BillnutinHouston

As far as grading the FO, I'm going to tie my grades directly to the play of the tackles this year, for two reasons: 1) With all the offensive weapons and the decent defense we have, the play at the tackle spots will ultimately be THE difference between 4-12 and 10-6. 2) If Walker and Butler are glaring weaknesses this year, it will likely mean that at the end of the year we do not have a clear sense of whether Trent can be our franchise QB going forward. This will murk up our draft priorities. 3) Letting Peters go and then drafting two guards effectively blew up the line and put both Walker and Butler at new positions. The success of the Peters-for-a-LT-already-on-the-roster idea points directly to the competence of the men in charge (especially since they have shown no interest in Levi Jones as a LT insurance policy). If they couldn't get this right, they deserve to be gone. If this gamble pays off, they obviously deserve more time to put the remaining pieces in place.

Strictly speaking it doesn't matter where Wycheck's body was, all that matters is where THE BALL was when it left his hand, in comparison to where Dyson caught it. And I still believe it was a forward pass.

My take on the the Clark Judge stories filed from camp were that he was just spewing the pablum provided to him by the front office spin meisters. He offered no particular insight and basically "mailed it in". I don't put any stock in it.

Even though I find your avatar pretty juvenile and offensive, I have to say this was a high quality post. Will be interesting to see if this is a long term problem. If so, front office heads should roll.

This is a great point that does not seem to take root in people's minds. Too many people try to determine the quality of a draft by counting the number of resulting starters. If you are a poor team or one that often jettisons its stars when their contract is up (often these are one and the same), you will tend to draft a lot of starters but that does not mean you are making any headway vs. other teams. Does this sound like any team we know of?

Any possibility of making available a photo of this year's shirt?

I get your point, and I agree. Most Bills fans located away from WNY have direct ties to the WNY area and are not "random" fans.

I think there are MANY Buffalo expatriots out there like myself who go to at least one game a year, and who buy plenty of Bills gear. But I agree with your overall point that people need to see the bigger picture and embrace the Toronto venture as a life support mechanism for the franchise. If you are tied to WNY and don't "get out much" its hard to step back and realize just how small and economically weak WNY is compared to the major markets around the league.

A REAL fan would not have to even ask...

All things are relative I guess. Yesterday in Houston it was 100 and, do you know what Houston humidity is like?

Welcome to H-town - hope you are enjoying the heat! Not sure where area fans gather because I go the Sunday Ticket route. Several bars have Sunday Ticket - two places I know where you can catch Bills and Sabres games are at one of the Coaches Sports Bars in town (one's off of Hwy 290 on the Northwest side of town, and another one at Barker Cypress and I-10 in Katy). The other place in midtown is Christian's Tailgate on Gray.

Yea!

Exactly!!!

My two picks are Walker and Schobel. Walker - If he plays well I think Trent can make enough plays for the Bills to be successful offensively. If he does not, it is a MAJOR indictment of whoever decided to stand pat at the LT position and those heads will need to roll because this decision is critical to the offense. Schobel - Pardon the pun, but literally, the only thing standing between mediocrity and success for the Bills defense, is Schobel's foot.

Yes there is a reason but people seem to have forgotten it. I used to read that thing on a daily basis, then I got tired of everyone's non-football banter. Tim's football opinions/analysis is why I used to read the thread, but it's now being horribly watered down by people who can't stop posting garbage to it.

Here's my take: No, stadiums do not necessarily need to be state of the art. Stadiums in themselves are not drivers of a team's economic success as much as the respective local economies are. But what new glitzy stadiums do, in places like NYC or Dallas where a new facility helps an owner more effectively leverage the economics of the immediate area to boost his "unshared revenues", is give him a competitive advantage over other teams. A stadium serves as a revenue-maximizing tool by maximizing the number of suites, providing amenities that help drive up the price he can charge for the suites, offering higher-end concessions and parking facilities, and creating an upscale atmosphere that drives up stadium naming fees. This is exactly why a new stadium for Buffalo would do little to help impact the Bills' finances relative to other teams - there is no significant new money in the WNY market to harvest if a new stadium were to provide these types of upgrades. As it is, not all of the Ralph's corporate suites are sold, and if they were made "nicer" it is doubtful that revenues would increase sufficiently to justify the investment. As for season/individual ticket prices, initiating a PSL policy would, as you suggest, likely end up hurting overall revenues (you collect more from each account, but the number of accounts would surely decrease.) A new stadium for Buffalo will never happen, nor should it as the economy currently stands, because it makes no economic sense and would only make the Bills' revenue situation worse than it is now. Not only would revenues not significantly increase as a result (the market is already tapped out and a stadium does nothing to coax out more revenues), but it also would likely force the team to take on stadium construction debt, which it currently has none of with the Ralph. Neither of these outcomes from a new stadium would help the Bills' bottom line - they actually hurt it. I laugh when people advocate building a new stadium, or even better, grumble about taking games to Toronto. The Toronto deal is a "Hail Mary pass" designed to keep the team minimally viable where it is. Those complaining about it are missing the big picture, seeing it only as a money grab by Ralph. In actuality he's doing us a favor by putting the team on life support for a few more years.

Agreed. I'm impressed with how many people here are able to determine the exact routes Bills WRs are running FROM THEIR SEAT ON THE COUCH AT HOME.

The people I'm talking about are Cowboy fans. Workplaces in Houston are very diverse because people come here from all over, for career reasons.

I agree the Bills will be interesting this year if nothing else. The guys I work with down here in Houston know I'm from Buffalo but they still ask me, why do you even care about the Bills? They are so BORING!! I guess if I wasn't from Buffalo I would think they were boring too. But not this year. It's nice to have a little flash and relevance like we had in the glory years.

Let me guess - Donte decided to take his preseason bravado up a notch this year, and instead of predicting a playoff appearance, he really stepped out on a limb and said he would make at least 1 big play this year.

I agree. There is nothing like being able to watch the Bills and having the ability to act as much like an idiot as you want (either out of joy or anger) in the comfort of your own home. Update - Took the advice of Dilliards and others here and called DTV. After some rough sledding with the first rep I talked to (who was actually going to just cancel my Sunday Ticket as per my threat), I ended up talking to another rep and got the Superfan ($99) for free.

Funny, I was thinking the same thing.

The link no longer works. But if it's the same jersey that Moorman was filmed in for his recent photoshoot, I don't like the stripes either.

The Bills' Quality Control program is as solid as a rock. What is this, like Chuck Lester's 20th consecutive year at the helm?

I would love to be on board with the stadium thing, but first can someone please explain how a new stadium for the Bills changes any of the economics FOR THE BETTER? - Will WNY'ers suddenly be able to afford personal seat licenses or season ticket packages/suites at double their current cost? - How will the taxpayers or the Bills themselves taking on massive new debt for a stadium help either the Bills' bottom line from where it is now (when there is currently no debt service), or help the taxpayers be able to afford the higher cost of seats and suites? If you can answer these questions I am on board 100%.