zonabb

Well, aside from coaching, the teams are the same. Neither has a championship Both have key players who are deathly streaky and way overrated (miller and edwards) Both are trying to win with youth (ie, see cheaply) and someone's old dirty laundry (Rivet and Teppo; Spencer, Stroud and Mitchell) Both teams lack leadership (one traded them away for money's sake, the other has never had it) And most importantly, both have bottomline driven owners who have made it clear that profit is more important than winning. Their combined belief is that they want to try to win cheaply and make a profit. Fine, it's a business, I understand it. But as fans, let's be honest about what we have. Two teams mired in perpetual medicocrity whol will foresake winning for a fgew extra bucks. Once everyone buys into that truth, you'll have less stress and anxiety. And RWS is worse, IMO, than Golisano. From what a close friend with connections said is that RWS makes abotu 20 mil per year on the Bills. And you can thank the taxpayers and fans (one and the same) for making sure he's profitable and the team sucks. Every big time FA they've had for as long as I can remember has been allowed to walk. They've been replaced by average at best talent who come cheaper. Cheap doesn't win. Neither does spending stupidly (ask Dan Synder) but a concerted effort to have a plan and stick to it would be a good start. Drafting the best available player is not a plan. What that does is ensure constant turnover and lack of continuity. Think about it. The Bills took McGahee and cast aside Henry. Took Edwards and cast aside JP. While they were doing that, they ignored needs along both lines, at WR and at TE. Best available = prevent defense.

I agree for one reason and one reason only: Losman is useless to Edwards professionally and personally. A young QB needs a vet for help and I had the good fortune of sitting 16 rows up on the 40 yards line for the MNF game right behind the bench. I watched a lot of Losman on the sidelines. He stays as far away from Edwards as possible. He never once offered him anything. No help going over the defense, no assistance and no encouragement. When you watch other teams, you see the backup in with the starter after series or turnovers looking over the playbook or the defense. Not Losman, he avoids it. That's vindictive and selfish and cancerous. So what you have is a guy without a mentor. And I think it's also a distraction and a divide because after picks Losman was smirking to Hamdan so there is some wishing on Losman's part that Edwards fails and Edwards, as young as he is has that to contend with. So, aside from Losman not being a team guy, he still sucks and if he had to fill in, well, we've seen his act before. Not good.

Unfortunately, open on TV and open from the press box (Hamilton is a tool and has no clue, stick to hockey fat boy) dosn't mean open from the eyes of the guy standing behind the line. If you drop 8 into coverage and have 2 WRs and a TE (who sucks and no one is afraid of) that means no one is open. It's been four weeks in a row with the same defensive game plan. Drop 8 back to cover. And why is it working? Simple: this team does not have a second WR that threatens anyone and I'll say it for what seems like the 15th year in a row, they lack a TE and need to draft one that can stretch defenses and keep them honest. Royal sucks, he should be cut now. So, explain to me then what "open" means? Guys look open in zone coverage but with 8 defenders, "open" tends to close real quick. I'm not saying there weren't times Evans was open, but he wasn't open constantly. And let's talk a little game planning here from the so-called savior, Turk Schonert. The last 4 games he's faced the same defensive scheme. And what's been the solution? Where has the offense adjusted? Lining up your QB at WR and your RB at QB in the so-called "wildcat"? Really, that's the best he's got? That really perplexes the defense. I really bet the Browns thought Lynch or Jackson was going to pass from that formation right? Draft time kids, draft time. This team has major holes. They need a center badly, an outside LB, a CB, a TE, and maybe most importantly, they need to cut Denney and Kelsay and start over at that position.

Robert Royal. Then maybe this team can get real and find the athletic, down field threat they've wanted since Ben Coates used to roast their defense year in and year out.

How is a local politician in South Carolina going to make the "country" better now? If you're going to be a cynical curmudgeon, at least you could have A) read the story and found out more details and B) understood his position is a county one C) then said "that'll make that county better" The myth of the rational voter again debunked.

OK, I recall Ruben Brown last year on the radio talking about how the Bills have had strength and conditioning issues since Rusty Jones left and how when he was with the Bears that injuries and conditioning were not major issues because the work Jones did. Here the Bills are, injury-riddled again. Could it be that poor strength and ocnditioning programming and coaching (and that includes dietary issues) could be leading to injuries, especially issues of strains, separtions, tears, and other muscle and tendon strenght related isse. Seems like this team that last two years has had more than the average number of injuries. After a while, you have to question whether it's merely bad luck as some would argue, or whether it is really the result of something else. I guess I'm thinking that broken bones and concussions are more likely to be chalked up as bad luck or "part of the game" and things like muscle tears (groins, quads, etc) and shoulder separations are related to strength and conditioning. And the rash of foot and ankle injuries begs the question: is there an equipment or field issue here? Youboty, Schobel and Reed are all out with foot/ankle injuries. I'm not looking for an analysis of the Bears injuries since Rusty Jones started there. Unless of course it's a side by side analysis that concludes that either: A. The Bears have suffered less injuries than the Bills since Rusty Jones arrived, thereby lending credibility to Brown's assessment. B. The Bills have suffered less than the Bears since Jones departed, thereby negating Brown. C. They suffer the same, which would indicate that the Bills S&G program and coach is as successful as Jones (who is universally deemed one of the best) Also wanted to add that the OL seems to get blown away, despite being the largest in the NFL. Could they be big but weak and lacking conditioning? Fat by itself doesn't make a good lineman (see: Williams, Mike). Same with the DL. Just looking for someone to chime in that might have more insight than opinion.

Greer. He can't tackle or cover so all he needs is a little class in PR and hype and he can take over.

Agreed. They're done. 0-2 in the division is deadly. They'll be 0-3 next week. I'm not a reactionary to one game. I've watched them play poorly in WINS against St Louis and Oakland, games they lose agaist actual good teams. Major issues that they had coming in and never addressed and they're reaping what they sowed: 1. Tight end has continued to be a major problem. Royal couldn't catch a cold and should be cut. 2. #2 WR. Reed is a number 3. They needed a veteran #2. 3. The OL stills has major holes. 3. The DEs are suspect at their best. Schobel is the Miro Satan of the NFL... racking up stats in garbage time, rarely coming through in the clutch. Issues that have rear their ugly heads: 1. TE's arm strength or Schonert's play-calling. Either one, this team refuses to throw deep to soften the defense and open the running game. You can blame the OL for running blocking issues, but they seem good in pass blocking, enough to throw deep, if the QB can. So you throw downfield to improve the running game and they don't and I see it as lack of trust in TE from Schonert. 2. Our DBs are all secon rate, all of them. McGee when healthy is a #2. Youbouty is a nickel back. Greer sucks and is still looking for the jock he got deked out of. 3. This two-headed RB thing sucks. Neither one gets any rhythm or confidence. Over-hyped idea that coached coy cat, Emmitt Smith, Eric Dickerson, Walter Payton, Thurman Thomas, Barry Sanders, etc....

How about offensive game planning? When you NEVER throw passes ove 20 yards, you limit your effectiveness. Defenses don't have to defend deep and they squat and play tight coverage. allowing them to jump the run. I've watched every game (season ticket holder too), how may times total has TE thrown a pass that traveled more than 30 yards in the air? The biggest pass play, and deepest throw this year, was from Losman to Evans. It got a TD (and I hate JP by the way because he's an idiot on the field) but if you do that often, you soften the defense for your running game. If not, or you refuse to even try, you kill you run game. That begs this question: is TE just a noodle-armed dink and dunk QB? If so, you can't win in this league because that kills your running game.

Well, it's easy to game plan against and offense that never throws downfield. You play tight pass coverage and jump the runnig game because when you review game film, Edwards has not thrown deep balls all year. An idiot can see that. Well, Schonerts "we're going to attack downfield this year" has failed to even show up in the playcalling, rearing the offense one-dimensional. It goes to play calling and game-planning.

If your offense never threatens deep passes, your rush offense suffers. The defense, even with Schobel, has been spotty and lacks any pressure. The OL is a wreck. They can't run block because Schonert refuses to put the defense bacl on its heels and allow downfield passing. Schonert was a hype machine, saying they'll attack downfield and make more deep throws than last year. Really? Well, the Losman bomb was the only one, so either Edwards is as noddle armed as everyone suspects, or Schonert has no trust in his deep throw ability, either way, it's been a problem for weeks. And to the blindly faithful, they're 5-3, but they're 1-3 in their last 4! They're 0-2 in the division with the best division opponent to come. If for one minute, you can step away from the purple KoolAid, you'll see this team is flawed, big time. They got away with soe bad opponents early on, and they played poorly in those games, but lucked out because the opponents were bad. But when real competition shows up, this team folds up like a deck chair.

Keep you ignorant political dogma from the boards. Sorry, but the $700 million bailout your Republican friends voted for is as much socialism as any welfare system and goes against all the free market economics rhetoric the GOP seems to love while fialing to allow businesses to fail. How is it OK to let a kid who did not chose his parent to fail but it's OK to bailout millionaire bankers? Or how about this, we don't deal with the kids though some sort of system and we deal with them instead as criminals and pay for court fees and incarceration, is that better for you? The constant regurgitation of the GOP platform by the blindly loyal, ignorant gun-toting, anti-abortion (unless it's aborting a 19-year olds life fighting a war for oil and WMDs of course, the a life has different meaning) appalling. The next time you come up with a thought of your own and can back it up with anythinf resembling fact, data or reason will be the first.

It's hard to take a guy serious who is so obviously arrogant out of pure insecurity. Add up what you know about Schopp and ask yourself how you'd feel and how you'd counter those feelings: 1. He's on talk radio in the 49th largest media market (ie, he's a nobody) 2. He plays strat-o-matic and thinks it's cool but can't understand why no one else does (we all grew up and matured) 3. He's an avid card collector (again, we all grew up) 4. He was a stat keeper in high school and never played sports (his hatred of football players is obviously traced to this feeling of ineptitude and scrawniness) 5. He plays tennis and no one cares All the classis trappings of a completely and total dork. Imagine this: the guy in your high school class has these attiributes and you may have liked him, but honestly, you thought the kid was a dork and he got picked on for it. No, imagine how his attitude and ego would grow if he got a radio show and that internal rage of his had a chance to fester to anyone he thought he was better than (a rarity in his life). What you get it Schopp. Plain and simple. He's intelligent, I'll give him that. But like most sports radio guys, he's a complete and total dweeb. And you know what, Dennis Williams is 50 times better and more intelligent. He could replace Schopp and WGR would get more listeners. I get in the car to leave work at 5 and if there is an interview, I listen. But as soon as the show goes backl to standard format, on comes something else. It's unlistenable.

Right, if the Bills win the Super Bowl, taxes will automatically drop; population and jobs will grow exponentially; politicians will think clearly and work for the taxpayers, not against them; and unions will let go of their stranglehold on our wallets because those same clear thinking politicians will stop taking their campaign contributions from unions and overturn key pro-union laws such as the Taylor Law, thereby ensuring their high salaries, lifetimes benefits and pensions that so keep our state from being competitive will be kept in line with their private sector counterparts. I like the idea, but keep f'in dreamin'.

Exposed on bpth sides of the ball, especially the defense. We knew the offense was average and beating bad team, but the defesnse got lit up against it's first decent offensive opponent.

We found out alright. The defense was overmatched, the LB seem overmatched. The OL is joke. And without a TE, the passing game is limited. Robert Royal sucks. Oh, and we saw the typical JP. All in all, after a 4-0 start against bad opponents, this was expected.

If there is, someone ask Schopp about his Jauron hammering on his "show" the Wednesday or Thursday before the opener when all he did was continually slay Jauron and his September record. And what was redonkulous about it was he tried to use his Septmeber record as the only measuring stick for the guy as a coach, which is laughable. Bad sports dorks use self-chosen stats to agument their pathetic arguments and he's the king. Why just September? Why not his overall or his October record? My guess is, his September record was his worst and he needed cannon fodder to slam a guy he obviously dislikes. So who's drinking Schopp's milkshake right now!!! Sucka.

I was at the game and said to my buddy after that tackle "that was a statement by Whitner." I liked it. Showed that he didn't take kindly to the showboating and that the team means business. Sometimes, it's those types of actions that "lead" a team. Great move on his part.

Can you be effective after spending the week in a protective boot? Can you be a bigger hypocrite to take a shot at a potential Bills relocation when you say you're born and raised in LA, yet your "team" left LA? Sounds like sour grapes. What's the matter, the Rams not "cool" enough because you're so in love with the overhyped black and silver and Mr. Roper the owner? Oakland isn't even the best franchise in the Bay Area, much less California. In fact, if the Raiders win, I'll GIVE you a pair of seats to the Bills-49ers game and you can come see the Bay Area team that matters in terms of the history of the NFL, the one with the history, championships and class to truly call itself the best franchise in the Bay Area. Forget your childish avatar bet, that's the bet of two elementary school kids when daring one to go talk to some girl in the schoolyard. Put some money on an airline ticket and back your team for real. Sure, it's a lopsided bet, you'd pay more to fly here and stay, but your allegiance should have no monetary value attached to it. Economics is about choices, you are chosing to call your shot...a Faders win. Stand by it with some money, not some electronic signature. That won't happen, you're paying too much for your dump in Bakersfield.

Well, I worked at a local newspaper in the Buffalo area in the late 90s and we had an ad in our classified section for Hunt Real Estate describing a house on the market, a larger ad, not just small print. And in the description, it stated the house had a huge deck, except they spelled deck with an "i." I made a photo copy and have it somewhere. But that non-shilontly should cost someone a week's pay!

THANK YOU! Someone finally beat me to my usually reply using actual data, not emotion. As an urban planner and demographics junky, you;re on top of your game! Even more, if you look at a lot of the larger MSAs (metropolitan statistical areas) are larger in size than Buffalos because the unfortunate way the US Census Bureau determines the size of the MSA is how connected the outlying areas are to the central city eocnomically, using commuting data. BUffalo's MSA is on Erie and Niagara County because the surrounding counties are mainly agricultural, meaning that not enough people commute into Buffalo-Niagara Falls from Genesee, Allegany, Cattaraugus and Chatauqua counties, so they're not included in th MSA. The Rochester MSA is seven counties I believe and there are counties not included in either Rochester or Buffalo-Niagara (Orleans and Genesee I believe). Anyway, you take all over the Rochester MSA, plus BUffalo-Niagara, and the missing adjacent counties and the total population is more than 2 million. Now, that's a decent number. However, the main problem in today's NFL for small market teams is corporate dollars through seats and sponsorships and WNY lacks that big time. We can sell out the stadium, no problem. But we can't sell the corporate suites and we can't raise the sponsorship revenue of many teams. And lastly, Indy is a giant region that has consolidated under the "regionalism" mantra, cutting taxes and making a more efficient, cost-effective, place to live, but most importantly a place to work. WNY has some of the, if not the highest electric and water rates in the country and the same goes for taxes. So it's really Buffalo's inability to lure businesses here that will ultimately kill the Bills. Thank the Wicks, Taylor and Triborough laws and your friendly local public union employees and state politicians. And the Green Bay argument is null and void. They're not running the same ownership model as everyone else in the league. Profit isn't the main concern, believe it or not. They're a public good and a public asset. The Bills and the 30 other teams are private goods (using public funds, how f'd is that) with profit being their main motive. So when the Bills are sold, a bidder needs to maximise his return, not provide a public good. Asking or expecting a buyer of the Bills to lose money to "do it for the community" is short-sighted and laughable. In Green Bay, the issue will never arise because the intent there was to preserve the team for the community, hence public ownership. And that irks the Jones', Snyders and Krafts of the NFL to no end.

If it's redundant, why read the link and then VALIDATE it by responding with your opinion? It's either redudant and not worthy of a response given said redudancy, or it's not redundant and worthy a response? What's it gonna be? Typical response on what's become a more and more worthless board full of know-it-alls, dismissive flame-throwers and people only out to somehow make themselves feel better by slamming someone else. We need an invite-only site like the Red Sox fans have with Sons of Sam Horn (at least last I knew it was invite only).

Krazykat, it was obviously important enough for you open the thread so what's your deal exactly? Somehow your self-hatred and loathing is so overpowering that you feel compelled to come onto this thread and take a shot at someone pointing out that the local newspaper sucks and can't even get it's facts straight? Wow, must be a tough life. Buck up, things will get better. Although you need to change you attitude a little or you'll only be what you are... a inconsequential pimple on the planet. And as for the facts, it's a perfect example of the the lack of validity of that newspaper. As a former newspaper reporter, it's laughable that this rag continually butchers everything it does. We're as WNYers are subject to a weak newspaper in a one newspaper town because said newspaper has no competition, and thereby, no incentive to work hard to win readership and actually provide a valuable service. I mean, afterall, isn't the role of the newspaper to inform? And when it fails to even have the ability to provide the simplest correct information, it weakens and already poor repuatation. And as someone who doesn't even read the sports section (I want news and insight about sports, not retards like Sullivan and his drivel), I can say that this is true in the business, local and other sections.

First off, Wiki has never been or will be a valid data source or citation, EVER. Second, the reality is and some have mentioned it and I've mentioned it many times on this board on this same topic is that the Buffalo-Niagara MSA is the critical number. However, that number only includes those two counties and not the entire region and populations of adjacent counties (not many people but enough to matter). The reason they are not counted is due to the economic connection a central city has to suburbs and rural areas and those counties don't have a significant impact on the MSA. Anyway, I looked it up and basically, the entire area of Atlanta's MSA is roughly as big as the Rochester and Buffalo MSAs, which when you add those up, if I recall correctly, is well over 2 million people within about 1.5 hour drive of the stadium, same as most large metros. So despite population loss, people are here and in a very significant amount, I believe to support this team. In fact, based on scalping and broker sales of tickets at inflated prices, I would bet the Bills could do about a 20% across the board increase in ticket prices and still sell what they're selling, which really takes thta markup from the brokers and puts it where it belongs, in the Bills pockets and thereby strengthening the team. And for the Toronto-Buffalo-Rochester region, I believe it's not one of the largest 5 region in the Northeast but a ranking area of the world economically and possibily politically. Richard Florida, a professor in Toronto, has lectured and written about it. Sorry for not having the numbers handy, I have an entire spreadhseet at home with all the metros of each team and in the info from population size to density to square miles of their MSA, etc.

Here, here for Josh Hamilton. As a baseball junkie, I've followed this kid for a long time, unfortunately missing a game he played in Batavia 2 years ago in the NY Penn League when I had a wedding. Great story, and I know this is blasphemy, but his story is more amazing than Everett's.