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Maguire's Beer

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Posts posted by Maguire's Beer

  1. I've seen his name mentioned a couple times, but Tajh Boyd is a junior, and I doubt he'll declare this year. If he stays for his senior year, he's likely to be a top 3-5 QB, and would have a good shot at the first round. I have a hard time seeing him going earlier than the late third this year, talented as he may be.

     

    That said, if he does come out, I bet Chan would love to have him. He's a big, fast spread QB with a good arm.

  2. As long as Ralph is the owner, nothing will change. We aren't going to get a big name coach and/or GM. No one will want to come here with ownership a big question mark, they know whenever ownership changes the GM and Coach are usually sent packing. We are stuck with this for the foreseeable future.

     

    This can't be said often enough. Until there's a new owner, we'll be stuck with sub-replacement-level talent in the front office and on the sidelines. Once there's a new owner, either the team will move, or we'll once again be able to attract at least decent GM/coaching candidates.

     

    Once you accept that, it's a lot easier to deal with the ongoing mediocrity stew.

  3. I would have agreed with you until they changed the rookie salaries and we signed Mario.

     

    I no longer believe that Ralph is cheap

     

    It's not that Ralph is cheap. It's that he's 94 years old, can charitably be described as unengaged, and has stated that the team will be sold to the highest bidder upon his death. No GM or HC worth anything will come to Buffalo under those circumstances. See the most recent GM/HC search for confirmation.

  4. See, that's the problem. For us, there's NOT necessarily "always next year:"

     

    There's actuarially a 95+% chance Ralph dies in the next five years. And, unless you believe the folks who say that there's a secret succession plan, there has to be - at best - a 50-50 chance that the team is sold to an owner who moves the team out of WNY. So there's not always next year. Every awful, soul-destroying year might be our last. And that's not a scenario that's going to entice any young front office or coaching talent to come to Buffalo, as we saw during the talent search that resulted in Nix and Gailey. This is why we, as a fanbase, are worse off than any other, except for maybe Jacksonville (and they don't really count, do they?)

     

    Now, the only good news is that when Ralph dies (which I am NOT in any way cheering for), the endless mediocrity and uncertainty of the past decade plus will end. Either the team will move, and we'll mourn it, but eventually move on - or we'll have a new owner, committed to Buffalo, who cannot possibly be less effective than Ralph.

     

    It's sad, but the only hope on the horizon is tied to a man's inevitable death and the possibility of the team's death, as well.

     

     

  5. As many others have said, Buffalo does have its problems - just like any other city. It's also got its strong points, not the least of which is its absurdly cheap real estate prices coupled with relatively high wages. People complain about the taxes, but the fact that you can buy a 3-4 bedroom house in a safe neighborhood with good schools for under $150K is worth a helluva lot. That kind of value is unheard of anywhere within 75 miles of my DC home.

     

    So you weigh the good against the bad, you weigh the factors according to your own personal tastes and preferences, and you make your own decision about where you want to live. I live in DC because I love my job, and this is where I have to be to do it. But if that weren't the case, and I was free to move to a town I really liked, I would definitely consider Buffalo, along with Seattle and maybe Chicago. That's just my taste - I travel a lot for work, and after spending time in just about every major American city, thos three are place I'd like to live. I wouldn't consider Atlanta or anywhere in Florida (except for maybe the Keys, if I could find a job there)- but I get that some people love those places. They're just not my cup of tea.

     

    I guess what I'm saying is that there's no one city that's right for everyone. There are things that are objectively better and worse when comparing cities, sure - but the manner in which each of us weighs those factors is pretty subjective. From an objective perspective, Buffalo has some good parts and some bad parts. But from my subjective perspective, it's a great town. And more importantly, it's Home - in a way that DC never will be.

  6. Lindell's range is right around 53. I think if it was 50-52 he would have let him kick it. If Kolb was still in the game, he probably would have had Lindell kick it. A lot goes into a decision like that. Gailey said he made it because he wanted to put a young QB deep in his own territory and force him into a mistake, which is exactly what happened.

     

    Again, though - if we'd run the ball just once in the previous three downs, it provably would have been a 48-50 yard kick. The only reason it was debatable at all is because Chan once again forgot that his running game was far more productive than his spread passing attack.

  7. If your running back rips off 15+ yards to get inside the 35 and call three passes, you punt and hope no one notices.

     

    Ding ding ding!

     

    The punt/kick decision was only a decision in the first place because Chan passed three times from the 35 - with an EMPTY BACKFIELD on 2nd and 3rd downs. There's your problem, right there.

  8. I live in DC, so I'd inevitably end up following the Skins. I'd never love them like I love the Bills -- it's impossible that any other team could ever make me feel the joy or pain that the Bills bring. But I love football, and I'm gonna watch football no matter what, and DC has been home for 10 years now, so I'd probably become a Skins fan. Not a fanatic, but a fan. The fact that the Skins are completely dysfunctional, have sucked for the past decade, and have a horrible owner would make the transition easy. :rolleyes:

  9. No, this is definitely the lowest period in Bills history. Why is this worse than the low points of the '70s and the early '80s? Because hanging over the miserable play on the field is the very real fear that the team will relocate before it ever gets good again. That's what makes the last few years so damn depressing.

  10. Great location, but you could never pull that off in Buffalo. For one, the NFTA has held that land for well over 50 years and done absolutely nothing with it, yet they covet it and apparently intend to have it lay fallow for 50 more. Second, there are hoards of 'obstructionists' that would be opposed to using that prime sight for a stadium and parking - for only 9 Sundays each Fall.

     

    Always a concern with any development in WNY. I like your Bethlehem idea, but if you think building on the NFTA land would be tough, imagine the environmental issues that would come with building on a former heavy manufacturing site.

     

    I'm sure there must be some type of historic housing in downtown niagara falls which would put this plan of hold for 2 decades.

     

    No doubt. But the old Nabisco site is for sale, and the city is pushing its redevelopment.

  11. How about no team? How about an owner swoops in to buy the Bills and keep them in Buffalo. Then a year later he decides to move them Oklahoma City? Don't think it can happen? Ask the Seattle Supersonics ...

     

    Things can always get worse.

     

    Nope. The OP has it right. There is no hope as long as Wilson owns the team. At this point, we're just waiting for the inevitable to come to Ralph -- and at that point, we'll find out whether we're going to have a team going forward. But given how bad the team is and has been over the past decade, I agree with the OP -- I'd rather find out now whether they're staying under new ownership or moving, rather than suffer through another X years of purgatory.

  12. Lancaster was the site of the proposed dome. There was actually a lawsuit that dragged well into the 1980s about it.

     

    Think it finally finished up in the early '90s. My father spent a substantial chunk of the first decade of his career as a lawyer on the Dome Stadium case, and stopped working on it before it reached a final resolution. It was Buffalo's own Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

  13. Stadiums are expensive, that goes without saying, but they are completely infeasible if you have to go out and buy the land or go through the expensive and time consuming process to condemn it for public use. It's one of the reasons you see NFL/MLB/NBA facilities built adjacent to the existing ones. The authorities or municipality own that land already.

     

    In light of the legal quicksand the Cowboys found themselves in when they constructed the new stadium, I'm sure officials who are even considering new stadiums are very apprehensive about using eminent domain to take property for a new stadium. You are almost guaranteed a drawn out legal fight from private property owners.

     

    Agreed entirely. That said, WNY has a decent amount of public land on which to build a new stadium. The NFTA property at the Outer Harbor (i.e., the former home of Shooters) seems a likely candidate to me. Frickin' windy in December, though.

  14. I guess it would depend on each situation?

     

    Exactly. If the Pats failed to comply, the penalty would be loss of their 2016 7th round draft pick. If the Bills had failed to comply, the penalty would have been seizure of all team assets by the League and relocation of the franchise to London.

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