BillsFan4

Hell yeah! Been looking forward to this album release for what feels like forever! Is there (finally) an actual release date set? Definitely one of my all time favorite bands.

Bump

sorry if this was already posted.

Pretty sure the pats would hold his right since he was still under contract with them when he retired. Similar to the Bills with Vontae Davis.

He is only proven as a tournament coach. As I mentioned in my last post, He only has 4 years of actual regular season head coaching experienced and he hasn’t coached a regular season since 2002 and that was in a tier 3 junior league. Tier 1 is the highest junior league. Then comes tier 2 and then tier 3. And junior hockey isn’t professional hockey either. He was a coach in the now defunct AWHL, which is a league that covered the Rocky Mountain region. Honestly, I would compare it to Phil Housley’s time as a high school hockey coach. That’s about how meaningful it is... I agree we need someone proven. I just don’t think Grönborg is that guy. He is the opposite of proven.

Honest question - do you truly think the Sabres are in a position to take another shot on a totally unproven head coach? Personally i I feel like the Sabres are one of the teams that can least afford to gamble on another unproven guy. If they miss it sets them back at least 3-4 more years. Eichel is more than half way through his deal. Dahlin is 1-2 years into his 2nd contract. Same with Mittelstadt. Numerous young guys will bee off their ELC’s. With how far the rebuild has been set back already, I just don’t think we can take another big set back. Now, obviously this is true of any coaching hire.... O But at least with a coach like Tippett, we know he is a more than competent NHL head coach. He has a track record of success in the NHL. He’s been through a lot in his career. He’s handled and overcome adversity. He’s been through a rebuild. He’s made the playoffs numerous shown he can dramatically improve teams. The Stars improved 21 points in the standings Tippett’s first year, and the Coyotes improved 25pts in his first year there. Tippett has shown an ability to get the most out of his teams, even when he doesn’t have a lot to work with. I like Gronborg but he is a risk. I believe he has only been a tournament coach for the last 9 years. Correct me if I am wrong, but from what I saw I don’t think he’s coached more than 12 games at a time since way back in 2002 when he coached a 60 game junior season. We don’t know how he would handle the grind of an NHL season. He’s never been a head coach in any professional league that I am aware of. Just 4 years in the AWHL back 20+ years ago, which is a tier 3 junior hockey league (tier 1 is the highest junior level) Plus he’s a european coach. There have only been 2 or 3 coaches hired from Europe in NHL history. Not much track record of success there. It would be a big gamble. And Only 2 GM’s in Sabres history have had the chance to hire more than 2 coaches. One was Scotty Bowman, the other was Punch Imlach iirc. I think the most important thing is getting the Sabres back to respectability. We need to be a consistent playoff team before we worry about hiring some coach to take us to a Cup. If we get back to respectability and consistently competing for a playoff spot, we will be in a much better position to take a gamble on a coaching hire (to get us over the playoff hump) at that time. Just my opinion anyway. Edit - just to be clear, I’d be ok with Grönborg. I’d just prefer Tippett is all.

Here it is - Then they talk some about about how Beane has traded up 4x and traded down 0x in his 2 drafts here. Beane said it’s more a product of circumstance - being early in the building process. Plus he said in the case of Edmunds and Knox, both were sticking out on his board. And this was the last section in the Knox section - Beane said elsewhere that when he took Singletary, there were still a lot of TE’s on the board. Then right after that pick there was a run on TE’s. He said Knox was the last TE on his board before there was a big drop off in the grades he had on each. He felt Knox would never make it to their pick in the 4th so he traded up. He also addressed the Knox pick in his press conference after rounds 2+3. Here it is in case you missed it - He starts talking about Knox right around the 3:30 mark.

Unfortunately It’s not a video. Sorry for the confusion. What I meant was that there is a section in the article on each player, where Beane describes why he drafted each guy (and what he saw on their film). I can post his quotes on what he saw in Knox if you’d like.

Steve Keim: Kyler Murray will start season opener: https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/05/02/steve-keim-kyler-murray-will-start-season-opener/

Really good article on the Athletic where Beane takes you through the scouting process behind each draft pick. Articles like this are why I subscribe. https://theathletic.com/959262/2019/05/02/the-film-is-the-most-important-thing-bills-gm-breaks-down-the-scouting-process-behind-every-draft-pick/ ‘“The film is the most important thing”. Bills GM breaks down the scouting process behind every draft pick’: I like that he sets his board before the combine. Beane goes over his thought process behind drafting each player. If someone wants quotes on a specific guy let me know.

I have long considered him to be one of the better coaches in the NHL but I never really thought he was an option for the Sabres until now. He said he would only get get back into coaching if the right situation/opportunity presented itself and has (reportedly) turned down other interviews over the last year+. So I never really considered Tippett as a legit possibility. Honestly, I am excited that he actually wanted to interview here. That makes me feel like he views Buffalo as an enticing opportunity, which is nice after being shut out on Q and AV. He is still currently employed as some type of senior advisor for Seattle. I kind of assumed that he’d just take the coaching job there.

https://www.kentuckygregs.com/catering1 kentucky greg’s is still around.

Tippett is quickly moving to the top of my list. Heres a grest read on him - http://archive.azcentral.com/sports/coyotes/articles/2012/04/06/20120406phoenix-coyotes-dave-tippett-perfect-fit.html He has his own analytics system. Another good read on Tippett that addresses some myths about him - http://arizonasports.com/story/438255/busting-some-myths-about-coyotes-coach-dave-tippett/ And here is what Shane Doan had to say about Dave Tippett - http://sports.mynorthwest.com/472786/he-sees-the-game-the-right-way-former-nhl-player-shane-doan-talks-dave-tippett/? Tell me that doesn’t sound like what the Sabres need... Here is the whole Shane Doan interview - http://sports.mynorthwest.com/category/podcast_player/?a=10032387&sid=1007&n=Brock+and+Salk starts just past the 24 minute mark And an an interview with Tippett a few days later on the same show - He is continually described as a builder. That is what he says he enjoys the most.

Agree. The Bills are in a better position to absorb Kyle’s loss than any other time in recent memory (IMO anyway). I have faith in McDermott and the culture he’s built. There are a lot of good, high character guys in that locker room. Plenty of guys to help the young players along. Plus, I am sure Oliver is a high character kid himself, otherwise they would not have drafted him in the top 10 (and from what I’ve read that seems to be the case). Really, it was just about me wishing Oliver could have experienced what Kyle Williams was like as an NFL player. But I’m sure I’ll feel this way about every player the Bills draft for the next little while. KW retiring is still pretty fresh in my mind. He was such a staple of every Bills team every season for so long. It’s just weird (and sad) that we won’t see him in camp and on the field on game days.

Yeah it’s great that it sounds like he will still be around the team some. It’s still not the same as having Kyle next to him, working his butt off every second of every practice/game and giving pre game + half time speeches to the locker room. But I’ll still take it! Having Kyle around in any capacity can only be a good thing. At least Zo is still around.

I miss him already. I wish Ed Oliver got the chance to spend a season with Kyle.

Especially since the Bills replaced the entire scouting and personnel staff that was here when Shaq was drafted...

Hard to argue that Shaq is worth $9.4M right now. That would put him as the 3rd or 4th highest paid Bills player. Can anyone justify that? I can’t. I don’t think it’s out of the question that they potentially keep him around on a cheaper deal though. At worst he would be a good rotational/depth player. And worst case, if he somehow takes a big step forward this year and the Bills can’t get a deal done, they can always tag him....

Plus the Bills has a league high number of free agents (24 iirc) in McD’s first year and only had 39 players under contract. That has has to be taken into consideration. You can’t just look at the cap space number. They had to sign more than 1/2 a teams worth of players.

I heard the Martin thing was not for the head coaching job, but as a possible associate head coach or something along those lines. That would make sense if Botterill hired someone like Rikard Grönborg. Friedman with a few Sabres related tidbits in his latest 31 thoughts - https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/31-thoughts-penguins-big-decisions-include-malkin/ If they were relying on Bogo to fill the void a Risto trade would create on the right side, that scares the living **** out of me! lol seriously, the guy is never healthy. You can not rely on Bogo to play for any long stretch of games at a time. Being consistently healthy is the exception. The norm is Bogo dealing with some type of injury. I have to somewhat question Botterill’s judgement if he thought he could rely on Bogo next season, even before the hip surgery. I like the idea of bringing in a good head coach that can improve Riato’s play much better than trading him for a potentially mediocre return. Risto really hasn’t had a good coach since he’s been in the NHL. Or good D partners. Or guys to help carry the load. That could all be corrected for this coming season with the hire of a good coach. We already have Montour and Dahlin to help ease Risto’s minutes, plus some decent depth + young guys. I hope this is the route they take. The Sabres blue line isn’t deep enough to trade away a top 4 D, and especially a right handed one. If a team comes in and blows you away with a trade offer (like Wemonton when they offered Taylor Hall to Tim Murray) then take it. Otherwise, just keep Risto and get him a better coach. Hoping the Martin thing was more as an associate HC as I mentioned above. He does have a ton of experience. He took over an expansion Ottawa Senators team with 16 total wins in 2 seasons and he had them 1st in the division by his 3rd full year. He had some great Ottawa teams, but that was what, 15-20 years ago? And he hasn’t done much as a HC since then. I’d be fine with him as an assistant coach, but I don’t want him as the head coach. Id be fine with Grönborg and pretty damn excited with Keefe. I don’t know a ton about a Grönborg outside of watching some of his Swedish national teams in international tournaments (etc) and doing some reading + watching some interviews of his recently. It would be a risk hiring a guy who not only would be a rookie NHL head coach, but a rookie coach in North America (I know he lived/played here). But I like a lot of what he says and would be excited about his hire. Though I do worry about the rumors he likes to rely on the steady veteran types (but what coach doesn’t, I guess...). The only thing even remotely negative I can see about Sheldon Keefe is that he doesn’t have much professional head coaching experience (4yrs) and he is still pretty young (38). But he’s played professional hockey, been a head coach for 12-13 years and has done an absolutely amazing job wherever he’s coached. Every team he’s coached has vastly improved. He’s won multiple championships and set records. The guy just wins wherever he goes. It would be a risk hiting a fiest timer, but it’s a risk I would be fully on board with. Now’s the time, too. Keefe will be an NHL HC soon. I could see him in Toronto within the next couple years, actually. Their fans want him now. It would be kind of fitting to steal Keefe away after the whole Babcock thing... lol. Id also actually be ok with Dave Tippett. He has a ton of experience too. He played for a decade + in the NHL and has been coaching for 25 or so years now. He also has experience guiding teams through rebuilds. Tippett is also 1 of only 7 coaches in NHL history to lead a team to back-to-back 50 win seasons. Hes shown he can be a very good head coach with a talented team, and he’s also shown that he’s able to have success with less talented teams and under far less than ideal circumstances (Arizona). He went through quite a bit in Arizona. I like that he’s shown an ability to adapt his system/style of play to his team as well. Hes played more defensive oriented systems when necessary and opened up the offense when he had the rosters to do so.

Good stuff JW. Thanks for sharing!

You just click that little up arrow at the bottom right of the tweet to copy the link (you can’t copy the link from the top address bar. It doesn’t work to embed here, at least for me). Paste it here and then click on that “post as plain text” thing that pops up at the bottom of the post. Or you can just paste the link and hit the return/enter key. That usually automatically embeds it.

Not sure if this has been posted yet. Didn’t want to start a new thread, so I’m sticking it in this McCoy thread... https://www.al.com/sports/2019/02/bills-robert-foster-still-growing-after-promising-rookie-season.html Foster gives Shady some credit for his turnaround.