SoTier

I have pets and gardens that I need to tend daily, so I don't really take long vacations, especially in the summer, so I frequently take day trips to places fairly near by. My all-time favorite WNY day trip destination is Letchworth State Park, which features "The Grand Canyon of the East": Letchworth. Other day trip destinations in the Genessee Valley are Canadaigua on Canadaigua Lake with the beautiful Sonnenberg Gardens (Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion Historic State Park) as well as Genessee Country Village (GCV&M) in Mumford, NY, off the Thruway at Exit 47. Living in Jamestown, I live in a great day trip destination for WNYers. Jamestown has the National Comedy Center as well as the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum right in downtown. Within a half hour drive of downtown Jamestown is Chautauqua Institution, Panama Rocks, Midway and Long Point State Parks, the quaint tourist town of Bemus Point, and the Bemus Point-Stowe Ferry (Bemus Point-Stowe Ferry) which operates Friday through Sunday through mid September. Within about an hour's drive is Allegany State Park, the Allegheny Reservoir, Kinzua Dam, Seneca Allegany Casino, and the ski/tourist town of Ellicottville. On Fridays and Saturdays, you can wander the roads of Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties from Clymer to Randolph north to South Dayton and Conewango to shop at Amish businesses. What are some of your favorite day trips for WNYers?

The Bengals don't have to win their division to make the playoffs and have a chance to win the Super Bowl. Their problem is that they can't even make the playoffs with a last place schedule, the best QB/WR combo in the NFL, and a 3-3 divisional record because their OL doesn't protect Burrow well enough, their running game is mediocre, and their defense stinks. Their "solution" is to double down on their receiving corps and kick their best defender to the curb.

The Bengals have a great QB and two great WRs. They also have a crappy OL and a defense that struggles to stop opponents. Their answer is to not pay their best pass rusher. They're their own worst enemy. I don't think they'll get it unless they significantly lower what they'll take for the draft pick and the player just before the trade deadline.

Ya gotta be in it to win it. The Bills have been in it in 7 of Allen's 8 seasons. The Bengals have been in it twice in Burrow's 5 seasons.

The Bills did NOT suffer a 17 year playoff drought because they lacked a franchise QB. Numerous teams have made the playoffs without having great QBs. A few even won the Super Bowl with pretty ordinary QBs. The Bills suffered a 17 year playoff drought because the team's owner, Ralph Wilson, and Wilson's second-in-command, Russ Brandon, prioritized profits over winning football games. The results were most noticeable in the Bills constantly using the draft to fill holes created by allowing their best players to either leave in FA or via trade as well as the Bills unwillingness to raise their pay levels for assistant coaches, especially offensive assistants. (Terry Pegula did spend big on Rex Ryan and his entourage, but after poor results, he sent Ryan and Company packing and put Brandon back in charge.) The Bills added 3 veteran FA DLers: Joey Bosa, Michael Hoecht, and Larry Ogunjobi plus DB Tre White. If things go well -- Bosa stays healthy and Hoecht and Ogunjobi come off their suspensions ready to play -- the Bills defense could look very different by the end of the season. That's not even counting on some of the 6 defensive players the Bills drafted in 2025 from making contributions.

I second everything you've written. The best thing about the current Bills team is that the owner is as committed as the GM and HC to winning football games. Whatever one has to say about Terry Pegula, he's not going to sabotage the team in order to make a few extra dollars.

Did I say anything about your "historical" theory? No. I specifically referenced this statement by bolding it: "Draft, develop, and retain. A strategy most/no teams focus on and we do it as brand. it often time feels like our leadership is a little “too” invested in branding and public image." It is easily one of the all time most ignorant statements ever made on TSW by a non-troll poster.

Bills fans who didn't live through all or some of the Zero-for-the-Seventies cannot grasp the joy that season opening win over the Fish engendered in Buffalo -- and not just among Bills fans. There's been a book written about the season: Talking Proud: Rediscovering the Magical Season of the 1980 Buffalo Bills by Rich Blake (2005). The author experienced the 1980 season as a twelve-year-old. If you can find it, it's a good read.

You don't know what a coach who is a "total liability" even looks like. Dick Jauron was a HC who was a "total liability". Kay Stephenson and Hank Bullough were "total liabilities". Jim Ringo was a "total liability". So was John Rauch. What bull manure!!!! Every team wants to draft good players, develop them into better players, and keep the best of them, and the successful teams do this better than the bottom feeders. What very recent history has shown is that you don't know what the hell you are talking about.

In his 20 years as a NFL HC, Mike Shanahan only took 8 of his teams to the playoffs (7 with Denver) and only 3 of his playoff teams won playoff games. He made his reputation in his two SB runs, 1997 and 1998. After Elway retired, Shanahan coached Denver for 10 seasons. His teams made the playoffs only 4 times with a single win. Shanahan has been passed over for the HOF several times. Obviously, I'm not the only one who thinks he wasn't such a great HC. Yes, coaching and situational awareness IS a big thing, but so is knowing players' strengths and weaknesses. Cook's blocking was a liability in the passing game, which is why he didn't often play on third downs, both in the regular season and in the playoffs.

When evenly matched teams meet in a single elimination tournament, the games are generally unpredictable. Too often the games come down to one or two plays, and injuries, referee's calls, bad bounces, miscues, and other occurrences that might be called "luck" are magnified in importance. Dre Greenlaw's Achilles injury early in Super Bowl LVIII may have cost the 49ers a Lombardi.

I think you are grossly underestimating Beane and McDermott. Beane is an excellent GM and McDermott is an excellent HC. Both also learned on the job, since they didn't have previous experience at their positions as some of their peers, like Howie Roseman and Andy Reid. I think the Bills might have taken Lamar if they couldn't take Allen. If they took Josh Rosen, I think he would have had a much better career than he had even if he was, at best, a decent NFL starter. The same with Sam Darnold. The Bills would be playoff contenders if not Super Bowl contenders. What would have been sad is that Josh would have been a disaster if he'd gone to the Browns or Jests. The success of Baker and Darnold later in their careers, after they both got some good coaching with other teams, is an indictment of the Browns and Jests FO and coaching staff. Sadly for the young QBs for the Browns, Stefanski is still the Browns HC. No, it wasn't. There was nothing fun about the best part of attending any Bills game was the tailgating because the Bills hadn't lost the game yet. Buddy Nix was a former Bills employee. I think he was a head scout or something under GM John Butler. When Butler left the Bills for San Diego, he took his assistant GM, AJ Smith, and Nix with him. The Bills then hired Tom Donahoe as GM. Something happened between Ralph and Donahoe. I have no idea what it, but after he was fired, Donahoe never got another opportunity with another NFL team. He was persona non grata so it had to be something significant. Russ Brandon didn't "mismanage" the Bills between 2006 and 2014 so much as he had a different agenda than fans. Fans wanted to win football games. Brandon wanted to maximize profits. Brandon had been hired by the Bills a few years before after he left MLB with the distinction of having sold off most of the personnel assets of the World Champion Florida Marlins, so that the Marlins went from World Champions to the worst record in baseball the next season. The Marlins' playroll went from one of the largest in MLB to one of the smallest in one year, too. In 2006, Ralph named Brandon the Bills CEO and Dick Jauron as HC. Marv Levy was a figurehead GM. Jauron was the "talent" selector between 2006-2009 but Brandon controlled the purse strings and decided what players to keep and which players to send packing. Nix and Whaley were essentially talent evaluators, and they were pretty good, but Ralph's health and mental facilities deteriorated, Brandon operated as de facto owner. Under Brandon, the Bills philosophy was always to prioritize profits over winning football games. Brandon's control of the Bills, and also the Sabres, continued until the spring of 2018 when Pegula fired him because of a sexual harassment incident with a Sabres employee who happened to be a friend of Kim Pegula's. Brandon's fall from grace was dissected in the media and on TSW at the time. After Brandon was fired, Pegula gave Beane full control of the Bills. Beane and McDermott have worked together since, and their primary goal has been/ is to win football games rather than maximize profits. Best of all, they're pretty good at their jobs!

Elway didn't win his first Super Bowl until his 15th year in the league, so he was 35 or something.

Another day, another thread whining about how bad the Bills are and how bad McDermott is. Is John Harbaugh also a bad HC because Lamar has started in a Super Bowl yet? FYI, Dan Fouts and Warren Moon are the two best QBs who never made the Super Bowl. Both Josh and Lamar still have plenty of time. Nobody is guaranteed anything in this life, including Bills fans. Deal with it.

I think the facts don't support your view of Peterman vis-a-vis Losman and Edwards. In 2006, Losman started all 16 games. He threw for 3051 yards, 62.5% completions, 19 TDs and 14 INTs. His QB rating was 84.9 and his QBR was 49.5 with Dick Jauron as the HC. I think he was rated among the top twelve QBs in the NFL. In his 7 year career, Losman played in 45 games, started 33. He threw for 6271 yards, 59.2% completions, 33 TDs and 34 INTs. His highest QB rating was 84.9 (2006) and his highest QBR was 49.5 (2006). Trent Edwards started 9 games in 2007 and 14 games in 2008. In 5 seasons, he played in 38 games, started 33. He threw for 6033 yards, 60.6% completions, 26 TDs and 30 INTs. His highest QB rating was 85.4 and his QBR was 43.4, both in 2008. Like Losman, he suffered from being coached by Dick Jauron. In his entire career, 2017-2023, Peterman has played in 15 games, starting 5. He threw for 712 yards, 53.1% completions, 4 TDs and 13 INTs. His highest QB rating was in 2020 was 72.9 (1 game) and his highest QBR was 41.9 in 2022 (3 games).

Excuse me, but no way. JP Losman and even "Tentative Trent" Edwards were light-years better than Peterman. EJ Manuel was marginally better.

There's nothing wrong with being like Tony Dungy, who happens to have as many Super Bowl wins as that turd Gruden. If Royale With Cheese hadn't hit so close to the truth, you and your pal Buffalo Boy wouldn't be so angry about it. Of course, GoBills808 has shown his colors throughout this thread -- and numerous others.

Lynch had 2 incidents in Buffalo. He had another incident in Seattle early on, but after that, he seems to have stayed on the straight and narrow. I saw Lynch play at Cal, and he was the "fun-loving Skittles guy" in college that he later showed in his commercials but he lost that fun-loving personality under Dick Jauron's coaching. My guess is that Lynch's personality didn't sit all that well with Jauron, and Lynch cared too much about winning to be happy playing Jauron's "play not to lose by too much" brand of football. I think that led to his getting into trouble off the field, and landed him in Jauron's "dog house" -- ie, not playing much -- on the field.

Lynch was on his way out because he was in his fourth season (2010) and the Bills didn't intend to re-sign him because they never re-signed their best players, especially first rounders and especially DBs and RBs going back to the departure of John Butler and JT Smith, and especially under Russ Brandon (to whom Ralph eventually turned over total control of the team). Buddy Nix had the title of GM, but like his successor, Doug Whaley, he was basically a talent scout who acquiesced to Brandon's philosophy of putting profits far ahead of winning football games. One of the reasons that the Bills could never really improve their roster was because they were always using their high draft picks to fill the holes left when they allowed their top players to leave or traded them away for draft picks. The Bills drafted RBs Travis Henry in the 2nd round in 2001; Willis McGahee in the first round in 2003; Marshawn Lynch in the first round in 2007; and Spiller in 2010. They also drafted DBs Nate Clemens in the first round in 2001; Donte Whitner in the first round in 2006; Leodis McKelvin in the first round in 2008; Jairus Byrd in the second round in 2009; Aaron Williams in the second round in 2011; Stephon Gilmore in the first round in 2012; and Tre'Davious White in the round in 2017. The Bills had to pay big money for FAs, and there were players who took the money. In 2008, the Bills signed OG Derrick Dockery and RT Langston Walker to big contracts. In 2009, they signed Terrell Owens. In 2012 they signed Mario Williams. I think that might have been the biggest contract up to that time for a defensive player.

They didn't have pre-school in the early 1950s. I guess that some rich little kids went to nursery school, but middle class kids mostly went straight to kindergarten ... except for those kids whose parents didn't send them to school until first grade.

My family already knows that I want to be cremated and have my ashes spread over the land where our family camp is (it's the former family farm where we all grew up), so I don't see anything wrong with a "Human Composting Funeral".

Let's hope it truly was a sign of great things to happen!!!!

Jauron was fired in November, 2009. Fitzpatrick backed up Edwards. He played a couple of games early in the 2009 season (Edwards was injured maybe), and the offense looked much better, but Jauron stuck with Edwards, and Ralph stuck with Jauron. Finally, even Ralph had enough.

That was the 6-3 masterpiece against the Browns when McKelvin fumbled the kick return. No TDs, just 3 FGs. I listened to the end of that game on my car radio on my way back from Letchworth because I hadn't renewed my season tickets for 2009; I was really angry that the Bills had brought Jauron back after the disaster 2008 season (5-2 through 7 games, 2-7 down the stretch). Bringing in TO to a Jauron-coached team was simply attempting to put lipstick on the rotting carcass of a pig.

I agree with the bolded statement. Bringing in a WR of the caliber of TO with Dick "Play to Not Lose By Too Much" Jauron as HC and "Tentative Trent" Edwards at QB was clearly only done to sell tickets. In fact, IIRC the Bills may have set a record at that time for season ticket sales. That's the way Russ Brandon ran the team back then.