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dpberr

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Posts posted by dpberr

  1. The Tampa Bay Bucs have to be included in any "move to LA" article. The Glazers own the team, but the stadium is largely owned (as the Glazers own some of the property) by Hillsborough County. The Glazers and the County have always had a rough relationship. Coupled with the brothers' financial troubles, the team's attendance, even during their Super Bowl run, was adequate to poor.

     

    I don't think Florida can support three NFL teams. It's either the Jags or Bucs.

  2. It is kinda sad when the only examples that you can come up with to compare to the futility of the Bills are in baseball, where only a small percentage of the teams make the playoffs compared to the NFL where a third of the teams make the playoffs every year and have had a salary cap to allow every team except the Bills and Lions to make the playoffs over the past decade.

     

    We can do NBA too, if you'd like. The league allows more playoff teams. I think the analysis of the leagues demonstrates the lack of historical perspective of the commentators that teams swoon for long periods of time, as if that's going to be remotely relevant to what they end up saying anyway on television.

     

    Anyways, the candidate for NBA "minor leaguedom" is the Toronto Raptors.

     

    Why not the Sacramento Kings (no NBA finals appearance since 1951) or the Timberwolves (last in the playoffs in 2004) or the Clippers (who did not smell the playoffs from 1976 to 1991)?

     

    As a long suffering St. Louis/Arizona Cardinals fan, being a Bills fan, while depressing at times, has been way more enjoyable. The Cardinals went decades (not just one) without seeing the playoffs, and outside of their most recent Super Bowl appearance, you had to go back to 1948! It wasn't too long ago the Cardinals, and not the Lions or Bills were considered the worst run and worst performing franchise not just in football, but in major league sports.

  3. And a relatively new Lombardi Trophy to go with an All-Pro quarterback.

     

     

    I am not saying what you are saying is incorrect, but for most of if not all of Winfield's career, 4 teams made the playoffs in the entire Major Leagues, not one third of the teams like in the NFL.

     

    I understand your point with baseball. My point was that the Padres before 1984 and the Yankees during their 80s swoon were about 3,000 miles away from the playoffs. They weren't just mediocre teams, but bad teams. While the Pirates have missed the playoffs since 1992, they are hardly the only team that's been that bad for stretches, missing the playoffs, Dave Winfield, like the Nationals (1981) and Royals (1985).

  4. A big so-what to ESPN. The fortunes of teams are in the shape of circles. Just some teams have a longer circle between good, mediocre and bad.

     

    At one time, the Heat, Yankees and Patriots were the worst in their respective sports.

     

    Hell, Dave Winfield's San Diego Padres finished no better than 4th from 1969 to 1984. He was also part of a crappy Yankees era in which they missed the playoffs 11 years in a row, eight of which while he was in NY.

  5. While I'd absolutely hate to see it, a cancellation of the 2011 football season would probably do the league some good. As of right now, the league, it's players and owners, are locked on a course of unsustainable finances. If it takes a canceled season to strengthen the long term financial prospects of the league and its teams, so be it.

     

    MLB is in serious trouble. Their business model may have been viable in 1971 and their hesitation to change it has doomed the entire business.

  6. I listen to Rome and Cowherd. I like my lunchtime radio torture to have some variety. There are times Rome has a guest that's boring or he's talking about lame horse racing strategy and I'll tune into Cowherd.

     

    Sadly, both beat listening to the local stuff that just talks Eagles and Phillies. I think the Phillies were more interesting when they were horrible.

     

    Dare I say that Rome's show *can* be hilarious despite Rome himself, due to the people who write into the show and the sound effects.

     

    I'm a long suffering Buccos fan too, Ryan.

  7. Steroids wage war on your body. Your immune system. Joints. Tendons. Emotions. Cognitive process. It's the credit card of substances. You'll pay later, for what you get up front, and Merriman did with the years of injuries. The longer you use, the more you pay. You use heavy or for a long time, you end up either like Lyle Alzado or Chris Benoit.

     

    If Merriman been clean for a while, with the steroids long gone from his system, it's *possible* his mind and body have recovered. Certainly, I believe either the Bills or Merriman himself have invested a lot of time and money into getting his body detoxed from the steroids. It's just as fans, we would never hear or read about it.

     

    In my opinion Nix's confidence in Merriman stems from how well he has detoxed and repaired his body from the steroid use.

  8. Lots of young men lose their way, but I wouldn't be surprised Russell becomes one of those stories of redemption where he gets his head screwed on straight, beats the addiction to the syrup and revives his career. With him, it's not the lack of physical talent that ultimately led to his disastrous career.

     

    I wonder if he ever had a clear head while he played, given that there was evidence of his drug use before he was drafted. His problem is drug addiction.

     

    That is, if he survives finally hitting the bottom of his own barrel, which I'm not sure he's hit.

     

    From everything I've read, he was the sort of man who reflected the support structure (or lack of) around him.

  9. It's Ralph's wall. He can put up whoever he wants, I suppose.

     

    I'm a long-time Bennett fan, as he too, is one of my favorite players. The dust up in 1996 when the Bills didn't match the Falcons offer is probably still fresh in Wilson and Bennett's minds. Wasn't the nicest parting of ways. It was overlooked by the fanbase mostly because the Bills got Chris Spielman shortly after Bennett went to the ATL and he formed a dynamic LB corps with Bryce Paup.

  10. Weak sisters? Buffalo and Cincinnati have two of the more profitable, stable franchises in the league, and that's what the owners and players really value. If you want to cut teams that aren't performing, you'd probably be folding Detroit or Miami (teams that had an operating net loss) or the heavily leveraged teams on a path of unsustainable debt service like the Jets where an increasing majority of their cash just goes to paying off debt.

  11. If the Bills want Ayodele, they will have him. I don't think there's a lot out there for Ayodele in FA despite his 106 tackles.

     

    Florence to a similar degree. He's a cornerback on the wrong side of 30 that has done well in a particular defense. This doesn't mean that teams will be throwing money and interest at him.

     

    Depth is good, especially if it's affordable.

  12. I give it a C based largely on Steve Johnson. I'm not impressed by McKelvin or Bell. Bell's contributions keep it from a D.

     

    Hated the James Hardy pick the second it was read.

     

    Thought Alvin Bowen had promise and the Bills gave up too early on him, waiving him almost immediately after he got injured.

  13. I don't pay attention to draft grades immediately after the draft. More often than not the grades reflect effort to substantiate or defend pre-draft prognostication. Some national pundits love the Bills draft, others find it ok, others find it bad. The ones that love it saw Buffalo taking Dareus. Guess that makes them feel good.

     

    For every blog that says Buffalo failed in this draft due to not drafting a QB, there are two that say Minnesota, Tenn, Cincy and SF all reached for theirs, and how could they due to all their other needs....

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