank the Almighty for that. I think the Allen debate provide as much insight into individual posters as they do into Allen. The guy is a thermonuclear bomb tossing freak with instincts for kill shots and the so, so, rare ability to back that package up way more often than not. Having that horse in your stable, and hitching him to a plow, suggests a view of life I don’t understand. Maybe it’s me. If only Monet painted inside the lines and if only Picasso connected all the body parts correctly. Total respect to you, by the way. I’ll cast my lot with the guys who want the ball and swing for the fences when they’re good enough to be that guy.

I”m not a fan of “hot mic” leaks … seems a little dirty to me. But, that’s me. My life would be radically different if some of my “hot mic” moments were broadcast. All of ours would, I suppose. I’m in Tampa and can say the feeling among the fans is they’ll be glad to have him back. While I’m generally not a fan of the “cocky”, I think Baker got a raw deal coming out and has matured and turned things around - or, perhaps, simply shown us what he could be with some stability in the organization. Good for Baker, good for Tampa.

Bills Redskins in Minneapolis. The lost helmet game. One, what a clean, gracious, city. Hit a Bills Bar the night before. Five of us drank for hours and bought everything in red, white and blue drinks. Settle up time, the bartender handed me the tab. I thought he was doing “my share” when I saw the tab. It was for all of us. You can’t afford to stay sober in Minneapolis was my conclusion. Naturally, we missed the last shuttle to the hotel. A volunteer said she could help, but unfortunately “it was gonna take fifteen minutes.” She arranged a bus just for the five of us with a walkie talkie. What a nice crew. I sang “hail, to the redskins” all the way home. It was played after every Redskin score. I had the song memorized by the third quarter.

I’ve been reading and reading, and I think I’ve been persuaded. The league is definitely fixed. That’s not to say it’s rigged, however, which would be all together different. It’s clearly not scripted, which would be right out. It’s not surprising that some are confusing this with influenced, even though the two words are different. I have this gnawing sense that, from time to time, I’m watching something that’s engineered, of sorts. Lacking a degree in the discipline, I offer no conclusion. Concentrating greatly, I don’t confuse this with results that are derived, or falsified. And jury-rigged is simply a subset of rigged, as a whole concept, and therefore not up for consideration. You’ll never get me to agree, try as you might. that games are contrived. I have no evidence of prepense despite years of watching players and referees. I say this even though I saw a linesman fiddling with his back pocket flag before a snap in 1993. I am happy with my personal growth and my willingness to confess to an error in my thinking. I live. I learn.

He’s an excellent number two receiver with an intolerable number one receiver attitude. Who’d rely on him to excel in a super bowl? Dante’s undiscovered Tenth Circle - those whose self admiration and compulsion to talk exceeds their ability to produce or provide insight. Last thought. He’s often defended, and his childish behavior excused, because he runs around and yells on the sideline. What a competitor! Being a competitor requires more than sullen days and weeks interrupted by occasional bursts of anger. No one even looks at him during his fits. Sayonara, Steffon. I hear you believe “you’re him.” Hope that works out for you. As to the question posed. He’s slower and less shifty than he used to be and he drops footballs more often than he used to.

Careful, you’re thinking clearly …. “they” are going to silence you. I’m sure they can create some after the fact “facts” video to challenge what you wrote. Ads are sold, and revenue generated, long before the pairing is known. WAIT, could that mean the 100s of thousands of employees at the advertisers are in on it, too? If I read this thread correctly, the only people not in on the fix are a small portion of the fans. As I type, it occurs to me that this THREAD is rigged! ISPs and POP UP ADS. Cuz, you know, they’re businesses, and in it to make a profit. This is entertainment, after all. Is Netflix rigged? ‘Alas, Queeg … “Ahh, but the strawberries! That's - that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with - geometric logic - that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist! And I'd have PRODUCED that key if they hadn't've pulled the Caine out of action! I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers -“

I am quitting a rather long hour, high stress job. I had no idea I could profit in terms of clicks, market share, and ad revenue by writing and producing material that appeals to the paranoid. Paranoia, I thought, was a narrow niche disease afflicting a tiny segment of society. And so, I’m off. DM if you’re interested in anti - Big Foot weaponry or want to know the Super Bowl winner. I’ll be announcing it in a video after the Super Bowl’s played, not before, to “demonstrate” how the fix was in.

You’d not ask if you ever heard, and saw, Haley Reinhart and Postmodern Jukebox’s version … Oh, baby!

You’re right, but I had to consider the other play and its impact, also. There was that second and seven where Baltimore picked up four yards, setting up the third and three. Flowers had a hand full of jersey four yards deep on a corner, and the so the KC safety slid right, allowing for at least one yard of the four picked up. Had that not happened, KC is likely to have passed on third and five instead of handing the ball to Pacheco, who picked up the first by half a yard. That allowed the clock to keep moving and led to a touchdown 11 plays later, most of which had penalties of one sort or another either called or not called, some against each team.