SoTier

You have got Paladino absolutely nailed. I don't think he has ever risked a penny of his own to develop anything in Buffalo even when he was the supposed "lead developer". He's always made sure -- with the help of his cronies -- that his profit was always guaranteed by the taxpayers. Who is this "they" that have studied renovating NEF for years and declared it impossible. My guess it's individuals, groups, and businesses with vested interests in siting a stadium in downtown Buffalo, specifically in a place that will benefit them and not necessarily the city of Buffalo and certainly not city, county, and state taxpayers who will have to kick in at least hundreds of millions whether the stadium is renovated or built new and no matter where it's located. Unless the City of Buffalo and the Pegulas are putting up their own money, which is highly unlikely, what their goals are is irrelevant. Erie County and New York State will be the primary sources of public revenue, so their goals should be what's important, and those should include keeping the total cost of the stadium, including land and infrastructure, as reasonable as possible. Do not underestimate the importance of issues with land acquisition costs and neighborhood opposition to New York State, either. It was those two issues that sunk the Giants/Jests building their new stadium in NYC rather than NJ. IIRC, the bond issue for the NYC stadium on the West Side was killed off by the legislature. If 60-80k individuals attend a football, then the infrastructure has to be able to handle that number leaving the downtown, three or four times the max for the Sabres. It's easy to say "rail and some by bus routes/Uber" but the rail in Buffalo consists of a single line. Even if it's expanded into Amherst, there's still only 1 line. Buses and Uber will be hampered by the same issues that exist for private vehicles, no access at all westward and very limited access southward, and access in all directions very limited by narrow city streets, many of which are one-way. There's no way to get around the fact that a downtown stadium will require significantly more infrastructure improvement compared to a stadium at/near the current site in OP.

I would add that the cost for land acquisition and infrastructure improvements would make the cost of any downtown stadium significantly more than building on county owned property in OP near the current stadium.

There are numerous alternatives to putting a stadium in the city but not in downtown. A site near the CT would make running commuter trains to/from downtown very feasible. Land acquisition would probably not be a big issue as the city owns considerable property there. Another option might be near the South Ogden Street exit of I-190. There's rail to connect to downtown and the Thruway and Niagara Section are right there. The area is mostly warehouses, many of which are now longer used. Both would offer big savings in land acquisition and infrastructure costs than trying to wedge a stadium into downtown.

The center that the Jests didn't think was even good enough to be their backup? Why should we think he'd be better than Bodine or Groy? And the Jests are hoping that Ryan Kalil is better than what they have currently at center just like the Bills are hoping that Trent Murphy is better than Lawson, but the Jests are "desperate" and the Bills are not. Typical Bills fan logic. Other teams -- especially division rivals -- ALWAYS make stupid personnel moves but the Bills NEVER do. Got it.

Wasn't it some fish farmer who imported the Asian carp and his fish escaped during a flood or something like that?

So, I take it you're an off-the-grid, back-to-nature type ... except ya gotta have your laptop and internet ... FYI ... governments have been damming rivers and creeks for thousands of years to provide water for irrigation and power. It's part of the price we pay for no longer being nomadic hunter gatherers clad in animal skins and dying by the time we're forty.

He's a very talented QB who didn't have the best coaching early on so he continued to make the same mistakes over and over, but he still was a QB who could lead his team. He also had sketchy talent around him, especially on the OL. Last year with Reich was his first with a top notch HC and better protection, and he blossomed. Let's see how far he can go -- if his calf strain is simply that and not an Achilles injury

Yadda, yadda, yadda. I'm tired of the excuses fans make for the inexcusable mistakes made by McDermott and Beane because one appears to be clueless about offensive football and the other appears to be just clueless. Beane's admission only underscores his cluelessness because it misses the point that the mistake wasn't waiting for Anderson, it was naming Peterman starter in the first place, and then not bringing in another QB to replace him immediately. However the Kalil signing works out for the Jests, at least their HC and new GM were smart enough to realize that their current C isn't good enough and took steps to acquire what they hope is a better one before the start of the regular season. That's called being proactive.

If you are talking about the CBD, yes it is mostly empty because most buildings are filled with traditional 9-5, M-F type enterprises, but there are businesses there -- mostly restaurants, bars, gyms, theaters, etc. Most are small places, but that doesn't mean that they should be kicked to the curb in order to build a sports palace that's used maybe 30 times a year at best. Moreover, 'Downtown' is more than the CBD; Canalside and Erie Basin Marina are part of downtown, too, and the businesses there are packed on Sundays, especially in the summer and early fall. The buildings these businesses in are on the tax rolls; a city/county/state owned stadium wouldn't be. There are about 5-7k people living in the CBD and the outlying parts of downtown like Waterfront Village, Johnson Park, the Theatre District. These people would find their lives signifcantly impacted by crowds of 70k people filling their streets, parking illegally, etc The residents of the Marine Drive apartments and the Waterfront Village would find it difficult if not impossible to get in or out of their neighborhoods on game days/nights.

And sometimes you just f*** up. Pot meet kettle. The Bills begged an over-the-hill QB to un-retire for a month during the season because their HC and GM thought Nathan Peterman could be a starting NFL QB. Good teams make their own luck while bad teams (and their fans) make excuses. It's been well known since CTE first made the news a few years ago that there's apparently some kind of mulltiplier effect involving concussions -- the incidence of getting them and their severity both seem to increase as an individual has more. A play whose had 1 concussion is likely to have another one. A player who's had three is extremely likely to have more -- and for the effects to be more severe and long lasting. If a team isn't aware of this when a signing FA, then that's incompetence. If they're aware of it and still do it, it's betting that the 50-1 shot is gonna win the race. What's Bills' contingency plan at C if Morse can't play? Bodine? Groy? Long? Kalil suffered a serious neck injury in 2017. It's entirely possible that he wasn't fully recovered during the 2018. The Bills are counting on Trent Murphy being finally fully recovered from his knee injury after his lousy 2018 aren't they?

A renovated/rebuilt NEF or a new stadium near the current one on land already owned by the county would be infinitely cheaper than building a downtown stadium, especially in the Cobblestone District. The biggest savings would come from not having land acquisition and massive infrastructure improvement costs, but it would also be a savings in time since the stadium builders (county/state/Bills) would avoid litigation (especially eminent domain issues) and massive road building/reconfiguration. Whatever extra revenue that would come from siting the stadium downtown is more than balanced out by the higher costs as well as the loss of downtown land that could be developed into much more revenue generating business activity that benefits many more people than a football stadium. A downtown stadium would likely adversely affect many downtown businesses on game days because of traffic issues (including crowded subway cars). Finally, the Bills could limp along for a season playing games at the UB Stadium and/or at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. The UB Stadium holds 25,000 and is configured for football -- the Chargers have been playing in a 25k soccer stadium for at least 2 seasons, so it can be done. The Bears played their home games in Champagne, Ill (135 miles) while Soldier Field was being rebuilt, and the Packers played some games in Milwaukee for a number of years, which is about 120 miles away.

Of course that's why Paladino wants to build the stadium in the Cobblestone District. It's the way he's operated for decades in Buffalo: buy old properties in/near downtown Buffalo cheap and wait for his pals in City Hall to decide to "redevelop" the area when he can sell them for significantly more than they're worth. One of the reasons why he went into politics several years ago was because the current Buffalo mayor, Byron Brown, isn't a Paladino crony, so his pipeline to inside City Hall information was cut off. Poloncarz isn't a Paladino crony, either. I think if the Pegulas want city/county/state money for a new stadium, they will have to make a deal with the politicians, none of whom who have the power, are fans of Paladino. If the Pegulas choose to build a stadium with private money, then they can do what they want. They best be careful if they deal with Paladino, though; honesty and integrity aren't his stock in trade.

Why not?

Don't worry. Be happy. Trust the process. McBeane has a plan. Billieve.

If you truly don't care about this list, why are you replying to this thread? And so vehemently claiming you don't?

It's an observation of Beane's style. In his two plus years as GM, he's repeatedly gambled on players coming off injuries or with injury histories. He's also traded up to draft "project players" in the first round. The high risk/high reward game that Beane's played hasn't had a lot of success so far. That could change but at this point, it's been all high risk without real success yet. If I had my way, Patrick Mahomes and Robert Woods would be Bills.

Why is it "crazy"? Beane and McDermott accomplished their goal of stripping the team of all its established talent and replacing it with JAGs and non-NFL talents plus a youngsters of varying quality. The Bills had one of the lowest, if not the lowest, actual player salary total for 2018. Ex-Bills Gilmore and Woods, both sent packing by the current regime in 2017, made the Top 100. You claim not to care but here you are claiming you don't care. Tell me another one. FTR, it's players not media hosts who vote on the Top 100 players but keep up your whining.

But, but, but ... they wouldn't have been as good in Buffalo as they have been in KC and Oakland/Chicago so White and Watkins (who helped the Bills acquire Josh Allen) were "good picks". It's the typical Bills fan's defense of the Bills regime du jour's draft gaffes -- which are repeated with sad regularity (remember the Bills passing on Brian Orakpo to take Aaron Maybin????) and then compounded by frequently letting their best players walk in FA rather than paying them. FTR, both Stephon Gilmore and Robert Woods made the top 100. Brilliant!

Materialism has been a growing trend in the US since the 1920s when Americans started buying consumer products like cars, radios, refrigerators, etc. Consumer credit also became popular. The Great Depression and WW II put the brakes on consumerism, but after the war, Americans gave themselves over to things that made their lives easier, more convenient, and more comfortable. It's not a generational or even cultural thing (despite what many critics of American society claim), but something that seems natural for people in general: when people in undeveloped areas of the world get the opportunity to acquire consumer products/technology, they embrace it. In the 16th-18th century, when Native Americans acquired horses from the Spanish, they incorporated horses into their cultures so quickly and thoroughly that by the 1800s, it seemed that the Plains tribes had always had them. The growth of cell/smart phones use in the US can't hold a patch to the growth rates of their use in Asia. People like stuff! Thank you for saying this. We do NOT need more people to dig ditches or check out groceries in the US because we already have machines that can do that. We need more engineers and medical researchers and computer programmers right now, and we'll need even more in the future. STEM -- science, technology, engineering, and math -- is where the job opportunities are, not to mention the opportunities to make a difference in the world.

I don't know -- and anybody who proffers an easy solution is full of bull manure. I think that the best, and maybe the only solution, is the same one that Franklin Roosevelt came up with during the Great Depression: giving people some light at the end of the tunnel, ie, hope. FDR's concern was that the severity of the Great Depression would push Americans to embrace communism, and I think that he was right in his general fear if not in his specific one. Creating a permanent underclass is very dangerous to a democratic society. The rise of the right-wing extremist political parties in some European countries hint at that, and I think we see some of that, but on a much smaller scale, here in the US with the rise of fringe hate groups. People have to have hope that their hard work for not much can today somehow enable their children to have it better which means that there needs to be the ability for smart, talented young people to rise. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done.

I'm not dumping on you --- unless you hold the reactionary views you spouted in your original post on this topic, in which case, yeah, I'm dumping on you.

The American dream has ALWAYS been to move the children up the financial ladder. The only people who didn't come to the US with that in mind were the 4 million or so Africans who were brought to this country as slaves. The problem is that the economy is changing and becoming more dependent upon intellectual ability and far less on physical ability, and we Americans stubbornly resist accepting that. I'm not saying that this is right or good or desirable but it is what is -- and will be more so in the future. BTW, who digs ditches by hand these days? There are big backhoes for big jobs and there are mini-backhoes for tight spaces that can do the trenching job with 1-3 workers in a few hours that would take a crew of 10 or so a few days to dig.

I doubt that the Chiefs knew "something" that Beane didn't know about Morse's concussion history. His injury history is part of the NFL's "public record". Beane chose to disregard it, probably because he's a gambler. He gambled on Benjamin, who was known to have bad knees in 2017 and again on Murphy in 2018. He also gambled that a raw QB prospect from a minor college program had "the right stuff" to make a franchise QB and that a very young LB with very limited MLB experience would make a top notch NFL MLB. In 2019, he made Morse the most expensive C in the league despite his concussion history. The thing is that gambler's occasionally win big but mostly they lose to the House.

I don't believe that the teams the can decide to put not put a player in concussion protocol during games. I believe that's a league call. I think the doctor who's on call for concussions is not a team employee so he's independent. It was Kevin Kolb in 2013 not Kelly Holcomb who tripped on the mat and having to retire -- unless that also happened to Holcomb earlier.

No. My argument is that embittered reactionaries who dump on younger -- or older -- generations for feeling "entitled" don't recognize their own sense of entitlement.