zonabb

FWIW the season ticket LiveChat assistant is up and staffed, which I find odd in mid-March and from prior experience usually ends at close of business... i.e., 5 p.m. More fuel for the fire...

Hot, black and on my desk?

Without a doubt the best funniest thread in a longtime! When people are happy and excited the comedy is great! A Vacation quote and I recall a Seinfeld one too, it's great! We need a thread of obscure but hilarious movie quotes!!!

I threw it on the Williams thread that he was in town, from a friend who works with some close to Whaley. Said he was in town. Guess it wasn't BS.

Good thing for this board or I wouldn't laugh at work at all!!!!!

Also meachem is here too. Don't flame aware, just for discussion purposes and thoughts.

A friend who isn't a fan and has no reason to care said a coworkers father makes the locker nameplates and he made one for Williams. Could be a cool thing I show him on his visit and probably all it is. And I never post this stuff so I'm just passing it on!

Someone check twitter, isn't that what we consider reliable now!

What an garbage piece of journalism on the part of the writer/reporter. Sadly, as a minor media market, we're stuck with inferior media in WNY, written and radio. Schopp is an exemplar of the problem because he's just impossible like, to respect, or lend credibility to. His inability to recognize, first and foremost, listeners are customers and he alienates more than he draws. I'm sure he'd point to whatever awards the station wins but its easy to win awards in a minor market when you have no competiton and hence a captive audience that often finds itself hating the option but having nowhere else to turn. I think this award they always tout is based on the marketshare you have. Well, if you're the only sports station, you should have all the "sports station" market right?!!!! I agree, callers such and I ALWAYS, without fail, change the channel when any radio station takes a call. I don't care what Joe Blow from Buffalo has to say and I long ago stopped listening to Schopp's distain and hatred toward callers he feels have an inferior intellect to him. However, and this is the issue I have, if you're format is to take calls, then do it graciously and professionally. This is where Schopp becomes hated. We all hate our some aspects of our jobs but in most cases, we're mature enough to separate the tasks from the people we work with, not treating them like the problem. The problem is they take calls, not the callers. Treating them like garbage isn't a cure for the problem. It's incongruous. His time argument isn't worthy of detailed reponse given the myriad of time they waste on non-sports topics. Do you bump into someone at the store and immediately say "I think the BIlls suck" or do you precede that with "Hi"? Why does he think that the rules of common conversation don't apply to him. I bet this week they get a lot of calls that go something like this... "Hi Mike, how are you." In fact, I hope all callers start doing it as a standard!!! The entire article was Schopp coming up with a thinly veiled justification for his self-agrandizing attitude and petulent behavior. If I want an intellectual conversation with someone who won't act like a child and be condescending and walk away (or hand up in Schopp's case), I'm certainly not turning to sports radio. What I laugh about is how serious he takes a job that in the scope of the world is childish and worthless... sports. It's fun and a distraction from the real world, not something to put too much stock in to the point where you become a compete and total a-hole. Come on people, because he's got a microphone doesn't mean he actually is better than anyone else. In the real world where we all exist, collecting baseball cards and playing strat-o-matic gets you shunned by 99% of the populace, no matter how smart you are!!! The other 1% shun him because he went to St. John Fisher, which we should use to question his self-righteous and self-anointed intellect. From one of the best bands ever... They call me Mr. Know it All...I will not compromise I will not be told what to do, I will not step aside.... They call me Mr. Know it All, I have no time to waste.... My mouth it spews pure intellect, and I've such elegant taste...... They call me Mr. Know it All, I sup the aged wine...... Oh I could tell such wonderful tales..... if I should find the time.... I must be Mr. Know it All, for ideas come in bounds...... I am Mr. Know it All, so spread the word around.... They call me Mr. Know it All, Ia m so eloquent ..... perfection is my middle name, and whatever rhymes with eloquent.....

Man, what a bunch of PC BS going on here right now. Is to wrong to target and injuried player's injury? Is it wrong to try to hit someone as hard as you can, knowing injuries WILL, not CAN, WILL happen? So what the difference? I'm just confused how people are appalled that in a game where injuries are common place and players KNOW injuries happen and KNOW paralysis is a possibility yet still play by choice, that somehow this is problematic. It's one of the simplest laws in economics... people respond to incentives. If a team's chances to win are increased when an opposing top player gets hurt, there is an incentive to hurt him. If you offer a cash incentive to a player for a cart-off or knockout, they'll repond to than incentive. Why? Because in all honesty, they're trying hurt the opposing player anyway. Sure, they all say that they never try to intentionally hurt anyone but that's as PC as this thread. Funny, most people love listening to the retired players who said they wanted to hurt opposing players but someone this goes beyond that as someone criminal. Give me an effin break. The game is savage, played by people who are wreckless and accept the game's injury potential. The form of the game, the money at stake and the egos involved make this not just within the realm of possibility, but inevitable. Any as Woody said in not to explicit terms "nothing to see here."

Sure, I'll answer and play along. Your problem is using absolute values as an argument when football we all know is about games and what you do in games. So as valuable as the argument is over absolute stats, it has major flaws. The first and most obvious is your homerism and only using the last two seasons because that's all Stevie has of value. That does two things, it makes his stats look better than Jackson, who held out last year but it also discounts his stats prior to that, which is convenient to your argument. In statistics we call that cherry picking, which means it sucks. When you look at averages, you get a better idea of the player and in the case of Jackson, he might not have the catches (because SD has had other weapons to spread the ball around like Gates and Tomlinson) but his career YPC is 4.5 yards higher. Stevie's TD rate is slightly higher but the sample size (games played) is lower meaning the results aren't as valid as a larger sample size, which would be Jackson's games played. All that aside, if you want to cherry pick. Jackson AND Wallace had more yards, more TDs, and a better YPC this past year that Stevie, on LESS catches, which shouldn't be a knock on them but proof they're better. More production out of less catches, how is that bad again? In a league based on production with the last season the best predictor of success next season (you don't estimate tomorrow by what happened 5 years ago as much as what happened 5 days ago), Jackson AND Wallace are both better and the guys making the decisions and signing the checks will valiudate that by giving them better, bigger contracts than Stevie.

AMEN! I'm hearing Jeremy Lin news on WBEN in the morning, it;s sickening. If this kid wasn't playing in NYC, his 7 or whatever game strecth would be meaningless but because it's nYS, everyone from that blowhard from the News Jerry Sullivan to Susan Rose on WBEN is talking about the guy. I seem to recall a hockey playe rin Edmonton with 8 points in a game a week or so ago who had 14 points in 6 games, why are we not hearing about him? Becuase he's in Edmonton! As for the draft and combine, I think its the most fascinating think about the NFL. That process makes and breaks teams and there is so much irrational decision-making. Some argue take the best player available regardless of position and some take the approach of taking the best player at your highest need. Both have inefficiencies in them. For example, the BPA might step in an displace a very good player, offering minimal improvement while taking the bets player at a position of need would arguably have better overall impact. Another research paper on the topic is McKee and Burkett's 2003 article titled The National Football League Combine: A Reliable Predictor of Draft Status? Using the 2000 combine, they hypothesize that the combine tests and metrics, in laymens terms, are a waste, that they have no impact on draft status or round selected. However they did find that for specific positions, some of the drills were worthless in their draft stock. RBs vertical jump was more a predictor of where they would be draft than the bench press. So its interesting because you wonder how some teams consider certain tests and rate their importance! Place importance on the wrong metrics or discounting others could be problematic. Another one I plan to get to seems more interesting and can be downloaded from Google Scholar. Title: Uncertainty, Hiring and Subsequent Performance: The NFL Draft

Hold out, its that simple and that's what he should do and I am sure his agent will advise him to. It's the right move because it forces the Bills to do one simple... acknowledge his value to them. If they don't extend him, he can hold for 10 weeks or whatever it is, come back with less wear on his body and play tha final six games of his Bills career and hit free agency the folling year and get paid. He won't tons of money but by not playing he preserves his value by reducing the probability of getting injured and losing everything and then giving him a shot to make a decent final contract. He MUST sit out or get extended, that'll be the options. Or the Bills should trade him to a team that needs a RB for 3 or so good seasons. If the Bills are stupid enough to put themselves in a local PR nightmare position and reduce the interest in them from other free agents, they're done. Jackson certainly isn't worth a huge contract, but he has value and despite his age, the guy isn't slowing down incredibly. Extend him two years and bump him in 2012 to a fair value. How f'in hard is that? Ricky Williams will be 35 at the start of next season and if the Ravens bring him back for his last year, he makes $1.5. If they can't sign Jackson thought 2014 when he'll be 33 for a repsectable salary, something is sorely wrong with this front office. If Spiller is the guy, they still need a backup to share the load a la the Ravens and Jets. I just can't comprehend this one.

I didnt read it but I can guess it's saying we shouldn't support teams with money. That's all well and good, I'm in favor of shutting the tap of taxpayer money right off and keep it off. The reality is, it's not working. This theory that taxc breaks and incentives create jobs and thereby economic benefit for all has yet to be proven in WNY. Maybe its working elsewhere, but it's not here. The process is laughable and need to be re-examined. All that being said, the current system is in place. The NFL and the Bills now and in the future will get increased scrutiny due to their own success as a league and the perceived lack of need for such help. All true. In reality, the Bills and NFL don't need help taxpayer help. Let the NFL lend the Bills money at a low interest rate and fix the stadium. Ahhh, but the issue is, Erie County owns the stadium, not the Bills. So their is a long-standing public-private partnership here. The county helps the Bills make money (lots and lots of it) and the county thereby, in theory, gets a return on that investment. Regardless of where I stand, the current rules allow it and as long as everyone has their hand out, why not the Bills? What fries me about the complaints about the Bills getting money is that they get grief because they're so public. Everyone sees the wealth of the league, the players, the owners and says "WTF are we doing supporting them?" It's the visibility. But what we don't see or get jammed down our throats is the millions people like Carl Paladino get in handouts year in and year out and his wealth. We don't see stories of Carl's houses, cars, vacations, nor do we watch him on TV. But just today, the hypocrite (who publically and vehemently opposed any tax breaks for a major project in downtown Buffalo, mainly because the project would compete with his holdings) was granted 1.9M in taxbreaks to build a hotel on Main Street in Amherst. Carl is a multimillionaire many, many times over. He owns more real estate (lots of hotels) in WNY than almost any developer not named Benderson. He doesn't need the money, just like the Bills don't. But so long as there is a way to get money, these entities will find a way to show need. The system sucks. Either rail against it all, or don't waste your time. You can't have it both ways.

Beat only one team with a winning record when they played? Or based on their opponents final record? Seems like the former since that makes a weak argument seem stronger and make it seem like thye beta a bunch of 2-14 teams. The three NFC East teams sans the Redskins were 9-7, 8-8, 8-8. Oakland and Denevr were 8-8. Jets were 8-8. They beats the teams they should beat and obviously are better than an 8-8 team if they beat them all. Still sticking with what I said in a forum a couple months ago... Pats represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. Many here proclaimed them at best the 4th best in the conference. Our hatred (I'm with everyone) of the Pats can be blinding sometimes as people refuse to see them still as a powerhouse. We hate them so much we talk ourselves into the belief they're not that good as opposed to watching them and seeing how good they really still are. Regardless of who they played, they dismantled their opponents over the last games by an average score of 36-20. So any questions about them beating bad opponents is erased by how handily they did it (on average, there were a few close ones in there as happens week to week in the NFL). I thought they'd be challenged in the Supoer Bowl by Green Bay but if the Giants get there, that is the only way the Pats lose. Anyone who thinks Brady will lose to Flacco or Smith is a joker.

Balance, you need balance. BUT... the winners in all four games this weekend averaged 34.5 points. So offense sill matters because you can't win anymore with a super defense, as I am sure we'll see this coming week when the Pats offense outshines the Ravens defense. I think for the Bills, the do need pass rush immediately because any move toward the playoffs is going to require improvement on defense, as well as offense.

The draft behavior of teams is fascinating because it defies logic in a lot of cases and it troublesome because it's intended to be predictive, that is making some assessment on future results based on past results. Its like stocks, except you also have to predict the change in talent-level and ascertain whether the player who dominated at the NCAA has the ability to do so at the NFL level. So the process is fraught with problems. But the QB position is one I've been even more fascinated with over the years, mainly as I've watched the Bills bungle one QB pick after another. I think there is one way that could be used (and I hope teams are) to try to better inform the argument over what qualities are important in a college QB to predict performance at the NFL level. That's using multiple regression analysis, which means you try to predict the change in a dependent variable, in this case NFL regular season wins by a QB, based on a handful of indepenent college and personal variables thought to be predictive, like college wins, Wonderlic score, completion percentage, etc. Since regression is a predicative model, it'll explain how much impact each variable has and also, more importantly determine which ones have significant impact and which don't. What it won't do, and this is important, is tell you with 100% certain all the qualities that matter, which are probably the system of offense the're in in the NFL, the quality of the offense/players on their NFL, coaching, mental make-up, combine measurables, etc. But it's the best option to narrow down a QB based on his college stats and personal attributes, like "toughness" for example which is hard to quantify. But what I find the most interesting and often controversial is the Wonderlic score. Those that are "manly" (in terms of QBs) think that the score is meaningless because it's a game of athelticism, toughness and brawn. I don't fall into that category, I think its very important for QBs and less so for say WR and RBs. Here's why I think its important, because after looking for all the Wonderlics I could and the scores for Supoer Bowl winning QBs, I found that all SB winners with reported or leaked scores, with the exception or one or two (Bradshaw for sure but I think he was dyslexic and that might explain the score?), scored at least a 22 or 23 (don't have that info accesible). What does that mean? Well, I bet if you ran a resgression with SB wins as the dependent variable, Wonderlic would be signifcantly important. It doesn't mean a low scoreing QB won't have a lot of NFL wins, because there are lots that have, but it does mean they don't win a lot of Super Bowls. So for me, given the probability of a guy with a 15 on a Wonderlic winning a Super Bowl so low, I'd avoid drafting him, unless I needed a backup. As I said, the regression will have some errors and contradictions due to the unknown variables but it'll still be important. A perfect example would be Losman and Edwards. Losman was highly regarded as an "athlete" with an arm and the protypical NFL skillset, except between the ears. He scored a 14 on his first Wonderlic but took it again and scored a 31 (the biggest joke, since the players then have seen a test and are highly coached). Edwards was not as physically gifted but scored a 34 on his Wonderlic. They both sucked. I think we all agree that Losman was bad a decision-making and even with his skills, he didn't have the "smarts." Edwards had the smarts but then got skittish and flighty after taking a beating and didn't display what we might call "toughness." But what these two show is that drafting a QB is tough due to the myriad of variables that impact a QBs skills and abilities. Ultimately, regression would still only be a tool in analyzing QBs, but it would allow for a ranking of variables that are high correlated to NFL regular season and Super Bowl wins. Why don't I do it? The collection and aggragation of the data would take way too long but I would gladly accept it if anyone for some crazy reason! I could run the regression with the right data and have some results in 10 minutes but since I'm supposed to be working on my dissertation right now and not wasting time here, I can't!

I'm sticking to my claim from many weeks ago when people on this forum were saying the Pats aren't the elite team in the AFC and I said they're in the Super Bowl. Sticking with it and teh Pats beat the Broncos by at least 10. Too many people get clogged with emotion and talk themselves into the Pats being bad because they don't want them to keep winning. I get it, I hate them too. But when you watch them and assess them honestly, the are very good offensively. And they might be average or worse defensively, but if you look at the teams everyone claims are elite, mainly the Packers and the Saints, their offensives suck too but their offensives are so unreal, their defense is merely a tool to allow the offense some time to rest! Everyone is claiming the Pats can't win because of shoddy defense. But the gave up 342, the SAints gave up 339 and the Pack 359. So why is it everyone loves the Pack and says the can't lose but they've given up more points than the Pats? Sure, of the 3 teams that Pats have scored the least BUT their point differential is +171, or 10.69 points per game. New Orleans was first at +208/13ppg and Green Bay was second at +201/12.57ppg. These three teams are a statistical dead heat but very people on this board, due to their emotional hatred of this team, has the ability to rationally think about them. When you do, you'll realize they are still elite. And if you don't think its highly likely they can beat any of the other three AFC teams at thier stadium in the next two games, I can't help you!

I agree with your assessment of PTR as a self-righteous bully poster. And anyone who signs every single post with some stupid acronym probably given by frat bros is a tool, 'nuff said! H

Yeah, I can't wait for the hypocrite Schoop to change his tune with the wind and his paycheck. The guy is a downright arrogant curmudgeon on a good day, this should make it better!!!

I went to the Bills-Pats last year in Foxboro. I had the exact opposite experience and on balance way better than RWS (I am a former season ticket holder). 1. Lines into the stadium were real quick. I got into a line about the same length as a Bills game and was in in less than 5 minutes and that would be 20 at a Bills game. 2. Parking was easier (maybe more costly) and traffic was better in and out. 3. The concourses were very roomy and easier to navigate, unlike the human soup at a Bills home game. 4. I could get the same size Sam Adams for less than a sh!tty Blue or Coors. 5. No problems with people standing up. 6. In game music wasn't louder than RWS and the fact they have some better ways to get the fans into the game, like when a first down is made, made it pretty enjoyable, despite the usual Bills loss. Honestly, if the Bills stadium was like that, more people might be interested in going. I'm not for a new stadium on taxpayer's costs and think the Ralph functions for what it was designed for. But my feeling after going to Gilette was that I now understand why owners want new stadiums and fans always love 'em.

Surprised they won six games, I thought they might win 3. Disappointed in some of Fitz's issues. I thought an off season of work might make some things better, like his accuracy and maybe his arm strength. I feel like a wide out that can stretch the field might not do much because Fitz just can't seem to lead receivers deep, they're always slowing to wait for the ball. Yesterday's pass interference was a perfect example. Sometimes he does it but most times it's not there. I guess it comes down to his inconsistency.

Definite contender and I've said it here before. If they can set the record for most passing yards against and still have the record they do, it tells you that they have one of the best offenses in the league with one of the best QBs, hands down. I think everyone here wishes they weren't contenders but deep down knows they are. Honestly, I don't see a team in the AFC that's can beat this offense, including Baltimore and Pittsburgh. With Brady and his weapons, they're a matchup nightmare. They've shown they can give up 30 and score 35. I think they represent then AFC in the Super Bowl.

Scwabels! Get a cheese tray with their killer hot mustard!!!!

My message to RW is that I have patience, I patiently sat through deplorable season after season and finally gave up my seasons last year and I'll wait for you and your team to earn my business back. Of course, I have no say on my annual tax donations you use to make your $25-$30 mil a year but I do have a say over what comes out of my bank account. Be patient Ralphie, I'll return when you're committed to winning.