BillsVet

Who cares? Tua got hurt, he was behind a bad OL, and Buffalo won by a huge margin. Still not clear why people agonize over hypotheticals. There's plenty enough already to be concerned with.

Wonder how Coach McCla...oh wait, Coach McDermott feels about this. The trust the process line is great.

My concern is that McD isn't supervising the OC and, like other defensive type HC's, hasn't grasped that side of the game enough to do so. Reminds me somewhat of Chan Gailey who abdicated responsibility of the defense to Edwards/Wannstedt to focus on the offense where his background was.

Daboll going to the McDermott school of PR. Reminds me of when, questioned about a lack of scoring, McD responded by saying "of course we'd like to score 50 points a game."

Not going to disagree...but Milano is the second highest paid Will in the NFL.

Did you miss the part about "DE" in my post? In a 40 front that's where your pressure is more often than not coming from.

At some point, offensive scheme needs to align with offensive personnel. Their game-plan yesterday tried to use OL who are solid run blockers (save Morse) and needed them to pass protect 50 times. If they wanted to be pass-happy (and I can understand with Josh and those receivers) then invest in better pass blockers. Issue is, they didn't do much to improve their ability to run and now it's too late to be adding pieces to enable them. When you become a good team, scheme versatility is a must and I'm not seeing this organization doing that on offense.

Hence why investing in more high dollar defenders other than at CB and DE is often a bad investment. One would hope the HC's defensive pedigree would slowly retreat toward accepting this, but it has not.

Season 5 of McD (and I'm not going to isolate all yesterday down to him) but this is who he is. He's a conservative coach, both in crucial game-day moments but more in the predictability of their game-planning. People act surprised when he talks about post-game about field position, but even with Josh and a much better offense versus 2017-18, he's going to play it safe as a rule. The other thing is he's slow on the draw sometimes in adapting to what the other team's doing. I didn't see much change in the 2nd half despite being bottled up offensively. It's as if he and Daboll fall in love with their game-plan and will not yield it may need to be tweaked to get the desired result. Look, I know all NFL HC's are type A personalities, but McD has rarely if ever showed a willingness to modify his approach when it's not working. Resistance to that is going to hurt this team now that they're top tier.

People want predictions on everything...I'm here to calm their anxieties and fears with real life answers. It's like a few years ago, someone wondered about what would happen if Allen's backup got hurt. Not Allen, but Matt Barkley. I helped the poster out by telling them it didn't matter and they needed to take off their diaper.

This thread makes me think Step Brothers all over again. Specifically, the scene where the night vision goggles are used. Question is, which one is Brennan and which is Dale?

My prediction is we're going to find out Sunday and then learn more every subsequent game day. I also predict Daboll will scheme up plays where Allen throws it to both of them and eventually one or both will make a TD catch. That's what it's probably gonna be like to play with Cole Beasley and Emmanuel Sanders.

Sal sounds like he's had about 3 espressos before coming on the show some days. At 8am I'm not ready for that because I haven't had my coffee. I also struggle with him being a massive homer. Just give it to me straight and put the pom-poms away.

Mike comes off as a guy who's bored with life and the show. He retreats into analytics and, as a result, betting to spice things up. For whatever reason, he sounds like someone winging it and doesn't care. I tire of hearing him simplify everything down to metrics when the human component to sports is always in play. Another thing I've noticed...I tuned in a few weeks ago after something Sabres related had happened only for him to talk 10-15 minutes about an experience at the vending machine. What program director or station manager listens to that and doesn't make a point of ending the incessant banter about nothing. The afternoon show needs some energy, but they won't alter their hosts because there's no competition.

2007 game, but for all the wrong reasons. I've never heard the stadium more quiet than when Everett was down on the field. Only real highlight was Roscoe Parrish returning a punt and jumping into our group. Then in the final seconds Denver has zero timeouts. Then run their kicking team out, make the FG as time expires to win 15-14.

If Terry wants to make the case he's the least valued team, per a second hand source, to leverage taxpayer dollars it's a weak argument. He invested in the team knowing full well they'd need a new stadium within 10 years of that purchase. That 1.4B spent to buy the team was made knowing the stadium's condition. Need to understand the political part of this debate. Upstate NY (area above Westchester County) has about 35% of the state's population per recent (2019) estimates. Downstate runs the political theater here and their willingness to put more money in upstate when NYC/LI is the economic engine of the state must be considered. The people who decided those expenditures on New Yankee Stadium and Citi Field are pretty much long gone. And, more importantly, downstate doesn't need upstate's votes to maintain the Assembly, Senate, or Governorship. Why would they itemize in the budget 750M or some figure in that area for the Buffalo Bills? Downstate pols aren't handing handing out money proportionally between upstate and downstate.

Hard for ownership to have a worse month than the Pegulas without moving their teams. Their PR department is woefully unprepared for the onslaught that's coming from the fans.

I can almost guarantee you will be seeing PSL's for the Buffalo Bills with this stadium. If you're looking for how that impacts the fans, that's it. The cost of tickets will skyrocket...just ask Jets and Giants fans at their new home. As to the economics debate, I get that many fans don't want to talk about it...because they don't understand nor want to research this aspect to the debate. Anyone has the right to stick their head in the ground and pretend nothing's wrong. Still doesn't make sense from an economics and civics perspective for the State and local government to provide major funding to billionaires who, regardless of their local investment, don't strike me as very intelligent pro sports owners. EDIT: Never has the phrase "panem et circenses" been more appropriate than now. Works every time.

The Sabres right now are essentially where the Bills were circa 2006-2010: stuck in a never-ending cycle of stupid. Ralph hiring/promoting people he knew as GM who wouldn't work in the same role for 31 other teams. And that only happened when he saw an outside the organization hire fail. And now with the HC, hire, it's clear the Sabres went down the path of least resistance and hired someone no one else considered. Similar to Chan Gailey in 2010. Now they're trading/letting your best players hit UFA only to talk about draft picks under team control for a few years. Not to mention, the late Wilson years of cutting costs, albeit for different reasons. At this point, as @BADOLBILZ notes, they either give up control or luck into success. I have a hard time seeing the former happen with the meddling that happens in that front office. And I don't see Kevyn Adams being the type to tell ownership to stay out of his way.

Is Doug Whaley's dad an NFL Executive to hire his son? Because that's about the only way Dugout Doug's coming back now. Blaming a now 81 year old for a draft pick when it was clear Nix was being moved out guarantees he'll be persona non grata in NFL circles. In 2014, I always figured the trade up for Watkins was Doug playing with house money with Brandon's urging. RW had died, the franchise was going to be sold, and Brandon and Whaley weren't sure they'd have jobs. So, they made the bold move to trade future draft picks they may never get to use for Watkins in what was probably at a minimum a need to win year with new ownership coming aboard. Everything was about what was best for them and maybe for the team. Then again, If it wasn't for EJ, his most infamous NFL moment would have been forwarding emails throughout the NFL, including the commissioner. Not the brightest bulb in the box.

The Pegula's have a habit or nicety about them of retaining whomever they inherit for their franchises. They then give those execs rope to hang themselves. Thing about the Sabres is they were Terry's toy until the losses started financially and people started getting fired or quit. As things got worse, they began taking more control and the results spiraled downward culminating in the Nix-esque hire of Kevyn Adams as GM. Retaining Whaley and hiring Rex obviously were bad moves for T/K Pegs. They got it right the second go-round, but I've heard (take it FWIW) their delegating of responsibility to McD and Beane comes with a little regret. Because billionaire types aren't about to hand over keys to the car easily. And that's what fans don't understand about these franchises...they're businesses to ownership. They can play up being fans all they want, but if the team doesn't make money they want control. Fortunately, NFL franchises get 250-300M every year in TV/revenue sharing. But if McBeane suddenly weren't doing as well, they might make moves.

No one has discussed the possible link between a woman co-owning an NFL franchise and these hires either. Is that a factor? Perhaps, although I know some will say that McD hires whomever he wants. We don't know, but it's reasonable to establish the connection between the co-owner and these hires. FWIW, Rex Ryan hired a female coach, Kathryn Smith, who served as an assistant in 2015 and 2016. For whatever reason (and I'm not speculating about her coaching ability) she has not returned to the NFL.

They had invested 1.4B+ into a team, been duped into hiring Rex, and McD saw an opportunity because T/K Pegs were desperate and needed some structure to a massive investment. Enter McD and later his guy Beane. Even though they've made their share of mistakes, you can't deny it takes a solid plan and strategy to go 13-3. Drafting Josh Allen in a QB league was a big win. But once again, what we as fans think should be isn't the priority for billionaire types who own our favorite pro sports teams. Sure, they want to win, but on their terms and retaining control over their investment is what some owners believe is their right. Doesn't matter if they make bad decisions like the Pegula's have year after year, they want control. And that's especially the case when the team is losing tens of millions of dollars. You could have ended this post after "inept ownership notwithstanding." There's no overcoming that and if memory serves, a lot of TBDers mocked Dan Snyder years ago for mismanaging his NFL team. Well, the Buffalo Sabres are the Washington Football Team of the NHL now. A laughingstock to players, employees (many now former) and people throughout the NHL.

Ideas that make sense to fans need to be considered first in light of ownership and their priorities. There isn't gonna be a press conference where anything positive happens. There isn't gonna be a president of hockey ops hired from outside the organization. They aren't moving Kim out of the president role. Ownership isn't going to sit in the back of the room and be quiet. Ya gotta live in the real world and understand where Terry and Kim operate from. You can hate on Jack all you like, but their handling of his injury sends a message that Buffalo isn't a place you want to be as a veteran player. They have to earn respect and ownership doesn't care about that. And rebuilding? How many times does one ownership group and the people they hire have to do this before it works? Because it couldn't with a MVP candidate from last year. It couldn't with numerous high draft picks and millions spent on UFA's. And if this continues, why would any decent player who gets traded to Buffalo not eventually arrive where Jack is now - stuck in a losing culture where it seems there's no way out.

Fans can go after players all they want, but why are so many players (and now former ones) in Buffalo not happy? Is that an Eichel problem or is something deeper going on? The way you describe it, Eichel is a cancer who needs to be removed for them to move forward. He's infected that locker room and must be excised. Yet, it's high likely that Reinhart, Ristolainen and now we find out Taylor Hall know/knew there were deep issues in Sabreland. That ain't Jack's fault. The organization is a dumpster fire. You're don't finish last twice and in the bottom quarter of the league 5 times during Jack's tenure without there being significant organizational dysfunction. And if Jack is such a horrible influence, would that not mean teams don't want to trade for him? Because I'm pretty sure there's gonna be multiple teams trying to acquire Buffalo's best player.