That Aud Smell

MIKE PECA SMEHLIK ZHITNIK! Can never resist trotting that one out.

Quinton Jefferson too. Hopefully, those guys can each play a limited # of effective snaps and give us some solid beef in the middle.

Fair. I've decried them here as well. But, lord this group tests my patience and better angels. The juxtaposition of Lindy's "you know what? eff the 'good things' we've done" with Tage's and Power's "ya know - we've done some good things" is striking. When it comes to Gen Z, there are, imo, cultural tenets holding that it's a bad idea (or even verboten) to focus on anything negative and that, if you want improved performance or better results, you must instead encourage things that are being done well. In fairness to the Gen Z'ers, this is as much (more) their parents' fault as it is theirs. My wife works at a private high school. She's often reluctant to drop a failing grade on a kid or issue a detention slip because she knows there's a good chance those negative consequences are going to mean hours of dealing with the kid's parents (and, in turn, with her school leadership who may or may not have her back because, y'know ... they need enrollment).

Gen Z slang. Thus, Power's and Thompson's quotes of "we've done some good things" is [are] giving Gen Z ... but not in a good way.

the kids don't want it. ... they don't hate to lose.

It's giving Gen Z, and not in a good way.

there's a covenant here at the office about people jumping into a nearby body of water (not lake erie) if the sabres manage a 5-game winning streak. the deal may need to be lowered to 4 to have any meaning at all.

This is getting tragic, and may eventually be comical (comedy = tragedy + time). Here's a snippet from Lysowski's piece on the Sabres being worse statistically - in almost every measurable way - than they were this time last season. I think I'm getting more "out there" than @Stoner when it comes to the Sabres being cosmically misaligned, etc. +++ “Not accepting that’s good enough,” Ruff said, describing how he is pushing his team to play its best for an entire game. “Not accepting that we’ve done a lot of good things. We’ve got to win games. That’s the key. Raise the standard, raise the expectation." .... “We’ve done a lot of good things,” Sabres center Tage Thompson said.

I think about this a lot. And when I do, I also think of Adams' career progress following his retirement as a player. In 2009, he retires to become a player agent. In August 2011, a few short months after the Pegulas became owners, he became an assistant coach for the Sabres. How'd THAT come to pass, by the way? How'd he so readily worm his way into the Pegulas' confidence? Did he know that Terry loved expensive red wine? Less than 2 years later, he's fired in the wake of Rolston taking over. But fear not! The Pegulas find a soft landing spot for him at Harborcenter, where he works for 6 years before being brought back into the Sabres organization as the Pegulas' mole in 2019. Less than a year later, he's appointed the team's GM. I don't have the research to back it up, but fuggit. He is, I would venture, the most unqualified GM in Sabres' history and likely in NHL history. When I've sounded off to this effect in the past, there are some who've observed "well, he's had the job for 5 years, so he's no longer totally unqualified." To that, I say horse feathers. His results speak for themselves. He got all bricked up when a young team had an outlier of a year and so he started handing out long-term deals like they were penny candy. The picture of Thompson and a concave-chested Cozens on some Caribbean beach followed. And here we are. The Sabres once had a rotten core. Now they have a fraudulent one. Papier-mâché. Firmly poke the team's exterior and you'll get little more than a cloud of dust and your finger probing a barren cavity. And don't dive in, baby. They're just a puddle.

Absolutely. DC is lousy with them.

There is no end to #SomeSuffering No end. Thanks for coming back for an emeritus farewell, Lindy. I'll always be fond of you. I've already written off the season. If this team were to somehow string together a 6 or 7 game winning streak within the next few weeks, I'd tune back in. Barring that, I'm done. I don't imagine that Pegula will fire Adams. The Seth Appert succession plan must be permitted to come to fruition.

I think this is right. Also, if the refs on the field had managed to rule it a fumble in real time, there would be no TD signal, no whistles. Then the refs would be standing around, conspicuously, as the ball skittered to a stop in the end zone. I think players on the field would pick up on that and pounce. If they didn't, the refs would give it a few beats and then blow the play dead -- returning the ball to the team that fumbled it.

The booth ruled it a fumble. The refs on the field called it a touchdown. I thought I resolved the confusion? Maybe not.

Further clarity? I think @K-9 was saying to me: Nothing would have happened on the field because the signal for TD was made - play's over. My question was more directed to what the replay booth would have done.

Anyway, it seems there were still two outcomes possible: Ball rolls out of bounds after the play's been called dead (tuddy) and Texans get ball at 20, or ball comes to rest in end zone after the play's been called dead (tuddy) and Jets get ball at ~1. Nobody was ever getting an opportunity to fall on that ball (whistle blown) and the refs would not have been able to pick up the ball in error as it lay in the end zone (rather, they signaled a TD in error).

Ah. Wait. ... It's been a long week. Touchdown signaled on the field. Play's dead at that time. FAHK. I have sleep to catch up on. Can anyone tell?

Here's what I was talking about. My question was And this answer came (especially the bolded). I thought K-9 missed the thrust of my question - hence my "huh?" The other answers upthread confirmed that something would have happened if, instead of rolling out of the end zone, the ball had laid still in the end zone and then been picked up (in error) by the refs. That is: Rather than the Texans getting the ball on the 20, the Jets would have had it on the ~1. Am I missing something? Nope. I'm asking: What if, instead of rolling out of the end zone, that ball had come to rest in the end zone, and was then picked up (in error (?)) by the refs. I'm given to understand that the ruling would have been different than what actually happened last night.

Huh? I think the question was answered upthread. The Texans got the ball on their own 20 because the ball rolled - slowly rolled - out of the back of the end zone. My question was: What if the ball had not rolled out of the end zone? What would replay have done then if the refs had picked up a live ball (thinking it was dead)? I think it must be right that the Jets would have been given the ball at the ~1 (or half) yard line. Or, as it happened, if the refs picked it up and blew the play dead before anyone bothered to recover it (not that anyone was bothering to do so). I imagine defensive coaches are drilling their players: If the ball's loose in the end zone because it was dropped by a hot dogging player, fall on it.

Thanks. Is that just a(n educated) guess? If you're stating it as fact: How do you know that?

If the ball came to rest within the end zone, the refs would have picked it up and the play would have been dead. What's the outcome there? A replay of the down?

My question - and I have not been able to get an answer for it - is: What would have happened if that ball had not rolled out of the end zone?

Is there a resource that is tracking the proverbial "man games lost" for all NFL teams this season? I could not find one. The Bills have had some injuries, to be sure. Bernard wound up being not as bad as first feared. Milano is assuredly their biggest loss. Credit to the coaching staff for coaching up and around the loss of such a special player. Crucially, the Bills have remained quite healthy at the game's most important positions. I won't name them for fear of invoking the wrath of the gods.

There's some adjusted for inflation talk in this calculator's offering. I don't follow it. I wish I could find the one that I originally used. Oop - here's the one I first used. https://www.officialdata.org/us/stocks/s-p-500/2011?amount=189000000&endYear=2024

I can't readily find the one I used, but this one looks similar and, I think, yields the same result: Just over $1B. https://ofdollarsanddata.com/sp500-calculator/ Lol - "just over" $1B means that the number includes $29MM.