That's No Moon

They've drafted very well and often signed or acquired decent players; there are former Sabres all over recent Cup winning teams. In terms of having cursory knowledge, I used to watch every game. I don't think I've watched a full Sabres game in about 3 years and I've truned down free tickets to games the last 4 years. I turn them on, get disgusted quickly, and then turn it back off. If you want to ding people like me for that that fine, they just aren't worth watching or aggravating myself over. It's beyond clear that they have absolutely no idea what they are doing and that Terry has made the decision not to spend on the team. They are the Pirates of the NHL and I'm not here for that. When they get serious about trying to compete then I will get serious about watching them again.

If they get more than 50 games out of Norris I'll be surprised and it remains to be seen if the new defenders are actually better or just different.

Yeah, we'll see. Toughness is a team mentality sort of thing. You don't have tough players, you have a tough team. Either the guys who want to play that way will drag the shrinking violets into it or they will become violets themselves as they realize that the other sacks of crap don't have their backs or give half a darn. This team is a gutless sack of crap until well proven otherwise.

Fair, but there is now another one in the NBA with Malik Beasley and the Feds are involved. The issue is, and I have said several times, with prop betting. It is MUCH easier for a player to influence the outcome of a prop bet than they are the outcome of the entire game. What's worse IMO is the prop betting erodes confidence in the product more than the outcome of the game. Did the player drop that pass intentionally or not when the O/U on their catches is at 5.5 and they are sitting on 5? Etc. There are tons of examples of head scratching moments that, without prevalent prop betting, you forget about and move on. However, when there is money on the line for just about every single thing happening in a game the strange things stick out more and make people ask more questions.

Miami has spent the 11th pick overall, Jalen Ramsey, Jonnu Smith and a 7th round pick to acquire Minkah Fitzpatrick, Austin Jackson, Jason Strowbridge, Johnathan Marshall, a 7th round choice and finally...Minkah Fitzpatrick. That's some solid asset management right there. With the Steelers QB situation, or lack of, they have to be all in this season. If they deal Watt it will be for immediate help.

As much as I'm thoroughly disenchanted with everything Sabres, you can hook this Bedkowski fella directly to my veins.

I wonder when we get to the point where players frequently refuse to sign with the Sabres. Brendan Lemieux did that and got himself dealt as a 2nd rounder.

It's horrid.

I was just as excited that the Sabres chose him if that matters. We will be fortunate to see him on the ice in 2029.

***** and the Blazers

May Mel Brooks live to see it through to completion and release. Dude is 98 years old....

And 2 of the 3 are currently unavailable...

I generally assume that people use punctuation incorrectly, particularly less commonly used punctuation.

I didn't say there were "good games", I said there were close games. That's different. The quality of the football isn't great and part of what makes some of the games close is the ridiculous mistakes the teams make. I won't say that I sit here and intently watch, but it's something to passively have on while I'm doing other things. Ratings have been down which is a bigger problem than a lack of in-person attendance. The league's biggest problem IMO is two-fold and they touch on each other. One, the NFL isn't involved and doesn't treat this like a farm system which is what it really is. Thus they don't promote it at all which would help them a lot. Two, the QBs play is bad and all the decent or even generally promising QBs are on NFL contracts. If the NFL were to embrace this more as a developmental league, like the Euro league used to be, and even send their #3 QBs it would improve the product quite a bit. As it is, there just aren't any actual QB talents out there to be had and it shows.

I know it's not great football, but there have been several close games with interesting finishes.