Since you asked, it's commonly used like this: Bill can decide whether to watch the game live, or record it and watch it another day. If he chooses the former - he would watch it live. If he chooses the latter, he can watch his recording whenever he wants.
Former and latter refer to two scenarios or events that are laid out in a previous sentence. The former refers to the first thing, the latter refers to the last or later thing mentioned.
Oh, and for extra points in the bonus round... Some people would accept a bag of doughnuts for our backup QB. The Bills could trade him away except it would leave Cardale as #2.
You're welcome [/parttimegrammarpoliceman]
Gotta hand it to the stalwart fans that did though. I will record the NFLN rebroadcast and skim through it a bit. At least I think that's what I'll do. But it sounds like it was a butt ugly game.