Peevo

Sean McDermott is 0-4 against NE. The closet margin of loss was 12 points in 4 games. What do you mean, "a decade ago?"

What's funny and sad is I agree with you. I literally said "I'm broken" in an above post with ample evidence to support why. It's curious people taking umbridge with my perspective aren't acknowledging the many hilarious and sad Bills failures against New England since high speed internet access.

I meant like, in our actual world at large. 3-0 is fun or whatever. Just beat Tennessee and 4-1 at the bye.

I appreciate the positivity. It's admirable in these bleak times. I really mean that. Just speaking for myself here, I've been burned too many damn times by Greek-tragic level near-wins and close losses to this team to ever think it's gonna get better. Sorry man. I don't know what else to say. There's this depressing play: And this one: And this one - cue to 3:15 http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-game-highlights/0ap2000000093727/GameDay-Bills-vs-Patriots-highlights And these are just simply off the top of my head. We could do a full draft of "Horrific Ways to Lose to the Patriots" games. It's ENDLESS. I'm broken, dawg. I can't be hopeful with this game anymore. My brain literally cannot comprehend the concept of a winning outcome. There's freedom in hopelessness. I'm 32. Brady has been dominating my team since I was 14 years old. It will never end. Someone explain to me why I shouldn't think like this. I'm not even being sarcastic. It's toxic.

I don't know what Sal's getting at here. Howard is right. It's likely, if not indeed certain, the Patriots will win. They are 7 point favorites for a reason. Howard's job, and any person who's job it is to be objective about sports, is to be RIGHT. He may WANT the Bills to win. We all WANT the Bills to win. But wanting it, and expecting it are two different things. It's RIGHT to say the Bills are likely to lose the game. "Conceding the game" as some sort of biting critique is nonsense. The Patriots are objectively the better team in every statistical category, this season. Take history out of the formula, and the Patriots remain the favorite. I'll never understand "fans" calling other people out for being right. It's not "hating your team" for being objective. We'd all stand to be more objective about our place in life. You're not a hater, you're not a jerk, you're not a bandwagon fan for being right. I'd love to be wrong about this. I want the Bills to win. Can people on this board appreciate nuance? I value objectivity, fact-based opinion, and accurate predictions over blatant, embarrassing "whatever bro #BillsMafia" fandom. Tell me the truth. Our country is falling the ***** apart because people don't want to hear, read, or consume the truth. Walter Cronkite helped end Vietnam because he told the truth. We need more Walter Cronkites.

I'd agree. The fact that a team that was outscored 102-10 is still going with Fitz at QB can't bode well for Rosen's chances. Or it could simply be the Dolphins are terrible and don't want Rosen getting destroyed every play. But as it stands, it's hard to argue with the list as is. Rudolph's getting the rest of 2019 to show his stuff, and he looked pretty good yesterday. The AFC may be wide open, should the Bills keep winning.

So many fans are so afraid of change. It is telling. I'd absolutely lobby for 2 conferences, open field/round robin style. It forces teams to actually play all of the competition, and would likely create more "just" results ie: the best teams tend to be ranked top to bottom. Isn't that what we want? This will NEVER happen, but there should be some sort of equivalent promotion/relegation system too. There needs to be a system that disincentivizes tanking for high draft picks. Especially since it seems so often the same 5 teams are always drafting in the top 5, and don't seem to actually improve. I want even competition, that would likely create entertaining games with few blowouts. In order to do this, you can't have Buffalo playing New England twice a year. The Bills, along with Cleveland, Jax, and some others, are de facto minor league teams anyway. Why not just recognize that and embrace it?

Again, don't be surprised if training camp slowly devolves to a completely closed, team only event. The Eagles have only 1 open practice for fans this year. 1! The NFL doesn't care about its fans the way we think they do. I

Probably right. $20 million for a state of the art indoor training/rehab room needs to be used as much as possible. The team is barely in Rochester more than a week now. It's not worth all the work. Who's getting off of work to drive to Rochester bright and early, to watch your team shuffle around on the field for 90 minutes? The night workouts at least had some flare, some pizzazz. Go downtown, get dinner, make a night of it. Now McDermott's "night practice" at 6:15 pm in early August is back at OBD. Training Camp as an entertainment product is no longer any sort of event. It's just an obligatory thing to appease corporate sponsors Connors & Ferris. Futhermore, the SJF campus is NOT welcoming to fans. Come on, you can't even park in their dozens of lots in the middle of summer when there's no regular classes? You have to drive 20 minutes away in a public school lot to wait in line for a bus, to wait in line to get in, to not get a seat, to stand over a hill, to sorta see for 10 minutes. Practice is over. Drive home at 12 pm. it's pretty stupid, to be honest. There's no middle ground either. Let's move it to, where? UB North? Why do that when you can just do it at One Bills Drive? Plenty of parking, fans can tailgate. Better sight lines. Don't be surprised to see Training Camp eventually move back to Orchard Park, and even become fully closed practices. The team has 5 open practices in 11 days or whatever it is. You really need "tickets" to attend a workout at 9:45 AM on a Sunday?

They're in a tough spot. Firing Housley will receive harsh criticism. "The Sabres are still paying Dan Bylsma not to coach and now they're doing the same for Housley" or something to that effect. Keeping Housley will receive harsh criticism. "How can a team fail to win back to back games since December retain its coach and be taken seriously?" They're in a lose-lose hopelessness spiral. All I want from these people is honesty, which fans rarely receive. Just what the hell ACTUALLY happened when Pat Lafontaine left in mystery following the 2014 trade deadline? Their organizational plan was flawed from the start. Losing is hard enough on the fans. Having no real understanding of who is making what decisions is worse. For instance, Tim Murray was a loose cannon and poorly represented the team, or did he? Paul Hamilton of WGR told the "I heard him chew up an NHL official in ear shot of the press box for all of us to hear" story at least 75 times after he was fired. Convenient that that story was never reported to fans WHILE HE WAS EMPLOYED BY THE TEAM. If I'm a paying customer, wouldnt I want to know the GM of my overpriced, ***** team is chewing officials out in public? Rex Ryan was a hot head who did embarrassing crap like the Clemson helmet thing, despite having a decent team that had a positive point differential. So the team overcorrects and hires straight laced Sean McDermott, a family, faith, football Lifetime movie 2 dimensional character trope. The whole thing is a toxic mess. They have no answers. It's completely hopeless. Until Brady retires there really is no hope here.

It's a way to appear objective in the eyes of people who profiteer off of correct predictions. Vegas is cold, unapologetic, and oftentimes, painfully accurate. The stories of "sports books lost $750,000 on X game" last week are stories simply because sports books losing money is a rarity. They profit because they are correct almost all of the time. Bills fans will complain when Vegas has the Bills as heavy underdogs, or a poor preseason Win/Loss record. "No one respects the Bills". "Hey here's another media idiot bagging on Buffalo". We're all so defensive about our loser football team. We're not losers because the Bills are losers! And yes, they ARE losers. Per ProFootballReference.com - Record (W-L-T): 415-477-8. #SorryNotSorry. Are you willing to bet your income that the Bills WILL win more than 8 games? I'm not. I don't gamble, but I must honestly say it's hard to put your money where your mouth is until we see consistent success. What Mike Schopp tries to do EVERY DAY his mic turns on is be right, and be objective. It's RIGHT to say "The Bills are unlikely to make the playoffs". Some of this is NOT their fault. It's a function of living in the hopelessness of the AFC East. He is paid to be RIGHT not a fan. Does this make sense?

Wow, and I thought we Millennials had it bad with the 2000's drought.

That graphic embodies nearly the entirety of my football watching life. I'm 31, so Brady started dominating the AFC East when I was a freshman in high school. It's effectively what abject football hopelessness feels like. Tell me again why NFL divisional realignment is a bad idea? Why have divisions at all? If every team in the AFC played every other team, I think the playoff matchups would be a lot different. Let's have some fun with two distinct football conferences/identities. There could be separate rules for AFC/NFC, like the DH in the American League. Every team plays each other once, 15 games. Then you face one NFC team a year, based on ranking, like overall points for/points against/record, whatever.

Well put. Again, this remains Ralph Wilson's biggest scar on his legacy, in my opinion. The team also restricted access to these people to a point where there was limited to no oversight from "the fourth branch of government". It's frustrating not one outlet, from The Buffalo News, WGR, or any local TV stations ever once did the "who are any of these people?" feature. We talk a lot about what fans are "owed" from their perennially losing pro sports franchises. All I want is honesty, which we never get. Not to pivot, but whatever the hell happened on July 1st, 2007 with the Sabres? It's been 12 years. Chris Drury SHOULD speak on the record to the fans. It's more than deserved. The Sabres have not recovered from that fateful day. The least they could do is get us closure. To this day, there's not 1 quote on record from the former Sabres captain about it. This is abhorrent.

This is so spot on. The post Mularkey era was peak walking corpse level Ralph. Not to denigrate the man's frailty, more so symptomatic of an unwillingness to address the future of his team while he was alive and more capable of making decisions. So in walk Ralph's cadre of self-interested sycophants, eager to absolve themselves of any blame for the team's many failures while also somehow remain employed at executive level income. It frustrates me that to this day, we still don't honestly know who made what terrible decisions. Who traded Jason Peters? Was it Russ Brandon? Or Jim Overdorf? Who drafted Aaron Maybin? Was it Jauron, Modrak? The team was either incapable or incompetent in their ability to explain who is in power, with what responsibilities, and with whom they report. Modrak, Guy, Overdorf, Brandon, Berchtold. Who are these people, what are their qualifications, and why do they work for you, Ralph? This remains a great scar on Wilson's legacy, and the team remains weak at several positions because of damaging decisions from over a decade ago. The Bills traded a Hall of Fame left tackle in the prime of his career who IS STILL PLAYING AT AN ELITE LEVEL NOW.

This is also true. It's always seemed like from literally Day 1 Marrone and Whaley weren't on the same page. Since we NEVER get true answers as to who makes decisions, why they were made, and with what input, we're all left to speculate and read between lines in reports from years later. As if any of this information would hurt them in anyway, and only help to repair a maligned relationship between the fans and the team. What a thought. It's frustrating. Who drafted Aaron Maybin? Was it Modrak? Jauron? Brandon? There is an answer to this question. The Bills simply will NEVER answer it. Who cut Troy Vincent? Was it Jim Overdorf? Again, who are these people, what are their qualifications, why did they make these decisions, who is making these decisions, and why? It's actually quite simple. It's a combination of lack of overall leadership at the very top, this being 2013 and at the very end of Ralph's life. Russ Brandon is given full control of the team in January, 2013, and he hires Marrone, what, 5 days after an "exhaustive" search. So this dude that WE HAD TO HAVE doesn't have any actual say in the football players his GM is drafting? So heading into a full-scale rebuild, and every one knows they're gonna address QB in April of 2013, and the guy that could help reset the future of the franchise is just some average schlub the coach didn't really like or want? How is that a way to build a program? It's Marrone's rookie head coaching season, with a rookie QB, and rookie playcaller. And NONE of them are ever on the same page. Irrespective of Manuel's (many) flaws, this is just a terrible way to build a professional football program. It's a combination of a LOT of problems. But Ralph's cadre of self-interested sycophants at the top made the drought insurmountably worse. Modrak, Jauron, Guy, Jim Overdorf, Brandon, et cetera. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? We still literally don't know, to this day, what any of those people did. Isn't this a problem?

It's a frustrating labor of self-inflicted pain. To be a Buffalo sports fan is to experience pain. There is simply no other way to explain. We choose to experience pain on a daily, weekly, yearly basis. It is unhealthy. I think some fans, myself included, were cautiously optimistic that McDermott and co could build something, but this crucifixion to "in Buffalo, you have to run the ball", play defense, keep it close mantra is stale, old, and quite frankly poor strategy. Other teams use the passing rules to their advantage. How often are we gonna see Brady on a 3rd and 4 throw deep, incomplete, and draw a holding or PI? This rarely happens to the Bills. Until we have a management and coaching staff in place that understands the present and future of this sport is in the passing game, they're never really gonna be any good. Sure, you wanna win close games, go 7-9 every year? (Hey at least we're not the Browns right?) I define "any good" as winning division titles, winning playoff games, hosting playoff games, and winning championships. I do not have confidence the Jauron-ball of run, punt, kick FGs, hold to FGs and maybe win 18-13 in the end is sound long term strategy. As an entertainment product, the Bills are sorely behind. Simply "being an NFL team" is not enough for a generation of consumers used to click, click, fun. More people watch other people play video games than watched the Stanley Cup Finals. Sports is aging fast, folks. Its all coming to an end soon enough.

Winston Peterman.

It's all about potential for revenue. The Bills fall behind because they only charge so much, as we all know Bills tickets remain among the cheapest in the league The "answer" gets murkier when we widdle down, a) who and how will this be paid for, b) what kind of stadium do we (meaning Buffalo taxpayers) want vs what the NFL wants, and c) location, infrastructure and mixed use capabilities. The league wants Buffalo to get a new stadium so they can charge more money and make more money for themselves, and thus increase Buffalo's valuation and the overall league as well. This is monetarily impossible with the current stadium. Its as renovated as it can be barring a complete retrofit/overall that would take years, and that possibility raises further logistical issues, namely, where does Buffalo play while under construction. So there remains a disconnect between local public opinion, spending money, and what the NFL fully expects Bills ownership to accomplish in the next 5-10 years. Buffalo will get a new stadium folks, it's just a matter of when. This will test and strain the market's ability to support the team like never before. I fully expect the overall gameday experience to change for what most Bills game attendees would consider for the worst. If you want a team, how much are you willing to pay for it? This is by no means me arguing that taxpayer funded stadia is a good thing. It's just unfortunately the price of doing business in the 21st century NFL.

Anyone have a quick-hits version of the article? Highlights/notable quotes, etc?

MAGA, bro. Also, I too am a Bills fan and can post whenever I want to. I said your argument is ridiculous, the non-gender specific identifier "this", not "you" are ridiculous. So no, I didn't resort to name calling. I simply pointed out how completely ridiculous claiming you can no longer be a fan of your team if one preferred they select one player over another. To be fair, you still haven't addressed my original criticism. I am a Bills fan, and preferred Josh Rosen. According to "tumaro02" that means I can or cannot root for their success, or not?

This is ridiculous. Criticizing a media member for being honest about his reservations is not "derangement disorder". It's being honest. You can support a team and still be objective and disagree with their decisions or opinions. I'm a Rosen supporter. Sorry, uh, "Rosen" supporter. I'm not expecting Allen to fail, but I'm not very confident he will. But does that mean I can't root for my team now that Allen is their QB?

This is essentially correct. All of the research backs the conclusion that taxpayer funded stadia rarely results in a boon to taxpayers. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sports-jobs-taxes-are-new-stadiums-worth-the-cost/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/how-the-nfl-fleeces-taxpayers/309448/ Buffalo is in a tough spot. They have stable, well-funded ownership that's committed to infrastructural, societal, and cultural improvements of the western New York market. However, the profit margins are very slim on a market with limited corporate resources, and an exhausted pool of "regional" fans in Southern Ontario, Rochester, et cetera. This writer works in media, almost exclusively funded via advertising sales. Trust me when I say this, every single possible client that would have any money to spend, already does. There are only so many $100,000 Cellino & Barnes accounts to go around. Effectively Buffalo has tapped out whatever advertising/sponsorship that they possibly can. There's no money left. And of course we always hear that Buffalo's tickets are among the cheapest consistently in the NFL. It is ironic that the NFL has grown to be the most popular sport among the "big 4" North American sports using socialism - taxing the "rich" to give to the "poor"- ie - revenue sharing benefits from the big markets giving to the small markets. That the most profitable sport in the country can use tactics reviled by the political right is a dark and sad reality that rich, old, white men who don't want to pay any taxes have become older, richer, and whiter, via policies that are consistently touted as dangerous by hardcore conservative wonks. The NFL wants Buffalo to build a new stadium so it can increase its profits, and ensure more money in the pool for all the teams. Football is based on a completely unsustainable business model. "Enough is never enough". They must always make more revenue than the season previous. At some point, supply will exceed demand. It's only a matter of time before sports fails just like the big banks. Give it another 15 years or so. We've already seen about a 10% decline in youth football enrollment. Once that generation of players comes of age, and we realize there just aren't enough talented players to sustain the product at its current entertainment price (billions a year for nearly every TV broadcaster), sports is done. What does all this mean? I think eventually political leadership in NYS will cave and give the Pegulas (multi-billiionaires), their fancy new stadium, likely 80% give or take publicly funded. It'll be touted as an economic "win" for Buffalo. Another notch in the massively over-hyped "Buffalo resurgence". Yet the results will be the same. It'll be a waste of government spending at the highest level. If NYS spent $1 billion on a community center on the east side of the city that ended up being used 10 times a year, that would be an outrage at the highest level. Angry old white guy would cry from the highest mountain, or more appropriately, a microphone on WBEN, about how government only knows how to waste your money. Yet when a football team wastes your money on billionaires who can afford it, we're all ok with it, because we love the Bills for some stupid reason. This is all very long and stupid. Ultimately, we all want our team, and we're gonna do whatever we can to keep them here. Give it 3 years and Pegula will start crying about "competitive balances", "market size", "profitability", "viability" and any stupid !@#$ing buzzword Russ Brandon kept touting before he finally got the boot.

What really frustrated me about the Bills offense, for the better part of the drought, but especially under Taylor was a lack of command and control. If Bills fans were honest with themselves (a rarity), did you ever feel confident down 4 points with the ball under 2 minutes the Bills would go ahead? I recall the '16 Miami game clearly, as the only situation where this was the case, and the Bills still failed to score in OT with 2 possessions to win! He has maybe 2 impressive performances in 3 years starting, both losses. @ Sea, vs Miami in 16. We're all so warped from years of tragic, heartbreaking defeats we all lose sight in the fact Taylor had plenty of opportunities to be the hero and failed almost always. Here's to improving on the 31st passing offense, 181 yards/game. Laughable in NFL.

Points for nuance and creativity. Some definite truths of the state of the media consumption business here. As an employee of a corporate media company, I too am gravely concerned for the long term viability of "old media." While social media is going nowhere, it was and will never be "free". We sell our data to the lowest bidder every time we click "agree to the terms and conditions". Sometimes, paying for a product has merit too, and too few see the merit in "yesterday's news". At its core, we are seeing the death of strong writing. Writing is a skill. A challenging one that requires effort, time and a knowledge of accepted rules. Does The Stadium Wall need to follow the AP Style Guide 2018? No. Do we all need a Columbia or Missouri J school degree to post about or football team? No. But it'd sure read better. I think the ability to convey information, emotion, or opinion via poetry and prose is both a difficult and dying artform, with a very lax acceptable standard at very high levels of media production. There ought be at least proper sentence structure in everyday written English. Apparently none of us want to read it though. Bear in mind, this is just sports department cuts. More is coming from more important floors of that newsroom. Feel free to rip on Sully, Vogl, Gleason all you want. It's just sports. I'm concerned about the future of a free press if this continues in news and political coverage. The lack of an informed electorate is dangerous for a democracy. Too many people think angels are real already.