JohnC

Do the Dallas cheerleaders get paid? And do they get a portion of the proceeds from promotional appearances and calendars etc.?

Believe what you want to believe. If it makes you happy continue on with your conspiratorial excuses/nonsense. When you look at the scoreboard you don't accept the numbers so much as interpret it the way you want it to be. For you it's not about what it is as it is about the illusion you create from your very flexible mind.

Other than your own imagination when has the NFL's record for teams been challenged. If so by who?

What you are reading is coming from your own unique brand of reasoning. It has little to do with what I stated. There is little to interpret when it comes to a record. The record is the record no matter how much you don't want to accept it. Whether you check it today or twenty years in the future it will still be recorded the same in the record book. Facts to him are malleable. They are what he wants them to be. What they are today may be different tomorrow. He's very flexible.

Facts can be subjective? Facts are facts. A team's record is not subjective as you perceive it to be. It is a cold hard fact. You can be suspicious as much as you want to be. That's your issue. The record of the Bills and Pats are established facts that won't change. You make excuses when the Bills lose and you make excuses when the Pats win. And the beat goes on.

Those two players who were dealt reinforce my point that when you have young talent in the system it is better to develop it rather than expel it for a more immediate return. Bad decisions cause bad outcomes; they add up and crush you. You can't move forward when you repeatedly do things that set you back.

What made the Jason Peters scenario even more of a fiasco is that the Bills brought in Derrick Dockery and Langston Walker to shore up the OL at hefty prices when both players were slow and sluggish players. What made the situation even more stupid is that they then forced Langston Walker, an adequate RT, to move to the left side where he admitted was unfit to play. Of course that didn't work out. I believe that this was during the peculiar Levy era. Let me add to the list of notorious weird decisions is the drafting of Torrell Troup with a high pick. He was an undersized nose tackle who had a history of back problems in college. In the pros he was an undersized nose tackle with a history of back problems. He failed because he was an undersized nose tackle with back problems. Shocking!!!!

The rate of failure for new restaurants is high. Anyone who has a desire to open a restaurant needs not only do their research in advance but also work in the business even if it is as a trial basis to understand what you are getting yourself into. It becomes a total commitment that consumes your life. There are so many pitfalls associated with staffing, licensing, rent etc. that can sink shortly after the doors get open. Your chances of success are much greater if you have been in the business compared to those who with no experience want to enter the business. As you noted because of the world of social media you can't learn as you go. You have to be ready to offer quality service right from the get go. If that doesn't happen your ship will sink rather quickly. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/20/heres-the-real-reason-why-most-restaurants-fail.html

In this qb draft class there was a wide variation of evaluations within the league scouting pros and outside the league scouting aficionados. There certainly was a wide range of evaluations for Mayfield, Allen and Rosen. It appeared to me that Darnold had the most consistent high rating, but it also included some significant variations within the scouting ranks. There certainly was no Andrew Luck in this class where everyone would come to the same high evaluation on the player. As I stated in prior posts Ledyard's assessment of Allen was consistent with a sizable faction of evaluators inside and outside the NFL. Ledyard's view that qbs are very often from a general talent standpoint over-rated primarily because there is such a priority in getting a franchise qb is accurate or at the minimum a reasonable position to take. Scouting qbs is a challenge beyond scouting other positions because there are unmeasurable traits that you just can't be sure of when comparing the college game to the pro game. What comes to mind is vision and reading defenses. It's just hard to translate the performances from the college game to the pro game. What I and some others are saying about Ledyard's assessment of Allen is that it was a reasonable assessment. You don't have to agree with it but there is a reasonable basis for it. I'm saying this as a person who was ecstatic with his selection.

We don't know for sure so we'll see how it plays out. One of the reasons why I would rather have the staff be more conservative in their handling of him is because of the caliber of our OL. In my estimation it is less than average. With a strong OL you can have your young qb run a conservative offense that stresses the run and play action passes. I wouldn't complain if I were wrong in my assessment and have the big Josh simply overwhelmingly outshine the other qbs and cleanly earn the starting job. That would be wonderful yet improbable. In the long run what is more important than winning or losing an extra game or so with him is his development. It's not stretching the truth that how he develops is most likely the most critical issue facing this franchise in the near and long term future of this franchise. This regime has invested a lot to get to the point where they could draft him. It's imperative that it is smart on how they handle him.

If it's on the internet it's got to be true. The problem is that the wild animals can't read so they can't follow the basic rules of the animal kingdom.

I hope you were smarter than the family in the below link. https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2018/05/11/cheetah-encounter-family-safari-park-sot.hln

I agree with your comment. They have to say the job is open because if Peterman outplays McCarron in camp and preseason he will be the starter. No one at this stage can say for sure who is going to be the qb but odds are it is going to be McCarron. I don't see this staff starting Allen right away even if he outplays or plays as well as the other two qbs. They simply have too much invested in him and the future to risk playing him right away. That's my current fluid opinion.

How do you know the Bills aren't going to do the same thing as the Browns are by starting the veteran? I see McCarron being the starter. Sometime in the season Mayfield is going to get on the field. Odds are after that he will remain the starter. The longer that Cleveland continues to vie for a playoff spot the longer TT remains the starter. Once they are close to be officially out of the running Mayfield will become their starter for the foreseeable future.

Dahlin is going to be a generationally great player. Is he by himself going to elevate the team to the next level? No. Eichel is an elite player. How much difference has he made? The Sabres are building a core with Eichel, Dahlin, Mittlestadt,Reinhart, Guhle and Risto. In my estimation they can compete as a fringe playoff team next year assuming they make a number of astute moves. But they are still quite away from the top tier teams because the roster still lacks overall talent and more importantly lacks depth to absorb injuries. There are players in the pipeline. Most of them are at least a couple years away. It make absolutely no sense to trade them for short-term immediate help. There are people who are frustrated with O'Reilly and Okposo who have not come close to meeting expectations and play up to their grand salaries. There are some very frustrated fans who argue to get rid of O'Reilly for the sake of getting rid of him. Unless you get something near value for him it would be stupid to get rid of him.

I'm ecstatic that the Bills drafted Josh Allen. And I'm more than pleased that they took aggressive actions to get him. But that doesn't diminish what the self-designated scout guru said about the prospect. He made the same observations about the prospect that many pro scouts made. There were plenty of pro scouts who didn't have a first round grade on our number one pick. If you generalize his takeaway on Allen it is that he is qb with outstanding physical attributes but is very raw on the mental side of the game. Even as a college player he was considered a player with impressive tools but a player who still has a way to go to grasp the intricacies of the position. That's basically the scouting world's consensus on him and the Bills view on him. The issue that Ledyard appropriately focuses on and is an issue that the Bills organization has to wrestle with is when to play him. Will playing him very soon hurt his development or will it accelerate it. My inclination is to be cautious. But if he shows that he is more precocious then we thought then isn't it worth the risk to get him out sooner rather than later? What I'm saying is that what Ledyard is saying makes a lot of sense and are issues that the Bills will be facing.

Purging players is easy. Getting reasonable value back for players such as O'Reilly and Okposo is the problem. Getting rid of inconsequential players such as Larrson, Girgensons and whatever half dozen or more invisible players on the roster is easy. You get back nothing when you give up nothing. As it stands I see at the minimum a half dozen players cleansed from this roster without having an impact. Again, getting rid of players isn't the challenge; replacing them with better talent is the challenge. Will Lehner be back next year? Probably not. That's not the problem. Who is going to replace him? Is Ullmark ready to be a #1 goalie? I'm not sure. There is unanimity that Dahlin is going to be a special player. Is he going to be a savior? I don't believe so. This roster still has to have a major infusion of talent before it can be considered a serious team. When you watch the playoffs and compare those teams with the Sabres you realize how wide the chasm is. If you believe in miracles then more power to you. In the gritty world of hockey I still believe there is a long way to go for the Sabres to be a contending team. WGR's Paul Hamilton covered the Amerks after the NHL season concluded. He basically said that when he watched him play over a series of games he didn't see anything in his lackluster play that would lead you to believe that he was going to make the leap forward. He said that he was so bad that he became an afterthought player on the bench. That is an ominous assessment.

The past few years he has been so much. He has a loving family supporting him. His daughter is a beautiful person in a number of ways.

Can you imagine Decker's wife and McCarron's wife sitting next to one another? That's a lot of beauty in the seats. https://twitter.com/jessiejdecker

You left on the Lions at Buffalo game on 12/16 at Baltimore L vs LAC W at Vikings L at Packers L vs Tenn W at Houston L at Colts W vs Patriots L vs Bears W at Jets L vs Jags L at Miami L vs Jets W vs Lions W at Patriots L vs Miami W I'm projecting a 7-9

I got to hand it to the McBeane regime. They exerted a lot of effort over the past year to put themselves in a position to draft a qb. They got their man. Now, the team is in a great position to be flexible in how they approach the future drafts and the talent on the board. I just marvel at what has happened so far with respect to culling the roster, cleaning up the cap and still keeping its picks for the next draft. Coming up with a smart plan isn't the big challenge. Exquisitely executing the plan while faced with so many changing variables is something to marvel over.

You can't protect yourself against community or personal judgments that result from issues that happened in the past and brought up in the present. People can believe whatever they want to believe. Fighting against meritless views is not only exhausting but counter productive. You are keeping the issue alive. Your best defense of having the past not overwhelm the present is to conduct yourself in a respectable and honorable manner and hopefully over time your behavior will speak for itself. As it has with him, a person who has lived an exemplary life from that early period of an accusation to now. Because of the way he has conducted himself since I have no problem giving him the benefit of the doubt. This is a case where the system worked. Maybe not perfectly but reasonably well. The charges were dropped. Was it fair to bring up the issue nearly a quarter century later? I can't say it was fair but I can't say that it is unfair to bring up an issue that actually happened (court proceeding) to a public figure.

If you objectively assess the Sabre roster last year and compare it to serious playoff teams this team is from an overall standpoint bereft of talent in comparison. When your big deals turn out to be modest in impact it reverberates throughout the roster. My belief is that there is not only no quick fix but resorting to such an expedient approach for the sake of respectability will only stall the movement forward to being a serious team. There is talent in the pipeline. Let it develop and then bring them in when they are ready. With respect to Bogo I'm not giving up on him. As I have said in other posts he needs to be less of a guerrilla player with a muscular game and become more of a finesse and skater and puck moving player. His talents very much mesh with the type of defense that Housely wants to run. I'm also not giving up on Nylander because he is still very young. If he doesn't develop that will be a major setback. I'm not optimistic about his prospects.

Where did you get the statistic that 99% of statistics are made up? Did you just make that up?

I'm in the same vicinity as you are but with some differences. Our receiving corps is in general from a league standpoint mediocre at best. I believe a healthy Benjamin playing with another functional veteran receiver will make this unit better than it was last year. I am not giving up on Zay. I still believe that he can be solid. He should be healthy and motivated entering this season. His production in college was too good for him to completely fall off the cliff entering the next season. I'm not saying this to purposely antagonize you but I consider McCarron an upgrade over TT because I believe that he can run a pro offense that includes progressions and rhythm throws. That in itself should benefit the receivers. My concern is the same as it is for most others i.e. the OL. The Incognito loss is more damaging than the Eric Wood loss. The ability of McCarron to make quick reads and throws should help out the OL in pass protection. I see the rebuild moving forward but I don't consider this a playoff team. It's not how Allen comes along this upcoming season but how he progresses into his second and third year.