sullim4

Taylor gets a lot of flack because he's the QB of a team that hasn't made the playoffs in 17 years. Look at Fitz, Holcomb, Trent, JP, Orton, Bledsoe, Todd Collins, Flutie, Rob Johnson, etc. Those guys got just as much criticism, if not more, than TT. I can guarantee you that the entire fanbase would be embracing TT if he could lead this team to the playoffs. His level of play has not consistently been playoff caliber. The race card is just an excuse.

If you're a morning person, one fun activity in Vegas is getting coffee at about 7am or so to watch people take their walks of shame back to their hotel rooms. I have done this in a few places in Vegas but one spot in particular is great - at the Cosmopolitan right in front of the Vesper bar. There are a ton of leather sofas that look right onto the main walkway through the casino near the elevators to the west tower and there's a coffee stand not too far away. Watching the train wrecks go by is just pure gold.

List of wineries affected: http://wineindustryinsight.com/?p=85305 A ton of household names there. Sadly, Imagery is on that list, although their FB page as of yesterday said they hadn't yet sustained any damage. I thought their wine was very good.

I suppose we are part of that "younger" crowd - my wife is 30 and I'm 33. When we go to Vegas, it's all about the high end dining and entertainment. I might gamble a few bucks in the slots or bet on the Bills but that's it. I'd rather spend money on fancy dinners or a show. We also have been staying at Vdara, a non-casino hotel right between Aria and Cosmo. During the day, we will explore other parts of the area - Red Rock, shopping malls, etc. The strip gets tiring after about a day to a day and a half. I actually enjoy Fremont St during the day... haven't been there at night. I could certainly believe it's a freak show at that time of day. We will be back in a month so my wife can run the Rock 'n Roll half marathon. I agree, a few days there is more than enough.

Oh my, I don't mean to derail the thread, but you're spot on. We were up for the Bills game against Denver a few weeks ago, and stopped off at Bully Hill and Heron Hill. Bully Hill had 35-40 (!?!) different wines and they were all just terrible. Heron Hill was slightly better, the whites were ok, but the reds, geez, why bother making them if they taste like that? With 35 different wines being sold, it felt more like the winemaker was throwing darts against a wall to see what sticks rather than concentrate his or her energy around a handful of good blends and quality varietals. The ice wines, on the other hand... those were delicious if you can appreciate the high residual sugar content. I try not to be a snob. I'm perfectly happy with an $8 bottle of Argentinian malbec. The finger lakes wine, however, was just undrinkable. I would expect the "winners" in this to be the owners of California vineyards that survive, in addition to the wines coming from Oregon and Washington. The PNW wines are underrated imo and rival those produced in Napa and Sonoma.

That's not entirely accurate. We live in Washington state and are club members of a winery near Yakima, in a town called Prosser. In 2015, there were huge wildfires in the area right before harvest time - mid to late August. Smoke was everywhere although the fires were sufficiently far north that most wineries were spared from the actual flames. The 2015 Yakima Valley vintages we've tried so far have been fine. With respect to the 2017 Sonoma/Napa vintages, the articles I've read say that the Cabernet and Merlot varietals are the primary ones yet to have been harvested... assuming the picked crops survive the fire, the other varietals should be ok. That said, any vines that get torched are obviously gone, and some of those are quite old... so it's a huge loss.

We were wine tasting in Sonoma this past April. I talked to a guy working the tasting bar at Imagery Estates in Glen Ellen that knew Doug Whaley (who was fired the next day). It's really quite sad, a ton of great wine up there and the people are a breath of fresh air compared to the vast majority of crazies in the Bay Area. Expect prices of wine for 2017+ vintages to skyrocket.

I think it's equally about the QB trusting his receivers to make catches, particularly for someone like Taylor who is very risk averse when throwing the ball. The All-22 will be very interesting, because I have a feeling that these scrubs will be open on a number of occasions, and Taylor simply didn't trust them to make the play and catch the ball.

Sadly, the worst thing that could happen to the Bills is finish with 6-8 wins, end up with a draft pick right above the teams that qualify for the playoffs, and we don't end up getting an elite player that can contribute immediately. It's the same story of the last 17 years.

This board is completely unreadable after a game. This is the team we expected to see this season. Starting Peterman in week 7 is not going to fix anything. Taylor isn't a good quarterback, either. Neither has any WRs or TEs to throw to. McCoy can't do everything. The only way this team wins is if the defense holds up over four quarters and the offense can hold the ball long enough to occasionally score and give the defense a breather. The offense will not carry this team to a win, unless they're playing an exceptionally poor defense. In the meantime, we should be drafting 1-2 quarterbacks in 2018 with the expectation that they will compete with Taylor and Peterman for the starting role in 2018.

FWIW, I really like the Serious Eats sauce recipe... http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/10/new-york-style-pizza-sauce.html

I agree, I've never liked it either.

Long live Crayonz...

I am thinking of going to this game from Seattle. Based on the turnouts this season in LA, I would expect this to be like a home game.

He played well. Accuracy still isn't his strongest trait but he makes up for it with other attributes like mobility and a penchant for not forcing the ball.

Well that worked exactly like I thought it would...

He should be suspended for that, and not just one game, either. They had him wrapped up, no excuse to lead with your helmet like that and go after the runner's head.

Bingo. La Nova pizza sitting under a heat lamp for an hour or boneless "wings" with Duff's sauce aren't exactly delicacies.

I hadn't been to a game in Buffalo for a while before last week - I think Chan Gailey's final game against the Jets was the last time I was in Orchard Park. Anyway, I noticed that the fans were significantly better behaved this time. Plenty of drunks but no one obnoxiously intoxicated, no open fires on the ground in the parking lot, no public urination that I could see, and no fights. Everyone was fairly respectful towards opposing team fans. The atmosphere was very positive and was a pleasant surprise to me based on past poor experiences. I've historically gone later in the season, usually when the team has been eliminated, so maybe that's the reason why I have a negative impression of the in-stadium experience... but regardless, it was a welcome change and made me feel proud to be a Bills fan. Keep it up.

You could tell in the stadium that there was movement happening pre-snap that didn't happen with their other punts. I thought the same thing about it being a fake. If casual fans could pick up on it, chances are the players knew too.

I don't understand this at all... our guy is solid and knows the wind pattern in Orchard Park. Why give that up? If anything, the K position has been the one that's been worrisome.

The Bills offense is dependent on the running game. If Shady doesn't have a good game, the Bills will be lucky to score more than 10 points. We saw that today.

This happens all the time in business - companies get stuck in a certain way of thinking and then get bit in the behind when the times change. Business school case studies have numerous examples of this - Sony with the Walkman. Blockbuster with the video store. Kodak with film. Hell the company I work for, Microsoft, got killed in the phone business by Apple because they failed to adapt. I mean, do you have any examples demonstrating that newspapers have tried revenue streams other than ad-supported revenue and subscription-based revenue? These are the same wells they've been tapping since the dawn of the newspaper. Most of these papers are controlled by large groups like Hearst or Gannett, neither of which seem eager to change. To make money in the media realm nowadays, you have to be creative. Newspapers still think they can survive by printing stories from 8PM the previous day on physical paper, delivering to homes each morning, and supplement that with online subscriptions. That's just not going to work in 2017, and the financials of the major newspapers prove that. Again, I'll reiterate... give me a media pass for $20 good across most newspapers and media outlets across the nation, let me pick and choose articles I want to read at whatever price you want to attach, say $.25 per view... and then I think you'd see some traction. Micropayments are all the rage right now. Or, team with one of the big media companies that has captive customers (like Comcast or Charter), and offer their customers access to your content for a cut of their fees. That's what ESPN3 is doing right now.

My two cents... The media would be wise to learn how other industries monetize their free services. Google is able to offer search and GMail for free because of data mining. Microsoft does the same thing with Outlook mail. Facebook and Twitter with social media. The COGS on these services are billions of dollars per year and somehow these services are profitable - consumers exchange their personal data for a free service. This is the model that's proving to be profitable nowadays. The newsprint media is married to advertising and subscriptions as a form of revenue because that's all they know. But have they given any thought to partnering with, say, Amazon to deliver content to Prime subscribers for a cut of the Prime revenue? Or, ally with a bunch of newspapers and offer a system where you can pay five cents per article read across multiple sources? How about partnering with libraries to offer access for their members, similar to what Consumer Reports does? Why not offer to bundle it with internet subscriptions like ESPN3 does with the major cable internet providers? Heck, if you really want to have an honest conversation about costs, why are newspapers still printing hardcopies and delivering them? Most newspapers are losing money on their print subscribers. I know the administrators of this board are fairly close to a number of members of the media, so I understand why they feel the way that they feel. But times change and the media refuses to change with them. They're locked into old thinking and refuse to change.

I kind of disagree with this. When I was growing up, Miami, Shula, and Marino were public enemy #1. That hate pales in comparison to the loathing I've developed for NE*, Brady, and Belichick. Honestly I don't think Miami cracks my top three anymore - NE*, Dallas, and Seattle are there for me now.