ohboychoboy

I was at the 2018 draft in Dallas when we drafted Josh Allen. Lots of excitement in that 1st round when the Bills traded up, and when Roger Goodell finished the "and with the 7th pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, the Buffalo Bills select Josh ...." sentence with "Allen", I slumped in my seat and hung my shaking head, while my son, who was 23 at the time, jumped with glee. I of course wanted to hear "Rosen". Needless to say, my son was right on THAT one.

I'm with you. There's no way the networks turn a blind eye to a 13-3 season (which was bested by only 2 teams, despite us playing 1 less game than the rest of the league) and the Bills traditionally high TV ratings just because of a single poor showing against the Bengals. Trust me, the NFL could care less that Bills fans hate their defensive coordinator or think that if we only used Nyheim Hines more we'd be hoisting a decades worth of Lombardi Trophies. While CBS and/or Fox will be licking their chops to televise Bills-Cowboy or Bill-Chiefs or Bills-Eagles or Bills-Bengals on Sunday at 4 o'clock, there's no way they're keeping all 4 of those games off Sunday or Monday night or even Thursday. Like it or not, the Bills are one of the most entertaining teams in football with one of the most, if not THE most, passionate fan bases in the country, so they'll have plenty of opportunities in the spotlight.

And I was there.....

I'm an Uber driver here in the WNY area. That ride from the Motel 6 to the stadium would typically cost you under $10, but not on game night. There WILL be surge pricing. My suggestion to you would be to have both the Uber and Lyft apps available (most drivers run both of them), and then just go with the cheapest. During the pandemic and up to around September of this year there was a definite shortage of drivers, and the prices on both services were through the roof. Then the federal unemployment ran out and the drivers came back to work, so prices have stabilized for the most part. But you can never predict the prices for big events like the Bills game Monday night. Your idea on waiting it out after the game is probably a good one though. The more the crowd thins out, the better chance you have for a decent price.

I'm guessing the Bills want no part of this vaccine mandate and put out the edict to their people working the gate to feign interest in checking proof of vaccination. I'd be interested in knowing if any fans at all got turned away for lack of proof.

I have 3 season tix in Section 134, 40 yard line, 9 rows behind the Bills bench. I've been going to the games in those seats since I was 14 years old, and I'm now 62. Those seats currently cost me just over $4000 total for the three of them. I'm thinking that the new stadium and the PSL's will most likely be my time to bow out. If I had to guess, I'd put the price of my PSL around $5000 per, and while I can afford the $15,000 for the license and the approx $5K-$6K for the tickets each year, I'm just not into it like I was back in my 20s, 30s, and 40s. I rarely go to the cold weather games anymore and even a lackluster opponent like Houston next week doesn't get the juices flowing. So I'll probably save the PSL money, buy a 90-inch TV and a $5000 surround sound system and enjoy the games from the comfort of my La-Z-Boy.

The lines at the gates weren't bad, but that's because so many fans opted to go into the stadium early. Getting through the gate was the same as it ever was, i.e., the usual hassle getting through the metal detector. There is no vaccine requirement, so thus no checking for that at the gate. My tickets were on my phone in the Bills app, and the scanning process was pretty seamless. But one thing I DID miss -- there were no Gameday programs, and thus no Tim Horton coupons if the Bills scored two or more TDs!! Which would have been all for naught, anyway.

If Poloncarz is successful at requiring vaccinations to enter the stadium, I'm starting to wonder about the fate of tailgating. The stadium lots are county-owned property as well. If the county considers the game itself a potential super-spreader event, then wouldn't the tailgates be considered a super-spreader event as well? It would be impossible to control who comes and goes in those parking lots. I wouldn't be surprised if he shuts downs tailgating in ALL lots (public and private), like they did in 2020 to avoid having to try and police it.

For many years we rented the 1st room on the left when you pull into the parking lot, right behind the office for Bills home games. None of us would ever stay the night there, but we'd use the room for the bathroom and for cold weather games, as a place to warm up during the tailgate before or after the game. The bonus was the hotel owners would let us store our grill and other tailgate necessities in their storage area for the season so we wouldn't have to lug it back and forth every game. Having said that, I would never want to spend a night in those rooms.

It really isn't practical at all. And if you think about it, if Polancarz is steadfast in his resolve to allow only vaccinated fans into the stadium, then he's going to have to control the parking lots as well. After all, if he's so concerned about fan safety in the county-owned stadium, wouldn't he have to be just as concerned about fan safety in the county-owned parking lots as well? It only makes sense that you wouldn't want the vaccinated mingling with the unvaccinated prior to the game. I think the bottom line will be if proof of a vaccine is required to enter the stadium, then there will be no tailgating allowed. It would be impossible to enforce keeping non-vaccinated tailgaters out of the lots.

Just wondering from Hammer's perspective, how he intends on policing this. Sure, he could ask for proof of vaccination from every passenger in a vehicle as it pulls into the lot, but isn't the lot relatively open to people walking in from Abbot Rd that could just stroll in and join an active tailgate? Sure, he could do random spot checks but geesh -- it sounds like a headache to me.

"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz Hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law Rock and roller, cola wars, I can't take it anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amen. Best post of the thread. And I have the vaccine.

While I'm a 47 year season ticket holder that's fully vaccinated, I'm not totally comfortable with this edict from our politicians, but not for religious reasons. But I do think you're correct, there will be a number of lawsuits filed objecting to this. First of all, all these vaccines are so far only experimental. They have not been fullly approved by the FDA. Will they be approved by September? Highly unlikely. And what about the Canadian fans, a significant portion of our season ticket base? Will they have the opportunity to be vaccinated by then? Will their vaccination data be capable of showing up in the Excelsior app? What if they've had the Astrazeneca shot? That hasn't even been given emergency use authorization here in the states. Will the border even be open? I don't think everyone has totally thought this through yet. But I do see a big money-making opportunity for the lawyers.

I think Exhibit A for why this approach is totally unrealistic are the Sabres. They could have had fans in the building starting tonight, but unless I missed something, there hasn't been a word from the organization on this topic at all, outside of the survey they sent to season ticket holders shortly after NY State announced that arenas with 10K or more seats could start hosting fans effective February 23rd. My gut feeling is the results of that survey weren't too receptive to spending not only the money required for tickets and parking, but also the cost of the test. And if my understanding is correct, the fans would be on the hook for seeking out and paying the costs associated with the test, unlike the Bills playoff games where the test cost was bundled in with the price of the tickets.