sullim4

I view this rather simply as a fan and as a consumer. Anytime the Bills are on ESPN, which I can't imagine would be more than 1 game a season, I'll subscribe to their service for that month. Once that month has elapsed, I'll walk away and cancel. College football and basketball fans, as well as MLB fans, can do something similar during their seasons. ESPN is garbage outside of live sports. I honestly can't think of anyone I know that would pay for their original "content".

Harbor Freight is great for getting that random hand tool you never thought you needed, until you actually end up needing it. Their US General tool chests aren't bad either. I would avoid their power tools but they do have some good stuff in there if you know what to look for.

Tom "Jungle Boy" Sifferman is an old buddy of Ed Hochuli's. He was a wing official with him and his replay official for many years.

Drafting a punter or kicker in the 6th or 7th round when you have a need for one is a no-brainer to me, and yet a lot of teams go to UDFA to find one. Teams usually take a flyer on some skill player that has next to no chance of making the club but then have terrible specialists that cost them things like missed PATs, poor field position, etc. There are usually several good options in the later rounds. As much as I don't care for Belichick he is right about the importance of a team's kicker.

My guess would be Southern Tier’s line. Probably the IPA or the One Buffalo beer.

This is great. Fitz will win Miami enough games to take then out of contention for the #1 pick, but face plant sometime during the season. Great to see Miami setting themselves up to fail.

To me, the big difference is Adam Gase. He strikes me as a Greggo-type of coach - he's got a big ego and won't be able to rally the troops through tough times. He's a good coordinator but a poor head coach. I think he'll be the main reason why the Jets implode.

They do have Timmah though. I gave it a try... while there do seem to be a few good articles, I haven't been particularly impressed with the quantity. I'll be curious to see what comes out during the season.

I agree... I wish they had changed something with the turf design besides the size of the logo. It hasn't changed since they overhauled the uniforms, right?

Chris Brown's "tidbits" are more valuable that McBean's pressers. "Gotta watch the tape", etc comes from McDermott while we get actual information from Brown. Can we put Brown in front of the press at the end of games instead of McDermott?

There are some beat writers (like Wawrow) that seem to be insightful and well connected enough that they are generally liked in these parts.

Chris Kelsay is certainly up there if "TBD Whipping Boy" is part of this equation.

It's interesting, I'm 34 and my wife is 32 and we both recently started to watch the news in the mornings. In Seattle the print media has, for all intents and purposes, died. The Times is a shell of its former self and the PI has been out of print for 10 years now. The suburban local papers also died. The only digital "news" comes from retired folk and stay-at-home moms who moan and complain on Facebook and Twitter. No one is reporting on news in say North Bend, Snohomish, or Kent aside from the TV stations. I didn't watch local news until recently and it's actually kind of nice to get news that isn't 100% Seattle-centric. You can learn about what's going on in our neck of the woods from actual journalists instead of serial complainers. The internet is definitely the best source for international and national news. I think it has filled the gap for major metros like NYC, Chicago, LA, Seattle, etc. But if you don't live in one of those cities, you aren't getting local news on the internet. The TV (or the paper, if it still exists) is your only option.

That is very interesting, thanks for the insight. I agree - if McCarron wanted out, you had to get rid of him. But neglecting to replace him was indeed short-sighted.

The decision to keep Peterman over McCarron was a huge blunder on both their parts. I cannot possibly believe that McCarron's performance would have been worse than Peterman's.

ESPN was saying that this uniform was being considered as an alternative. If I'm a Jets fan, I'm really pissed that wasn't selected...

FWIW, the moment I saw Jussie Smollett for the first time (I don't watch much TV, so his legal troubles was the first time I had heard of him), I immediately thought of Doug Whaley. The guy looks damn near identical, sunglasses or not.

I agree. I'd be really surprised if Terry or Kim wanted a dome. I don't think they go with a retractable roof though - it adds significantly to the cost of the facility and it's very expensive to maintain. Out here, the Mariners asked for well north of $150 million from King County for stadium maintenance, a major chunk of which was tagged for repairs to Safeco's (now T-Mobile Park's) retractable roof. I'm sure the technology has improved over the last 20 years, but it's still a major long-term expense. The Bills would be better off installing those overhead heaters they have in the club areas in more places around the stadium if they're concerned about December temperatures.

I tend to agree... I think it's becoming clearer that they want a downtown stadium in conjunction with some improvements to KeyBank Center. The thing they are going to have difficulty with IMO are the PSLs. They are going to lose a lot of existing season ticket holders if the PSL is excessive, and other teams that have done this have been unable to sell tickets as seasons. They then get dumped on the secondary market by scalpers, often at heavy losses, particularly late in the season. Eventually scalpers stop buying and then the team gets stuck with excessive inventory. I could see them keeping the OP facility as the team's HQ and practice facility. Most teams with urban stadiums have this kind of setup in the suburbs.

This isn't exactly surprising. Tim doesn't take criticism against himself or his peers very well. I don't really have anything against Mike Rodak. He's a beat writer and has to deal with the ESPN conglomerate so I'm not really surprised if his articles are written through a particular lens. I don't hold this against him, but I would also say that he's not "one of us" like John Wawrow or Sal Capaccio. I don't think Rodak has any investment in the success of the Bills beyond any career advancement it might afford him.

Me too... which probably makes me a terrible person, but whatever.

Bally's is a dump... it's got a great location but the facility itself needs a lot of TLC. It's seen better days. Westgate is where I usually place wagers in Vegas. Many of the "big" casinos have de-emphasized their sports books (or cut way back on things like drink tickets) in recent years since the profit from them is smaller than other things like slots. Mirage has a good sports book if you don't mind reserving a seat. If off-strip is an option, I have heard that South Point is good.

Apparently Bowles was their interim HC for 3 games after they fired Sparano. Don't forget about Wanny either.

Agreed. I did the same last year with the Patriots* in the super bowl. We were in Hawaii and just relaxed poolside at the house we rented on the Big Island.

There is more truth to this than most would acknowledge. Their divisional games account for at least 4 wins right off the bat, if not 5 or 6 per season. The AFC East has been the most consistently poor division in the entire NFL over the last 20 years. The other three teams have 2 "guaranteed" losses each season and the Patriots* have 4, 5, or 6 easy wins. If they actually had some decent competition, it'd be interesting to see if they would have won as many division titles as they have.