SoTier

I'm old enough to remember the Electric Company, the OL that blocked for OJ for his fabulous 2003 yard season in 1973. Everybody knew they were going to run, and they still did it. Last season, the OL showed some flashes of that under Brady, so I'm very hopeful.

I don't know about Edwards, but I would love, love, love the Bills to be able to run at will, especially in the red zone. That would make the Bills passing game absolutely lethal, especially off play action.

The Jests are the most dangerous divisional foe IF -- Rodgers comes in healthy and stays healthy Rodgers plays at least as well as a top ten QB which means he not only has to come in physically ready but also has to be "into" the game not distracted by his plans for his life after football the Jests' reworked OL has to gel early and play significantly better than it did last season the Jests' defense has to play well all season Saleh and his staff have to coach better, including adapting to the inevitable setbacks on both sides of the ball I don't think that the Fish are really players in the divisional race unless the Bills have very serious injury problems and the Jests don't step up. They have been a one-trick pony the last two seasons, using their offense to overwhelm poor defensive teams but struggling against teams with good defenses that stop or adapt to their vaunted offensive show. Their defense was decent last season, but they've lost some key pieces in the off season while putting most of their resources into the offensive side, particularly offensive weapons. That doesn't seem to be a good recipe for improving their record against good teams.

I think that MLB is more culpable than that. MLB owners had an agreement in place to not allow black players into the leagues even though there weren't any MLB teams located in the Southern states where separate but equal was written into law except perhaps in St Louis and Washington, DC. While in most of the country segregation was a common practice, it wasn't written into law. Branch Rickey broke when he signed Jackie Robinson -- and I think that he had to do some politicking among other owners to get support for breaking the agreement.

I think what stevewin means is that at other times when the Jests had even modest prospects -- like a winning streak at the end of the previous season or a good draft -- Super Bowl dreams among New York media and Jests fans exploded like dandelions in the spring long before TC, even outside of the NY Metro. That kind of preseason hype has been around for decades ... and it certainly seems much more muted this season.

I watched the Giants/Cards game, too. One of the interesting things that Kendricks said was that the MLB video game started adding Negr0 Leagues players in the 2023 edition, so that many younger kids had learned about players from the Negr0 Leagues through the game. He also talked about plans to expand the Negr0 Leagues HOF in Kansas City.

Yes ... 148 Colonial Ave, Tonawanda $149,900 3928 Caitlin Terrace, Hamburg $189,900 1120 Highland Ave, Tonawanda $189,900 87 Moore Ave, Tonawanda $194,900 109 Woodcrest, West Seneca $134,900 175 N End Ave, Tonawanda $175,000 74 Frontier Drive, Hamburg $185,000 These are from Realtor.com, which are bonafide listings. I don't know if these houses are priced to encourage bidding wars, but they do exist in Buffalo suburbs. My guess is that they are either really small or are fixers. The point of my post was that house prices in WNY are bargains compared to much of the country. In some metros these same houses would likely be selling for twice the price -- or more. There are houses selling for $150+k in the Grant-Amherst neighborhood where my maternal grandparents and aunts and uncles lived for decades. Most of the housing there is working class "doubles" built between 1900 and WW I with no redeeming architectural value except that they're pretty sturdy if they've been decently cared for. As prices in Elmwood Village, North Buffalo, and Delaware District have skyrocketed in the last two decades, more middle income families have moved into Grant-Amherst, changing a tired old neighborhood sinking into a slum into a more of a modest family neighborhood like it was 50 years ago. That's happening all over the city in small pockets, including Bailey-Kensington as well as varioius parts of the West Side like Grant Ferry and Connecticut Street.

Actually, a house that goes for $200k in the Buffalo metro (city and suburbs) likely goes for $300+k in most parts of the country -- and significantly more than that in "popular" metros. Frequently, HOA fees pay for infrastructure and services that your taxes pay for in WNY. In the parts of the country that are prone to repeated significant natural disasters -- wild fires, hurricanes, flooding -- have seen homeowners' insurance rates explode. So, the actual cost of mortgage, insurance, taxes, and HOA in many areas isn't all that much less than in WNY. That would include popular areas for expats like Florida and the Carolinas. That's always been the nature of cities. There are safe neighborhoods and business areas and there are those that are much less safe in every city big and small. Even upscale gated communities may not be nearly as safe as residents or would-be residents believe they are, especially homegrown vandalism. If you are determined to be the biggest fish in an ocean career-wise, then yeah, Buffalo isn't going to compete with those huge metros. If you want to make a good living and have a decent quality of life, then WNY is certainly competitive. I'm a former expat who left the area almost 40 years ago for my career but took a pay cut to come home because the I got tired of the career treadmill -- and I wanted a better work environment (less office politics and more real career growth). BTW, if I had chosen to work in/near Buffalo (I had 3 job offers) rather than in Jamestown, I wouldn't have had to take a pay cut at all. I picked small town life and outdoor access over money.

Only 5 more weeks to go ...

When Rodgers was in Green Bay, I actually liked him, but not being a Packers fan, I didn't follow the team closely. Like many casual fans, I bought the narrative that the Packers' failure to win more Lombardis -- to make just a single SB appearance -- was primarily on the team's management and coaches. Rodgers' antics since he came to New York has made me re-think that narrative. Were there instances when Rodgers' egotistical mindset cost the Packers' crucial wins? I don't know. Certainly toward the end of his time in GB, there were hints of the Rodgers who emerged full blown with the Jets, but for my own part, I didn't pay much attention. Under the glare of the New York media, however, I think that Rodgers demands and actions have really tarnished his personal and professional image.

Brady was the guy who walked the walk without talking about it (winning). Rodgers is the guy who talks the talk but can't be bothered to walk the walk. Maybe that's the reason why Brady has so many rings and Rodgers has only one.

To paraphrase Mike Florio, if Rodgers had a good reason for missing mandatory minicamp, we'd already heard what it was. Rodgers is just re-confirming his status as one of the great turds in NFL history.

Sort of like juggling 9 or 12 balls instead of just 3.

I gave Beane an A. I didn't like him much when he was hired (I didn't like McDermott either) but he has proven himself. My two biggest points are: Picking the right QB is priceless, especially in a supposedly "great QB class" with 5 first round picks. Working closely with his HC to bring in the coaches and players that fit the the team. IOW, the GM and HC are pulling in the same direction rather than in separate ones.

I lover Merlin!!! I have it on my Samsung Galaxy. The microphone is really a great feature.

I think it was much easier in the past, say before WW II, when our society was much more insular and people lived in much smaller places with their "worlds" literally bound by their small towns or by their local neighborhoods. It wasn't until after WW II that Americans began to see the world as a much larger place, probably because of television and the automobile. My grandfather and three of his brothers immigrated to the US prior to WW I. One of the brothers -- Tony -- who lived in Lackawana was a truck driver who disappeared while on a job that had him driving between Buffalo and Rochester. This was in the late 1920s (his son was born in 1925 and his daughter in 1927 IIRC). His wife and children assumed he was dead. My grandfather died in 1959. No strangers came to visit him while he was sick and/or attended his funeral. My grandfather (who hadn't driven since an accident prior to WW II) never attended a funeral for anybody not known to the rest of his immediate family. It was very common then for women who had been abandoned by their husbands or divorced to claim to be widows, but Tony's children never had any contact with their father after he left on his last route. If their mother knew her husband was alive, she never told anyone -- unless it was on her death bed or something. Fast forward to 2016 when I was doing genealogy of my grandfather's family. I was trying to find my grandfather's two other brothers who disappeared from the US census records after 1920. I went on a genealogy message board and asked for some help, and low and behold, somebody searched the Lackawana city directories and found the supposedly deceased Tony living about 10 or 15 blocks from his supposed widow and children in the late 1930s. (The other two brothers had returned to Poland after WW I when Poland became an independent nation.) I never told Tony's son about my discovery because at that time he was 90+ years old, and it would have served no purpose.

Why would you think that the Negr0 Leagues' history would be "erased"? There are 37 members of the Negr0 Leagues in the Baseball HOF, only three of them having played in National or American Leagues, so the Negr0 Leagues are considered on a level with the "major leagues" during the Jim Crow era. There is also the Negr0 Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City.

That's why the Jests are #1. They've had some decent teams over the years but they've always been unhappy because they've always known they're "second stringers". They've played in another team's real home stadium since the early 90s. They've suffered not being good enough to the Bills in the 1990s. They've suffered not being good enough to the Pats in the 2000s ... and now they know they're not good enough to take on the Bills again. Maybe their 41-year-old QB can get them a playoff berth this year. Maybe. Guess which camp was right?

Not necessarily. The wheel as a tool was unknown in the Western Hemisphere although the Aztecs and maybe some other groups used wheels in toys. The most likely explanation is that the people who migrated into the Americas left before the use of the wheel as a tool had spread to their area of Eurasia. I think that people today take good health for granted so they don't even think about how important preventing and/or combating infectious diseases has been. The first successful vaccine was Jenner's smallpox vaccine in 1796 but Pasteur didn't prove that germs spread disease until 1861 ... which led to other improvements in dealing with infectious diseases. The 600,000+ deaths during the Civil War is more than all the other American deaths in all the other American wars, but most of those deaths came from disease not combat. ^^^ Okay, maybe Tiberius should have said "comfortable life in cities possible". Civilization has progressed pretty far without anybody figuring out the purpose of the Antikythera Mechanism or how it worked or was used.

Tomorrow, June 6, 2024, marks the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. World leaders, including the POTUS, will gather in France for the ceremonies. There will be numerous television programs to remember the battle, including a program on WIVB in Buffalo (Channel 4) at 7pm tonight with a local slant (according to the ads for it). It's likely that most TSW members had fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and/or other relatives who served in WW II. My father, two uncles, and at least 3 of my mother's cousins served in Europe and the Pacific, including the Japanese invasion of some isolated islands in the Aleutians.

I have had some new "regulars" to my yard this spring ... nesting robins, mourning doves, grackles, and a pair of goldfinches that must be considering nesting nearby since they visit several times a day (goldfinches nest later in the summer than many birds). I added two new tube feeders and a bin feeder plus I added white millet and a "finch mix" from Runnings to my usual offerings of black oil sunflower seed and peanuts. Of course, one of the best ways to attract birds to your yard in summer is to provide fresh water for drinking and bathing, especially when the weather is dry. I have a pond with a waterfall that the birds enjoy using for bathing and drinking plus a couple of bird baths. You should change your bird bath water daily if it becomes popular with the neighborhood birds.

Trevor joins a long list of highly anticipated collegiate QBs who have underwhelmed in the NFL. I think Andrew Luck came the closest to actually being the "savior" he was predicted to be. I think "lose out for Luck" might have been the slogan, and certainly Indy was accused by some fans of tanking the 2011 season in order to get Luck. Unfortunately, injuries short-circuited his career, so he didn't really work out long term. If you look at the careers of the QBs taken #1 overall since 2000 -- Michael Vick, David Carr, Carson Palmer, Eli Manning, Alex Smith, JaMarcus Russell, Matthew Stafford, Sam Bradford, Cam Newton, Andrew Luck, Jameis Winston, Jared Goff, Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, and Bryce Young -- most have been underwhelming as NFL QBs compared to what was expected of them.

Like others, I was born into Bills fandom. Both my parents were Bills fans. We lived on a farm in rural Cattaraugus County back in the day when families had 1 TV (usually a large console model in the living room). Our tv would always go "on the fritz" some time in May, and my Dad would never be able to get it "fixed" until the first Bills TV game. In reality, we probably would have been too busy to watch tv anyway since we raised fruits and vegetables for sale at our farm stand, and we kids not only had to help with growing and harvesting but we also manned the stand.

I don't think that fans assuming that celebrities, especially professional athletes, to be "exemplary" outside of their professions/careers is particularly limited to the present day. Hero-worship of famous people of the day in the US goes back at least to the founding of the nation where George Washington is immortalized on the ceiling of the US Capitol in the form of a fresco as well as Parson Weems' tale of Washington and the cherry tree. I would say that's probably the sentiment of 99% of the fans of any sports team vis-a-vis any or all of the players on their divisional rivals. My hatred of Tom Brady declined significantly when he left to play for the Bucs.

Really? IIRC, there were some Bills fans who harassed HC Gregg Williams' family because the Bills weren't playing well. Nobody here's said more than "F Rodgers". On a scale of "terrible people", they don't even rank a positive number.