SoTier

^^^ This isn't rocket science, folks. "Downstate" and "Upstate" are terms that have traditionally been used to differentiate NYC and its suburbs, including Long Island, from the rest of New York State. Essentially, any part of New York State north of NYC was considered "Upstate". As NYC's suburbs expanded northward into Orange and Putnam Counties, more and more people began to think of these as part of Downstate. Terms like "Western New York" or "Central New York" or the "Finger Lakes" or the "Southern Tier" or "the Adirondaks" were traditional terms that the local inhabitants, media, businesses, government officials, etc used to describe their local areas of New York, primarily in "Upstate". Because these weren't official, different local people/organizations defined themselves differently, frequently overlapping some other areas. Even using "Upstate" to refer to a specific area north of the NYC metro is simply a local convention. None of these self-assigned descriptions are "written in stone". At some point, New York State officially defined Upstate and Downstate for administrative purposes. The Department of Economic Develop later (late 1970s or early 1980s) divided New York State into smaller regions like the Capital District, the North Country, Hudson Valley, Allegany, Leatherstocking, etc. This was for economic development and promoting tourism. Those are "official" in the sense that NYS created and continues to use them, but some other NYS agencies like ENCON or Department of Mental Hygiene have their own designations . They don't necessarily conform to what local people consider their area. I live in Chautauqua County. My area is part of "Western New York" and the "Southern Tier" as well as the official "Chautauqua Allegany" region for tourism and economic development. The Genesee Valley can be considered part of "Central New York" or the "Finger Lakes". It might also be considered part of "Western New York" by some local people. Both are part of "Upstate New York", but some people might quibble about that, depending upon their perspective. It's essentially TOE-may-doe versus to TOE-mah-toe.

I'm sure there are people in Buffalo who don't think Josh Allen is a great QB, either. People are entitled to their opinions. When the Texans had a competitive team around him, Watson played well enough to go head to head with Mahomes (2019), and he was better than Allen at that point. In 2020, Watson was the only reason that the Texans were even competitive after Bill O'Brien sent most of their best players elsewhere. I like Tyrod Taylor, but neither he nor Davis Mills are in the same universe, talent-wise, as DeShaun Watson. You can dislike Watson for his off-field behavior but don't denigrate his on-field talent because of it. Talent in some endeavor and morality/decency/honesty/etc in private life are not related. Some of our greatest heroes, in sports and in other spheres, were disgusting human beings outside of the spotlight. BTW, people used to say that Matthew Stafford couldn't win "the big game" ... until he had the opportunity to play for a good team. I don't care whether you're talking Brady or Rodgers or Mahomes or Allen, every QB needs support from his team. Watson didn't have that in 2020 in Houston. I can't seem him getting that in Seattle, either, unless the Seahawks clean out the FO and coaching staff. Pete Carroll needs to retire IMO.

The Seahawks FO built a SB team but never figured out how to sustain it when they had to pay an elite QB. For whatever reason, they figured that Wilson was so good he didn't need protection (ie, OL) and nor a lot of weapons, and they sank too many resources into the defense like the Jamal Adams trade. They seem to be clueless about how to manage the salary cap. Russell Wilson is my second favorite QB behind guess who. I'm glad he's escaped the hot mess that the Seahawks have become. I have and will continue to always root for Russ except when he plays the Bills.

That's a possibility. Somebody on NFL Now suggested that if they don't want to wait on seeing how Garoppalo comes out of his surgery. The idea is that with their OL and running game, all they need is a game manager, and Trubisky is available.

The evidence in criminal proceedings is considerably higher than in civil proceedings, and these cases are notably difficult to prosecute because it's generally "he said/she said". Cuomo faced criminal charges in two or three counties, but I think that all of those were dropped before they ever got to the grand jury stage because the DAs didn't think they could get the grand juries to return criminal charges. The idea is that this is good for the Bills because it evens up the AFCW so that those teams are likely to beat each other up, knocking all of them out of the running for the #1 seed. The Bills, OTOH, have an easy road to the #1 seed because they easily dominate the AFCE.

Actually, it's the official designation from New York State. Everything north of the NYC metro (ie, north of Westchester and Rockland Counties) are part of Upstate New York. That's from somebody who worked for New York State for more than a decade, including a stint with the old Department of Economic Development (it has a new name these days) that included the "I Love NY" tourism program.

At least it's not Try-POLE-eye like WNYers butcher Napoli (Na-POL-eye).

I think that it's a bit early to declare Herbert and Burrow as elite, but they seem the most likely to join the club. I think that DeShaun Watson might possibly be elite but he may have derailed his career with his off-field behavior. I just don't see Murray and Jackson being elite in the same way as Mahomes and Allen. I'm not saying they aren't franchise quality QBs but they're more limited than Mahomes and Allen, especially in the passing game. Sometimes great QBs come in clusters ... think of the 1983 draft that produced Elway, Kelly, and Marino. The 6 drafts between 2000 and 2005 produced Brady (2000), Brees (2001), Palmer (2003), E Manning (2004), Rivers (2004), Roethlisberger (2004), and Rodgers (2005), all but Palmer likely HOFers. In the 6 drafts between 2006 and 2011, the best QBs were Cutler (2006), Ryan (2008), Flacco (2008), Stafford (2009), Cam Newton (2011) and Andy Dalton (2011), none of whom are likely HOF candidates except perhaps Stafford now that he's with the Rams.

I think that used to be a common local pronunciation of Arkansas in the Midwest when I lived there. I don't know if that's still the case. Some Midwesterners and Westerners change the endings of place names when the names end in vowels: the Absaroka Range in Montana/Wyoming often becomes AB-sa-ro-key while the last syllable in Missouri becomes "uh" instead of "ee".

That's the way it has always been: far more duds than studs. Most QB classes produce 1 or fewer franchise QBs, and truly elite QBs like Mahomes and Allen come along even more infrequently. Most stadiums built since 2000 have capacities around 70k or less. Stadium Capacities

My guess is that this is likely to happen to the Bills if they start losing again. IIRC, by the late 1970s, there were regularly less than 30k fans in the then named Rich Stadium which had a capacity of 80k then. That's what finally drove Ralph Wilson to make an attempt to make the team competitive. He started by hiring Chuck Knox as HC.

Nobody in WNY lives in Java but in JAY-va. I always thought that Long Islanders pronounced their area as Lon-GUY-land. Point Gratiot in Dunkirk is pronounced locally as "GRAT-IT". I think the correct French pronunciation is GRAT-oh. Au Sable, NY -- the Chasm, Forks, and the village/town -- is pronounced locally as oh-SAY-bull. It should be oh-SAHB-luh. Skaneateles and Scajacquada are some of those place names that only locals can say. I've always put Snowqualmie in that same group.

Is the "n" silent or pronounced? I think Americans in general call places named "Versailles" as ver-SAILS unless they're located in France.

Some place names have unusual spellings or are foreign words, so people naturally struggle with saying them. OTOH, there lots of fairly straight forwardly spelled names that just have unique local/regional pronunciations. Yesterday the Weather Channel asked viewers to send them the names places that aren't pronounced locally the way most people would think they would be said. They got lots of replies, so I thought it would be interesting to do our own list of places that aren't pronounced locally the way most people would expect them to be. Here are some of my candidates: For New York, I nominate the strangest pronunciation for any place name in the US, IMO: Coxsackie, NY which is pronounced "COOK-sock-ee". Also in New York's Hudson Valley is the town and hamlet of Coeymans, which is pronounced "KWEE-mans". If you speak Dutch, you probably didn't need the phonetic spelling. In WNY, the little hamlet of Napoli, is pronounced "Na-POL-eye" and Charlotte, a town in Chautauqua County, is pronounce "Shar-LOT". Real Pennsyltuckians know that Kinzua as in Kinzua Dam and Kinzua Valley is pronounced "KIN-zoo". In Nebraska, the little town of Beatrice is pronounced "Bee-AH-triss". Norfolk, NB, the birthplace of the late great Johnny Carson, is pronounced "NOR-fork". Anybody got any other interesting ones?

I'm not less emotionally invested now that the team is elite, it's just that I find a whole lot less to criticize/complain about now. I can't be too critical of whatever decisions were made or not made in the last 13 seconds of regulation in the OT loss to KC because I sat through the last game of the 2004 season when the Bills missed the playoffs because they didn't show up against the Steelers' second teamers.

Another BBMB refugee here.

Most Thoroughbred trainers who get caught in doping scandals tend to be trainers with cheap horses that struggle to bring back checks in the lowest claiming ranks of whatever track/tracks they race. These horses tend to be older and slower and often have chronic injuries. A lot of these trainers are struggling to keep themselves afloat financially and so try to use various drugs to improve their horses' performances. Bob Baffert doesn't have to drug horses in order to stay in business. He gets more than his share of the very best Thoroughbred race horses in the world. He simply believes that the end justifies the means. His record of doping incidents, especially with his very best runners in big races, is significantly higher than other premier American Thoroughbred trainers like Steve Asmussen, Todd Pletcher, and Chad Brown, all of whom have large strings of horses running all around the country under the supervision of assistant trainers just like Baffert. Baffert needs to stop making excuses and blaming everybody else but the man in charge, ie Bob Baffert. As Harry Truman said, "the buck stops here".

Yes, he is. He would have to sit out 2022.

I think this is my position as well. People can and do change all the time, especially when they're young adults who have to suddenly face the consequences of their actions after having hardly ever been held accountable before. Hunt was 22 years old when the incident was videotaped. He should have known better but maybe domestic violence was the norm in his family/environment, and nobody ever told him it's wrong. If Hunt has learned from his mistakes and changed his attitude and ways, he deserves to be judged by who he is now and how he behaves now not four years ago.

They will likely climb over the 5 foot rail fence, using the rails as steps, because that's what goats do. Growing up, we lived on my grandfather's farm for a few years before moving to our own. My grandfather was retired from farming but he kept a collection of animals, including goats. Mostly they were "pastured" on staked chains that were moved daily as somebody up thread mentioned because they wouldn't stay in their outdoor pen). We had one that we made into a pet and she followed us around like a dog, but she could go where none of the dogs could go -- up the wooden ladder into the hay mow. Goats climb. Personally, I'd clear the trees/brush myself if I had a decent sized tractor with a bucket or forks. It's more time consuming than hard. Just be careful when cutting down trees. No tractor, I'd probably hire somebody clear it.

I think that by the time 2018 rolled around, long time Bills fans like myself had been fed a seemingly endless of menu "project QBs" from Rob Johnson to JP Losman to Trent Edwards to EJ Manuel to Tyrod Taylor to Josh Allen for so long that many of us were just of the "here we go again" mindset. I know that's how I felt about Allen when we drafted him. I refused to emotionally invest in Allen during his rookie season because I figured he'd bust just like the others had even though his leadership and his willingness to do whatever he needed to do to win put him on an entirely different level from his failed predecessors. His passing skills as a rookie were terrible and his decision making seriously suspect. I still find it amazing that the Bills actually did find that 1 "project QB" in a 100 who actually becomes elite.

I thought that Dick Jauron would be a good coach. After the 2006 season, I thought that JP Losman would be a decent NFL QB. I thought that Doug Whaley was a good GM. I was unimpressed with McDermott who seemed too much like Jauron. I was also unimpressed with Beane since his background at Carolina didn't seem to include player evaluation. I thought that Baker Mayfield would be the best QB from the 2018 draft class, and that the Bills had given up too much to get Josh Allen.

Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties in New York and Warren County in PA are filled with Amish communities. Young Amishmen driving buggies while impaired, driving buggies recklessly, racing buggies on roads, etc while not common, happen with some frequency in this area. Adolescents and young adults are gonna do what adolescents and young adults do, regardless of culture. The Amish recognize this, and tend to give their young people significant leeway until they formally join the Amish church.

If you're so smart, why are you wasting so much time feuding with anonymous posters on a football message board ... over how smart you are?

Good teams aren't going to maintain/improve their rosters by signing bottom feeder FAs. They get their "cheap" players by doing a good job drafting on Day 3s.