SectionC3

The 9/11 anecdote will pass. Give it a week and people will be talking about something else, whatever it might be. Don’t forget, at one point our owner was accused of making a pretty incendiary racial comment. Nobody has brought that up in awhile. The bigger issue is whether, 9/11 and Niagara Falls malapropisms aside, McD has lost/exhausted the locker room. If the answer to that question is yes, then it’s time to either change the players or change the coach.

Wouldn’t be any better there. Actually more rich d-bags at places like Nichols and Canisius. Now, for a football guy, St. Francis might be an attractive place to send a child.

From what I understand he had a son who was horribly bullied at OP High School. Times are different and I’d like to think that wouldn’t fly now. But I never would put up with that ess either if I was him. Life is too fragile and too short.

You want your team president to be detail-oriented, not banging the staff, and have enough smarts to get stuff done. Like the new stadium that already has an estimated $300m in overage costs. Nobody cares about idiotic stories and style points in that context. He really is the perfect type of person for that role.

Mularkey left in significant part because his kids were treated like crap at school because of their dad. Not cool.

Here’s an outside of the box idea. McD is nothing if not detail oriented. A good human, from all accounts, too. And trusted by the Pegulas. He’s be the perfect type of guy to be say, team president, and make sure that stuff like this new stadium thing gets done right when Terry’s out of town.

I gotta tell you - I hear about some of the stuff that happens around here and I wonder how these guys could be so stupid and irresponsible. I’m sure it goes on everywhere, but for whatever reason I feel like there’s been an extra layer of dumb over there lately. In an odd way, it makes me respect McD a bit more—it has to be hard to capture the attention of a bunch of rich kids, many of whom are not exactly the type of person you’d want to do your taxes, day in and day out for years. I read it as Leslie’s still on the payroll and Bills PR used him to plant the story. Maybe I’m wrong, but that was my impression.

The bet here is the team aged and a bunch of young guys and mid-level free agents got a little less desperate to prove themselves, a little (too) comfortable, and a little tired of the wound-too-tight guy in charge.

There’s too many weeks like that lately. Diggs is a volcano ready to erupt. Allen went through his largely self-inflicted nonsense last year that seemed to carry over into the spring. The Araiza situation last year. Nuking the OC in the middle of the year. Von Miller strangling (allegedly) his pregnant partner. I don’t think it’s just Sean; on a whole, there has been a mountain of drama around that team in the last two years and they seem like they either need to get angry and win some games or get a breath of fresh air. Another reason why I’m on the Daboll train if they make a change. Make it fun.

I haven’t read it—just the free parts—but I had a similar thought. There are a lot of guys who have been in that building with McD who were all too happy to throw him under the wheels of a semi. I wonder how many chimed in—and how many may pipe up—to defend him. From what I gather this piece is humiliating. And, this conversation makes me wonder whether he’s lost the room, and I think we’ll get a good sense of that in the coming weeks.

So the gist of it is rhetoric, the usual tripe about boogeyman “regulations,” and whining about the cancellation of certain permits for drilling offshore and on federal land. Meanwhile, in reality, American oil fields are producing at record highs and actually generate more barrels per day than Saudi Arabia. Enjoy! https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/business/energy-environment/us-oil-production-record-climate.html#:~:text=The United States Is Producing Historic Levels of Crude Oil&text=Chart showing millions of barrels,13 million barrels per day.

Not the issue. I agree with you. The problem is finding someone capable of managing and tolerating that difficult and volatile personality.

I’ll add this. The Diggs piece is important, too. If he’s going to be here, and he likely will be on next year’s roster, whomever is the coach has to be able to handle that personality. From what I understand he is a handful. I’ll leave that point with this: Maddy Glab was right. Take it for what it’s worth.

This is where I’m at. He’s a good coach. He will succeed somewhere else. I also question whether he’s the guy to get us where we need to be. My hesitation in blowing him out is that we have to have an idea of his replacement before the move is made. I’m not all set on Ben Johnson or Bobby Slowik because they haven’t been in the big seat before and there’s on-the-job training that I’m not sure we have time for. My preference for next year, and others will complain about this, is Brian Daboll. He checks all the boxes - HC experience, respected in the locker room, excellent relationship with Josh, willing to accept criticism and input, knows the culture around here, and is wound way less tightly than McDermott. All of those things, in my view, are essential in the next hire.

You seem to be the one saying that the government has limited gasoline production and availability. So show your cards and point to the policy that has limited the market’s supply of that fuel.

Last I checked supply and demand largely dictated gas prices. Unless you're blaming the government for choking supply (which would seem bizarre, given withdrawals from the strategic oil reserve and increased domestic production), then perhaps you're secretly a proponent of a command economic model with respect to fuel production and distribution.

And yet he got himself elected President of the United States while you looked at cartoons all day. I'm not sure where this comes from. We have a Trumper supporting whining about communism, while at the same time many Trumpers whine about free-market pricing raising the cost of gas. So which one is it? Command economy or the whims of the market with respect to fuel prices?

His shrewdness gives me hope that he takes some sort of haircut to end this mess. Assuming this all shakes out against Miller and the guarantees are voided, the Bills could take the hit amongst the players (both in terms of those who are here and those who they may wish to recruit in the future), give Miller a hearty handshake, keep the $10m guaranteed for next year, and send him on his way post-June 1. The other option might be to cut a deal whereby Miller gets a little bit of cash to perhaps add some void years to the contract to make the cap hit for unpaid monies ($23m, I believe) more manageable. He gets more cash than he otherwise would, we get cap relief, and the optics (to the players' eyes) are better for the organization.

All of this is true. I’ll add an observation: for her to contact the police suggests to me that she probably was fed up with what I will guess is a pattern of this behavior. It’s not uncommon in a situation that similar to what we appear to have before us for the emergency call to be made by a victim who has endured a pattern of abuse and who makes the call because she (or he, occasionally) has reached her tipping point.

I’ll think of that next time you whine about the price of gas.

A 911 call + security cam video might do the trick here. But yes, I agree with you, a non-cooperating victim typically will lead to a motion to dismiss.

Woof. Not good. Not the end of the world, but not good. Video might make it a little tougher for Mr. Green to help Miller out of this one.

What I have to say I find interesting is that he still hasn’t turned himself in. Maybe counsel is negotiating with the police and it’s going to be done after hours. But in this day and age it’s hard to believe Miller doesn’t know about this and it would unusual if some steps toward submitting to arrest haven’t been taken.

Sure, that’s an issue. The point I’m making though is that those who strangle are more likely to kill. It’s a gigantic, flaming warning beacon and such types of DV cases are taken very seriously.

Strangulation is a huge, huge red flag in DV cases. Increases exponentially the possibility that the Vic ultimately will become a homicide Vic.