dave mcbride

?? UB was a small private school until it was absorbed into the Suny system. A bunch of Sunys were private schools founded long before (eg, geneseo in 1871). Pre-suny UB was a contender in any way shape or form, and unlike UC-Berekely, it wasn't SET UP AS THE THE FRIGGIN' FLAGSHIP STATE SCHOOL FROM THE GET-GO!! Sheesh! Not "suuposedly"; actually.

Um ... UB is not "Cal" -- I mean it's not even close in virtually every category, so why bring this up? -- and most people call it UC-Berkeley or Berkeley now anyway (within both academia and the state of California, that is). Sports fans call it "Cal," I guess. More importantly , for half a century Cal was the only state public institution, created long before the second one, UCLA. Berkeley was created in 1868 and UCLA was created in the 1920s. UB and the others all came into existence as SUNY schools at exactly the same moment in the early 1960s. It's not an apt comparison.

The issue is that UB isn't any better than Stony Brook (a better run institution) at this point, and it's a worse undergraduate institution than Binghamton (I say this as a UB grad). Why should they get the claim to the NY moniker? Both Stony Brook and Binghamton are inarguably more selective now too. The basic issue is that the SUNY system was modeled on the UC system, with a bunch (4) of university centers and a larger number of colleges. In retrospect (given that NYS entered a decades-long stretch of relative decline just as the system was created), there should have been a flagship campus in the Hudson valley and a "State" campus in western NY (a la the Michigan, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, etc. systems). Water under the bridge now, of course, but UB is never going to be elite enough relative to the other two to claim the mantle of being "the" state university in NY. Indeed, UB was initially conceived of the Berkeley of the system, but it never achieved that height relative to the others (partly because of regional economic decline). Why not just be happy with what the California model SUNY follows actually does -- derive the school name from its locale (UCSD, UCLA, UCSB, etc.)?

Since it's a total rip-off of the Sixers' "Trust the Process" slogan, I'm going to treat this ridiculous move as the "Shout 2000" version of the "process" trademark wars.

See my post a few pages previously for why I really think they're out.

He wonders; that's all. He doesn't say it specifically but mentions that the paper needs new clients for its printing business. Anyway it's speculation.

Well, TP has given interviews to JW and TG. Unless I missed it, though, he hasn't given an interview in a while. Kim P spoke with Vic C in that recent piece about the stadium issue a couple of weeks ago, though.

Good stuff; thanks for posting. My big takeaway is that cutting back on, well, everything won't make the paper better. Not surprisingly, it'll make it worse. I certainly do wonder about the Pegulas' role in all of this. Say what you will about Ralph, but he regularly granted interviews to Sullivan, who was clearly a thorn in the franchise's side.

I didn't hate Simon at all, but he was forever on my sh*t list for giving Das Boot one star -- he faulted it for being dangerously pro-German! It's in the annals for bad-take reviews.

John: I 'm neither a Sullivan lover nor hater, but I do have a serious question for you. My relatively uninformed hunch is that the days of the paid pure opinion writer -- a writer who doesn't do much in the way of reportage to supplement the pieces s/he publishes -- are coming to an end. For scores of decades, this type of writer -- i.e., a "tribune of the people" type -- was an institution at every paper, but the changing media landscape (encompassing the mushrooming growth of sites like this) undermined their appeal. It seems to me that the "analyst" has replaced the opinion writer as the desired type, and here I'm thinking of writers like Tyler Kepner of the NYT -- folks who get behind the numbers and blend opinion with pretty sharp analysis (straight reporters are of course a different story). As a Yankees fan, I can't read the opinion piece writers in the fishwraps anymore because the analysis on sites like www.riveraveblues.com is so much better. It blends deeply informed analysis with the opining I can get from the tabs. (And the guy who started that site, Mike Axisa, was so good that he ended up getting a gig with CBS sports' online site, so he's not an "amateur" anymore.) Sullivan effectively and regularly delivered what he was hired to deliver, but I wonder if that's much desire for that anymore given the increasingly deep knowledge among fans who thirst for at least a little bit of behind-the-scenes reportage and behind-the-numbers analysis in the pieces they read. Tyler Dunne seems to be one of the new breed, which is why he's generally quite well regarded here. So do you think that sort of writer is obsolete in this day and age? I'm genuinely curious to know what you think because honestly, I don't know.

I didn't question whether it was in their right at all -- I was just saying that the predictably frenzied response was overdetermined given the "relationship" between people here and non-reporter opinion writers like Sullivan.

13 pages - i ain’t reading the whole thing! Life is too short. Anyway, I’m glad Gunner reiterated his qualifications.

Are you paid for your work? Do you have official status that his been given by a recognized professional organization? If not, you are by definition an amateur, and it's actually not a debatable point. Amateurs are occasionally better than official professionals, of course.

Witnessing a seemingly endless string of celebratory dances atop the grave of an official, professional (i.e., paid) opinion writer (Sullivan) by unofficial, amateur enthusiast opinion writers (all of us) is what we call in my line of work "overdetermined." (This is regardless of Sullivan's skills or lack thereof.)

I honestly think Vic has gotten better in the last year.

Hey, this is serious stuff! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prancercise There's a book and everything!

Don't you mean this??

I now believe you based on other things I've heard.

Agree 100 percent.

Am I missing something? I only saw one reference to a possible drunken rampage, and it was secondhand from a freaking OBD security guard. That's approaching cab-driver-for-Seifert level. The person who posted it may well be credible, but he has only 90 posts so I'm not buying - yet. KtD, who I trust, made an oblique comment hinting at ... something, but said nothing specific.

I realize that he was good. But he was playing behind players who finished 17th all time in sacks (Freeney) and 19th all time (Mathis). His problem was playing time, not productivity. He had six starts in 2012 (his final season) because Freeney missed two starts and Mathis missed four. That's the only reason he ever got starts. Antonio Brown would have faced no such situation in Buffalo, which I think was part of your point!

Hughes is a bad example because he was playing behind two borderline hall of famers in Freeney and Mathis. Both of those guys were the primary DE starters in the three years Hughes played in Indy.

If the Bills really didn't draft him because he didn't pick up the phone, that is Gomer Pyle-level behavior by Nix. I find it hard to believe that this was the reason he wasn't picked.

I think that's a little unfair. In their first playoff loss to NO he was 29-43 for 380 yards and 3 TDs / 2 INTs (97.0 rating), and the team put up 28 points. Yet the defense gave up 659 yards! And again, he was completely jobbed by the refs in Dallas. They had that game won. The final playoff loss came against Seattle, and in that season (2016) he started off extremely well, playing at an MVP level. Yet in the final 5 games of that year, he was playing with a dislocated middle finger on his throwing hand with torn ligaments in it. His numbers trailed off and he was pretty ineffective the rest of the way. But he had a legit injury that explains the outcome. Anyway, to answer your question, I'd take him in a second. He has pretty much turned a true bottom feeder (the Lions) into a solid team. Put, say, Tyrod on that team, and they're going 4-12 every year.

I think you have to factor in that he came to an O-16 team with terrible talent; they went 2-14 his first season. In the last 7 seasons, the Lions have had 4 winning seasons and 3 losing seasons plus 3 playoff appearances. And you and I both know he should have one playoff win -- that loss to the cowboys was one of the worst reffing displays in NFL history given the stakes involved. The Lions were absolutely robbed.