Buffalo Bills 2024 Thread

[JohnC]

3 hours ago, SwampD said:

Terry and Josh got the two game balls yesterday.

I'm happy that the owner got a game ball. He deserves it for the prudent way he has presided over the organization. If he can follow the same ownership approach for his hockey franchise, then good things will follow. I don't believe that he meddles in the hockey operation as much as many others do. However, I do believe he hired the wrong GM to oversee his franchise.  

[Stoner]

Cliff Benson sighting. Hopefully he's in town helping Terry get out of the mess he got his friend in.

[JohnC]

1 minute ago, Stoner said:

Cliff Benson sighting. Hopefully he's in town helping Terry get out of the mess he got his friend in.

What are you talking about?

[Pimlach]

23 minutes ago, JohnC said:

You are comparing the NHL to the NFL. Why?

 

Because this entire conversation started with the question "why is Pegula so successful in football and so unsuccessful with hockey".   

 

[Stoner]

11 minutes ago, JohnC said:

What are you talking about?

Ask @Doohicksie.

[JohnC]

Just now, Stoner said:

Ask @Doohicksie.

Forget it. 

[JohnC]

5 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

Because this entire conversation started with the question "why is Pegula so successful in football and so unsuccessful with hockey".   

 

It's been answered by many here. Hire the right people and then let them do their jobs. It's an axiom that applies to most executive jobs. 

[SwampD]

36 minutes ago, JohnC said:

I'm happy that the owner got a game ball. He deserves it for the prudent way he has presided over the organization. If he can follow the same ownership approach for his hockey franchise, then good things will follow. I don't believe that he meddles in the hockey operation as much as many others do. However, I do believe he hired the wrong GM to oversee his franchise.  

So, you don’t believe what they themselves tell us?

And I don’t want Terry anywhere near the Bills locker room.

[Stoner]

13 minutes ago, JohnC said:

Forget it. 

Cliff Benson was Terry's accountant. As the story goes he convinced Terry to buy the Sabres after Terry cashed in his oil and gas holdings in 2010.

[Stoner]

Oops.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2014/12/08/Franchises/Pegulas-One-Buffalo.aspx

"When Pegula sold some of his company’s valuable drilling rights to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion in May 2010, he began speaking with Benson, a Pittsburgh attorney and CPA, about what he might do next. Benson suggested he read the book “Halftime,” which tackles precisely that question, offering suggestions of how to parlay success into fulfillment.

Pegula came back with a suggestion for a second act that his friend wasn’t expecting. He wanted to buy the Sabres. Benson tried to talk him out of it, suggesting that if he wanted to buy a hockey team, he look for one in a more palatable market. He worried that in only a few years, Pegula would regret the purchase; that he’d find out that sports ownership wasn’t all it was cracked up to be; that missing the playoffs for years in a row felt far worse than drilling in the wrong spot.

“You’ve got more money than you can ever spend,” Benson told him. “What we don’t want to do is wake up one morning and look at this with regrets.”

But Pegula wouldn’t hear of it. He’d become a rabid hockey fan while living in Buffalo back in the 1980s, holding season tickets for 18 years. Kim Pegula was raised about 90 minutes east of Buffalo, in a small town where her parents still reside. Pegula wanted an NHL team, and it had to be the Sabres, who had delivered plenty of wins over the years but had struggled for more than a decade.

“That’s where I want to go,” Pegula said. “I want to help Buffalo.”

[Doohicksie]

39 minutes ago, Stoner said:

Ask @Doohicksie.

As per usual, no clue what you're talking about.

[shrader]

So much for enjoying a fun win

[JohnC]

1 hour ago, SwampD said:

So, you don’t believe what they themselves tell us?

And I don’t want Terry anywhere near the Bills locker room.

There is no question that TP has meddled in the hockey operation. It's well chronicled that when he first bought the team he was behind a number of transactions. The results were to put it gently not good. I don't believe that is the case now. My sense is that the GM is making the hockey decisions and he is required to do so within the budget that the owner sets for him. If anything, the owner seems to be too disengaged to the point that he is disinterested in this franchise. 

The owner bought the football team and kept it in the region. He's the owner and goes wherever he wants to go. You may not want to acknowledge it but his football franchise is well run and successful. I'm not complaining about that. 

[SwampD]

1 hour ago, JohnC said:

There is no question that TP has meddled in the hockey operation. It's well chronicled that when he first bought the team he was behind a number of transactions. The results were to put it gently not good. I don't believe that is the case now. My sense is that the GM is making the hockey decisions and he is required to do so within the budget that the owner sets for him. If anything, the owner seems to be too disengaged to the point that he is disinterested in this franchise. 

The owner bought the football team and kept it in the region. He's the owner and goes wherever he wants to go. You may not want to acknowledge it but his football franchise is well run and successful. I'm not complaining about that. 

By Kevyn’s own admission, they talk every single day. They show him in every meeting with Adams. You are delusional if you think that he is not involved in every aspect of the roster. Including the 10MM in cap space. Or in years past, the retired players on the roster in order to take advantage of profit sharing.

Is there a better thread to have this discussion?

[That Aud Smell]

11 hours ago, Stoner said:

Cliff Benson sighting. Hopefully he's in town helping Terry get out of the mess he got his friend in.

Where'd you see Cliff? Was he in the locker room?

[JohnC]

8 hours ago, SwampD said:

By Kevyn’s own admission, they talk every single day. They show him in every meeting with Adams. You are delusional if you think that he is not involved in every aspect of the roster. Including the 10MM in cap space. Or in years past, the retired players on the roster in order to take advantage of profit sharing.

 

So what! Our GM talks to him on a daily basis. There's nothing wrong with that. Our owner knows little about the players in the league. It's the GM who is having the trade discussions with the other GMs about possible trades. It's the GM who ultimately makes the roster decisions and determines how it is constructed. There's no question that the GM tells the owner what he is thinking and what he wants to do. Apparently, you disagree, but for me it is the befuddled GM who has made the hockey decisions that kept this franchise in hockey irrelevancy during his mediocre tenure.

The unwise owner hired a novice for a critical job that no other owner in the league would even entertain for an interview. That's the central point. With the Bills, he belatedly hired a quality coach and GM. The outcome has been terrific. Until he gets the right man at the helm of the hockey operation, this irrelevant franchise will continue to struggle.

I agree with you that the owner's lower cap limit has handcuffed the hockey operations. His "penny" wise and "dollar" foolish has ended up hurting his revenue tally. How smart is that?  Don't misinterpret my judgment on this owner. He's clueless about the league and what it takes to be a success in such a competitive endeavor. There's plenty to criticize here. It's like shooting at fish in a barrel. 

[shrader]

They knocked the 49ers second RB out for the year too.  The hits just keep coming for that team.

[LTS]

20 hours ago, Demoted said:

Let's keep this thread on the Bills.

 

 

 

 

I heard he's over rated though. 🙂

17 hours ago, Demoted said:

 

 

That clip is the perfect embodiment of Josh Allen.  He's a big kid playing football. He's goofy as hell but when it's time to go out and play he plays his butt off and puts his body on the line for his team.

I can understand why players talk about him being a great leader.

[That Aud Smell]

2 hours ago, LTS said:

I heard he's over rated though. 🙂

That clip is the perfect embodiment of Josh Allen.  He's a big kid playing football. He's goofy as hell but when it's time to go out and play he plays his butt off and puts his body on the line for his team.

I can understand why players talk about him being a great leader.

i've heard and seen it said elsewhere: dude's a human golden retriever.

[JohnC]

2 hours ago, LTS said:

I heard he's over rated though. 🙂

That clip is the perfect embodiment of Josh Allen.  He's a big kid playing football. He's goofy as hell but when it's time to go out and play he plays his butt off and puts his body on the line for his team.

I can understand why players talk about him being a great leader.

Mayfield was the first pick in 2018, the Josh Allen draft year.  Darnold was the third pick in the first round. We drafted Josh Allen with the seventh pick in the first round. The front office knew what it was doing when it made that franchise altering and consequential pick. It should be noted that the previous year we could have selected Mahomes. I'm fine with how it worked out for Buffalo. He was the right person for this particular location. 

[Doohicksie]

1 hour ago, That Aud Smell said:

i've heard and seen it said elsewhere: dude's a human golden retriever.

[EM88]

16 hours ago, SwampD said:

By Kevyn’s own admission, they talk every single day. They show him in every meeting with Adams. You are delusional if you think that he is not involved in every aspect of the roster. Including the 10MM in cap space. Or in years past, the retired players on the roster in order to take advantage of profit sharing.

Is there a better thread to have this discussion?

This discussion has appeared in many threads over the last few weeks.

I do agree with you.  There are just too many quotes, some from the Pegula's themselves, too much anecdotal evidence, too much actual evidence over the years. Just plain too much evidence that does support Pegula as actually being involved in most aspects of the roster.  That has been discussed and documented in other places I have read on these pages.  It would seem to me that those saying otherwise just want Adams gone and want to ignore what Pegula has done to this team over the past decade plus.

[LTS]

1 hour ago, JohnC said:

Mayfield was the first pick in 2018, the Josh Allen draft year.  Darnold was the third pick in the first round. We drafted Josh Allen with the seventh pick in the first round. The front office knew what it was doing when it made that franchise altering and consequential pick. It should be noted that the previous year we could have selected Mahomes. I'm fine with how it worked out for Buffalo. He was the right person for this particular location. 

Yep. I think some people like to say that if the Bills drafted Mahomes then they would have won a Super Bowl. I think they say it because Mahomes has won Super Bowls... but it ain't just Mahomes winning that.  I don't think Mahomes would have had the same success elsewhere. The Chiefs have had a great roster and their coach is one of the best in the business.

So, I take Allen. Frankly he just makes football fun to watch. He even managed to make me not even think about Collinsworth talking.  So that's something.

[Weave]

49 minutes ago, LTS said:

Yep. I think some people like to say that if the Bills drafted Mahomes then they would have won a Super Bowl. I think they say it because Mahomes has won Super Bowls... but it ain't just Mahomes winning that.  I don't think Mahomes would have had the same success elsewhere. The Chiefs have had a great roster and their coach is one of the best in the business.

So, I take Allen. Frankly he just makes football fun to watch. He even managed to make me not even think about Collinsworth talking.  So that's something.

Josh is a living “Are you not entertained?” meme.

I’ve said long ago that I emotionally divorced myself from the Bills 7 or 8 quarterbacks ago.  It has made watching the absolute treat that Josh Allen is so much better.  I don’t care 1 iota about coaching decisions, schemes, personnel decisions, play calling.  None of it.  But I make time on my calendar every non prime time game (my work schedule puts me in bed by 9pm) to watch the Bills play.  Or more accurately, watch Josh Allen play.  He is the most entertaining athlete I have every experienced, and its not even close.

Monday I told my wife, enjoy and appreciate every moment of this.  There will never be another one like him, certainly not in Buffalo.

What we are witnessing is fleeting, unfortunately.  Take it in and enjoy it, win or lose.  You’ll never see it again.

[Demoted]