BillsFan4

Reports are that $8.4M can be up to $10M (not sure of the incentives)

He fell out of favor a while ago. They tried to trade him this past offseason but couldn’t find any takers. I could also see him doing well in Boston.

At least it happened early in the offseason so the Bills can pursue other options full force and not hold out hope for a Garrett trade.

That’s a nice return for Coyle. I actually think Mittelstadt could do well in Boston. I think their style of play fits him better than Colorado. Mitts seemed to struggle this year with the speed and pace of play that Colorado plays with. I think the system Boston plays could fit him better, and their defensive structure should benefit him as well. nice low risk addition by Boston. between this deal and the Toronto deal they did pretty well at the deadline. Trading Marchand to Florida for a conditional 2nd was a bit of a surprise though! I guess they must not have been too interested in re-signing him and wanted to get an asset before he’s UFA at year’s end.

Buffalo got the best player in the deal. Norris is the better player right now. He is a legit #2 C on most NHL teams. He will likely be our #1 C for now. He is a very good 2 way center (and an actual true center, unlike cozens). Great on both the PP and PK. He’s got a killer shot/1-timer. He gives the Sabres another dangerous shooter on the opposite wall as Tage on the PP. That could be huge. The Sabres PP is so insanely predictable - feed Tage 1-timers. Every team knows it. Now we have another guy with a deadly shot to play on the opposite side. The only real question mark is his health. He’s had some shoulder injuries and had shoulder surgery but he seems to be better after the surgery. He’s been healthy so far this year and has looked good + more physical so I assume his shoulder is feeling good. (Knock on wood…). I think Sabres fans like the concept of Dylan Cozens more than Cozens the actual player. I’ve never been as high on him as some Sabres fans. Cozens has not been very good for Buffalo. He drags down everyone he plays with. You can see it in all the stats and analytics. Really, he had like 1/2 of one good season for Buffalo back in 2022/23 - a year where the entire f-ing roster had huge career years that none have replicated. It was when Granato was telling them not to even worry about defense. Just go out-score the other team. They were playing a wide open style that maybe caught teams off guard a bit. But then teams started clogging up the neutral zone and disrupting Buffalo’s rushing attack and they have struggled ever since. I also think Cozens has tried to change his style of play too much from what made him effective in 2022. and I think he’s way in his own head or something. You can literally see him thinking on the ice at times. I don’t know if it was the big contract that got in his head, or that concussion he took getting his butt kicked. Or just bad coaching, trying to make him something he’s not (or a combo of all 3…). I think he can still end up being a good player if he gets back to what made him successful years ago. But I’m not sure it was happening in Buffalo. I think a fresh start may do him good. I think long term Cozens is a winger, or maybe a #3 C if he’s able to stick at C. But I see him as more of a top 6 RW. I was hoping the Sabres could package Cozens in a bigger deal to land a big fish. But I don’t know that Cozens value was all that high. If Norris can stay healthy, he’s going to be a good player for Buffalo. And he’s a much more finished product vs Cozens. Much higher floor and still a similar ceiling IMO. Again, the only real question is health.

they are also worse than they were last year. 2 straight years of regression. But don’t worry, Kevyn Adams says the answer is in the room… lol. A “win now” year and literally the only move he’s made is claiming Reimer back off waivers. He's just sat on his hands and watched this “team” he built completely collapse, to the point where the culture seems to be turning toxic again from all the losing. He did the same thing last year - sat on his hands all year while his team struggled. Then threw Granato under the bus at year’s end (the same guy Adams said a month prior was a huge part of the Sabres future) without ever even trying a shake up trade or anything substantial to help the roster/Granato. Granato said he was promised there would be improvements made to the team for last year but it never happened. I won’t be at all surprised to see some Buffalo players request a trade this offseason, or at the very least refuse to sign long term (like Tuch). Especially if Adams isn’t fired. I can’t imagine the players have much confidence in him. This is the roster he iced 5 years into the job. I’d argue it’s worse than the roster he took over back in 2020. sorry, I know I am overly negative on the Sabres. I just can’t help it anymore. I wish I could get myself to walk away completely.

😂

That was such a great game! So fun to watch. It reminded me why I used to love hockey so much before the Sabres killed my passion for the sport. lol Team Canada truly has an insane amount of talent. The speed that McDavid, MacKinnon and Makar can attack with is crazy to watch.

I do think Buffalo’s o-line would have done better against the chiefs D-line but I still think the eagles would win. I felt like the Bills would lose to the eagles even before they lost to the chiefs in the AFC championship. I was actually kind of thankful Buffalo wasn’t in the Super Bowl when I was watching it last night. A(nother) Super Bowl loss would have been even more painful than the afc championship loss.

Well, as much as it hurt losing in the AFC championship, I think it would hurt even more getting our ass kicked by Philly in the Super Bowl… lol and I do think the eagles would’ve probably kicked the Bills ass too. I felt that way after watching them play Washington before we lost to KC. They’re peaking at the perfect time.

I hope Beane is seeing what Philly’s d line is doing to Mahomes and calling the browns right now. 😂

Holy **** what a terrible call to start the game. I don’t think the NFL is fixed but a terrible call in favor of KC to start the game sure isn’t going to help quiet that narrative.

Frazier resigned. He wasn’t fired. He said it was him who decided to step away. Beane and McDermott confirmed this. Beane even said Frazier would have still been their DC if he hadn’t chosen to step away.

yes, there are a very small handful of teams that have more cap space than Buffalo, but none that are considered “win now” teams like Buffalo supposedly is. It’s not just this year (again, a supposed “win now” year where not a single move has been made, not a single waiver claim. Nothing). Pegula has stopped spending money on the Sabres ever since he gave his “efficient and economic” press conference in 2020 when he made Kevyn Adams fire their entire hockey ops. and sorry, I’m not giving credit for “almost” spending money… also, Necas did not say no to buffalo. He addressed this directly to the press. He said was only willing to sign a 2 year deal with any team. The Sabres clearly didn’t feel confident in their ability to sign him after that 2 years was up. Ehlers was not a free agent. He's under contract and becomes a free agent after this season. Adams was unable to come to a deal with Winnipeg to trade for him. Buffalo is the only team in the entire NHL to enter the season with $8M or more in cap space the last 5 years in a row. No other team did that, including the rebuilding teams and teams with cheap owners (like Ottawa was under melnyk, but even he out-spent the Sabres). The Sabres are consistently among the bottom teams in actual cash spent over the last 5 years. Buffalo is among the lowest spending teams on their front office, scouting staff, development staff and coaching staff. They have the smallest scouting staff in the entire NHL. They don’t even have scouts for some overseas leagues. Their pro scouting staff is also tiny. Do you think it’s a coincidence that they bought out skinner to save just under $8M in cash, then added free agents equaling about the same exact amount of money as they saved with the skinner buyout? During the rebuild years from 2021-current, when did they ever leverage their cap space as an asset like other rebuilding teams? Not once. They never took on a bad contract for assets when the NHL was in a flat cap and cap space was a huge asset. They never helped facilitate a trade by retaining $, on their own players or other team’s players. They instead found unique ways to hit the salary cap floor without spending real cash. Considering that Buffalo has only spent to within $3M of the salary cap 3 total times in Pegula’s entire tenure (and all 3 of those times were before 2020), do you think a rising salary cap is going to help or hurt the Sabres?

Hard to get excited about a rising cap when the Sabres leave so much cap space open every year. I feel like this is just going to hurt Buffalo and widen the competitive gap between the Sabres and top teams.

One thing they really need to figure out is the defense has to stop spotting teams 7 points to start every game. It seems like for years now the Bills defense has struggled with the opening drives of games. They dial in after that but way too often it puts them in a hole to start games.

He definitely needs to add more talent to this roster, and he needs to improve in the draft. He's done good, but not as good as some other contending teams. And this team just doesn’t have many true difference makers outside of Josh Allen.

Are the surround sound speakers Sonos too? Is the Marantz receiver in use or not currently? I'm just trying to understand how you have everything hooked up. how do you get surround sound for movies? How do you watch movies? Streaming? Or Are you talking movies you watch via a DVD/blu ray player? you can PM me if you want.

So are the Sonos speakers connected to the marantz receiver? Or no?

I tried to watch a bit of the game last night and i doubt I’ll be doing tha5 again any time soon... lol. I turned it on during the 2nd period and they actually looked pretty good. Then Calgary tied the game to end the 2nd and went ahead by a goal to start the 3rd. As soon as that happened i turned the game off and i was glad i did when i checked the score this morning. Sabres lost 5-2. I knew the game was over as soon as Calgary went up by a goal to start the 3rd. this is a quote from Brad Marchand talking about the bruins organization. Reading it just made me sad. Buffalo doesn’t have anything even remotely resembling those types of standards. If anything, they embrace a standard of losing. There is no winning standard that’s for sure. And continuing to lose brings no consequences or changes. They just allow that losing standard to deeply embed itself in the organization year after year. This year is a perfect example. Lots of big talk from Adams in the offseason about how it’s a “win now” season and the standards are raised. More accountability etc etc. Then they proceed to lose game after game after game and not one single move is made. Not even an assistant coach fired. Nothing. In fact, just the opposite. They go on a long losing streak and the owner+GM tell the team “dont worry, nobody’s getting traded!” and even give the team a “clean slate” after what, a whole 25 games under Ruff? So much for that accountability stuff, eh? Meanwhile, every other team that’s struggling has made some type of move. Whether it’s firing someone, making a trade, or even waiver claims. They all did something. But don’t worry Buffalo fans! winning will magically come in the future after this new “core” goes through enough losing together (or so say Adams/Pegula). The most important thing to remember is that Terry Pegula feels heard by Kevyn Adams. After all, Pegula told us that was the biggest problem with the Sabres before Adams was hired (for a job he was completely unqualified to even interview for).

How are the Sonos speakers powered? Do you have an A/V receiver? Is there any way for you to change your audio codecs? (like switching between Dolby digital, stereo, etc.) with my surround sound system, sometimes it defaults to stereo mode instead of surround sound. So i have to change it using my a/v receiver. if you don’t have an a/v receiver, check the settings in your TV and see if there’s a way to switch from stereo to surround sound.

https://athlonsports.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/buffalo-bills-joe-brady-head-coach-interviews-commitment-playoffs-baltimore-ravens-reveal-unique-truth 🤷‍♂️

Windows defender (the built in antivirus windows has) is actually a great antivirus program. That’s what I use. I also like to use a free site called “VirusTotal”. You can use it to scan any file you want to download, or even an URL before you click on it (if you’re suspicious of it). VirusTotal runs files and URLs through 90+ different antivirus programs for free.

nice! You did it proper then. I have a MiniDSP as well but I attempted my own speaker + subwoofer calibration using REW (room EQ wizard. It’s a free program for PC) and a calibrated UMIK-1 (measurement microphone). There’s another free PC program called MSO (multi sub optimizer) that works really well for 3 or more subwoofers but I haven’t used that one. Trying to learn REW has been “fun” enough… lol. yeah I’d prioritize finishing your basement too. Going from 1 sub to 2 is a big upgrade. But then after that the upgrades in db’s are smaller. You need to double the amount of subwoofers just to gain 3-6db. So from 1 to 2 gets you 3-6db. Then from 2 to 4 gets you another 3-6db. Then from 4 to 8 gets you another 3-6db, etc. It’s more about smoothing out the bass at that point. But if you have a good calibration it should already be pretty smooth seat to seat. If you add any more subs, I would recommend putting one near field. Thats been my biggest noticeable change I made. I have one of the subs firing right into the back of my chair. It’s just a different experience. Do you have any custom curves for the miniDSP? It’s amazing what you can do with a miniDSP! I’m still learning. Have you ever used BEQ? (Bass EQ. You need a miniDSP to use it). If not you should really try it. Guarantee it will completely change your movie watching experience. There’s a whole community of people on AVS forums making custom BEQ profiles for every movie out there. They add back in all the missing bass stripped away in movie soundtracks released on blu ray (especially the sub 20hz stuff). https://www.avsforum.com/threads/bass-eq-for-filtered-movies.2995212/ you can see the new BEQ profile of the movies here. The dotted line is the old bass profile. The solid line is the new one.

Yeah I love my AMT tweeters too! They aren’t on the level of RAAL’s (which are rightfully priced much higher) but they are damn good. I think I like them better than most dome tweeters (except the high end stuff). I also love compression drivers for home theater. Just more “oomph”. But the detail of the AMT is better and they work really well for home theater too. I bought a pair of Emotiva speakers with the AMT tweeters during the pandemic back in 2020. I’ve since upgraded but I still use them because I love the sound. Great speakers for the money. Sounds like a nice setup you have! I’m at 5.2.2 but a lot of my money went into the subwoofers (and I don’t regret it at all! By FAR the biggest upgrade to my system AINEC). My ceiling height is also like 7ft in my theater room so I don’t really even need the on ceiling speakers. I just did it to be able to use the ATMOS codecs. lol What are you running for subwoofers? Any future upgrades planned for your system? I eventually want to upgrade my front sound stage (L/R/C) and add more subwoofers. I’m thinking of either JBL pro cinema speakers up front or DIY (something like the Titans from DIY sound group). Might add in a couple DIY subwoofers from GSG audio too. I’m looking for this from my next upgrades: 😂 I’m more into home theater though and not an audiophile by any means. My dream is to someday own JTR subwoofers and speakers but I doubt it’ll happen. Especially now that JTR is going to be raising prices again (by a lot). Their “entry level” subwoofer is now going to be like $4500+ (probably $5k with shipping) and I’d want 2. I can’t justify that type of money for subwoofers. I’ll probably just go the DIY route (or “assemble it yourself” with a kit) if I ever add more. I already have two 18” pro audio subwoofers from PSA, so they can already get pretty violent. PSA is about the best value on the market for subwoofers if you’re ever looking to add. I don’t even think you could DIY an equal subwoofer for less, which is crazy. anyway, sorry for my long response. I love talking A/V! lol