BillsFan4

Did you end up catching the legendary fish in the swamp? If so, any tips? I’ve tried 3 or 4 separate times now and just kept catching lake sturgeon. I use the special swamp lure and have tried standing in a few different spots, and even tried taking that little rowboat out. This is the first legendary fish I’ve had trouble catching. The other 8 I’ve vaught I had no problem with.

Big win tonight. It puts buffalo within 2 points of the last wildcard spot, 3 points of Boston and 5 points of Montreal, who is sitting in 3rd. We still have 2 games in hand on Montreal and 1 game in hand on Boston. buffalo desperately needs to take advantage of them. I like how how they played tonight. The 2nd period wasn’t great but it was a solid game overall. We won on a night Eichel didn’t carry the team. Sheary, Mittelstadt, Rodriguez and Thompson all had pretty good games. That’s what buffalo needs if they’re going to make a playoff push. Tomorrow night is another big game. They can make up another 2 points on the competition. It’s a very winnable game against a struggling Stars team.

Not a great finish to the 2nd period. Back to back goals allowed. They have to come out with a hard push in the 3rd. Buffalo desperately needs these 2 points tonight.

Never knew that Ullmark’s grandma died the day before Rochester’s playoff series started. Makes a lot more sense why he struggled. I give him a lot of credit for staying with the team.

I am not at all surprised to see Pilut sit tonight. He is young and he had a very rough game in his last outing. His mistakes last game led to at least 2 goals against (I think it may have actually even been 3 iirc). NHL coaches prefer experience. This is nothing new. IMO, most veteran coaches are worse than Housley when it comes to playing youth vs relying on veterans. Housley has a lot of young players in the lineup as it is. More than many/most teams. He is actually giving the young guys more opportunity than a lot of other experienced coaches around the NHL give their young players. Though I’d prefer Pilut in the lineup to Hunwick, I understand why Housley is going with a bit more experience tonight, in a crucial game. We have 3 games in hand on Montreal and it is vital to our playoff hopes that we make up ground. They are currently 7 points ahead. We have a chance to make up 6 of those 7 points. Housley talked about how he wants the team to tighten down their game and not make so many mistakes so it doesn’t surprise me that he is going with experience over youth. This team has kind of been living and dying by these young guy’s mistakes all season. If they are serious about making a playoff push I can understand why he feels that limiting all these mistakes is so important.

Personally, I think this is a downgrade over what Miami had.

Panarin’s agent made it very clear before the season even started that Panarin wouldn’t be signing in Columbus before free agency. He even went as far as to say “I’d trade Panarin if I were Columbus”. The agent and panarin went went out of their way to give Columbus plenty of notice, and even said that they told Columbus so early because they wanted to be fair to them. So, IMO It is totally on Columbus for deciding to keep him. I can’t blame them for hoping that he’s change his mind, but it’s not Panarin’s fault at all IMO. He was traded there after signing in a big city (Chicago).

Who they hire to replace Culley will be key. They need to get this hire right. Im hoping they get someone experienced in working with QBs. I dont care if McDermott goes with another young, hungry coach as long as he at least has some type of background as a QB or working with QBs. I just don’t really want to see this treated as an entry level job, where they bring in someone with no real experience. Allen’s development is too important. I’d rather they wait than bring in someone just to fill the spot.

What do our resident leafs fans think? Id say it’s a Pretty nice trade for both sides. Muzzin is a good top 4 defenseman, and will instantly be the 2nd best defenseman on the leafs roster IMO. I don’t know how they will work the pairings seeing as Muzzin is also a lefty (and better on the left side. Can Reilly play on the right?). And LA got a 1st + a very nice prospect in Grundstrom and a B level prospect in Durzi. Don’t know as much about Durzi. Heard he’s having a good season, but he’s also currently unsigned, 20yrs old and still playing in juniors. He was an over-ager the leafs took in the 2nd in 2018. Muzzin being under contract next seasn at only $4M is a win for Toronto, too. I assume he will most likely be Gardiner’s replacement next season. Thanks. Appreciate it.

I am excited to see what they do to close out the season. I hope like crazy that they are able to make the playoffs, but no matter what this is valuable experience. There are so many players on this roster who have yet to experience being part of a team trying to make a playoff push (which is pretty sad to think about, especially when you realize that guys like Risto and Girgensons are in their 6th year...lol).

Hey look, @K-9. This should make you happy! lol Looks like Scandella might be an extra...

Yep. It’s like that with basically everything these days. Its almost like, if you don’t film something and post it on social media it didn’t happen. People are so worried about posting everything they do online. I guess I’m just getting old cause I don’t get it.

“What am I supposed to do?” Well you better pull out your phone and film yourself talking about this, of course! lol seriously though, why does that seem to be people’s first instinct these days?

He put up just about the same time Eichel did.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/01/27/tom-brady-says-zero-chance-he-retires-after-super-bowl/ Brady says there is zero chance he retires. Whether the Pats win the SB or not, Brady will be back next season. Personally, I’d rather see Belichick retire first anyway. I’d love to see the Bills (ans the rest of the NFL) get a chance to go up against a 42+ year old Brady without Belichick. Id love to see what he is capable of without BB’s ability to scheme and make in game adjustments.

This was my thought as well. They have Smith under contract for 4 more years and still owe him over $20M in bonus money. Unless they are 100% sure that he is done, I can’t see them trading for another big money QB. Maybe they take a swing on someone like Bridgewater if they can get him cheap enough. But I think they will still almost definitely take a QB somewhere in the draft. Whether that’s in the 1st or not I do not know. But drafting a QB gives them someone under contract for at least the next 4 years. If Smith comes back in 2020, they have a potential trade chip. If not, they didn’t waste a season waitain’t on Smith that could have been spent developing a QB for the future.

I, for one, am thrilled to finally see some continuity heading into a season. As you said, it’s something the Bills haven’t had in quite a while. I want to see what happens if you actually give a coach and GM time to build their vision, instead of changing course midway through. I am all for showing some patience for a change. One thing that most bad/struggling organizations seem to have in common - constant turnover at coaching and GM positions.

Eh, I’m not worried about it. Kelly is a hall of fame QB. I don’t really see where getting some advise from him will hurt. It’s not like Allen will be taking coaching from Kelly on a daily basis that contradicts what the Bills coaches are saying. It sounds to me like Kelly wants to just sit down with him and give him some pointers. I say that it’s probably a good thing. I doubt Josh Allen is going to go against what the Bills coaches are telling him to do and will probably bring whatever tips Kelly gives him to the coaching staff. I am actually happy to see Kelly taking an interest in Josh Allen.

I did a bank robbery last night and managed to get out of it with only a $5 bounty. It was getting late so I saved and figured I’d ride to a post office to pay the bounty today. So I load my save just now and the bounty has somehow jumped to $120! Wtf is that? lol

I don’t enjoy it as much as the East vs West true all-star games from the ‘90’s and 2000’s (where every player there was an all-star, not just included because each team is now given 1 representative). But it is pretty cool now that they went to a 3 on 3 overtime style format. It gives the players a lot more freedom to show off their skill/talent, and they seem to have more fun with it in general. And this year the team format will be by division - Atlantic vs Metro vs pacific etc etc. which is pretty cool. In recent years they were letting each team captain pick their team (like on the playground), which made it kind of tough to pick a team to root for, for me anyway. Its not a “can’t miss’ event or anything, but I enjoy it. I would say that it’s somewhat similar to the NFL pro-bowl game.

Fair enough. My rebuttal would be that none of that stuff happened at One Bills drive and I don’t really see how most of that stuff could be viewed as McDermott and Beane running a disfunctional program. Zay was out in LA with his brother in the offseason. Richie predated this regime and the stuff you are referring to happened after he left the team. If anything, I’d say the Bills were out ahead of that one. Plus, He’s had problems LONG before Buffalo. His 3 years here (the 2nd time) were probably the most drama free of his entire NFL career. Really the only hint of drama came in that playoff game where a Jaguars player claimed he used a racial slur (and he never played another game here after that happened). Poyer had some drama with his girl on Instagram (something about cheating) in the offseason, but I don’t see how that has anything to do with the McDermott or Beane and I don’t really view a couple cheating as a sign of a disfunctional football program. No charges were ever brought against Shady. The police and the NFL investigated and nothing came of it. If there was anything to it, I would guess the Bills would have moved on. And Mahomes vs Allen I already went in depth into that argument in my previous post, so I won’t repeat myself here. But as I said, I can see the argument for that one, though I put it more on Pegula than I do on this new regime.

I don’t buy this story. I’ll bet that there is more to it, which usually seems to be the case with these viral social media stories.

I felt the same way watching. There are no saviors down in Rochester, waiting to come up and save the Sabres season. Eichel came in 2nd in the fastest skater. McDavid edged him out by a couple 10ths of a second. I actually think Eichel had the faster straight line speed, but mcdavid is just so amazing on his edges. The way he went around the corners was just on another level than everyone else. Skinner finished middle of the pack in the puck control event, but that was only because of the very last gate. He made a mistake at the at the very beginning but recovered and was set to finish 2nd in the event (which would have moved him past Pat Kane for 1st at the time) but he just barely missed putting the puck through the last hole/gate and the puck went flying. By the time he recovered it he stood no chance. It was actually pretty impressive though because of his mistake at the very start of the event. Actually, here. It’s easier than me trying to describe it. Skinner goes 3rd. And here’s the fastest skater event -

Reminder that the Amerks game is on MSG (channel 28 on spectrum cable). It just started. NHL all star Skills competition also starts at 9pm. Eichel will I’ll be in the fastest skater event ans Skinner will be doing the puck control event. https://nhl.nbcsports.com/2019/01/25/nhl-announces-2019-all-star-skills-participants/ Happy that Eichel gets another crack at fastest skater. He got a bad start last year and then blew a wheel coming around a turn. I’d like to see what he can do with another chance at it.

Yeah, the Peterman thing doesn’t look good from the outside, I’ll give you that. But there’s a difference between something not being well handled and something being disfunctional. I can actually justify Tyrod’s benching. He was coming off a 56 yard performance iirc, and Peterman had been reportedly killing it in practice. Turns out that would be the story with him - great in practice, bad when the lights came on. But that wasn’t known at the time. He had never started a game, so it wasn’t after he set a new NFL low for QB play. It was after he had come in in relief of Tyrod in the New Orleans ass whooping, and he went 7 for 10 and threw the only TD of the day. He actually moved the offense pretty well for the first time that entire game, and was much better than Tyrod (in a very limited showing, obviously). I also don’t know if there’s any truth to the rumors that Dennison pushed hard for Nate to start. If so, you can’t really blame McDermott for empowering his OC. Obviously it turned out to be a mistake to start Peterman no matter who’s decision it was. But I wouldn’t say that it showed disfunction. Going into the season with Nate and Allen as your only QBs was also a definite mistake, and Beane has admitted as much. But I don’t really see that as disfunctional either. Just a rookie GM mistake. He was more worried about losing a guy like Foster than he was about the QB depth chart. As for Mahomes, the Bills were far from the only QB needy team to pass on Mahomes. The Browns, 49ers, Bears, Jets and Jaguars all passed on him, and you can even put the Bengals in there too. He was coming from an air-road offense and seemed to be considered a project by most pre-draft. Now, in hindsight, it looks like everyone was obviously wrong. But hindsight is 20-20. I can’t kill the Bills for that decision because at the time I was happy the Bills traded down and acquired an extra 1st in 2018 - a draft class that I (and many others) considered to be much deeper at QB than 2017. I can also understand why a guy who worked for roughly 20 years training and preparing for his first opportunity as a head coach didn’t want to tie his future to a QB picked by a GM and scouting staff he clearly had little faith in. Especially when I’m sure he knew a new GM was being brought in post draft. Personally, at the time I thought it was a pretty savvy move to pick up an extra 1st in 2018, to take some of the pressure off the new GM to be able to take a swing at his QB in 2018 and still potentially have another 1st round pick to use. Should the Bills have fired Whaley at the same time as Rex? Maybe. If you want to argue that passing on a QB in 2017 (not Mahomes specifically, just a QB in general) was a result of disfunction, I can understand that. It was reported that Whaley would finally be allowed to pick his own coach. Then Pegula has dinner with McD and falls in love with him, and McDermott reportedly wasn’t sure he was comfortable betting his head coaching career on Whaley and it sounds like Pegula promised him that he wouldn’t have to if he didn’t end up being comfortable with Whaley. I don’t think the plan was to fire Whaley until McDermott came along and you could view that as the owner being wishy-washy, or maybe overriding his football people. But I would pin that more on the Pegulas, and on the way Whaley ran things (which is what led to a lot of the disfunction and mcdermott’s desire to replace him), than I would on McDermott. And I was really only referring to the time since McDermott and Beane took over. I think they have done a great job cleaning up a lot of the mess at one bills drive and everything seems to be running smoother than it has in as long as I can remember. There was certainly a lot of disfunction at OBD in years past, and I think they’ve done (what looks to be) a pretty good job so far of getting to the root of a lot of those problems.