RochesterRob

This thread is like a tempest in a teapot. Can we wait for a few players to complain about religious discrimination before we tar and feather the FO? At least with a few players versus one we would at least have a pattern to look at even if there were inaccuracies in the allegations. With out public comments from the FO people here are projecting their own fears, prejudices, and paranoia onto people that they have no personal knowledge of. Not unlike the Dark Ages and the Inquisition that people here are worried about OBD descending into. Again, how about we wait until solid unbiased information comes to be before we condemn. I can see it now somebody's pet UDFA gets cut during camp and within hours a thread will appear here questioning whether that UDFA was the victim of religious intolerance. McBeane will get reduced to a caricature of Archie Bunker.

Age-wise he is good to go but the military has changed a lot in the past few decades. If this guy does not have his act together it will show in the interview and the military will decline to take him. It is no longer a warehouse for social misfits and the maladjusted. It is not necessarily about being bright but just willing to extend effort. Gomer Pyle could enlist in today's military because he at least had a good attitude about being in the military and they still need guys to cut the lawn, service vehicles, and serve chow to name a few tasks.

69 replies before mine on a coach who was highly regarded by most fans in Buffalo during his tenure here. I would have thought that there would have been more people here who are old enough to remember Knox coaching the Bills to make comment on his passing. At that point in time I really was not following football but am glad Knox left his mark on a generally considered high point in the history of the franchise. RIP and God bless, Chuck.

Going back to the mid-1980's specifically I guess the games were for the most part forgettable other than the announcers. Tom Hammond who I consider a pretty decent play by play man today really brought no energy to our games. We were usually coupled with the D-list announcers for NBC then. Anybody remember Reggie Rucker calling the Bills "Beels?"

Wegman's built their reputation in part on wide selection, quality, and being friendly to labor. For many years until Bob Wegman passed on Wegman's funded quite a few scholarships so they were fairly community minded. I would agree that core areas such as meat and produce have declined in recent years. What this is due to I am not quite sure of. I know they have stopped baking core bakery items such as white bread and when I asked management the story basically came down to they had to get the per unit price down to compete (with Walmart). Maybe the competitive pressure is felt in other areas of Wegman's such as meat and produce. I disagree about not being competitive on pricing when it comes to basics. I buy a core of items every week that includes bread, milk, soup, and ground beef to name a few items. Wegman's always has the better price on bread versus Tops. Soup if not less is at least equal to Tops and generally under Walmart. Ground beef is tougher to quantify as Tops does not offer 95 percent lean unlike Wegman's so I can't really direct compare. Wegman's stores are always kept very clean and until recently I always thought Tops were not kept very clean but Tops has improved. Lastly, there is the appeal of keeping as much money as possible in the local economy such as it is with Wegman's. Contrast that with sending money to Arkansas via Walmart which benefits relatively few out of the Walton family none of whom makes you think of John Boy Walton. No Publix in this area but it really aggravates me that the local Tops runs what amounts to a skeleton crew on a late Friday morning. I don't like self checkout and maybe I am old fashioned in that respect but that Tops only has one register crewed when I am in there. Contrast that with the Wegman's on the same street that has at least a half dozen registers staffed including an express lane. That tells me a lot in terms of what the public at large thinks about the one versus the other.

Here's the thing. The grocery business operates on razor thin margins so grocers have to look at their margins especially today given the economic climate in the interior Northeast. The generation that had the strongest spending budget in recent decades is unfortunately heading for the nursing home if they have not faded away. Those would have been the people who got in at a regional employer while companies such as Bethlehem Steel, Kodak, New Process Gear, etc were going strong and were able to work a full career and in the process get some kind of retirement. In addition these same people picked up some hours in retirement working at Sears, WalMart, etc. to have spending power. Younger workers do not have the jobs available to them in mass to drive the economic engines around here unlike when Eastman Kodak employed over 50,000 people in the Rochester area. They can not spend at stores such as Wegman's unlike the previous generations. The meat department at my local Wegman's has shrunk considerably in the last 20 years and yes while attitudes have shifted in terms of eating large volumes of meat I would suspect income limitations come into play more than dietary changes. The bottom line for Wegman's is the bottom line and most assuredly there is a critical mass in terms of volume and selection needed to make a location go. I fear that many smaller outlying communities have gotten too poor to support a grocer such as Wegman's or Tops. It would not surprise me to see large grocers go away in small communities and in the poorest sections of the city that still currently have them. There are exceptions of course such as in Ithaca where Wegman's recently put in a fancy new location. But I would suspect operating in Ithaca is marketing to the coming affluent generations that attend Cornell and Ithaca College. I think that any stores not in college towns that only have local populations of 10-15 thousand people are in great danger of closing. Lastly, as the volume of product handled locally diminishes when compared to what Wegman's is doing in Boston, NJ, VA to name a few locations it will become more inefficient to distribute out of Rochester. There has already been quiet talk about Wegman's moving operations out of Rochester at some point to be closer to I-95. This could be a serious issue for the region in the not too distant future.

They can do as they want as long as they maintain a presence in WNY and CNY. There have been rumblings the last several years indicating that the Wegman family feels that the Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse area markets are losing their potency. Which is to say there has been questions about Wegman's future here. Tops is OK but they need to make some adjustments and perhaps shed some unprofitable locations. The bottom line is I would hate to see towns such as Geneva, Hornell, and the other outlying areas lose needed services forcing people to travel 20, 30, or miles just for reasonably priced groceries.

But, but I was told many times here that QB's would not be available after 2018 ala most Ford sedans. So, they ARE making QB's? Lt. Dan? You got new legs!

Probably brings things down via the private jet from Wegman's.

When it comes to family businesses a lot of times the resume tends to be less than critical. If Kim can't cut it the outcome will be evident rather soon. I don't think anybody deserves to vet them other than with expenditures relative to their businesses. Thank God we don't live in a totalitarian society where a person's life and livelihood is the direct business of others including the government. All that aside I am sure that the other NFL owners vetted them plenty prior to being approved to purchase the Bills. Given the PC climate today I doubt the Pegula's would have made it if there were red flags existing in terms of personal conduct. I have known people who have taken on local franchises for national corporations and the vetting for that is very intense so I can only imagine how much more difficult it is to jump through all the hoops of being an NFL owner. Back in the old days it did not take much more than interest in the sport to own an NFL franchise but the NFL has learned from failed owners as it has evolved from a good ole boys club to a multi-billion dollar business.

Appropriate that she made the statement. It reassures SJF and lets fans in the eastern regions of the market know that they still are appreciated.

Better chance of camp going to Atlanta, NY (Cohocton). Just a little off the wine trail but not much.

Trophy wives usually sit away from the business or if they need something to run the hubby comes up with something like a hair salon. None of that describes Kim. Many people come up through the ranks through many avenues. Not everyone has the chance to do 4 or 6 years in college when they turn 18. One of the most successful women I know on a local level never went to college. There are quite a few bright people who do not get the opportunity to go to college or run a large scale business. Kim Pegula has been given an opportunity and will do her best to run with it. You are being very judgmental despite your claims of being enlightened and open minded. Let Kim stand on her record after a couple of years just like any other recently promoted person in the business world.

I hope that you were not serious about this 20 year business. Bad enough people were talking before the draft about 10-15 year careers as though it was as easy as grabbing a snack from the fridge. What's next? Running backs that will play for 25 years?

I don't know why SJF and Brandon are being tied at the hip in some fans' minds. Expanding the fanbase into Rochester and points east is simply good business. I don't know of a single business that ever thought that the fewer customers the better.

Some people confuse critical thinking with being exclusively negative. Critical thinking can take you to a negative conclusion but it also can lead you to other conclusions that can be positive depending on the content you are analyzing.

I was getting ready to rip on you until I read the body of your statement. I agree. All aboard the Allen train!!

Agreed.

Fair take.

I look at bad faith posting as more a matter of being intellectually dishonest which definitely should allow for a reputation hit.

Good post!

Funny how those 2nd round picks and 3rd round pick now matter to the trade up for Rosen crowd now that Rosen did not happen.

To be fair that could be said about a fair amount of the Rosen crowd here. Give Allen a chance at this point. I was not really in love with any of them anyways.

McCarron being here takes the pressure off of Allen starting which is to say if we get off to a good start so be it and if we do not so be it.

I don't understand the hard on against him. He's not from WNY and probably never considered being drafted by the Bills until a few weeks ago. Kelly grew up in Western PA being a Steelers fan so we should have rejected him back in '83 because he was not a Bills fan? Some people here concern me in terms of where their mind is at. By the way all the Rosen talk by Beane at this point should concern Bills fans as far as Rosen being the objective. Nobody states their objective in the open like that so it makes me wonder who the real target is.