Jerry Sullivan Strikes Back With A VENGEANCE, Slams The BN, The Pegulas, and some of the Buffalo fanbase

[Beast]

He reminds listeners that he covered the drought....the issue being his negativity was there in the first year of the drought as much as it was the last year.

 

He can’t use the drought as an excuse for his negative outlook. That’s weak.

4 minutes ago, Rob's House said:

Bills fans are like a girl who insists her boyfriend, who's been drunk and unemployed for the last decade, has a plan and is about to turn it all around. Jerry's the dad who explains that this guy is now, and will continue to be, a loser. She knows he's right, but she wants him to do better so badly she can't handle it. She screams "I HATE YOU" and runs in her room, slams the door, and cries.

 

Thank you for weighing in, Mrs. Sullivan.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Binghamton Beast

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

If you take the name out of this, and change the profession, this sounds an awful lot like a guy who thought the enterprise could not function without him, who thought management was ruining the business, who pined for the good old days and cursed progress (as viewed by the owners of the business anyway), and who had difficulty leaving his emotions at the door.  In short, it's a story that plays out thousands of times, every day, across the country. 

 

I chose not not to read his columns because I didn't like his style.  I thought it odd that he was offended he was asked to take a different role, but was willing to stay if Bucky stayed, but reached his limit when Bucky left.  When all is said and done, man, it's sort of pathetic to me to hear a guy like this. You had choices, you were given an opportunity to stay in a new role, they offered you a buyout and you left.  I'd bet a whole lot of people in America would kill for those options when their company moves in a different direction. 

[Mr. WEO]

7 hours ago, Fadingpain said:

You laughing at the content of that post, or the fact that the idiot doesn't know how to spell "etc."

 

????

 

 

 

...as he calls Sully a hack!

[drf1835]

9 hours ago, BuffaloRush said:

 

Your comment is exactly what I was saying.  You misunderstand the job of the columnist.  It is to share his opinion and analysis of what happened.  A reporter shares facts and "what the story is."

 

Bills fans have become so sensitive to criticism over the years.  It's beyond baffling

 

The Bills fan has been so sensitive to criticism over the years because of persons like Sully where we always heard his angry emotion and not the message, regardless of circumstance and situation. We can get frustrated with columists who do not give fair opinions and great analysis, when that job in our mind required such, and when we were paying for that and not paying for some entertainment and embellished story to sell a paper. There is an entertainment section in newspapers for that.

 

 A good analyzer will be able to not just see bad things in bad things, and good things  in good things, but will also be able to see something good in something bad, and something bad in something good. These persons can see all sides to issues before giving their fair opinion and analysis. If Sully does not have that ability, as we are always just seeing him seeing bad things in bad things, and bad things in good things, without seeing the good in the good, and the good in the bad, he is then an entertainer, niot an analyzer.

 

His opinions thus can start to frustrate and bore readers, as we eirher see him as biased, idiotic, or with some agenda. Let's face the facts. If Sully can dish out unfair criticism, if his views are almost always slanted in that direction,  he needs to be able to handle at minimum fair criticism, yet to be fair he should be able to also handle unfair criticism, too, without being overly sensiitive about that. Sully seems to think he is an entertainer, with a goal to create controversy and division, instead of finding  the truth.

 

To me, that is not a columist. 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2018 by drf1835

[BuffaloRush]

2 minutes ago, drf1835 said:

 

The Bills fan has been so sensitive to criticism over the years because of persons like Sully where we always heard his angry emotion and not the message, regardless of circumstance and situation. We can get frustrated with columists who do not give fair opinions and great analysis, when that job in our mind required such, and when we were paying for that and not paying for some entertainment and embellished story to sell a paper. There is an entertainment section in newspapers for that.

 

 A good analyzer will be able to not just see bad things in bad things, and good things  in good things, but will also be able to see something good in something bad, and something bad in something good. These persons can see all sides to issues before giving their fair opinion and analysis. If Sully does not have that ability, as we are always just seeing him seeing bad things in bad things, and bad things in good things, without seeing the good in the good, and the good in the bad, he is then an entertainer, niot an analyzer.

 

His opinions thus can start to frustrate and bore readers, as we eirher see him as biased, idiotic, or with some agenda. Let's face the facts. If Sully can dish out unfair criticism, if his views are almost always slanted in that direction,  he needs to be able to handle at minimum fair criticism, yet to be fair he should be able to also handle unfair criticism, too, without being overly sensiitive about that. Sully seems to think he is an entertainer, with a goal to create controversy and division, instead of finding  the truth.

 

To me, that is not a columist. 

 

 

 

Again though, to me it’s no surprise that the analysts who criticize the Bills are among the most hated by the fan base.  This is true for:

 

- Jerry Sullivan

- Mike Rodak

- Mike Schopp

- Jeremy White

- Bucky Gleason

 

Sully has handeled criticism well over the years.  If anyone is oversensitive to criticism, it’s the Bills fans - not Sully

[LB3]

42 minutes ago, Rob's House said:

Bills fans are like a girl who insists her boyfriend, who's been drunk and unemployed for the last decade, has a plan and is about to turn it all around. Jerry's the dad who explains that this guy is now, and will continue to be, a loser. She knows he's right, but she wants him to do better so badly she can't handle it. She screams "I HATE YOU" and runs in her room, slams the door, and cries.

You left out some details. The dad also only has custody on weekends because his wife left him for being a miserable drunk. The daughter knows he's right, but still doesn't respect him because at the end of the day he's still a miserable drunk who, per mom, can't get it up anymore.

 

Ps. The mom is kind of a B word too. I mean, who tells her daughter that about her father.

[4_kidd_4]

Tell ‘em how you really feel Sully!

 

He’s still good at what he does, just look at all the piss and vinegar in this thread for proof.

[HT02]

10 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

Thougts on Jerry are always the same. He is not a good writer. That always bothered me more than his opinions. 

What specifically don’t you like about his writing?  (I’m not challenging your assertion I am curious what you don’t like about it.)

[Last Guy on the Bench]

7 hours ago, Kelly the Dog said:

Felser was mostly a columnist but you're talking about the best the city ever had who covered the Bills over 68 years, so that is tough to live up to. Dunne is a very, very good feature writer, not a columnist. Eric Turner is absolutely great at what he does, breaking down film and analytics, etc, but not a columnist.

 

But both of those are totally different jobs than Sully's. I don't want to stick up for him, but he was strictly a columnist and if you want to compare him, and his style and substance and entertainment value, IMO you have to compare him to other columnists.

 

It's like saying a drummer sucks because there are all kinds of other guitar players in similar bands who are better musicians.

I don't think this fully captures a columnist's job - or at least a good columnist's job.

 

Yes, a columnist is not reporter, and their job is "opinion" in some sense, but not in the sense of your drunk neighbor at the Bills' game or your irritating Uncle. Good columnists draw on non-obvious information to build a non-obvious window onto what they are writing about. They read stuff and synthesize it. They talk to people that others might not be able to talk to. Fresh opinions don't just drop out of the sky, even for very creative people (which Jerry is not). They take some kind of engagement. It doesn't seem like Jerry ever did anything but watch the games and go to the press conferences. You know who else does that? All of us (at least virtually). So it's no surprise that his columns were rarely surprising.

 

I think when people say he was lazy, they don't mean he should have been acting like a reporter. They mean he was intellectually lazy. Even geniuses need to prime the pump. It takes work to have an interesting take. Peter King, for example, is a columnist. He writes a million words a week of opinions, musings, autobiography, etc. But love him or hate him, he spends a lot of time reading, talking to other people, and going out and engaging with the NFL.  I know he has access that Jerry could only dream of, and I wouldn't expect the Buff News to mirror a national publication. But you can do some of that, even if you're working in Boise.

 

Honestly, an average post from you, KTD, or from a bunch of other posters, has much more interesting opinion and analysis than any Sullivan column. And it has very little to do with how positive or negative someone is. You tend to be relatively sunny (except when it comes to Peterman). Badol is a curmudgeon, but always interesting. Both of you offer a fresh eye. Neither of you sounds like every other poster or radio idiot. There are lots of posters here who can knock off a tipsy post in their sleep that is better than Jerry's columns. Someone who is actually thinking about things and engaging with them can always find lots of interesting positive and negative things to say. The key word being 'interesting'.

 

Heck, even DC Tom, who never offers any actual football insight, and who is as surly as they come, is actually funny. I would read a column by him. But life's too short to read stuff by someone like Jerry.   

[hondo in seattle]

7 hours ago, Kelly the Dog said:

Felser was mostly a columnist but you're talking about the best the city ever had who covered the Bills over 68 years, so that is tough to live up to. Dunne is a very, very good feature writer, not a columnist. Eric Turner is absolutely great at what he does, breaking down film and analytics, etc, but not a columnist.

 

But both of those are totally different jobs than Sully's. I don't want to stick up for him, but he was strictly a columnist and if you want to compare him, and his style and substance and entertainment value, IMO you have to compare him to other columnists.

 

It's like saying a drummer sucks because there are all kinds of other guitar players in similar bands who are better musicians.

 

I'm not going to argue labels (columnist versus feature writer; guitarist versus drummer) because that's not the point.  The point was these other writers offered me something I wanted: interesting new information.   Whenever I read Sully's articles however, I felt I wasted  my time.  There were no new data points, no new insights...  just his (usually negative) opinions.   You could find the same opinions on this board.  What did Sully offer that was new or different?   

 

For me, personally, reading Sully didn't make my day better in any way.  I didn't find his POV provocative, challenging, or anything like that.  Even when I agreed with him - which happened from time to time - my reaction to his articles ranged from bored to annoyed.   Maybe I'm wrong and the guy just sees the world through darkly tinted glasses but his negativism felt like a shtick to me - that he was purposely over-the-top negative to get attention.  I prefer authenticity/sincerity and balanced objectivity.  

 

 

Edited September 7, 2018 by hondo in seattle

[GunnerBill]

8 hours ago, GreggTX said:

I'll say this much. The BN coverage of the Bklls has gotten a lot more boring since Sully left. As far as Sully not being a 'good writer', I've yet to see a clear and concise example of this from anyone. Sorry, but your say so isn't at all convincing.

 

My response is that I was for 5 years a sports journalist, I have done the job. My professional opinion is he isn't a good writer. His articles are poorly structured, his use of English perfunctory and his arguments often lack a common thread. I have read many of his articles and thought "I think you are onto something but you really haven't articulated it well." A little more care at times would have led, I believe, to a better reception for many of his criticisms. It should be said that I only really started reading the BN in maybe 2009... so it is possible, of course, that by then a little laziness had set in.

[hondo in seattle]

8 minutes ago, Last Guy on the Bench said:

I don't think this fully captures a columnist's job - or at least a good columnist's job.

 

Yes, a columnist is not reporter, and their job is "opinion" in some sense, but not in the sense of your drunk neighbor at the Bills' game or your irritating Uncle. Good columnists draw on non-obvious information to build a non-obvious window onto what they are writing about. They read stuff and synthesize it. They talk to people that others might not be able to talk to. Fresh opinions don't just drop out of the sky, even for very creative people (which Jerry is not). They take some kind of engagement. It doesn't seem like Jerry ever did anything but watch the games and go to the press conferences. You know who else does that? All of us (at least virtually). So it's no surprise that his columns were rarely surprising.

 

I think when people say he was lazy, they don't mean he should have been acting like a reporter. They mean he was intellectually lazy. Even geniuses need to prime the pump. It takes work to have an interesting take. Peter King, for example, is a columnist. He writes a million words a week of opinions, musings, autobiography, etc. But love him or hate him, he spends a lot of time reading, talking to other people, and going out and engaging with the NFL.  I know he has access that Jerry could only dream of, and I wouldn't expect the Buff News to mirror a national publication. But you can do some of that, even if you're working in Boise.

 

Honestly, an average post from you, KTD, or from a bunch of other posters, has much more interesting opinion and analysis than any Sullivan column. And it has very little to do with how positive or negative someone is. You tend to be relatively sunny (except when it comes to Peterman). Badol is a curmudgeon, but always interesting. Both of you offer a fresh eye. Neither of you sounds like every other poster or radio idiot. There are lots of posters here who can knock off a tipsy post in their sleep that is better than Jerry's columns. Someone who is actually thinking about things and engaging with them can always find lots of interesting positive and negative things to say. The key word being 'interesting'.

 

Heck, even DC Tom, who never offers any actual football insight, and who is as surly as they come, is actually funny. I would read a column by him. But life's too short to read stuff by someone like Jerry.   

 

Well said!  Obviously there are a spectrum of opinions regarding Sully but I think Last Guy's post nicely captures how some of us detractors think and feel.  

6 hours ago, Buftex said:

It has always cracked me up how sentimental so many Bills fans were/are about Larry Felser, yet loathe Sullivan.  Felser was as negative as they come.  Not saying i don't like him, but he always ripped the Bills, even in the better years.  I think Sullivan makes some valid points...covering a perenial losing franchise would likely ware anybody out.  How can you not be negative?

 

It's been suggested that people who don't like Sully's writing are pollyannas who only want to hear  about sunshine and roses.  

 

We invoke Felser to show that's not true.   We're okay with fair, well-reasoned criticism.  We just don't like Sully as a columnist.  

 

 

 

[Golden*Wheels]

I always enjoyed seeing his columns rile up the usual BB.com suspects who then claimed they'd never read or click his links again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

9 hours ago, Ayjent said:

Whatever man. Just because you work for someone doesn’t mean You're not entitled to an opinion or have to work under those conditions.

 

He takes his work as a profession it appears and sees his responsibility in a lot bigger view than employee and employer. I don’t particularly like his columns because they are a tad thin in my opinion.  But I respect his view on what he did and why.  Don’t do things in life if you have options, even if it makes you uncomfortable - do what you believe in and want and you’ll be more satisfied in life, even if the money isn’t great.  

 

You have some good points.  For example, I left my most recent job (voluntary termination, no buy-out) because I did not like the conditions under which I was increasingly being asked to work or the direction the company was taking.  I was very fortunate to be able to do so and I have never looked back.  I was blessed with the opportunity to engage with my family during my kid's HS years in a way that would not have been possible, had I remained in that job.  It was 100% "do what you believe in and want and you'll be more satisfied, even if the money isn't great".

 

However, I moved on.  I didn't "come back with a vengence" promoting my opinion in an apparent attempt to persuade others that I was ill-used or ill-treated.  Somehow the fact that he is still dwelling on and promoting his opinion about the situation that prompted him to take a buyout, the fact that he refers to being a columnist as a "dream job" but is now employed in a minor radio show etc....suggests to me that somehow the "do what you believe in and want and you'll be more satisfied in life" does not apply to Sullivan.

 

I could of course, be mistaken.

[GunnerBill]

28 minutes ago, BuffaloRush said:

 

Again though, to me it’s no surprise that the analysts who criticize the Bills are among the most hated by the fan base.  This is true for:

 

- Jerry Sullivan

- Mike Rodak

- Mike Schopp

- Jeremy White

- Bucky Gleason

 

Sully has handeled criticism well over the years.  If anyone is oversensitive to criticism, it’s the Bills fans - not Sully

 

Of those - I never really read Bucky so can't comment. I think Rodak has improved as ESPN's online stuff has improved more generally. This leads me to believe that previously his 'style' was not necessarily of his own choosing. Now he generally writes more coherent, better structured pieces rather than the kind of 3 paragraph 'hot takes' which were rightly ridiculed.  I like Mike Schopp and Jeremy White. Never had a problem with WGR actually except for that guy who went to Minnesota.... forget his name. He irritated the hell out of me because he'd used the word "analytics" when what he meant is "numbers" and the two are not the same. The show I most dislike listening to on WGR is Murph. When it was just him, and on in the evenings, you used to get some decent interviews mixed in with the homerism. Now you get homerism and interviews where he and Tasker talk over the guest repeatedly. It is brutal.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

8 hours ago, Fadingpain said:

bull ****.   

 

Perhaps, but it's an opinion with which I concur.

[GunnerBill]

28 minutes ago, HT02 said:

What specifically don’t you like about his writing?  (I’m not challenging your assertion I am curious what you don’t like about it.)

 

see my reply to another poster at the top of page 7.

[transient]

4 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

 

I'm not going to argue labels (columnist versus feature writer; guitarist versus drummer) because that's not the point.  The point was these other writers offered me something I wanted: interesting new information.   Whenever I read Sully's articles however, I felt I wasted  my time.  There were no new data points, no new insights...  just his (usually negative) opinions.   You could find the same opinions on this board.  What did Sully offer that was new or different?   

 

For me, personally, reading Sully didn't make my day better in any way.  I didn't find his POV provocative, challenging, or anything like that.  Even when I agreed with him - which happened from time to time - my reaction to his articles ranged from bored to annoyed.   Maybe I'm wrong and the guy just sees the world through darkly tinted glasses but his negativism felt like a shtick to me - that he was purposely over-the-top negative to get attention.  I prefer authenticity/sincerity and balanced objectivity.  

 

 

 

I quit reading Sullivan in the late 90s or early 2000s, with the exception of starting a few accidentally when I didn’t pay close enough attention to the by-line online. Your post captures what I also felt, that I had wasted my time.

 

Even without the by-line, you can tell a Sullivan piece 1-2 paragraphs in due to the formula:

-Damn with faint praise to set up your column

-Make your argument through hyperbole and flawed logic while negating the previous faint praise

-Use name calling and arguments more commonly seen on a middle school playground to define anyone associated with the situation

-Insult anyone with a different opinion while explaining why you are the smartest guy in the room 

 

I think there are very few actual Pollyanna Bills fans who will support everything that’s happened since the team’s inception, which is the common Sullivan apologist’s take on why people don’t like him. I just think his schtick has been old and tired for 2+ decades and it finally caught up to him. 

[oldmanfan]

I wish I knew how to find and post things from movies etc.  But I think of the scene in  Animal House with Otter and one of the sorority girls when she looks at Otter and says:  Otter, you're weren't that good.  jerry, you weren't that good.

[hondo in seattle]

49 minutes ago, BuffaloRush said:

 

Again though, to me it’s no surprise that the analysts who criticize the Bills are among the most hated by the fan base.  This is true for:

 

- Jerry Sullivan

- Mike Rodak

- Mike Schopp

- Jeremy White

- Bucky Gleason

 

Sully has handeled criticism well over the years.  If anyone is oversensitive to criticism, it’s the Bills fans - not Sully

 

Are these guys really all hated?

 

The only one I personally don't like is Sully.

 

I didn't like Rodak in the beginning because he was clueless about the Bills.  He's improved quite a bit since.  

 

The others don't bother me at all.