"Pump the Brakes" Narrative by Reporters and Analysts

[Buffalo Boy]

9 hours ago, WhoTom said:

I haven't pumped the brakes since ABS was invented.

 

I use to clutch the brakes when I switched from my stick to my wife’s automatic......

does that count?

5 hours ago, Albany,n.y. said:

The whole point of being a fan can be summed up in one word: HOPE.  

 

If you don't have hope, either in the present or for the future, then what is the point of being a fan?   I can go through a bad season (or 17) as long as I have cause for hope in the future. 

 

The people who are negative all the time need to find a new hobby where they can be happy, because football isn't working out for them.

 

I remember the last time I felt this hopeful was in 1988, after I saw the direction the team was headed in.  Now I went a little overboard and took a Bills t-shirt and ironed on letters that read "Super Bowl XXIII Champions" & wore it to opening day 9/4/88 vs the Vikings, but I'd rather feel that way than always saying to the Bills you're gonna lose, like Stillwell in A League of Their Own. 

 

So no, I'm not pumping any brakes no matter how much water the negative people try to throw on our road to the Super Bowl.  I believe in Josh Allen as I have early on.  I bought his jersey the day after the Minnesota game because he gives me hope of something special every time he's on the field.  Just like Jim Kelly did back in the late 1980s.   

 

We need a ? emoji added to the list of choices.

After reading this , “ I think it moved”.

Rock On Mr. Albany!!!!!

[tumaro02]

37 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said:

You, personally may not need it. Their duty isn't to tell you what you, personally need to hear. They have a larger audience.

 

And plenty of Bills fans are dreaming 10- 11- 12 and 13-win dreams for this season and thinking it's not just possible but that that's the way it looks.

 

So you feel its their self-appointed duty to be not only writers but the fan base psychologists of the "larger audience" worried that if our hopes are too high in May that we all may be psychologically damaged sometime in October or November if things do not go well? Further we might remember that half a year earlier in May  they can say"see we told you in May to pump those brakes?"  Hmmm. We certainly don't want a yearly repeat of the last 25 years or so then do we? Better we temper our daily joy at the  news for the next 150 days or so until we see what the reality is? Being a fan is all about the daily joy of good news and the daily worry of bad news. So they are just trying to protect us from our feeble larger audience selves then? Nice.

[Jrb1979]

Wh cares how the team looks. Its only practice without pads. Enjoy the summer thats on the way and the Stanley Cup final is going on. Get back to me when they are practicing for real. 

[Thurman#1]

48 minutes ago, Albany,n.y. said:

I don't need their opinions to be "more realistic".  My whole point is the whole reason I'm a fan is to dream the dream.  If it doesn't work out there's always next year.  To start a season as in your word to be more realistic defeats the whole purpose of being a fan unless you have a team like last year where you expect a lousy season due to a lack of talent while in salary cap hell & the dream becomes seeing Josh Allen develop enough to envision the dream next year.  Well, next year is now, I saw enough from Josh where the dream is nothing short of the Super Bowl.  You can be more realistic but then don't expect me to move over & give you a spot on the bandwagon in December.  I got my seat early and I won't be moving over for the converted "realistic" fans.  When the Bills make the Super Bowl either this season or at the latest, next season, I'll be going to the Super Bowl while the realistic fans will not be able to go because they didn't plan ahead.  In the early 1990s I used to tell my late father every year I was making plans to go to the Super Bowl.  His exact words were "be realistic".  Well for 4 straight years not only was my dream realistic, but I went to all 4 of the Bills Super Bowls because I was realistic enough to save up so I could afford to go.  

 

 

Well, fine, if the whole reason you're a fan is to be unrealistic, go do your thing. But you should know from long bitter experience that those who told you to  pump the brakes on your unrealism have been right time after time after time after time. Unrealism is an excellent way to be consistently wrong. If you have no problem with that, and with the crash at the end of the season, that's your business. 

 

And those Super Bowl seasons came in four years when it was not unrealistic to make that call at all. They weren't coming off a six-win season. They'd gone 12-4 in '88. They'd fallen off the year later but by the end of the year Kelly was again healthy and they'd talked about stopping bickering. The preseason take on the '90 Bills was that if they really had stopped bickering they had a tremendous amount of potential. They were a good team, a team that had been in the playoffs two years in a row, a QB going into his fifth year, and Bruce Smith and Cornelius Bennett. In the last three years they were consistently in the top eight or so teams before the season. In the first year probably top 12 or so. 

 

I'm glad you went to the SBs. But this year isn't like 1990. It's not unrealistic every year. It really is this year, though.

 

 

15 minutes ago, tumaro02 said:

So you feel its their self-appointed duty to be not only writers but the fan base psychologists of the "larger audience" worried that if our hopes are too high in May that we all may be psychologically damaged sometime in October or November if things do not go well? Further we might remember that half a year earlier in May  they can say"see we told you in May to pump those brakes?"  Hmmm. We certainly don't want a yearly repeat of the last 25 years or so then do we? Better we temper our daily joy at the  news for the next 150 days or so until we see what the reality is? Being a fan is all about the daily joy of good news and the daily worry of bad news. So they are just trying to protect us from our feeble larger audience selves then? Nice.

 

 

So you feel it's your self-appointed duty to tell me why I'm wrong. 

 

Equally nice.

 

As I've said, if you want to be unrealistic, that's your choice. But don't feel it's everyone's duty not to tell you you're sipping Kool-Aid, though most do it in nicer ways.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Thurman#1

[John from Riverside]

21 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Well, fine, if the whole reason you're a fan is to be unrealistic, go do your thing. But you should know from long bitter experience that those who told you to  pump the brakes on your unrealism have been right time after time after time after time. Unrealism is an excellent way to be consistently wrong. If you have no problem with that, and with the crash at the end of the season, that's your business. 

 

And those Super Bowl seasons came in four years when it was not unrealistic to make that call at all. They weren't coming off a six-win season. They'd gone 12-4 in '88. They'd fallen off the year later but by the end of the year Kelly was again healthy and they'd talked about stopping bickering. The preseason take on the '90 Bills was that if they really had stopped bickering they had a tremendous amount of potential. They were a good team, a team that had been in the playoffs two years in a row, a QB going into his fifth year, and Bruce Smith and Cornelius Bennett. In the last three years they were consistently in the top eight or so teams before the season. In the first year probably top 12 or so. 

 

I'm glad you went to the SBs. But this year isn't like 1990. It's not unrealistic every year. It really is this year, though.

 

 

 

 

So you feel it's your self-appointed duty to tell me why I'm wrong. 

 

Equally nice.

 

As I've said, if you want to be unrealistic, that's your choice. But don't feel it's everyone's duty not to tell you you're sipping Kool-Aid, though most do it in nicer ways.

Perfectly ok to be skeptic.....its not like we are coming off a winning season

 

I will say that it will suprise if they DONT have a winning season this next year for multiple reasons but that is just me.

[tumaro02]

39 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said:

As I've said, if you want to be unrealistic, that's your choice. But don't feel it's everyone's duty not to tell you you're sipping Kool-Aid, though most do it in nicer ways.

Its funny, I never said anything about my expectations of how the team will do this year. I also did not say you were wrong. The argument is not at all about realistic or unrealistic expectations. Its about writers who feel the need to put the disclaimers in every article. There should be a universal disclaimer that IOM (Its only May), TANP (There are no pads), IOOTA, (Its only OTAs), etc. or maybe for you STKAWC (Sip the Kool-aid with caution). At least then they do not appear condescending or CYA ing on every bit of "good" news that comes out of One Bills Drive. Tell us what you see and what you think those implications are and we will determine the relevancy of that reporting to the greater goal of assessing where our team is based on years of fandom experience for ourselves.

[JoPar_v2]

Another s*** on the media thread. How helpful?

 

even the one OP that started a thread praising a member of the media on here can’t even bother to get that media member’s name right. Pathetic really. 

5 minutes ago, tumaro02 said:

Its funny, I never said anything about my expectations of how the team will do this year. I also did not say you were wrong. The argument is not at all about realistic or unrealistic expectations. Its about writers who feel the need to put the disclaimers in every article. There should be a universal disclaimer that IOM (Its only May), TANP (There are no pads), IOOTA, (Its only OTAs), etc. or maybe for you STKAWC (Sip the Kool-aid with caution). At least then they do not appear condescending or CYA ing on every bit of "good" news that comes out of One Bills Drive. Tell us what you see and what you think those implications are and we will determine the relevancy of that reporting to the greater goal of assessing where our team is based on years of fandom experience for ourselves.

 

All those disclaimers you take umbrage to are perfectly valid in May/June. Calm down.

[Thurman#1]

8 hours ago, tumaro02 said:

Its funny, I never said anything about my expectations of how the team will do this year. I also did not say you were wrong. The argument is not at all about realistic or unrealistic expectations. Its about writers who feel the need to put the disclaimers in every article. There should be a universal disclaimer that IOM (Its only May), TANP (There are no pads), IOOTA, (Its only OTAs), etc. or maybe for you STKAWC (Sip the Kool-aid with caution). At least then they do not appear condescending or CYA ing on every bit of "good" news that comes out of One Bills Drive. Tell us what you see and what you think those implications are and we will determine the relevancy of that reporting to the greater goal of assessing where our team is based on years of fandom experience for ourselves.

 

 

You say they ought to tell what they see and the implications. They did. You got irritated.

 

The reporters see pretty clearly that the implications of what they see ... include Bills fans going nuts with their expectations.

 

It's no coincidence that all this fan irritation comes when the media says something fans see as negative about the Bills. You never see threads going "Damn those reporters and their moronic opinions ... for example, here's one by Hank Hacksworth predicting that this front office is making smart decisions and moving the team in the right direction." Plenty of reporters have said stuff like that at various times. Somehow no fans get hacked off at those articles. 

[tumaro02]

15 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said:

You say they ought to tell what they see and the implications. They did. You got irritated.

Boy you sure like missing the point. A reporter is just that. Report what you see. If you are a reporter/commentator then report what you see and comment on what YOU think it means. If you are not a "fan base psychologist" then don't tell others what to think ala "pump the brakes" unless you think you are superior in sports knowledge or in Bills lore (as I suspect you might) speaking to a dumb fan base that doesn't know its May, that pads are not on, that its OTAs and that the season is 100 days away...in that case just wail away and expose your narrative to the scrutiny of many Bills fans who know what it all means. 

[mrags]

It’s a product of our pussified society these days  If they don’t put that in there, some snowflake somewhere will want to jump off a bridge or worse, sue them for wrongful information. 

[tumaro02]

9 hours ago, JoPar_v2 said:

All those disclaimers you take umbrage to are perfectly valid in May/June. Calm down.

Disclaimers are fine especially if as a reporter you are in CYA mode from readers who will remind you if you don't remind them. Reminding readers that "its only May" is fine if you think your readers don't know that or its implications. When you TELL your readers to "pump the brakes" that is not a reminder of what part of the preseason we are in... that is talking down to the fan base who want to be excited about the team's potential and who will never remember how the team looked in May when the "truth" reveals itself in October/November. Telling a fan base base to be less excited at the possibilities because they may be psychologically harmed when the truth hits 6 months from now is.. is.. is.. laughable?, ludicrous? self serving?... probably the latter.

[K-9]

Screw pumping the brakes. If you can't drive like Dareus on a synthetic chronic high before training camp, when can you?

[Phil The Thrill]

22 hours ago, Boatdrinks said:

Media coverage these days = two things: those with “ hot takes” and those who are terrified to be wrong about anything. 

 

There’s a lot of reporters hedging their bets, so they can go back and say “I told you so”

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

Just now, Phil The Thrill said:

 

There’s a lot of reporters hedging their bets, so they can go back and say “I told you so”

 

 

...if you go back to 2004 with Moo's club, all they had to do was beat the Steelers 3rd string to "break the schneid" and make the playoffs at 10-6....they bombed out at 9-7.....BUT...media tabbed them as "up and coming for 2005 and perhaps even a SB contender"....and they BOMBED at 5-11 so there was egg on many faces....it was briefly erased when the Lions went oh fer 16, but some of the egg towards Bflo still remains..........

[mob16151]

21 hours ago, McNubbins said:

We're talking about PRACTICE.  Not the game, practice.  I tend to agree that we all need to pump the brakes a bit.

Alright Allen  lol

[Putin]

On 6/1/2019 at 3:03 PM, McNubbins said:

We're talking about PRACTICE.  Not the game, practice.  I tend to agree that we all need to pump the brakes a bit.

Pumping the brakes for what ? 

What are we talking here Super Bowl ? 

Most ( 95% of us ) are exited and hopping we can get in the playoffs as a WILD CARD , nobody is saying anything about winning the division, home field advantage, and winning the Super Bowl , 

Every year we hope that this is the year we make the playoffs except THIS year( IMO)  we may actually have a legitimate QB and with the pieces that been added on offenses that MAY actually get us there , Pretty sure everyone knows that  its only  OTA’s but  I’m more then happy to hear how Allen is progressing as to otherwise 

I’m pumping no brakes on a hope that we can make the playoffs this year , I actually would be pretty disappointed if we didn’t, 

Go Bills baby !!!!

 

Edited June 2, 2019 by Putin

[Ol Dirty B]

Another thread where we know more than the media... nice.