PBF81

Correction, we blew out the Rams and then the Titans, both teams having been absurdly overrated and among the worst on our schedule. After that we went on vacation as if beating them was a singular formality to going 17-0 and sliding into a Championship per the preseason pub. After that we lost to Miami, barely beat Baltimore going 4-3 in our next 7. The only two teams that we blew out were Pittsburgh in week 5 and then the Bears on Christmas Eve. We got blown out by Cinci. We only beat three playoff teams during the regular season, two of which were WC teams. We beat those teams by 3 points twice and by 4 points once. We also lost to Miami once. We had a relatively soft schedule in hindsight. It's quite possible were overrated ourselves after the first two games against teams that were supposed to be in contention but which finished a combined 12-22 and both of which finishing near last in offense. Just sayin'. I know that I did.

Well hey, at least we've advanced beyond winning the offseason.

Thanks for the Intel. Discouraging though. If it plays out that way, I would imagine that our fans are going to have a different opinion of the situation once that reality kicks in.

That's a great question. I wonder what the answer is. I hate the whole PSL thing on concept, nothing but a money grab by people with money. On principle, I don't care what it is, but I would never pay for a PSL. I'm curious how the ticket sale process is going to go. PSLs, about twice the current ticket prices on top of that, all being done by an out-of-town corporation. I've done aftermarkets, but if it's going to be near $1,000 for me and one of my family to go see a game, I'll find something else to do with that money, on principle if nothing else. I could watch the game from home and hire someone to wait on me hand and foot for that kind of money, with plenty leftover. I'm also not sitting in the upper deck corners. But apparently there's plenty of interest although I'm not sure that most fans realize what the new costs of attending a game are going to be. Many were balking at a 12% hike, well this is going to be a whole lot more than 12%, closer to 100%.

It could also very well be that Brown was a man amongst boys in the Missouri Valley conference, and that it simply hasn't translated to the NFL against competition that he simply never faced. I mean how many DEs did he play on the opponents that they played that made it to the NFL. I can't imagine many of any. I guess we'll find out.

What's Beane supposed too say, most of my picks haven't worked out, this job is difficult, I'm doing my best, be patient, ... trust the process. Let's face it, his Drafts have been questionable at best, his draft strategies equally so. The results have been lackluster. He's got 6 picks this season, one late on each of the first 6 rounds, but he's got numerous holes to fill and positions to upgrade. He's created that issue, no one else. He's drafted the same positions in several spots for several years without any becoming better than average. He's not in a position to trade up, unless he wants to mortgage future Drafts. For his sake he'd better hope that several of his former picks "take the next step," and frankly, he'd better also hope that this year's crop of rookies produces an early ringer or two also, otherwise we're going to be having an entirely different conversation following the season.

Probably drafting one in the late 6th Round. LOL Luck seems to be Belichicks formula for winning. And why not, Belichick's 17th average ranking in Points Scored, and 19th average ranking in Yardage Offense, which includes a season with Cassel at QB and Welker and Moss as WRs, Watson at TE, and two fantastic receiving RBs, aka rankings which are incredibly average if not mediocre, without Brady as his QB reveals what a great offensive mind he has. I absolutely love watching Belichick flounder! I hope he coaches 10 more years and never advances to the playoffs again. The longer it goes the more that that narcissistic self-righteous egomaniac is going to try prove that he really is something without a QB that's in the running for the GOAT. It's a tale of two coaches, one with Brady, excellent, and one without Brady, absolutely horrible; 10 seasons and 2 games, only two playoff appearances, both times as a wild-card, going 1-2 and only winning in the wild-card round, while getting outscored on 30-14 average. Otherwise, a 77-87 record otherwise. But I'm sure, Brady and Belichick contributed equally. LOL He's finished. Every season that he continues to coach adds to the mainstream narrative that he was only good because of Brady. I actually don't look forward to Kraft's firing of Belichick, which I'm sure won't be a "firing" on paper, presumably at least. Maybe Belichick's ego is just that big, that he'll force Kraft to fire him. Should be interesting to be sure. Honestly, it's difficult to say since Belichick sucks on offense and the people he hires are no better, at least not recently. It's not really fair to any QB, Jones or not.

True, but no way free-agency carries him to those goals. He (they) have an uphill battle. I mean McD's coaching shortcomings have little to do with available talent.

I'm guessing because on paper otherwise they don't look so hot. At the end of the day Beane's gonna get judged ultimately on this upcoming Draft, not free-agency. If it's like his others he simply cannot expect to stick around. How long can a GM live on a single pick made five years earlier while the rest of them prevent the team from moving forward. It'll be pretty simple, if he knocks it out of the park he'll have a majority of fan support, but if not he simply cannot expect to have that support, nor would he deserve it. He desperately needs an A+ Draft. McD's performance, apart from his glaring postseason poor performance, is going to reflect what Beane does. IMO three things need to happen this coming season in order for both of them to continue to have a majority of both fan and media support. First, McD needs to win the division. Second, be needs to at least take this team to the AFC CG. Third, he can't lose embarrassingly to any team in that game as he has. A loss would be acceptable, but only if the other team is better and we play our best with no coaching negligence as he's committed.

It's definitely going to be interesting to see how that plays out. To state the obvious, this ain't NYC. People are complaining about a 12% hike in ticket prices, what will they say when they on or about double, if not more for the best seats, plus PSLs. I only do secondaries now, it was too much of a hassle trying to sell the games I didn't go to. I'm sure it's better now with Ticketmaster doing the heavy lifting, but still. As well, that way I can keep an eye on the weather and if it's going to be crap then I'll pick another game later in the season and watch that one from the comfort of home or a Bills bar somewhere.

Wow, that's interesting. How did you find that out?

Why, so Allen could carry his water here like Brady did in N.E.? He'd want to run our drafts too. LOL Florio's bored.

Cocaine. He's a lawyer.

This then raises other unpopular issues. Their GM has been there the same amount of time as Beane. Just sayin'.

Would have made a whole lot more sense than Von Miller a year later. Poor planning.

It's part of "The Process".

Couldn't one then reasonably argue that the NFL needs more white players?

They're probably going with a new patented 4-1-6 and going to sell it to us as a game changing paradigm shift. Milano will still play OLB of course, and they'll vacate the middle of the defensive backfield in the hope of bringing our playoff caliber defense into the regular season to sync the two. Maybe that's what the legendary "Process" is in it's final form.

Here's what I don't understand, originally the excavation was to begin towards the end of last season, as posed by the powers that be behind this. Then it was moved to not later than April 1st. The more recently they said June is when the "big digging" (their words contrasting with merely site work) would begin. Now in todays BN piece Raccuia states that parking won't be significantly impacted. Why not? How not? Even a conservative estimate of the space required to "big dig" just the field along with some area around it would eliminate most of what is now Lot 4 and even some of the RV Lot. They're also not going to take the equipment off-site every day, that'd be ridiculous. How can they start the "big digging" but have people still parking where or even next to where it's being dug? Eventually it's going to have to be a lot more than that. BTW, that video is extremely interesting, even outside the context of this conversation. It's well worth a view.

Not true. But you're completely missing the crux of the matter. So let's simply agree to disagree. I'm good with that. BTW, I have no idea how you read all that and watched a 12 minute video in 60 seconds. So I don't even think that you're reading what I wrote. You certainly didn't watch the video.

And I'll say what I originally said, the Buffalo area/WNY, is easily, by a country mile, the smallest financially based team that presently hosts an NFL team. Cincinnati is notably bigger in that regard. It's a fact that if we currently did not have a team, that we would never be on the short-list for getting one, ever. It's a diminishing city and region no matter how it's spun. Yeah, I get it, we all grew up here and love it, but that doesn't matter a hill of beans to the NFL. Who knows what Pegula's interests are other than family wealth and lifestyle uber alles as he/Kim have already made plainly known, but it's not keeping the team in Buffalo over that. He's told us as much. I, as with you, believe that it should revolve around the fans and at reasonable ticket prices. But as others have pointed out, that's not the NFL's model anymore. TV revenues (largely streaming) have long been the big "chunk of change" for the NFL, with cheap seats being second. We're not living in the 80s. Someone on here even provided evidence that the NFL doesn't care who buys the tickets and that a good number of ticket agencies that package up ticket/travel/hotel deals will be buying them (and the associated PSLs) to resell. That's believeable. After TV revenue, and that's largely from streaming, not from local viewing, the luxury seating and corporate accommodations are the next biggest overall driver. It's a similar model in that regard to airline seat economics. It's a very informative video. Again, someone else here pointed out that the new NFL model is to price out the riff-raff in favor of a "white collar" crowd. Also believeable. Who needs, or wants, a bunch of ######ed drunks running around the stadium during games bumping into people and causing problems. This has almost nothing to do with fans willing to pay $100 to see a game. Almost all tickets in the new stadium are going to cost well over $200 if their survey is to be believed, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be. Cheap tix will be maybe $120 for the upper deck corners. Plus PSLs. I calculated the center upper deckss to be $205 (9 home games) and about $230 (8 home games, plus PSLs of course. Even secondary market prices weren't that high for most of the season up there. This has almost nothing to do with the amount of fans willing to go to games if the tickets are reasonably priced. They're not going to be reasonably priced by the statements of many here even. The league wants to sell the luxury seating more than anything. Anyway, if that still doesn't make sense, no worries. I'm tired of discussing this. The NFL has plenty of information out there online in a free google search to let anyone that wants to know what their goals are. It's not what we currenty have in Buffalo. Many consider Bills tailgating videos to be a blight in the NFL's marketing. While we think that some things are funny or merely "in line with Bills Mafia," the NFL and others don't view it the same way. Videos online of two people screwing in the parking lot, dildos thrown onto the field, people getting seriously injured tailgating because they're more stupid and drunk than they are sensible, etc. aren't exactly what the NFL, or even the Bills front office, want to see. That's the exact kind of stuff that the NFL's trying to cut down on. Buffalo isn't flying under their radar. It's all gotten noticed, believe me.

It's not about STHs, that part of it anyway. Not sure how you picked that up.

Not even close in impact. Neither does Canada's financial base factor in.

Not to burst your bubble, but given that Green Bay draws from Milwaukee, Buffalo has by a country mile the worst financial market/base of any NFL team. That's what you need to look at and consider. It's also a diminishing market. As I've pointed out numerous times, if Buffalo didn't already have a team, no owner looking to relocate would even consider Buffalo, and we'd have zero chance of getting an expansion team if even one were offered. We wouldn't even make the short-list for consideration. We're lucky to have a team still. The one wild-card is TV revenues. The financial model for the NFL has changed over the past many years and TV revenues are driving things more than anything. To your last point. I don't know how all that works. There are some complicated things in the NFL's revenue sharing model, and now with streaming it's changing the game there, no pun intended. Let's see, hopefully those of us expressing concerns are doing so for nothing.

Those are reasonable, and it's funny that support for one of our players would be unpopular. Strange. LOL Having said that, your statement about Oliver is relative. He's easily the best DL-man, but that's not saying much. He also posts a game that makes you say "wow," but then disappears for three or four games making you wonder whether he was even on the field. As to Allen's postseason play, agreed, but which of our players did step up? A couple did, literally, as in a couple, but almost none. Coaching didn't show up either for that matter. We squeaked by a Skylar Thompson-led Miami which beefed up the offensive post-season stats only, but it was far from impressive and there's no way that they should even have been in that game in the 2nd half. Just sayin', I agree with you generally speaking.