PalmTreeMafia

I'm at the point now where I can no longer watch another Buffalo Bills game that involves Rex Ryan as the head coach and Tyrod Taylor as the starting quarterback. Anyone else at the same point? It's just so unbelievable and so sad at what has happened to this franchise.

Those last two drives before halftime show why the Raiders are a playoff team and the Bills are not. Rex Ryan is an absolute garbage head coach. Can't wait until that fat piece of and his fat brother are back on the unemployment line.

Here's my update to the full roster injury report: 1. Lehner (hip) - early December return 2. Kulikov (back) - early December return 3. Bogosian (knee) - middle December return 4. Deslauriers (knee) - middle December return 5. Ennis (groin) - early January return 6. Fasching (groin) - no clue...I think he's playing in Rochester now? 7. McCormick (blood clot) - nah, he ain't never coming back These returns are my own best estimates, so feel free to correct as we learn more.

Great site for all you playoff Pollyannas: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/buffalo-bills-nfl-playoff-picture.html A brief summary: if the Bills go 11-5, they're in. If they go 9-7, they're pretty much out. If they go 10-6 with the 1 loss to either Jags or Steelers or Browns or Jets, they still have about a 75% of making it. If they go 10-6 with the loss to either the Raiders or Dolphins, then their playoff chances drop down to essentially a 50% coin flip.

Excellent post. All I'll add is that the Sabres are now 1 Wednesday night home win away from averaging 1 point per game this season. This 1 ppg pace is what many were claiming to be content with until Eichel returns.

I think the full roster injury report goes something like this: 1. O'Reilly - back any day now 2. Kulikov - back any day now 3. Eichel - middle December return 4. Bogosian - late December return 5. Ennis - early January return 6. Deslauriers - middle January return These returns are my own estimates based on what I've been able to gather from "The Google."

I just took their annual salaries from nhlnumbers.com, though I understand there is a difference between cap hits and salaries.

Free agency will be a viable option since the annual salaries of both Gilmore ($10+ million) and Aaron Williams (~$6 million) will be off the books. We'll also need a starting-caliber WR and RT in addition to re-signing Zach Brown. A competent GM should be able to do all of this in one off-season.

But Bogosian's career history shows that he misses more games per year than Myers. On top of that, he makes about $1.5-3 million less per year over the length of his contract than Bogo. I want to like him, but the dude needs to stay healthy and play like a top-2 defenseman in order to justify that contract.

Well I at least think he 100% nailed the protected player list. And whether Las Vegas would prefer Moulson or Gorges over Ullmark depends greatly on what else is out there for Las Vegas to take during the expansion draft. I don't personally think Ullmark will amount to anything special, so I won't cry if we lose any of Ullmark, Gorges, Moulson, Deslauriers, or Carrier. But I hope Las Vegas ends up picking Moulson since we could really use his $5 million salary instead for Eichel and Reinhart in 2 years.

For what it's worth, I think I found the easiest path to victory for Trump: hold all of the 2012 Romney states (including North Carolina) and then flip Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and the 1 rural Congressional district of Maine. This would give him a 270-268 electoral college victory, and he wouldn't even need to win Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania.

What I found after scanning the current 53-man roster (excluding IR/practice squad/suspension lists): 20 are new to the team 12 came to the Bills last year for Rex's first season as head coach 15 came to the Bills during the 2013-14 Marrone era 6 were already on the team by 2012 before Marrone arrived So while the 16-year playoff drought and that "here we go again" feeling certainly hangs over us fans, I wonder how much the so-called "culture of losing" actually still exists within the Buffalo Bills franchise? The lame duck Ralph Wilson ownership era is over. Brandon is back doing what he's good at instead of making football decisions. I'd argue that the team has been steadily improving since Whaley arrived in early 2010 and especially since he took over following the 2013 draft. 2014-15 were the franchise's first consecutive non-losing seasons since 1998-2000. By mid-season when Dareus and Shaq Lawson arrive, this team could be as strong as they've ever been in the 21st century so long as they can stay reasonably healthy.

I think 9 games should be the minimal expectation for the vast majority of first round draft picks. It's good for young, highly competitive athletes to at least get a taste of what the pro level is like in terms of speed, strength, skills, conditioning, etc...

Oh for 's sake...... Look, I apologize over my flippant "religion of peace" comment on Islam Thursday night. It wasn't presented in a way that would lead into any reasonable discourse here, so in retrospect I should never have posted it. I had just seen the news of the Nice massacre. I was angry. I posted. Next time I will think before posting. And I definitely don't want anyone here to leave this message board because of it. I'm not even going to post in this thread anymore after this, so please don't change your SabreSpace habits because of me. I'm predominantly a lurker here, anyway, stopping in on occasion to get my Sabres news fix. However, I do find it interesting that I'm being singled out today as some lone bad apple, when many others here have posted equally caustic (or worse) comments on a variety of topics and often don't even get called out on it like this. And to the subject at hand, my "spidey sense" is telling me that no one is up for another internet polemic on Islam. So I won't delve too far into this, but I do think it's a bit ridiculous how everyone is reasonably comfortable in discussing all of the other possible (and highly plausible, of course) causes of Islamic terrorism (socioeconomics, Middle East foreign policy, entrenched cultural/tribal mores, mental illness, easy access to guns, etc.) but then suddenly turn super indignant about that one obvious commonality behind every act of Islamic terrorism. So I will just say only once more - in as civil a manner as possible - that I strongly disagree that these acts of terrorism have nothing to do with the religion of Islam. I look at the collective hadith of the supposed one true final prophet Muhammad and all the people he had killed for simply not choosing to believe in him, I look at the countless vituperative passages in the Quran directed toward women and gays and apostates, I look at the various interpretations of Sharia Law in Muslim countries......and then I turn around to see the highly disturbing 2013 Pew poll results in supposedly moderate Muslim countries, the general lack of respect that Muslim immigrants have for the native peoples of Europe and their customs, the Cologne News Year's Eve assaults and Rotherham sex scandal and Syrian rapefugees in Sweden, the hundreds of Sharia courts and police "no-go" zones throughout Europe, the fatwahs throughout the world ordered against moderate Muslims or atheists critical of Islam, the litany of world-wide terrorist attacks in the name of Islam like we've seen from France's Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan and Nice attacks......and I can't help but notice some sort of cause-and-effect relationship. Now of course the relationship is a bit more nuanced than what I just implied, and of course other religions have their inherent flaws, and of course atheism doesn't necessarily lead to an idyllic world of peace and rainbow-shitting unicorns, but come on now... Liberals, conservatives, independents, Muslims, Christians, atheists, and everyone else needs to be able to have an honest debate about this. It's not looking like the debate will be resolved here at SabreSpace, but it needs to happen somewhere soon in the West before things get much, much worse (i.e., a Trump election victory). The first step is a willingness to broach this subject without getting all butt-hurt and menstrual about it. For the sake of moderate Muslims, in particular, who far and away suffer the most from radical Islam. Damn it, and I only came here to check out the latest Vesey rumor...I had figured you all would be discussing the Turkey coup right about now.

Well okay, to be honest I don't care about this particular topic enough to continue debating :). I will assume you are right because I haven't checked poll details much since Indiana primary night. All I'll say in my defense, though, is that I distinctly remember reading somewhere that Hillary's poll numbers in a head-to-head vs. Trump have been dropping steadily since April and that they took a somewhat more precipitous fall at a polling increment done right after the FBI's conclusion (but before Dallas). But maybe that was just one poll; lots of different polls are taken at lots of different time increments. I'll state this again, however: polls don't mean anything at all to me until the day after the first presidential debate. I've watched both Hillary and Trump debate. Hillary is robotic but nevertheless effective and is able to stay on point. Trump looks absolutely terrible to me, resorting to childish one-liner attacks and non sequitur boasts. Having said that, I think a lot of you here are also greatly underestimating the anti-establishment "trump" card he has over Hillary. If Trump is able to somehow articulate in the debates how he will rectify the one-sided trade deals and the foreign policy blunders of the past two decades from the corrupt entrenched establishment (all of which Hillary is unavoidably linked to in some way, such as NAFTA, TPP, Iraq War, etc...), he can certainly win this thing in November despite the "female" card and the initial electoral college advantage that Hillary has. All he needs are enough of the blue collar white male Democrats, social conservatives, and libertarian-inclined independents to come out to vote for him. We've already seen scores of working class Midwest Dems cross over parties during the primaries. By the end of next week, we might see a lot of the social conservatives join Trump because of Pence and because of all that "feel-good" convention unity. And those stubborn independents who might otherwise maybe go third-party? That's all up to Trump during the debates.

Of course his recent bump in the polls was partly due to Dallas (and soon Nice), but another part of it came from the Clinton e-mail scandal decision. That was yet another example of the "corrupt establishment" compromising the system in order to maintain power and get their way again. Also, you can't deny that the core majority of his poll support has been due to his anti-establishment image. It's what carried him through the primaries.

I strongly disagree. Trade, class warfare, and immigration are central to the anti-establishment sentiment that is tearing the EU apart. Granted, they have the added issue of national sovereignty that we're not really dealing with here in the US (excluding our NATO and UN commitments), and the fundamentals of the economy are a bit different (we have lower unemployment numbers but overall a worse social welfare safety net), and the nature of the immigration is very distinct (Mexicans vs. Muslims)....but I still feel like the analogy holds. Just look at Brexit or the party platforms of the many European right-wing nationalist parties that are rapidly gaining popularity.

In my opinion, polls don't really begin to matter until September 27, which is the day after the first presidential debate. But the fact that Trump is nearly tied with Clinton, in spite of all his gaffes from the past year and in spite of the fact that Clinton has been doing laps around Trump in terms of campaign spending, is quite telling to me. There's a very powerful anti-establishment movement spreading quickly throughout the West in response to decades of free trade deals and immigration policies that have hurt the middle and working classes. Trump may be a buffoon and a charlatan, but he tapped into a level of anger that is anything but ephemeral. If Trump somehow manages to control himself in the debates and hold his own regarding the political issues, I think he wins the election. But that's a big frigging "if."

That could happen to start the season, but after about a month I predict Moulson gets dropped down to 4th line/healthy scratch. He's Leino 3.0, or Hodgson 2.0, in my eyes.

Anyone know what's up with Legwand? Did he retire? I'd still like him as forward #13-14 on a 1-year contract. Here's my forward lineup (sans Vesey) to start the 2016-17 season: Kane - O'Reilly - Okposo Ennis - Eichel - Reinhart Foligno - Larsson - Gionta Deslauriers - Girgensons - Moulson With Vesey: I'd replace Ennis with him and then switch out Deslauriers for Ennis to create a very intriguing "redemption" energy line. Fasching, Bailey, Baptiste, Carrier, and Nylander should all get call-ups during the season.

Yeah, I think his heart is saying "Boston" even though his brain is saying "Buffalo."

Ban all possession of trucks? Add a French flag overlay to all Facebook profile pics?

Looks like the religion of peace is at it again in France.

Holy sh!tballs what a powerful episode! Cersei :o and Arya :o

At the very least, let's drive up the price of Stamkos on our division competitors (Detroit, Tampa Bay, Toronto). Vesey would be a better fit on our team, anyway.