BigDingus

Kinda wished I had watched Hard Knocks now...

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/nathan-peterman-expected-to-make-raiders-roster-133407701.html "Rapoport reports that head coach Jon Gruden likes Peterman and wants to help turn his career around. That is no surprise to anyone who has kept up with the Raiders on HBO’s “Hard Knocks”, where Gruden has been complimentary of the former Buffalo Bills quarterback." Well that's nice of him! It's cool to see Gruden's taken a personal interest in Peterman & wants to help resurrect his career. I hope he's successful.

Even though Shady looked to be past his prime, he was still a household name known around the country. With him being released, who is their a player left who's name, jersey, personality, etc. brings attention to the team by themselves alone? When McBeane took over, we had Sammy Watkins, LeSean McCoy, Marcell Dareus, and arguably Kyle Williams. We got rid of Watkins prior to the regular season starting, eventually picked up Kelvin Benjamin (who wasn't a "star" but was at least well known), then proceeded to trade or cut them, with Williams eventually retiring. Yes, I know we all know Jerry Hughes, he's great, but most people don't know a thing about him (not like he brings a lot of attention to himself either, which I'm fine with). Most NFL fans tend to at least know the starting QB for each team, so Allen may be at least generally known, but aside from him we really don't have any recognition anymore. At this point, I think the 1 year rental RB in Frank Gore is our biggest "star." Ed Oliver could be the bigger name, but I'm not so sure many people associate him with the Bills or even remember he's a part of this team. Every time I discuss the Bills with my NFL friends, they seem to have already forgotten all about him. Hell, I still hear far more about Nathan Peterman when discussing the Bills than anyone else by a LONG shot. With that being said, who's most likely to jump to that status & become the name people will bring up most often in relation to the Bills? If they had to name a handful of players, who would be those names? I'd say Devin Singletary, Ed Oliver (if he isn't already), Tremaine Edmunds and obvious Josh Allen if he can even just manage a solid year overall. Outside of that, we're pretty low on personality & national recognition, which I'm not saying is a "bad" thing, it just is what it is. The only bad thing is whether we're considered a desirable team for viewership potential. The lack of nationally televised games, or even games outside of the 1:00/12:00 CST time slot is heavily influenced by not only prior record, but by star power. Market matters, but if a team has a lot of personality & intrigue surrounding its players, it becomes a hot candidate for prime time games. ************************* TL;DR - Do we have any real "stars" left? Who do you think potential future stars could be? Do those of you who live outside of Buffalo know people or have friends who don't follow the team but are aware of big name players?

Was hoping it wouldn't happen, but it was clear someone needed to go. May as well be the expensive guy on the last year of his contract. Sadly, this means on a national stage Beane & McDermott have officially finished gutting the last of our star power. Better hope Josh Allen really takes that next step.

Until proven otherwise, the AFC East is still the worst division in football. We have the Patriots, and a bunch of consistently bottom feeder teams year after year after year. We pretty much allow the Pats to cruise to the playoffs uncontested year in & year out, giving them an easier shot than most at a Super Bowl. The AFC South may be considered the weakest now, but even so, the AFC East isn't far behind.

As surprising as it may seem, it's not that hard to understand. More & more players are retiring young, players with many years of good football left ahead of them. They don't feel the stress, the pain, the risk of life altering injuries, the surgeries, etc. are worth it. Better to leave with your health & faculties in tact then to go out with numerous more concussions & a deteriorated body that'll cause you anguish for the rest of your life. It's sad to see, but Luck has gone through hell the past several years. He seems to always be working his way back from some injury, and I'm sure the pressure to get on the field is enormous. At some point he probably realized this is not what he wants to look forward to for the next decade...more & more of that, which will inevitably become more & more difficult each time. Hope he can now finally recover & enjoy his life, and is successful with whatever he chooses to pursue next.

When he gets drafted in the first round

My wife & both were laughing at that!

Barkley just looks like he gets it. Not saying he's a great QB or anything, but he obviously has a grasp of what he's doing & what he's looking for out there.

Challenging PI calls is 100% reasonable. Challenging non-calls in order to get a flag out of it seems excessive.

Only 5? I'd put about 15-20 ahead of us easily. Homers (not using the term as an insult) will usually get themselves hyped like this the closer we get to regular season kicking off, typically making progressively more & more grandiose statements, predictions and expectations. Year after year, reality again sets in, and the tidal wave of 10-12 win season predictions begin to look ridiculous. Until they actually do something in meaningful game conditions, I'm going off of what I saw them do last year combined with moderate expectations for each of the new additions to the team. If the new players can stay on the field, they will at least bump the team up enough to help us get to a respectable 8-8 season. 9-7 would be a huge success, playoffs or not. But I think 8-8 would show solid improvement, probably limited by a young QB.

Oh ok. I guess if you don't already have Hulu then I could understand passing on it, but for $2 more, getting all the ESPN+ stuff on top of Hulu makes it worth it to me, Disney+ is just a nice bonus. And in regards to PPV's, you still have to buy them like normal. There are bonus events free on ESPN+, but the main PPV's you still pay the $59.99 price. Here's a good link explaining it - https://heavy.com/streaming/2019/04/watch-ufc-ppv-events-espn-plus/

If it is, that's a very sad statement about our franchise the past couple decades For a moment, pretend you're not a diehard Bills fan. Pretend you live anywhere else and only follow the Bills like you or I would follow any other NFL team in general. Imagine hearing someone say out loud "do you think Matt Barkley & Josh Allen are the best QB pair since Kelly & Reich for the Bills?" I feel you'd get a good amount of laughs mixed with some raised eyebrows. Preseason means jack. Peterman looked great last preseason. Allen having 2 solid drives in 2 preseason games, combined with a guy we've seen play one regular season game since 2016, equals "best QB pair since____?" Really?! I feel like I'm in crazy land here... Having hope is one thing, but c'mon...Allen hasn't even proved himself to be a consistent starter yet, and Barkley? He COULD be whatever anyone wants to fantasize him to be! He COULD be the next Tom Brady too, s*** if I know. I mean his one start last season was our best offensive output of the year, so if we're going to make ANY judgement off of what we've seen in preseason & play with the Bills, he COULD be the real franchise QB of the 2, not Allen. I mean, why not? If someone can make a determination about him being part of the "best" of anything Bills-related based on training camp, preseason & 1 regular season game, why can't he also be just the "best QB on the roster?" Anyway, I just can't wait for the real games to start and we can start evaluating people based on reality instead of what we hope.

Guess it depends on what your interests are, and if you have kids. Aside from them instantly making available all Disney animated films since their inception, along with all Pixar movies, they're making a ton of original programming exclusive to the platform. Now that they own Fox, they're working on bringing those IP's to that service on top of it (aside from R-Rated movies/shows which will go on Hulu). This includes IP's like Star Wars, Marvel, National Geographic, The Simpsons, etc. including shows made by Pixar, 20th Century, Marvel & Lucas Films that tie into existing franchises. There's also a bunch of announced oddities like The World According to Jeff Goldblum (a weird show about pretty much tackles whatever random thing on his mind), Cinema Relics (anthology series that dives into old films), The Mandalorian (a live action series following a Rebel Spy in the Star Wars universe), etc. Lastly, all Disney content is being pulled from other services like Netflix and will exclusively stream on Disney+. Endgame, Aladdin, Toy Story 4, Star Wars: Episode IX, Frozen 2, blah blah blah. Anyway, just pulled up some tabs & tried to drop off a bit of the info they've got. If you've got kids, there's only tens of thousands more shows & movies they'd probably be hyped for too. Or you could just not care about all that other stuff anyway. For me, paying the extra $2 to get access to all that & ESPN+ is worth it even if I could care less about the majority of the stuff on their. If there's at least 2 or 3 things in there worth watching, it won't bother me one bit.

It's a hardware-only contract, different from a service contract. Meaning you'd be able to drop their service at any time at no cost, but you'd still have to finish paying off the genie in the meantime.

Even with the regular season, it's not like he was given much of a chance. We had coaches that thoroughly jerked him around...giving him all of one half before pulling him again. The guy may have sucked, but it's not like anyone showed more than surface-level confidence in him, and he knew any failures would get him sent back to the bench in an instant. Again, not saying he would've been great, but I've rarely seen another QB get treated the way he did.

About 5 months ago I called to see if I could get my DirecTV bill lowered a bit, just saying I'd prefer to drop a tier or something since I'm not using it much. The woman cut my bill from $130 a month down to $60, and said I'd get to keep it at that price for a year... Sometimes DirecTV's customer service can be EXTREMELY helpful. I didn't threaten to cancel or anything. She just up & said here ya go, we'll cut your bill in half for the hell of it! Might want to hold off a bit on that. Disney's new streaming service Disney+ is coming out soon, and they announced a future bundle that will include Disney+, Hulu & ESPN+ for only $12.99 a month. That's only $2 more than I'm paying right now for Hulu alone. I've been wanting to get ESPN+ too, but I'm going to wait it out until that bundle officially releases.

If he said something we don't want to hear, the responses would've been "Who?" and "Why should I care what ____ has to say?" Throw in some jokes about his looks & the company he works for, and that about sums up the usual reactions. Edit: I do like this bit of info though - "The Bills are one of nine teams that do not face an opponent that's coming off a bye week." THANK YOOOUUUU!

There's gotta be some kind of between success & spiraling into idiocy when it comes to WR's. The more successful they become, the more they become a locker room nightmare or complete tool. Something tells me Antonio Brown's brain is a lost cause already. Let him wear whatever helmet he wants, it won't do him any good anyway.

Nah, Bortles played well that year. He wasn't great, but he played above average, which is more than our QB's the last decade+ can say (outside of Orton).

Wow, really?! I was thinking "man, I guess at half time I'd have to walk alllll the way back to my car just to deal with it," but no re-entry either? Is that a NY thing? The Texans stadium is pretty darn nice, and I was thrilled they had a place on the 2nd floor where you could step outside on the balcony & smoke or vape. The place is beautiful, so it seems weird they'd allow it but not Buffalo.

Can't even bring in e-Cigs anymore? Geez, the crackdown on nicotine products really sucks... I stopped smoking, but still use the little vape pen every once in a while, but it just sucks when I can't even carry one on me. I get not using anything, but c'mon... making it really hard on us with vices

Just a random question, is Buffalo still losing people year over year, or has it stabled out/started gaining people again? I know the business landscape has changed quite a bit, but last time I was there it seemed like a lot was needed in infrastructure & renovations. Never lived there, but I love the place so much & am always fascinated reading about the area. A new stadium would go a long way in securing the team, but I know it's not so simple. I only wish we had done it sooner, as other rust belt/midwest teams managed to find a way & not break the bank. It's only getting more & more expensive as time goes on, so hopefully a solution is in sight.

I'm a fan of Josh, I just don't think he's going to be the guy. With that being said, I don't think we can take away much from a preseason game, even if he looked amazing. We saw Peterman look pretty damn good with the offense last preseason, didn't mean a thing. My main issue with Allen as a player is that his success depends on him becoming a player he's never been before at any level... Unlike a lot of QB's that needed time to develop into great players in the NFL, Allen wasn't exactly lighting it up during his college career either. Example: you may see some QB's just put up insane numbers and play out of their minds in college, then hope that one day they can perform that way in the pros. You want to get them to that same level, only against higher competition. Mahomes for instance put up ridiculous numbers & carried Texas Tech as best he could, and seeing that made you think "man, if he could do that in the pros he'd be great!" But even if you got Allen's absolute best in college, only now in the NFL, that wouldn't be anything great. If you're drafting a QB hoping they can play as great as they did in the past, Allen wouldn't be the guy you'd draft. In other words, the coaching staff was under the impression that they had the tools to make him into an elite QB themselves, something other coaches haven't been able to do yet. And therein lies the issue. McDermott is a great Defensive minded HC, but he doesn't appear to be the best QB evaluator out there. This is the same guy who thought we were so perfectly ok at the QB position that we didn't need a veteran at the position to help groom Allen, and that we also were perfectly fine trading away McCarron, and perfectly fine starting Nathan Peterman.... Then he proceeds to yank the guy he was so confident in by halftime, and forces the rookie 1st round pick, who was known to be the most raw QB of the big 4 drafted, into game action already.... Took him a while to realize how dumb that was, then snagged Anderson as quickly as he could, that backfired, then had to grab Barkley out of a park to just have ANYONE to trot out there. Luckily Barkley ended up playing great, but the entire situation was botched from the start. TL;DR - McDermott hasn't shown that he even knows how to evaluate the QB position, Allen hasn't ever played like a great QB at any level, so hoping McDermott & Co. can coach him into a player he's never shown he can be, only now in the NFL, seems really, REALLY unlikely.

I honestly hope he's ok as a human being, and retires the moment the doctor tells him it's needed. I know it's hard to step away from the game, and you just got this fat new contract, but life is more important. Getting another concussion this season should be the final straw... Coaches & trainers should put him on the IR the moment that happens.