May Day 10

Montana and Brady are both clutch and ice in their veins and are the 2 most successful quarterbacks ever. I, personally don't consider either the GOAT, even era-adjusted. IMO, both Elway and Marino were better Quarterbacks than Montana. Manning was a better QB than Brady (but was largely squandered by the Colts). The new age of QBs are probably better than all of them as they are freaks.

The problem is, that space has gotten very competitive between the facility in Indy, Minneapolis, Vegas, Dallas, Atlanta, LA, and heck, even East Rutherford. Add in a new reno for the SkyDome/Rogers. The chances of Buffalo hosting events like that are minimal to none. They aren't going to lift the combine. It is a terrible market for NCAA Football, nobody will rush to host neutral site games here, I bet they would have trouble stealing the MAC Championship from Detroit. PS&E had studies done that looked into the potential events that could/would be hosted in a downtown/indoor facility over the current choice. My guess is the potential events aren't worth it. And to be honest, a replica of Lucas Oil Stadium would look great downtown. The problem is you are tagging on a ton of direct and indirect cost and a stretched out building (and red tape) schedule.

Sounds like they got a good coach

Yes to the blackouts listed above. Its a drag. I do think we get to watch Blue Jays though. I have had the MLB package for like the last 7 seasons. For the price, you get a ton of content, even with the blackouts. Its great to have a day game on my phone at my desk while I work. I don't know if the Mets are carried locally for Spectrum, Comcast, or whatever, but if you have a friend/relative who subscribes... borrow their password to watch the Mets on whatever app their cable partner is on. That is what I do for the Sabres/MSG Go.

It is a misconception that Buffalo is this amazing sports city. We do have a deep love affair with the Bills.... and the Sabres get supported well for the most part (although this is overstated and there are fits and starts). The Bandits thing is a nice story too, but it is an enigma that has taken root (in large part to the local reservations), as were the crazy Bisons years from 1988 to 1991. It is tough to get support for much here if it isnt Bills or Sabres. I have talked to people about an OHL team in town a bunch of times, and this arena football team kind of falls into this. People will not support minor league/irrelevant stuff here. We have a pretty decent NCAA football and basketball program with some national relevance (or was building national relevance) and most people wont bother. We have 2 Division 1 NCAA Hockey programs in the area who aren't supported, and you never hear a peep until they win their conference. An OHL team would die on the vine, as would most other sports ventures. I say it in a lot of similar topics, and likely already did here... but things would be different if we had Fortune 500s anchored downtown, along with a lot of affluent residents and a self-sustaining ecosystem with grocery stores, convenient mass transit, and everything people need to live without leaving the confines of downtown proper/first ring of the city. In that case, there would be a much more thriving nightly scene downtown and teams like this could survive. As it is, people arent in a hurry to drive from Grand Island, Williamsville, or West Seneca to park and attend an arena football game.

who else is going to build the stadium?

I suspect there was some sort of plan between the state, Canada/border, Loves, and Amazon. They were going to build a giant Loves truck stop here (residents called bloody murder and monkey-wrenched it). I had heard a rumor that what they wanted to do was pre-check and weigh trucks there for border crossings. The welcome-center thing was built around that time.... when the Amazon thing was announced it made some more sense.

The Bills need to make 1 of Hopkins, Jeudy or Evans happen or this offseason is a failure. A capable WR not named Diggs was the #1 glaring weakness this team had last season.

It was a perfect storm. Good coach and good QB. Good QB was willing to commit his entire being to winning. Coach paid attention to every single detail and every single opportunity to gain an advantage. Even if that entered into gray areas of rules. Stayed ahead of the curve at certain points, like when they had Gronk and Hernandez as dual tight ends which was a nightmare. The Division had the three stooges residing in it for most of the entire run. The Jets had a small run with Rex. The Division was of no concern for New England and offered little resistance. Players willing to sign there for less than full market value to win Expert level ability to allow players to leave, not paying them, and replacing them with cheaper options who rarely missed a beat. Maximized the comp picks as well as trading down in the draft for quantity of picks. Luck. Honestly, I have never seen a franchise get so lucky at various times in crunch time. Other teams would somehow become possessed and either make terrible decisions or physical failures. You also have to get lucky to some degree in order to get to a Super Bowl, let alone win it. To do it on a regular gait is incredible.

Its a good signing if for no other reason that he can stop running over us.

I would/will love it when sports all go to an a la carte mode with no blackout restrictions. Want to watch a game? $10. Want to watch all games in a time slot? $15 Want to watch all games for a week? $25 Want Bills games? Give us $140 for the season. Want all games, get NFL network, and your favorite team scarf? Plus on demand viewing? $250. Same premise with the other major sports

I think this is a really good signing, depending on cap hit

Yeah. Those box rental and maintenance fees and taxes where what finally pushed me over the edge with subscription satellite/cable service. Dropped it 7-8? years ago. Streaming is nice because with a click of a button, you can turn on or off service. There is also competition which will keep the major carriers in check... unless the government somehow allows them to carve up territories and gives them the green light for racketeering like they do the telecoms. The bad thing is that things are getting carved out and made exclusive for one or the other. Again though, you can just turn on the juice when you need it. When the final season for Better Call Saul was on, I subscribed to AMC+ for a few months, and shut it off after I was done. we dont need Telecoms to garnish our wages monthly for 10-20 years anymore

The downtown stadium would have been a lot of extra cost and time. It wasn't specifically mentioned, but I would bet lots of red tape: studies, committees, resistance, etc. Especially down near cobblestone/Perry. You are crowbarring a stadium down there. A lot of acquisition, demo, and major infrastructure work. As it is, traffic for Sabres games can get REALLY bad. This is for 10-ish dates a year. If their studies bore that they could have had a magnetic draw like Atlanta or Dallas, then it is a different story. The competition for all those events is getting intense now that we have LA and Vegas joining the fray, and soon Nashville. We would be competing for secondary events against Minnesota, Detroit, Indy, and now the renovated Skydome. The delta between the time and money required vs possible revenue was clearly not in favor of building downtown. The State/County/City/Pegulas can probably put a fraction of that delta into renovating the Key Bank center and continue to attract plenty of events to keep those businesses down there (mostly restaurants and pubs) sustained. I would love to see a permanent Molson Amphitheatre style concert venue downtown by the water. Could put Darien Lake out of business, and probably host 40+ events from the Spring to Fall. I said it upthread, but the key to downtown development is business. We need large companies anchored downtown with people living, commuting, and spending down there. They wouldn't be able to develop and build stuff fast enough. We are a region where much of the $ is in the 2nd ring suburbs and it kind of works its way inward (Not saying the closer to the city, the poorer you are, I know very well off people who live in the city)...

A football stadium accomplishes almost zero downtown. The arena is capable of hosting 99% of events people envision for this hypothetical $2 billion downtown football facility. What we desperately need are fortune 500s anchoring downtown, so we can have a proper and robust affluent downtown self-sustaining community.

Taiwan

I like McKenzie a lot. Had some good times here and I like him as a person. I get why they need to move on from him though. It was frustrating at times last year, he didnt seem to have a huge fire for going to get/fight for the ball and it cost the team at times. Im not a huge Dorsey hater, but Dorsey didnt use McKenzie effectively either to enhance his physical strengths.

I appreciate what we have, and don't take the past 3-5 year ride for granted at all. I do know from the empty feeling that comes with thinking of the 90s teams... they need to win one with Josh Allen.

IMO, the Jets were building something pretty scary and sustainable for the next 4 years+. Looking at how they were doing with White, they were capable of beating anyone and were poised to take another step this year. They needed to find an answer at QB... but I thought they would be a San Fran East and kind of skate by with the Whites and Garopollos of the world. It really frightened me to think of them landing Lamar Jackson. Even Carr or Jimmy G made me nervous. This Rodgers thing basically makes this an all-in season for the Jets. It adds a lot of uncertainty in the lockerroom. He could melt down in the NYC market, throw his coach and GM under the bus. He is already dictating roster moves. It is going to cost them premium picks and a lot of cap space. But it could click for 1 season. Who knows? It is a high immediate upside, but IMO this kind of undermines what they have been building. I also doubt Rodgers will stay happy and playing very far from now into his 40s.

That can't be real

Anybody look at his Pop Warner roster to see if any of those kids are willing to move to New York?

That team will always be a Tyreek Hill pulled hamstring away from complete disaster. If they can hold it all together, gel, and get fortunate with injuries, they are absolutely in the top class.

I like Martin. Bad punting is a pet peeve of mine, an inexcusable deficiency, and drives me up the wall. I thought he was very solid.

The Jets and Patriots would actually give the Bills fits at certain points in their '90s run'. Based on just my memory, they would usually thump the Colts pretty well.