MattM

You know, other than the sadness of maybe not being able to share my Bills passion with the kids, I really don't mind--kind of surprised myself a bit on that one, and my wife as well. The way she was acting when she got the courage up to tell me that our daughter was becoming a Giants fan you'd have thought someone had died....

I have cousins and uncles who are diehard Giants fans from Central NY--they just didn't switch over when the AFL came along and Buffalo got a team. My cousins have followed the Giants since we were kids back in the Joe Pisarcik and Rocky Thompson era, so I have to give them props. My father was the black sheep of the family, picking the upstart Bills to root for in 1960....

Perhaps in my younger years (and I was also myself once lost as a child at a Red Wings game by my Richard Russo-character-like dad and uncle--does that count?).....

The one personal downside from yesterday's game is that I may have lost my kids to the NY Giants (or the "G-Men" as we call them around our house). We live in the NYC 'burbs and my kids are 8 and 3, so, as you may expect, they've been swept up in the Giants euphoria around here and were rooting hysterically for them last night. Oh, well, at least they're not Pats* fans or 'Pukes fans and at least they'll be spared our pain, I guess, although it makes me sad to think that we won't be sharing that pain together as they grow older. There may still be hope (or maybe the opposite of hope?) for the little guy--he told me on Saturday that he already "misses the Buffaloes" and that "they're done playing football now. Now they're playing soccer"....

Especially in a Pats* game--unless, of course, it's the Pats* doing the hitting and not being the "hitt-ee".....

And that will net the new owner what, like an extra 2-3 million a year? Chump change for an NFL team. It's all about selling luxury suites today (unshared revenue) and the Ralph ain't got them and the WNY economy couldn't support them anywhere near what Toronto or LA could. Those are just facts. The Bills best hope to stay in Buffalo is for a guy with local connections to buy the team and be willing to make less money (even a loss) to keep the team there....

And what do you expect "his" people to say with so much money on the line--that he'll never play again?

The other thing you need to remember is that if it's $3m a year on average, it may be backloaded to work out to something closer to $2m for the "real" years in the deal.....

When you combine the lowest ticket prices in the League, probably the fewest corporate sponsors/sponsorship opportunities and the fact that most of the shared revenue comes from TV and unshared revenue (which a new owner would covet) comes from said corporate sponsors/suites, unfortunately the factors you mentioned don't count for much. The team will likely only stay in Buffalo if the new owner has a tie to the region....

Right before that, however, they sold 19,000 season tickets in the early 1990's, in a metro area about 5 times the size of Buffalo, with corporate/disposable income probably closer to 10 times the size of the Buffalo area.....

Many thanks for responding--I didn't see all of that game, unfortunately, so don't remember those calls. Anyone else who watched have a view on them?

Still waiting.....

Spikes was among the hottest FA's the year he joined us....

I've asked Pats fans many a time whether they can name a game that they lost late on a bad call or no call and never get an example of that from them. If it evened out you'd think there'd be at least a few, since they've won so many that way, whether it be the Tuck Rule, "just give it to them", the Colts AFC Championship game a few years back, the Ravens MN game in 2007, the Bills game with the "inadvertent whistle" saving Brady from a pick 6 by Clements, the Texans game from about 2003-4 when Brady's pick at the end was miraculously waived off with a late flag away from the play (one of my favorites--the announcers had absolutely no idea what the infraction was, even after the ref announced it), etc. I'll ask Pneumonic--any you can give us?

Does the DB have to get out of the WR's way seemed to be the question to me on that call....

As per PFT this morning, in the end zone you only need to get two feet down. No football move is required....

I thought it was pretty close, too, but I had no illusion that it was going to be looked at again against the Pats*. Having watched similar garbage involving them for over ten years now, I just never expect any late calls to go against them....

Despite what the article says, I also believe that the Pats* have a pretty large number of FA's to sign in addition to the guys listed in the article--like Koppen and Connolly on the O-line, Ninkovich at LB, Shaun Ellis and Antuan Molden (if they want them back).

Need to remember that in addition to the 4th rounder unloading him also saved us, err, Ralph, several million dollars we could have used to....well....uhh...never mind....

Brady's 34 and won't likely be playing more than 3 more years, IMHO. Gronk had an injury history out of college, so may be due (for the record, I'm NOT rooting for this.) They have cap space, too, but also have a ton of FA's this year, including Welker, Branch, Connolly, Koppen, Shaun Ellis, Andre Carter, Ninkovich and Guyton at LB, plus some minor guys (like Molden at CB). Absent the 2010 draft with Herndandez and Gronkowski, their recent drafts have been pretty weak and I'm not too scared about those 1's and 2's next year, considering the 1 is NO's and the 2 is about the 54th pick. That said, they do have a way of making chicken salad out of chicken shite it seems, so who knows....

I think that starts in 2013, but I could be wrong....

That's EXACTLY why I'm pulling for the Steelers....

And he's from Buffalo and a Bills fan to boot. I coincidentally watched a Bills game with him once at Boomers on the UWS in NY, my old Sunday joint during football season. Didn't even know who he was until he said "wow, that was some hit. Back in my day they didn't hit like that" and then spent part of the rest of the game talking about his playing time. Funniest thing was he said hands down he'd always root for the Bills over his old team, the Giants....

If anyone is surprised by this anymore, I'd just ask where you've been for the last ten years or so.....

Some S&C coaches seem to do a better job than others. Pretty good article on the Falcons' program in the NYT recently featuring none other than Coy Wire, who was raving about the effectiveness of the new methods Atlanta uses....