Eleven

I'm not doing this today.

I'll admit I'm pretty close to crying.

Coles notes? How freaking Canadian are you? Anyway: Dear Buffalo, I am going to tell you a bit about our group. But first, I want to talk about Ryan Miller. I knew about him before this month, of course. I knew he was loved here in Buffalo, so much so that the team was retiring his number. We were even able to meet him when we were in Vancouver earlier this season. You could tell then that he was a good person. I thought I understood his place here. But I didn't really - not until two weeks ago. The connection he shares with the people in this city is something you have to feel to understand. We were all in awe watching his ceremony from the bench, seeing the mutual love shared between him and the crowd. It was RJ Night all over again. Now when I see Ryan Miller, I am star-struck. We spent time after the game talking to Ryan and the other alumni who were there that night. They spoke about how it felt like there was nothing separating the ice from the stands during their playoff runs. The players and the fans were one, all working toward the same goal. I speak for myself and my teammates when I say this: Buffalo, we are starting to feel it. It's hard to describe what it feels like when KeyBank Center is full. I get chills thinking about the roar of the crowd every time we have a scoring chance. Or a big hit. Or a successful penalty kill. Honestly, the whole night feels like a power play. It's like we are 19,090 strong - 20 of us in uniform, the rest of us in the stands. Together we are going to break the other team mentally. That's what it feels like. We love that feeling. There are two things you need to know about our group. We believe in what we have here, and there is nowhere else we would rather be. So, when someone who means so much to this community is being honored, or when our city is recovering from a storm, you should know we take it personally. We know we have a chance to send every person home with a memory they will never forget. How could we not give our best? Those are the nights we have dreamt of these past two years. Tommer, Mittsy, Cozey, Joki, Sammy, Brys, Aspy, Vic - so many of us have grown up here. We've gone to Bills games together and talked about creating a similar atmosphere downtown. It's so rewarding to see it happening. We have a sign in our locker room that says, "Earn It." We see it before every game and every practice. That's been the message all along from Kevyn and Donny and Okie, that we are going to earn the trust of this community by how we work to get better every day. Now we're almost at the All-Star break, and we're in the race. We all know where we are in the standings and what these games mean. But the only way we can reach our goal is by keeping the same mindset. Just keep getting better, one day at a time. Earn it. We'll see where it takes us, but we are excited to be on this journey together. I am so proud to play here - to call the guys in this room my brothers, and to call this city home. Thank you for a special first half. I'll see you on Wednesday. Go Sabres.

Hard work beats drinking hard when drinking doesn't work talent. --Stetson Bennett.

Now THAT is a lose-lose in my mind.

I don't want him at all at his cap hit. That is value subtracted, not added.

But the overall vibe is that she's dippy and wants miso soup for dinner. Or that she's really happy that her sister got her birthday card. Or that she's concerned about her uncle George's health. Seriously, it's less than two seconds. WTF is the overall vibe?

That's pretty much it. Davis is NOT to Diggs as Lofton was to Reed. That guy might be on the roster, might not, and the Bills might not have the chance to draft him, because other positions (O line) are more troubling.

I was hoping we'd just ignore this.

Come on PA. We've had threads like this much earlier in the season before. Thing is, she is CLEARLY NOT SAYING "what a dork." This is why I don't understand memes. You could put "thanks for the flowers" or "go Sabres" or "***** your mother" under that and it would make exactly as much sense.

He's not a legit 2. He proved that all season long.

I'll handle this, @That Aud Smell. Diggs > Higgins. This cannot be seriously debated. No. No, and I mean it. Don't try. Stop. Also Mahomes and Allen are basically equal and both are better than Burrow. The rest of the inky analysis I agree with.

I'm trying to think of how this would have been done, and the best I can come up with is: --Ted gets CBC broadcast at his home, either cable or over-the-air. --Ted calls the game by phone. --Local channel delays its own broadcast to sync w/ Ted's call. @SwampD does this make any sense w/ 1977 technology?

IIRC he had a TV feed (it was televised) and was calling the game by phone.

Washington lost. 3 games in hand now.

So is 21, who was just standing there in the white paint, leaving little space for his teammate 58 to run into. Saw the replay a few times.

Ryan Miller is reading Camus, and the rest of the guys are heavily invested in a drama involving a Big Red Dog.

Frazier was timid. Yessir. I'm moving on. I'll catch the score later tonight.

It's almost like we need a supervisor of football operations above Beane, and then some sort of czar of football stuff above that person, and, well, it's turtles all the way UP.

The "top all-time Vegas goalie masks?" Maybe wait until you're old enough for first grade before we start discussing "all-time" anything.

He worked hard to get it, too.

This is the information I based my opinion on.

Just do 60 and it's a tie like we used to see and I'm fine. A 3-1-0 point system like soccer fixes all of it during the regular season, frankly.

From what I saw, which was all of the first and second, and half of the third, you are absolutely right. First period, he was ON and needed to be because the guys in front of him were asleep.