The Commander, guest contributor


Hi there, welcome to The DEEG. I’m “The Commander”, which is totally a play on Cobra Commander. Confession: I’m a giant GI Joe dork, I have an entire room full of action figures and shit. I’m a grown ass man and everything. I even have a job, and a girlfriend, and a shitload of cats and dogs. If you don’t know me, that’s ok I haven’t written anything long form in forever.  Basically, I’m a Twitter smartass and the people who run this place love that sort of thing so they gave me a chance to be funny and entertaining in more than 140 characters.

First a little background so that you guys get where I’m coming from when it comes to my relationship with Buffalo sports. I was actually born in Cleveland and moved to Buffalo when I was about 9 years old. Being too young to really care about the Cleveland teams, I latched onto the Bills and Sabres and grew up following them. The first Bills game I attended in person was The Comeback, so really It’s been all downhill from there. About 2 years ago I moved to California and jinxed the only pro team in my immediate area into moving to Seattle. You’re welcome Sacramento! Despite having a “9 to 5” I’ve been able to watch like 95% of every Sabres game this year…thanks to mobile devices and working from home occasionally. So now that you have an idea of the lengths I go to be disappointed in my sports teams, I feel that I can openly bitch and complain about them for you. The only difference between you and I is that at least when the Bills and Sabres suck unequivocal amounts of ass in November or December, I don’t have to shovel snow.

This is a terrible time to jump aboard the DEEG, Bills season is long over and another shitty Sabres season is behind us. But I wanted to take this time and reflect on the 5 things that I hated the most about the past Sabres season.

Guest Contributor: The Wild Card

HOCKEY HEAVEN -- (Trade Deadline minus 25 hours, 8 minutes. Associated Mess) -- With Leopold and Regehr gone it's pretty clear now that Darcy intends to blow this motherfucker up, burn this motherfucker down and otherwise do things to this motherfucker that make it different tomorrow. Cool. They need to look different, but now I'm wondering if they'll be different. And the reason to think they won't be is the common denominator: Darcy. 

A lot of people want Darcy gone, and I tentatively count myself among their number. The case against Darcy is easy to make, and it usually comes down to results. No cups. 1 cup appearance a long time ago. Drury, Briere, yada yada. I'm not telling you anything new. My problem is that I can make a pretty strong case in Darcy's favor too. He did have the sense to bring in said Chris and said Danny for next to nothing. He got a 1st for a goose. He just traded two 32-yr old defensemen with 12 games left on their contracts for 3 second round picks and a 4th/5th. Not too shabby. He moves Van/Pom/Mil and we could suddenly picking every 5 minutes in June. And with promising guys like Armia, Grigorenko (yes, shutup you shit-sniffing troll, the kid's going to be fine) and Leggio in the organization, I have to think Darcy's done a pretty decent job assembling some young talent.

But here's why I still think I want Darcy gone: with all that being said, under Darcy's regime these teams have been largely the same - dispassionate, soft, leaderless. The Drury/Briere era was the exception. We had clear leaders, and the other players had clear roles. But the leadership on that team wasn't drafted by Darcy. Drury and Briere were trades. McKee was drafted pre-Darcy. Lydman was a trade... Darcy just doesn't draft leaders. Name a guy Darcy drafted that would be a suitable captain on an NHL team. ... anyone? 

I just can't get around it. I think about all the moves that Darcy has made here. I think about what he's tried to do. What the general philosophy of the team is. I have to admit, I agree with all of it. I even like the philosophy of building out from your goaltender, playing good defense and not droppin' cash like Tyrone Biggums in Free Agency.

But for 16 years he has failed to draft a true captain for this team. That's just not acceptable. ALL the good teams have good captains. Let's have a look down the list:

WEST:
Chi - Toews, Sharpe, Keith (not to mention Kane)
ANA - Getzlaf, Koivu, Selanne (not to mention Perry)
MIN - Koivu, Parise, Suter
LA - Brown, Richards, Kopitar

EAST:
PIT - Crosby, Malkin, Orpik
MTL - Gionta, Markov, (and Gorges... but fuck that.)
BOS - Chara, Bergeron (not to mention Horton, Marchand, Lucic, Seguin, and Thornton... good god I'm jelly. OK, back to grown-up talk.)

These guys are ALL-STARS, and most of them are gritty, intense, tenacious. Our guys are just good. Them: MEN. Us: Whiney little boners. I mean, do Vanek and Pominville stack up to ANY of these guys? If they were traded to any of these teams, do you think they'd say "shit, we gotta put a letter on this guy" ?

Maybe Darcy can change his stripes, I don't know. I think he's always been pretty good at seeing this team's weaknesses on the X's and O's front. Steve Ott is a good example. We needed to get tougher at the top and he knew it. So we got tougher at the top. But Ott is also a guy I like a lot as a leader. Could it be that Darcy knows we need leadership too?

He might only have 24 hours to prove it.


Comment below or hit me up on Twitter @DGW_WildCard

Barrister here. As you all should know by now, sometimes we post a lot, sometimes our real jobs at which we're each enormously successful take up a little too much of our time, sometimes we have to plan for weddings and public remarks at said weddings, and sometimes we just forget we have a website to maintain in between early wake up calls in pools of our own vomit. We've lately been a little short on actual written content here (download those podcasts, though!), but have added a new guest contributor to our pathetic ranks!  "The Wild Card" hails from West Seneca but is down here in NYC for law school and he likes to drink and curse like us so I'm sure he'll fit right in. In any event, someone had to write about Fitzpatrick here at the Deeg, and sure as shit none of the rest of us had the stomach for it. So I give you...


The Wild Card

Why I Hate that Fitz is Gone, and No, it's not Beard-Related

I know. The beard was like 99% of the gravitas. Hell, it was fuckin' awesome. But it wasn't awesome enough to make you want him as your starting QB and that's probably why you, as a Bills fan are pretty happy today. The Bills cutting Fitz means we get a NEW quarterback next year! And new is great! Right?! RIGHT?! 

Mike Tannenbaum  Well, not if that new QB sucks a giant fat one. This is the problem - with Fitz gone, everybody knows that the Bills are taking a QB with one of their first 2 picks. So, if I'm Mike Tannenb... I mean, John Idzik (the Jets new GM) (don’t worry I had to google it too) sitting at 9, and I really like Geno Smith, or Barkley, or some other ass-hat not worth a top 10 pick, I'm trying like hell to trade up in front of the Bills and grab my guy. And if that guy is the Bills’ guy too, then the Bills are going to have to take a different guy! I don’t want that guy! I want the other guy! The other guy is Ben Roethlisberger (two Super Bowl rings)

and that guy is JP Losman (you just vomited)! Please, god, let us get the other guy.

And the same thing goes if the Bills want to wait until the second round to get their guy, or trade back up into the first. When everyone knows what you’re doing it’s a lot easier to get fucked by one of the other handful of teams that need a QB.

But maybe everything will work out and the Bills will get their guy. Great. But now their guy has to be THE guy. He has to be the starter. Day one. Do you really see Tarvaris Jackson starting week 1 at QB for this team? Or… Aaron Corp? Or… sweet Jesus … Rex Grossman? Did you vomit again yet?! Did you even make it past Jackson without vomiting?! So yeah, whoever they take is going to have a ton of pressure on him, and the conventional wisdom is that none of the guys in this draft are polished enough to be day one starters. They’re guys that would be better off taking a year and sitting behind a wiley, bearded, Harvard-educated, Wonderlic-crushing veteran that screams like a 4 year old girl.

Tuesday, that wiley, bearded, Harvard-educated, Wonderlic-crushing veteran that screams like a 4 year old girl was on our roster.  Now he is not.

And the beard was sexy as fuck.

In an effort to further expand our shitty digital universe here at the Deeg, contributors and house band members Jeff and Jon of The Jambrones have started a new podcast! 

Not quite sports-related, Jeff and Jon's new series will focus on music - specifically their review of individual songs using perhaps the dorkiest music teacher rubric to determine a winner. 

In the end, it's fucking rad.

With episode 1, the guys pit a hardcore tune from a Buffalo-based band against a manufactured pop tune from a young lady you probably hate. 

Download or stream, and enjoy!

Barrister here. We're happy to have friend of the Deeg, @Jambrones, back as a guest contributor. Last time he was with us, he gave us a recap of Bills/Pats through the voice of his kid and it was ADORABLE. Seriously. This time, he's here to stir up some controversy as Jim Boeheim is set to take over as the second most winningest coach in NCAA Men's Basketball history.  I'm sure there are plenty of Cuse fans among you - hell, Scizz and Yachtsman will probably be fuming over this one and may even offer a rebuttal if we're lucky - so I fully expect this to anger some. But fuck it, if we let Outlander talk about the Red Sox - who all reasonable thinking Americans despise - this guy can talk some shit about Boeheim. 

Enjoy.

Guest Contributor: @Jambrones

Coaches earn their keep in crunch time, when split decisions can instantly put players in a position to win.
We are acutely aware of this in Buffalo, where the Bills go through coaches like tampons, in part, because of bad decisions at key points in ballgames.  

Tonight, Jim Boeheim will likely pass Bob Knight in total wins as Syracuse plays Rutgers at home.  Although this makes me want to throw up, I will acknowledge that Boeheim has done a fantastic job at Syracuse.  He knows how the system works in college basketball and he's found success as a result.  Boeheim is for the Orange what Buffalo wishes Lindy Ruff was for the Sabres. (Player---Coach---Champion).  But, even while he surpasses Knight, let’s not forget that when Boeheim faced Knight head to head for the 1987 National Championship, the better coach, working with less naturally talented players, came through when it mattered.

I now give you the 26 seconds that show Bob Knight > Jim Boeheim.

The Scizz (& friends!)

I'm about to flip the switch on y'all this week. No Super Troopers. Its too happy.

After last week's embarrassing loss to the Rams, and another failure of a Buffalo Bills season almost in the books, I took to Twitter to see how my fellow Bills fans were reacting. There was heartbreak, confusion, indifference, acceptance, and everyone's favorite, pure unadulterated rage. If you're like me, you probably have experienced all of these emotions at least once throughout this dismal season This week I endured a new one....exhaustion. The Bills have exhausted me. They have left me tired and bewildered, and these "scars" keep getting worse season after season. By 5pm on Sunday I knew that there was no way in Hell I could write my normal Bills preview for the upcoming week, so I decided to reach out to some twitter friends and readers to help me voice some opinions on this franchise that we are supposed to love with all of our heart. 

First up, @Bleez17 from twitter, who actually inspired me to make this a community project, and provided the amazing quote from Dark Knight that lends itself to this post. I can not take credit for that brilliance.

_ “It’s not polite to say ‘shit’ Daddy.”

–Jambaby, during Bills/Patriots game

@jambrones, Guest Contributor

On Sundays, I usually go gallivanting with my comrades on a masochistic Buffalo Bills adventure.  But this week, I hunkered down with my 6 year old 1st Grader, aptly named “Jambaby”  by The Continental, for an afternoon of simplicity, surprise and nostalgia.  I was reminded of my earliest memory of the Buffalo Bills: the goalposts coming down in 1980 after beating Miami for the first time in 10 years.  I too, was 6.  This past Sunday vs. the New England Patriots, full circle?   Well, we all know how that went. Ugh. 

Here’s a #kidcommentary breakdown.

The Continental

I figured before I start spouting off what will undoubtedly be regrettable and reprehensible advice, I should introduce myself.  I am The Continental, and I'm from a town smaller and shittier than yours in Western New York.  Why The Continental?  Well, because like the breakfast I'm not warm, and like the airline I have a spotty safety record and require intense negotiations before entering a merger.  That or I'm a degenerate creep, you decide.  Now I rep the 718, pretty much as well as any white girl can.

Since I'm a Bills and Sabres fan I am also quite adept at hating myself, which could also be one of the reasons everyone thinks I'm Jewish perhaps?  Who knows. But moving to New York has offered me so many more opportunities to sulk; Enter the Knicks, Mets, and St. John's basketball.  (PS. Fuck you Syracuse turncoat shit sippers.) Onto the questions!

"Who is your daddy and what does he do" -- @ScottyMCSS

Retired school teacher, athletic enthusiast, and steeply banked in that old man alcoholism of Western New York. Every summer he used to throw down so many cases of Genny Cream, it was incredible.  Now that he has retired, his pension money is going straight to Labatt Blue Lights. You know how LBL introduced the Labatt Blue Light Lime? Well, my father thought it was bullshit they were charging more for a case of LBLL than LBL, so what is a retired science teacher to do?  Experiment.  Now he buys LBL's and throws in lime juice, which of course took him a while to get the exact ratio right.  My mother, who's still with him is either a saint or has a prescription pill addiction.  (PS: make a better Arnold reference next time, I'm no scrub.)



"Now that I don't have 3 hrs a night paid to do nothing, when's the best time to do my scrapbooking?" -Matt Ellis aka -@SabresScratch

Scrapbooking is no longer trendy in the ladyverse.  It is too time consuming and you actually have to do something with your hands.  Pintrest.  Pintrest everything.  Bitches love Pintrest.  But to you Matt Ellis, I think Tumblr is definitely more your game.  Why?  Porn, lots of porn.  Porn everywhere.  Real porn, not just lady porn.  Lots of any kind of porn you want.  A solid 45% of my porn consumption comes from Tumblr.

"Dear Continental, why do the Bills suck and why are all women insane? I assume these can be answered similarly." -@fgif

The Bills are bad because life isn't fair and women are crazy because life isn't fair.  You need to work with what football gives you.  Get blackout drunk, puke on a Jets fan, and enjoy spending time with your friends, because at the end of the day football and related activities make life more fun until we die.  Most importantly it's a safe place where it's okay if you get black out drunk before 3:30pm.  But honestly, we're just waiting for the perfect season to come along so we're biding our time, right?

Women? You just need the correct calibration of crazy.  Is she crazy in bed?  Almost always good.  Is she crazy to your friends and family?  Eh, how crazy in bed is she?  Basically what I'm saying to women everywhere is be nasty in bed and men will overlook all the lady-shit we love and they hate (Bravo TV, Ru Paul television shows, leaf peeping, dinner parties.)  Not a straight up freak?  Try harder!  But this bartering system also works with Die Hard and Lethal Weapon movies, so sit there and keep your mouth shut and he will mostly do the same the next time you want to watch Real World/Road Rules Challenge. And again, significant others make life more palatable, more so than football, so we keep at it because we're just waiting for the perfect one for us to come along/come on.  WORD PLAY!


"Miss continental, every sports team has a player that all the husky gals LOVE. Who is that player on the Bills this year?" -@boner_shorts

The thing about husky gals, especially husky gals still in the 716 is they totally lack a sense of proportion.  Odds are they think they could land Stevie with their "Mizz Thang" g-string peeking over their too tight denim miniskirt at whatever bar on Chippewa is hosting DJ Anthony from KISS 98.5 these days. That or the husky gal wants to feel positively waiflike and would go for a mega husker like Kraig Urbik or Erik Pears.  I'm guessing these girls will only sleep with white boys, but this could just be residual bias from my backwater hick-town. 

And here's where I want to ask you degenerate creeps a question in what I will call:

"Are you there Deegers?  It's me The Continental."

Where do you loyal Deegers stand on sleeping with someone who has the same name as an immediate family member? 

Drop your offensive answers in the comments or e-mail/tweet me to be posted next week. Keep those questions coming!

_By @jambrones & @boner_shorts

I am a Jambrone. 
I write songs about Buffalo sports. 
I pump you up.
I make you nod your head. 
I make you sing along.
And yes, I give you “douche chills.” 
I get ‘em too.

Because of this rare gift, I have been relegated to the underground, where it’s dark, dirty and verbally violent.  While children are singing along to the sweet melodies of my annoyingly uplifting music, I toil in the shit, the blogosphere, the underground sports media, as one of…them.

It wasn't always like this.  I had a real rock band once.  We played in almost every venue available for original bands in Buffalo through the 90’s.  We also were able to play regularly in New York and Boston and even took a stab at a Midwest “tour”.  We got to open up for big nationally known bands that everybody knew.  However, we were and always will be, a “local band.”

To me, that label, “local band” is much like “blogger”, or “podcaster”, it feels the same: Subpar, subhuman, subservient, and often, subversive.

Through the Jambrones, I’ve come to realize a kinship with these fellow “CHUDs”, if you will.  We share ideas about teams we love presented in a hack-like yet charming manner with no "radio voice" and little regard for journalistic tradition.  And yet, we do it well enough that more than a few strangers have come forward and really like what we do.

We’re just dudes writing and talking about sports; just CHUDs...making songs, writing shit like this piece, rhyming players’ names, and ripping on Matt Ellis.  It’s <gasp> fun.  But ALL of us get squashed regularly by those with sports media power: The Buffalo News and WGR550.
_

The Defenseman

If you didn’t know better, you’d think space was just darkness. It isn’t.

The Space Transportation System, better known as the Space Shuttle, was the most complicated machine ever constructed when first built. The first reusable spacecraft, it pushed the boundaries of American science and engineering just to get it put together. To fly required a make up wholly unknown to almost all who inhabit this place.

As a child of both the 80’s and of science and science fiction, there were no more important names to me in my early years than Enterprise, Challenger, Columbia, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour. As spacecraft, these six sisters were the stuff of legend, carrying explorers to the very edge of human knowledge. Those who rode within them were heroes.

It was impossible to spend a school year inside of a science classroom as an elementary school student at that time and not know who Sally Ride was. As the first American woman in space her place in our history was assured, but to a small boy in the suburbs that big social impact stuff seemed to fly over my head. She was in space and that was good enough for me. Sally Ride, Awesome American.

So I was sad when I heard of her passing this week. You are never quite ready for your heroes to go.