I don’t know if I have ADD or I just want to get on a pedestal about a whole bunch of shit today, but I just couldn’t pick one thing to write about. So let’s make an introductory list: (1) Jerry Sullivan is a troll that eats babies. (2) I wonder what made Jerry Sullivan a troll that eats babies. (3) Props to Jeremy White and Howard Simon for not putting up with his shit this morning. (4) This Mario Williams business is intriguing and frustrating. (5) This tornado in Oklahoma is just... wow.

Ok let’s roll.

(1) Good lord, if you haven’t listened to Jerry Sullivan’s segment on WGR this morning, it’s worth a listen - if for no other reason than to give yourself an idea of what the biggest asshole in North America sounds like. You know, just to give yourself a baseline. Let’s break down some of his quotes, on this, a day where the top story in sports is Mario Williams apparently feeling suicidal:

“I haven’t been sympathetic, one iota about this guy since he played his first game for the Bills.” Ok, so Sullivan doesn’t feel bad for a guy who’s suicidal, and hasn’t ever since he had a bad game. Nice. 

Sully then went on to criticize Mario’s effort throughout the year, brushed off his double digit sacks, then disclosed (to my knowledge for the first time) that a player told him last year, off the record that he was unhappy with Mario’s effort. Next, Sullivan says “Anyway, he might have a very good year. There are indications - I heard in camp he came into camp energized! Oh boy, Mario Williams at 100 million dollars comes into camp energized”

“Go look at his injury history, it’s always something with this guy.”

Sensing a pattern here? Sullivan hasn’t even talked about the story yet - he’s just taken this occasion to rip a guy in the wake of a story THAT HE’S SUICIDAL.

“I know for me, in the text, he’s - he can’t even write a simple declarative sentence.” -achm- Unreal. Attacking grammar in a text message WITH A SENTENCE FULL OF FAULTY GRAMMAR. If I was truly anal, I’d break down what’s wrong with Sully’s sentence.

“I have written about suicide in an earlier - in an earlier life in journalism, and I know you’re supposed to always take threats seriously, but I’m having trouble with this one.” SO, I know I should be taking suicide seriously, but I kinda don't like this guy, so... naaaahhhh.

Then, one of the morning show guys mentions the column that Sullivan mentioned earlier in the segment, and he gets defensive. “You goin Ted Black on me?!” The next 5 minutes is Sullivan just lashing out at anything he can think of. He re-hashes the Ted Black press conference, and tries to paint himself the victim of Black’s aggression, when Black asked him if he wrote the column already: “that was a cheap shot on his part, and suggested he wanted a fight!”

“I laughed later. I like those vigorous exchanges because you get more out of people. … I tried it with Mario Williams after the Seattle game” So, Sullivan admits that he jumped on the guy after an embarassing loss just to get a rise out of him - and that this is a tactic he uses frequently. No, Jerry, no... you? I don’t believe what I’m hearing.

Finally, Sullivan closes out by saying “you guys, you guy - come on. I’m past 7:20, I’m not even gettin’ - I don’t even get compensated past 7:20. I don’t need that, bein - why don’t you guys talk about baseball or somethin.” So, Sullivan, a professional journalist, closes out with FIVE incomplete sentences minutes after he rips a suicidal football player for his grammar in a motherfucking text message.

As, The Barrister tweeted this morning, 
"You are a disgraceful person and journalist, @TBNSully. May your taint be set on fire. Forever and ever, Amen." 

I concur. Go to hell. You're nothing but a troll with a salary. You’re no better than the idiots that waste their lives on twitter just trying to calculate the right words to piss someone off. Actually, you’re worse, because you’ve found a way to get paid to do it. Burn taint burn.

(2) All that being said, I honestly wonder how he got this way. Seriously. Is this just a show for him? A character he puts on in his public life just to get a rise out of people and be interesting? Maybe it’s because he found some success being sardonic and critical in his columns and now that’s grown into just an insatiable need to be angry and attacking someone constantly? Maybe his wife hates him. Or he’s shooting blanks. Or he’s gay but never had the balls to come out of the closet. I don’t know, but it’s fun because it’s tough to imagine a reason that would make me actually feel bad for him. He’s like Ana Lucia in Lost - oh you got shot one time, because you were a cop, and now you feel like that gives you license to lash out at the entire fucking world? Grow up.

[Hey, I warned you - a whole bunch of random thoughts right in a row.]

(3) As infuriating as Sullivan was in that segment, I damn near jumped up and cheered for Howard and Jeremy. They called Sullivan out on a lot of the stuff I mentioned above, and they did it live. I can’t say I know much about the WGR dynamic, but they have Sullivan on all the time, and I have to think the bosses were none too pleased at Howard and Jeremy for pissing him off. I mean, it got really contentious at the end. But they showed great integrity by not putting up with his shit and I applaud them for it.


(4) Ok, first the intriguing part: maybe this is the wannabe attorney in me, but the facts of this debacle are just really... interesting. The source of all this controversy is pretty simple: a couple cherry picked quotes from a 3 page document of text messages that Williams and his fiancee’ sent each other the day of the Pats game, that were made public by the fiancee’s attorney, just days after a failed 3-hour mediation hearing. Hm. Some questions: 1. How are these text messages relevant to the dispute over an engagement ring? 2. Why would an attorney publicly disclose them? It seems that the attorney released them directly to the media, because there hasn’t been a hearing in the case. So, this isn’t evidence that is only public because court records are public. Instead, this just sounds like bullying and an invasion of ... 3. Oh my fuckin god am I going to have to right another privacy article?! (no, don’t worry, I’m not.) 4. Three pages of text messages? That seems like a lot, right? I tried to find the full three pages, but alas, they have eluded me like fleeting love on a drunken midsummer night. Why, yes, sir, I did think this piece was in need of a little whimsy.

Anyway, here’s what the cherry-picked text messages said: “I took 3 hydrocodones this morning and no one knows” and “I’m going to take 2 more on the plane and fade away”. Also, “No money in the world should leave me with suicidal thoughts.”

Mario is saying that these texts are taken out of context. God, I’m nervous to say this, but... I think I believe him. Let’s consider the first two. He talks about taking 3 in the morning, and 2 more after the game. So, that’s 5 in a period of probably at least 8 hours. Mario weighs 283 pounds. To me, that doesn’t even sound dangerous. A lot of people are referring to this as a cry for help. Wouldn’t the dose that he’s talking about taking have to be a bit more than a few pills to be a cry for help?

Then the next quote we have is the “suicidal thoughts” quote. But, really, it seems like the article of that sentence is the money. Huh? “No money in the world should leave me with suicidal thoughts.” This sentence just makes no sense, unless you want to infer that he’s depressed about not living up to the expectation of the 100 million dollars. But even that doesn’t make sense. Williams was coming off a game at Houston where he had 7 tackles and a sack, not to mention that he said publicly that he felt great coming off the wrist procedure. It doesn’t add up. In short, the context seems to be exactly what we’re missing here. And if the other contextual text messages were contained in these 3 pages, why is it I can’t find an article with anything but these three quotes? Is it maybe because the context would make these texts seem more innocent and therefore less interesting and newsworthy? Hm.

Next the frustrating: Simple thought really, but I just felt... weird. I felt weird all day hearing the radio talk and reading the articles about this story. This story is just too personal. Suicide. Broken engagements. Prescription drugs. Leaked text messages. Too heavy, man. The guy’s really just a guy making a living playing football. Does that really mean you signed up for your name next to suicide and text messages to your fiancee? Too personal. And that’s why it’s frustrating: HERE I AM WRITING ABOUT IT ON THE INTERNET. Does it matter that I’m trying to defend the guy? I don’t know. Fuck. 

Oh, and one more thing. Let’s assume for a second that he was actually having suicidal thoughts. Does anyone really think he would have voluntarily attend a press conference and talk about the situation openly? Wouldn’t the suicidal tendency be to crawl in a hole? I don’t know, I’m certainly no psychologist. But I am something of a mathematician - and this shit don’t add up.

[UPROARIOUS LAUGHTER. Who doesn’t love a math joke?]


(5) and moving right along to this tornado that has killed over 50 people. On days like this - and don’t they seem to be coming more and more frequently? - it gets hard to justify the hours I spend thinking about sports. I spent way more time listening to that fucking Jerry Sullivan segment than I did reading about one of the most devastating tornadoes in history. I mean, I turn on my TV and there’s a woman with her dog on a leash amidst a pile of rubble that hours fell on her head just a couple hours ago, and she looks basically FINE. I mean, she was even smiling. That. Shit’s. INCREDIBLE. … and yet this is basically all I’m going to write about this tornado because I’m really at a loss for what to say about it. Tip of the cap to anyone who writes about serious stuff. I guess I just don’t have the mind for it.

(6) Holy crap Detroit won. I know, I only intro'd 5 things, but then this happened. I really feel like Chicago is going to win the cup. Now I feel less that way, but still that way. I think a Chicago-Boston finals would be really cool. Is it just me or is it weird that those 2 cities don't seem to have any rivalries or classic games? Oh, and that rink-length Patty Kane lob pass was sex. It was sex. Beautiful and wonderful and difficult. Very difficult. I'll update with a link if I can. Wild Card out.

Listen, I get that this story started with news of Williams' engagement being broken off by his ex-fiancee, and that Williams was suing her for return of the ring, and that hahahahaha that's so funny because basically no millionaire athlete is ever supposed to exercise his legal rights when it comes to money because FUCK HIM HE'S RICH. TMZ had a laugh at it, I got into a spat with one of Bomani Jones' twitter followers over the legality of conditional gifts like engagement rings and the whole thing seemed a pretty silly thing generally.

Then Mario's ex comes out with details about how he had said she could keep the ring and how the lawsuit was meant to harass her, so she counter-claims in the lawsuit and we all scratch our heads about "oh man, Mario may be an idiot lulzzzzz." But then, unexpectedly, she mentions the text messages, and the depression, and how he was talking suicide and pills and suddenly the shit isn't at all funny anymore. It's entirely too real, too serious to be funny.

And then, shortly thereafter, as if he was reporting on a last second touchdown or a player being cut or a coach being hired, Jonah Javad decides that a motherfucking pun is a good idea. 

Not only are puns stupid about 80% of the time even when they're about meaningless shit like hockey games (I'm looking at you NHL dot com), but they're downright callous when they're used to talk about real shit. 

I get that, as you see above, Mr. Javad has gone on twitter to issue apologies about his intent and how he didn't mean to make light of Williams' drug use, but that he meant stupor as in "dazed." But, wait... So, in other words, Javad wasn't poking fun - because that's what a pun does, after all; if pokes fun - at the alleged use of pills, he was poking fun at Williams' more general mental state. He wasn't making a joke about, perhaps, an attempt at suicide, but really just at the depression - the daze, I guess - that led to the attempt? 

Cool, because that totally doesn't contribute to the outstandingly unfair and prejudicial way that we think about mental illness in our society.

I absolutely understand that the sports media in this country, and in particular my beloved hometown, is more often than not ill-equipped to deal with the complex issues surrounding mental hygiene, particularly where the ideal of American athletes is centered on mental fortitude and any deficiencies therein are signs only of weakness. Which is why, when reporting - as they should - on the inevitable instances where the issues of mental illness and sport overlap (increasingly so with the traumatic brain injuries prevalent in football), the same bullshit shtick that can work for sports suddenly does not work anymore.
 
As many explanations and apologies as Mr. Javad wants to throw out, fine. I don't doubt he's an incredibly decent guy. But this shit is really inexcusable. It has to be better than this.

The Barrister


Oh, spring. The time of year when I have already given up on baseball except on the days when my team's improbable Cy Young candidate is pitching; when the Sabres have, not so improbably, retired for the off-season; when sports are a simple backdrop to thoughts of day drinking in the sun and cutting out of work as often as possible.

For the next three months or so, soccer will really be the only sport I care about, and that's just fine with me. While the Buffalo Bills tempt us into a familiar land of hopes and dreams, I'll be in the corner enjoying a sport that hasn't yet beaten me into submission with annual kicks to the nuts. 

/looks at prior Liverpool season results

/kicks self in aforementioned nuts as penance for blatant lie

Of course, paying any attention to this sport flies in the face of certain opinions set forth by certain creepy sports journalists in Tuffalo, but I think it goes without saying that Mike Harrington is simply out of his element when he tries to talk about anything that doesn't fall within the following categories:

• the availability of Terry Pegula for sarcastic, caustic interviews;
• the quickest way to climb a tree outside an unsuspecting woman's window;
• tying knots;
• the best proportion of Miracle Whip and Fritos to put on a bologna sandwich;
• the fragrance of a minor league baseball locker room;
• buying bulk candy;
• Jerry Sullivan's jock; and 
• LOL ROFL Doh! Thanx

So, when it comes to soccer, don't worry about this knuckledragger's opinion. When he hears "The Beautiful Game," his mind instantly shifts to family reunion Twister. He's gross.

On to the #Hot #Sports #Takes!!!

Daniel Sturridge poops on faces at Craven Cottage

This one was a real treat, let me tell you. When Luis Suarez went down with a case of canthelpbutbiteaguyitis a few weeks back, I was legitimately concerned about the final fixtures of the season, not to mention the early matches next season. The guy who had accounted for about 175% of Liverpool's goals this year was out and a team with no real scoring touch elsewhere seemed poorly fit to get goals over Suarez's ten match ban.

Then Daniel Sturridge scored two and added an assist in the 6-0 rout of Newcastle, and followed up the disappointing scoreless draw against Everton with a three goal masterpiece at Fulham yesterday. Fucking hell, he was outstanding.

Of course, he's not alone in the side's efforts since Suarez was suspended, as Philippe Coutinho has also been a joy to watch. There really isn't enough you can say about how this little Brazilian has played during this early adjustment to the English game, but man.... does he make me excited about next year.

Presently, I'm not going to get to wrapped up in looking ahead especially since, shit, THOSE REDS JUST FUCKED FULHAM'S SHIT UP.

For some time now, every time I write a footy post, a commenter here, "cdr," finds the time to roll through and attempt to lay waste to my love for Liverpool. Frequent themes of his criticism include: (1) LFC fans are stuck in the past; (2) LFC isn't any good any more; (3) LFC fans have a distorted view of the Club's relevance; (4) Steven Gerrard is a goon; and (5) LFC isn't a respectable club.

cdr, if you will, just for funsies:

(1) You criticize us for being stuck in the past, but fail to appreciate how great that past was. Five European Cups. Eighteen time champions of England, with twelve years as runner-up. Seven FA Cups. Eight League Cups. Is it wrong to think good things about that past? I get that you simply don't understand, being a Fulham supporter with your scattered championships in the second and third tiers of the English game, and single years as runners-up in the FA Cup and Europa League, all despite being in existence since 1879, but you have to consider what it feels like to follow a Club that isn't roughly equivalent to the Buffalo Bills. It's fun. We like to like our nice things.

(2) Scoreboard.

(3) As of a couple years ago, Liverpool still ranked towards the top of global shirt sales, so the facts suggest you're simply wrong there.

(4) Fuck you, Steven Gerrard is a saint.

(5) If you cared about respectability of a club, you wouldn't follow one owned by a man who idolizes a pedophile. Shit, I still bop my head to an MJ tune or two, but a statue at your ground? That's weird as hell.

Cheers.

Moving on... 

Sir Alex retires and I find a new pair of shoes to dance on his grave

I'm not a fan of Alex Ferguson. He manages a Club I despise, he poaches players in a way envied by the New York Fucking Yankees, and his big red nose is annoying as hell. He complains about officiating in a league that bends to his will whenever it gets the chance and he's been so frustratingly successful that I can't help but simply continue to invent reasons to loathe him. 

This has been a long time coming, I suppose, seeing as he has won enough hardware to count as impressive for a dozen managers' careers, but part of me was still surprised when the news hit the twitters. Still, the man had accomplished everything possible as a manager - 13 League titles, 5 FA Cups, 4 League Cups and those 2 Champions League Titles. Motherfucker has led MUFC since 1986 which is simply bonkers. 

The Club hired David Moyes to replace him and, frankly, I can't see there being too much of a drop-off in their quality. Moyes has been stellar at Everton, particularly with identifying great talent at a good cost, so it's crazy to think what he'll do with a relatively limitless transfer budget. The only upside, possibly, is that Everton has lost a great manager and may soon fall back to earth and take their rightful place in the Merseyside hierarchy  If Moyes wants to take Marouane Fellaini and give him that taste of the Champions League, I wouldn't hate it.

In any event, happy trails to Fergie and that glorious nose of his.

Manchester City loses to Wigan and looks to send Roberto Mancini packing

God bless a sports team that, in the face of less-than-complete success, fires their manager or coach and continues to hope for near perfection. I yearn to follow teams like this. Alas....

Last year, Man City won the league and looked to be a rather dominant side in English football. This season, Man Utd was ABSURD, had a bajillion competent goal scorers, ran train all over the Premiership, and City is set to finish in 2nd and just played in the FA Cup final. Yet they're firing their manager despite the fact that they're still absurdly good and terrify the other 18 teams in the league. 

To note: this is a team that only lost five league matches this season (and plays Reading and Norwich to finish, so that will likely remain the same),  beat United at Old Trafford, and also beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the FA Cup semi-finals. 

To also note: their losses included matches against Sunderland (currently 17th) and Southampton (currently 14th), and they just lost to WIGAN at Wembley. 

Wigan. 

Facing relegation to the League Championship, Wigan. 19 losses in the EPL, Wigan. Got smoked by Liverpool 3-0 at Anfield and then 4-0 at DW Stadium, Wigan.

Yeah, I suppose it's time for him to go. But, seriously... SECOND in the league. I could do with those kinds of problems.

RBNY takes the reigns and the MLS fucking rules

With the EPL winding down and little else other than the potential LFC signings to keep me interested this summer, the action in the MLS, and in particular with my Red Bulls, is getting pretty fun.

First point of order: New York will not win anything this year. I follow them, so there is that, but man they are still trying their best to keep me optimistic. 

They currently sit in first place in the East, and have the league's most goals scored. Flip that coin, though, and they are tied for third most goals against in the league, and lead the East's second, third and fourth place teams by only a point with two, one and three games in hand over each of them, respectively.  Their win against 4th place Montreal went a long way to helping their place in the standings, but following it up with a draw at 2-4-4 New England was, well, not great.  

They will certainly disappoint me, in the end.

As for the rest of the league, the standings reflect an exciting parity in the league that pretty much includes everyone except New England, Toronto and Chivas USA, all of whom are terrible, always. 

Consider the following basics:

• Last year's #2 seed in the east, DC United, now sits in 10th/last place.
• Montreal, an expansion team last year, is currently in 4th (and has the chops and games in hand to soon be in 1st) after finishing 7th last year.
• The Union, who finished 8th in the East last season, are currently part of the evolving playoff picture in 5th place.
• Chicago finished in 4th place last year, but are currently in 8th place with a record of 2-6-1.
• In the West, last year's #1 seed, San Jose, is currently in 6th.
• Seattle, who was a three seed last year, is now in 8th. 
• Colorado and Portland, who last year finished in 7th and 8th, respectively, are now in 4th and 2nd respectively.
• And FC Dallas, who were in 6th and missed the playoffs last year, are 1st in the conference with a 7-1-3 record (!!!) and a full six points ahead of the second place Timbers.

A lot can be cited to explain the shift in fortunes, though, for example, when FC Dallas sold Brek Shea last year, did anyone actually expect them to get better? Sure, they signed former Red Bull and great striker Kenny Cooper, but really??

Apart from the general excitement that comes with a league with so many changes from last year, the two joys of the standings as they sit now are probably predictable. 

First, fuck DC United. They're 1-8-1 and it's fucking great. I don't care that the one draw was a draw at Red Bull Arena and I was there and sad and got a little hamzoed and started taunting the skinhead hooligans in the last row of the Supporters' Section. DC has lost SEVEN straight since then, finally suggesting that there is, indeed, a God and s/he is a classy lady/dude.

Second great thing about the standings, putting aside my disdain for San Jose and joy at their struggles, is the surprising play of the Portland Timbers. Put simply, Portland stands, to me, as the best market in the game, with the best and most creative supporters, and the MLS will be a better league as soon as the Timbers win a championship and a national TV audience sees those hippies go ape. It needs to happen. I recognize that their points have come mostly from draws - six of them, to be exact - but that's ok for now. They've beaten both Houston and San Jose at home, which would be good enough if it wasn't also coupled with a more recent win on the road at SKC. That game was awesome. Sporting Park is a tough place to play and SKC has been incredibly successful there with a 24-7-12 record since it opened during the 2011 season. Portland is a solid side to get a win there.

Oh, and their fans just did this the other day which is rad as hell. 

Looking forward, the Red Bulls have a few home matches coming up and I expect to make it out for exactly none of them because of real life stuff which is probably for the best because my liver is fragile in my old age. 

That about does it from me, though I'd be remiss to not mention that AS Roma needs to get off its ass and condemn the racist chanting that came out of its fan base yesterday. I don't follow Italian football generally - it's really a matter of time before I do in earnest - but most of my friends who do are Roma fans and they're really broken up about the Club's failure to respond promptly and issue a statement about this deplorable behavior. [as I'm editing this, I see that Roma did finally issue a statement, but I think you can still argue that it was far too late in coming to be considered a positive, but this is also coming from the guy who supports a striker who was banned for alleged racism so take my criticism as you will].

Football is a beautiful thing and even as a guy who likes to get loaded and mouth off about how difficult it must be for Chris Pontius to play so well with all those dicks in his mouth, this shit is beyond the pale. Let's all hope that the powers that be can find a way to make this game better.

The Barrister


Our Buffalo Sabres announced that Ron Rolston will be staying on as head coach today. You can hate this move. You can wish the team went another way. You can kick and scream and wish for something better. But you can't for a second believe you know what the fuck you're talking about. 

We are fans and,. by definition, amateurs. 

I don't care that you study the game and used to play hockey and think that fucking matters. I don't care that you trust the unsourced quotes from other "NHL GMs" that Sully and Bucky like to shove in our faces more than you trust Darcy Regier. You may be a plenty smart, reasonable individual, but YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT. 

Neither do I, for the record.

Again: We are fans. Amateurs. And generally, as I more often than not display, assholes.

The funnest thing to do when you don't get what you want - say, a Stanley Cup or #1 Draft Pick - is to saddle up on a high horse and talk out of your ass about the other decisions that should have been made, the different actions taken, the deep belief you have that it would certainly be better if those hapless morons would just do what you want. 

This is a great time, usually, and is at the heart of being a fan, except that perennial losing makes it terribly insufferable and turns us into the Tea Party of sports. We claim we can do it better while simultaneously wringing our hands of the franchise itself. We tell ourselves that we're giving up on the Sabres, shifting gears immediately and with no irony to a laundry list of things that we'd change about the team to make it a thing to be cherished again. We do this, of course, while knowing little to nothing about the thing itself. 

We can say all we want that the team is garbage. It surely is. It's terrible. A mind-fuckingly awful cross-section of sport and sadness.

What to do, though? Well we should trade this guy and sign this guy and get this coa.... STFU AND STOP GUESSING YOU DON'T HAVE A CLUE.

This team has become riddled with fundamental issues: players dogging it through shifts, a franchise defenseman showing up to training camp out of shape every year and making horrific mistakes on the ice, Drew "Contract Year" Stafford is still on the team, our two best players don't want to be here any more, the fans are disenchanted and/or disinterested and/or acting like massive taints all the time, and the team apparently just doesn't like winning games. Something that used to be so good now seems like the worst thing imaginable. 

How to fix it? Who the fuck knows?

Where we're at, no matter how much we wish it otherwise.... The guy in charge of fixing the hockey issues is a guy none of us really trust anymore, but there he is, still in charge. He still makes moves that most of us have to appreciate - this year's trade deadline moves, for example - but the past is prologue to our feelings on Regier and we have a chip on our collective shoulder dating back, for most, to July 1, 2007, and if not from them, the years since have been terrible enough to make it nearly impossible for fans to have any shred of patience or hope that this guy has any ability to turn the HMS Jizz-A-Bore around. 

But there he is, leading the hockey side of a franchise we love, and for better or worse we have to live with it and have really have no fucking clue - except our history of disappointment with the GM himself - whether anything he's doing is right or wrong. Our disdain for that history, in the end, doesn't decide whether Regier's future moves will bring a Cup to Buffalo in the near future, nor does our disdain for that history, in the end, necessarily dictate whether Regier's tenure at the Sabres will be soon over. We don't make these decisions. Thankfully, as we'd likely be terrible at it.

But that's ok. Luckily, it doesn't make you a worse fan if you quietly accept you'd make a shitty GM.

We love this team, inexplicably and we hate Darcy Regier, predictably.  But pretending that we would be better stewards of this team is a fool's errand and it's making us crazy.

Ron Rolston - with a history of winning elsewhere, both in Rochester and as part of the USA's development program - is now the Sabres Head Coach. Sure Darcy signed this deal and we should hate it for that reason alone but fuck it... 


Let's Go Buffalo.

The Barrister

This was ruminating for a while, as the BroneCast regulars Jeff (@Jambrones) and Jon (@Boner_Shorts) had been discussing their mutual love of musicals with me for a while .... a love I, of course, dorkily share. So, since the guys had successfully started a music podcast it made sense to devote and episode to this genre sooner or later.

And then Jason Collins came out and we made the potentially offensive and easy leap to "hey let's get on that showtunes episode to celebrate the gay guy!!" 

The Bone Man, aka Jon, picked a couple of beauties this week: "You Have to Be Carefully Taught" from South Pacific and "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel. Quite the pair of great Rodgers & Hammerstein tunes, replete with great inspirational messages to pay seems-like-snark-but-is-really-genuine tribute to Mr. Collins and all people who have struggled to publicly come out as their true selves. 

Download here or here, stream below in the player, subscribe on itunes below (will have this ep soon) or hit the RSS feed here. 

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.

1)      The Jason Pominville Trade

I’m going to preface this with a confession: I fucking LOVE Jason Pominville. But before you think I hated the VALUE aspect of the deal, I’m ok with what he returned. For that kind of haul, you have to send the guy out of here. I also get the symbolism of trading him: he was the captain of the fired coach. A hand-picked representation of Lindy Ruff’s long tenure of milquetoast failure. I just don’t understand how people were so happy to be rid of the guy. Aside from a 15 game stretch this year, he’s been a solid two-way, point scoring, first line winger. “DURR HE WAS A BAD CAPTAIN!” Was he, WGR Caller?? I had no idea you were in the locker room and privy to what went on in there. I know he doesn't run guys through the end boards you dipshit, but when you’re sitting there wondering DURR WHY THEY NOT SCORE GOALS?? Remember that it’s because people like you want all the “pussy soft players” off the team, and generally those are the players who score goals.

2)      Tyler Myers

This one’s simple. Not as simple as saying WOW THIS GUY SUCKS, which I could easily do and move on to number 3, but just what he represents. To me Tyler Myers is the prime fucking example of everything that’s wrong with the Sabres. I don’t want him out of here, it’s stupid to think a 22 year old NHL defenseman is “done” already. But the high expectations, huge salary given based off a tiny sample size, and massive disappointment just sum up the last 8 years of Sabres hockey.

3)      Rob Ray

THAT WAS A GREAT PERIOD BY THE SABRES DESPITE BEING OUTSHOT 24-3. RYAN REALLY HAD NO CHANCE ON NATHAN KADRI’S SHOT FROM BEHIND HIS OWN NET. THEY HAVE TO COME OUT IN THIS NEXT PERIOD AND CONTINUE TO WORK REALLY HARD, I SEEN THEM DO IT BEFORE.

Seriously, take the microphone away from this asshole. He regurgitates the same 7 sentences over and over again.

4)      The Media

This one has been beat to death, and really just go read any blog post about the end of season press conference to get an idea of how terrible the BIG media in town can be. A bunch of vendetta pushing children who don’t even cover the team in any sort of depth. They’re all happy just bitching about the team, fans, front office, and what food is served in the press room on Twitter. Both major outlets pander to the part of the fanbase that will find anything to bitch about no matter how good/bad things are.  It’s lazy reporting. Thank fuck for social media, thank fuck for the BASEMENT DWELLING bloggers who can produce thought provoking statistical analysis and creative ways to educate people. If you’re here I’m assuming you know this already…or like seeing the word fuck used a lot, but educate your friends and family. Get them on Twitter, link them to blog posts…just get them the fuck away from TBN.

5)      Steve Ott

I’m going to catch hell for this one, but I really don’t care. I don’t like Steve Ott. It’s not because of what he is as a player, he’s fine there...a good 3rd liner who lays the body and has all those cool ~~intangibles~~ that give people a boner. What I don’t like is how people have pegged this guy as the poster child of what we want out of a Sabres player.

“I’d take a full team of Steve Ott’s over a whole team of Ilya Kovalchuks in the playoffs!!” – something a real person said

I get it, Sabres fans still have a massive boner for the Ted Nolan days…hitting, fighting, all that cool stuff that we like about hockey. The problem here is that a whole team of Steve Ott’s would lose a playoff game like 7-1 to a team of Ilya Kovalchuk’s. You NEED guys like Steve Ott, absolutely…but you also need skill and offensive creativity to win in the NHL.  This team blows total dog shit because it has one guy with elite NHL skill, not because you think Nathan Gerbe doesn’t TRY REAL HARD or whatever.

As far as giving Ott the “C”…if a guy who licks other dude’s visors and takes at least one stupid penalty a game is what we really want out of a captain, it just goes to show you how far off from “Hockey Heaven” we really are. Brace yourselves, it’s not getting any better anytime soon.



You can follow “The Commander” on Twitter at @essbeeay

The Barrister 

God help me for bothering to do this today. Pretty sure it's that asshole Dan Sterlace's fault, but whatever. I'm in too deep now. 

Today, unless you're a Sabres fan living under a rock that doesn't allow for decent wifi, you know there was a press conference with Ted Black and Darcy Regier. Awesome! I seem to remember they didn't have one of those last year! I bet those pros over at the Buffalo News were so excited and put on their nicest Burger King pants for the occasion. I bet they even decided not to be their usual turd burgling selves and act like adults for once. 

Or not. 

Oh mannnnnnnn, was this a terrible shit show. Everyone walked away from this looking like a terrible human being - Darcy, Mike Harrington, Jerry Sullivan, Paul Hamilton (though to be fair he waddled away looking like a walrus with terrible grammar, as per usual), Ted Black, some asshole from Channel 2 named Scott Brown and one or two guys named John, one whom I can only assume was Jon Vogl and the other who I learned was John Wawrow. Of course, the key players of Rusty Tromboning were to be expected, but fuck. The dipshittery was flying from every direction. Pretty sure I've interviewed inmates on Rikers facing murder charges evince more of a commitment to civility than I saw on display.

Oh, and they also talked about the terrible hockey team we inexplicably love. Good times.

What's the solution? Oh, I'm going to FJM this motherfucker. It's the only way we get right again.

HERE WE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

my comments will be bolded and in red, fyi....


Mike Harrington starts us off: 


Here’s  your chance to end all the speculation … is [Darcy] going to run this team for the draft and the offseason and into next season?

Ted Black: Yes

Fuck.


We could end there if I hadn't spent all that time transcribing most of the presser while waiting for someone to give me work at the office.

Q: How much consideration, given what’s going on other places in the league, other cities have made changes, was given to that, and realistically what’s your reaction when that fans say that last six years have largely been a failure? You’ve changed the coach and the General Manager is still here.

A: Darcy was given his extension that was announced in January when we came out of the lockout. The decision to extend him into next year literally was made in January, obviously, actually preceding that. The answers to fans and things like that was that the second question?

Q. Most of the fans would prefer a new General Manager.

A: When you miss the playoffs I would assume in most sports in most cities that that’s exactly what you get. The reality of it is, we’re in a process now where we’re trying to rebuild, reboot, revamp, whatever re word we’re comfortable using, and that process started last draft in 2012, there was an organizational weakness, for example, for the center position and Darcy can address this far better than I can. So accumulating picks and building, so this process has been underway for the last year and month or so.

So while this rebuild is already underway, we've barely noticed it because we've probably thought it was something else closer to "we're going to be good in just a minute," and the guy who we basically despise is still in charge of personnel. Fuck you.


Some guy named John, I think Wawrow who knows, continues...

Q. Moving on to the next topic of question, coaching-wise, have you made a decision as to where you’re gonna go with the coach?

A. Should address that to Darcy. [inaudible] To clarify that, Darcy is not my employee, Darcy and I both work for Terry Pegula. [inaudible] Oh I’m sorry, that’s why I think Darcy is the person to answer that.

Darcy: Um, Ron’s situation will be that he and I will sit down over the next week, maybe couple of weeks, re-evaluate the season, and have discussions about our relationship going forward. But I would add that I think he did a very good job under trying circumstances. And, uh, but again we’ll address that down the road.

Pay no mind that I had an integral and on-going role in creating those shit circumstances, but Ron did just fine with trying to reconfigure my douche sandwich. 


I like Rolston, but have no clue if he's got the chops to make this team his own.

Q. So just to follow up you haven’t made a decision as to what you’re going to do with the coaching situation?

A. Not yet, no.

So begins the theme of asking the same question multiple times.


We then move onto a hot topic in the last week, one that started to slowly shift everyone's focus in the presser from Ted and Darcy's Bogus Fucking Journey of Obfuscation to the apparent cadre of infantile journalists claiming to represent fan interests. This is where it gets fun.

Paul Hamilton, resident Walrus: Ted, why would um, and I’m paraphrasing here, when you raised the season ticket prices you said that with the new CBA it was something that needed to be done, why did you have to raise season ticket prices?

TB: That’s a good question, Paul, and I know there’s been a lot of speculation about that. We sent out a letter to our fans as soon as we made the decision, so actually we’re probably the first team to actually send a letter to the fans and we didn’t want to wait and sneak it in on memorial day weekend or something like that. As soon as we made the decision, we wanted to get it out. Under the CBA, half of HRR goes to the players, so of the 4% - 2% is never going to see our bottom line, it’s going to go straight to the players and into the pool throughout the league. And the entire process allows the franchise to still qualify, unencumbered, for revenue sharing.  And that’s the same process that existed before. There’s an obligation to raise money so that you don’t jeopardize that revenue stream. The 2% that will inure to us from the 4% increase, it’s really going to be rolled back into the operations whether it be something you see inside, and we’ve certainly done a lot of renovations inside the building or general operations. It wasn’t caused by the CBA, but it’s just the realities of it. The players share in half of all ticket revenue.

Q. [inaudible] Is that part of the CBA that you have to hit a certain amount?

A. It’s not that you have to hit a certain threshold by gross number, it’s a growth metric.

I despise these drawn out explanations that even a sort of competent lawyer such as myself can't really understand. I had a little back and forth with good old Harrington earlier today (he has yet to block me on twitter again after his recent stupid willingness to unblock me, which is weird since about 80% of my online life is spent making light of his reported penchant for youth soccer teams), and he confirmed that the terms of the new CBA - including a definition of Hockey Related Revenue, which could go a long way to explaining Black's comments here - has not been made public. Black sounds like an asshole here, particularly since (a) the fans really didn't need an explanation for what is basically a small increase, and (b) the explanation given was way worse than no explanation at all since owners are to blame for the lockout and should die in a fire.... but without the whole story, it's entirely possible he's not blowing smoke up each of our respective assholes, urethra, etc. 

Q. This is a follow-up to Paul’s question: the salary cap next year is dropped by $6 million, missed the playoffs the last two years, shouldn't you really be talking about decreasing ticket prices for fans?

A: The obligation to grow as a league as a whole still exists, it’s not a written obligation, but that’s what we’re trying to do is grow league revenues. Even with the 4% increase, we’re still in the bottom quarter in terms of what our prices are.  You could probably make an argument on supply and demand basis that ticket prices should be much, much higher because of demand.

Q. But you could make that same argument based on performance that they should be lower?

A: Yes you could, and I’m sure clubs that stay flat, that there are some that are going to go up more than us, we made the decision that we made that we’re going to go with 4% and, as I said, half of that actually goes to the players.

Q: Two years ago, Mr. Pegula was here for the opening press conference, I asked him whether this was about making money or winning, and he said “if I want to make more money I can drill another oil well.” He said I will lose money if necessary, to bring a Stanley Cup here. So why is there a need to raise prices?

This is where I really started to lose it, since it grew more and more apparent that some vocal contingents of the Buffalo hockey media are daft as all fuck. Sure, it's obvious most of the time. But, man. 

Pegula taking a hit on ticket revenue - even just the idea of not making market rate for tickets in high demand - has NOTHING to do with whether a Stanley Cup will be brought to Buffalo. The idea of him losing money to get us a Cup is tied to player salaries and taking risks in the player market - in not having an artificial salary cap for the franchise. Cheaper tickets, however, have no discernible impact on the team's success. Sure, if you want to argue that you'd be a happier and more boisterous fan if you could buy a ticket for $10 every night, I imagine you might be right. But you'd also be an asshole who doesn't appreciate the simple economics of sustaining a pro team in a small market and the joy with which we all should support our team even though they make us vomit. 

Being a Sabres fan is hard. We get it. But Ted Black doesn't owe us shit just because Drew Stafford is a dildo on skates.


Obviously, Ted is better with patience and words than me.

A: I think if you look out front with all the rigs and everything else it probably looks like we’re drilling wells out front with the Harbor Center. I won’t get into the mechanics of it, but I can assure you that what Terry said is completely true. He’s not operating this team to make money. In order to qualify for revenue shares, you have to grow your revenues, just the way the CBA works. I can’t get drunk off of Terry’s wealth and assume he’s gonna live forever and gonna spend money forever. This city knows what it’s like whenever the well runs dry, to continue that metaphor, and go through a bankruptcy.  My obligation is to do everything I can to preserve the value of this franchise for multiple owners and multiple team presidents after I’m not here.

Q. But Mr Pegula said, Mr. Pegula said, during the opening press conference, I said “do you anticipate having this team for your lifetime,” and he said “I actually anticipate having it beyond my lifetime” and he pointed to his children.

A. And I hope that’s the case.

Q. So if that is the case, and you’ve got an owner worth $4 billion, why are you raising ticket prices?

He said he hopes it's the case. You're not even listening, you prick. 

A: We have an owner that does have an enormous wealth, I’m not sure if that’s the correct number, I’ll never have three billion because I’d quit at two. But, I can’t make those assumptions. I think if you talk to an owner, maybe a couple a go, and ask if their company was going to last forever because they’re in the cable business and make so much money, that wasn’t a sure-fire thing. My obligation is to make sure we continue to qualify for a value revenue stream like revenue sharing, it is important – we’rwe the smallest U.S.-based market in the NHL – revenue-sharing exists for a market just like Buffalo. I hope Terry owns the team forever, I hope the Pegula kids and grandchildren own it forever and they have the same desire and love for the city that Terry does

Black is talking like a businessman here. When Pegula took over, it's as if half the fan base immediately forgot what a professional sports franchise is, and how delicate the balance is for one to continue existing in Buffalo. "Oh he's rich, he can just spend us out of a lifetime of sorrow!" Putting aside salary caps and shit free agent markets and the competition posed by other franchises that are competitive on the ice now, we should be happy that there's a guy in charge acting as intermediary between that dangerous-seeming fan boy owner and the actual business of pro hockey. Embrace it. Stop pretending that discerning fans can't see the logic there.


...

Or, you know don't.... 


Jerry Sullivan, everybody:


Q: Ted I don’t know what percentage of the fanbase is unhappy and disaffected and how many have considered actually giving up their tickets, but I want to know how concerned you are about losing some of those people because your actions suggest that you feel that you have a captive audience that won’t leave and that you’re taking them for granted.

A: That’s, uh, is that your opinion the last part of that, or…

Q: Yeah that’s my opinion I’m gonna write it tomorrow, you can respond to it ahead of time.

A: You don’t have to get hostile Jerry, I’m just trying to figure out what’s opinion and what’s reporting…

Q: there’s perceptions out there. I’m asking you if you’re concerned. There’s a question mark there

A: It sounds like you’ve already..

Q: I think, I think you act as if you have a captive audience and you’re taking them for granted. If I’m the only person that thinks that, fine. Answer the question.

The way this prick said this was appalling. Like it was an order. Sully, who the fuck do you think you are? This isn't a trial. This isn't a congressional hearing. Black is under absolutely no obligation to answer shit from you and your #WhiteVanBrigade. You've mailed it in so hard lately that when a guy gets even a little confrontational with you about your pre-prepared script of bullshit narrative, you act as if you've been robbed of some grand entitlement. 

This is why you're a hack. Because you have abandoned any shred of talent and skill you have in your profession, opting instead for a shrill shell of your former self, struggling for position in a marketplace of ideas that has found yours long-since stale.

Black, understandably and hilariously, starts to enjoy himself.

A: Can I see the article you’ve already written for tomorrow?

Q: I’ll send it to Terry.

A: He doesn’t have a computer.
Um, do I take the fans for granted? Absolutely not. This fan base has been through a lot, short and long term. This is a tremendous fan base, they deserve a lot better than what they got this year. They certainly don’t sign up for lockouts and not having hockey. We went 10 months without hockey. And it’s a fan base that, I think about it all the time, I’ve said it before, I’d rather win one Stanley Cup in Buffalo than 10 anywhere else because I know how passionate this fan base is. I’m not raising tickets by 4% to punish anyone, Jerry. If that’s the suggestion or the narrative, that’s simply not true.


Jerry doesn't give a shit about truth, Ted. Narrative is sacrosanct, especially when he gets to cut and paste shit he wrote back in 2008.


Harrington then hops back on the mic... wait, what? Are there like only six people at this presser? Is everyone there one of Harrington's cronies? You know, the ones that stalk Outlander's twitter feed so Mike can come to the defense of the disgruntles Buffalo media whenever Outlander subtweets them for one of their various shared fetishes? Probably.

MH: Ted there’s a couple of points on this ticket thing that we gotta delve into more. First of all: why would you announce any price hike and get the letters to fans on Fan Appreciation night? Do you have any sense of how callous and insensitive your fan base thinks that was?

TB: Thanks for the question, Mike, I really appreciate that. The fact of the matter is as soon as we made the decision we sent it out. It could have arrived on somebody’s birthday and they would have said how callous it is that I get it on my birthday

MH: Clearly …

TB: Let me finish please

MH: that’s pretty disingenuous don’t you think

TB: Let me finish...
I think it would be disingenuous to wait until Memorial Day weekend to send it or anything else. As soon as we made the decision, we sent it out. As I said, other teams will, I’m sure, raise prices and they haven’t sent theirs out yet.  Also, they’ll have an earlier time to decide whether they want to buy or they don’t want to buy. Not every season ticket holder is an individual. There are businesses that are season ticket holders, they may be on a fiscal year, their fiscal year ends June 30, they’re able to make a decision and play their budget accordingly. We’re going through a budget process here, I’m sure they do it at the paper in or around this time to decide how they’re going to allocate money. So the earlier you get the information in the fans’ hands, the better. And historically, we’ve sent out the same letter and/or invoice about this time every year.

MH: And historically you’ve never sent it out on fan appreciation night so we’ve made that clear so let’s go to the other point…

TB: No, we didn’t send it out on fan appreciation night. The wonderful speed with which the post office delivered it, was that it arrived that day. So we sent it out before. There was no timing. If the suggestion, Mike, in any way shape or form is that we did this to be callous ..

Good god, if there are any Sabres fans who were pissed off about getting this mailing on "Fan Appreciation Night" and got bent out shape in a way discernibly worse than would have otherwise been the case at the end of this outrageously terrible season, then shut the fuck up. If you're going to get angry at such a meaningless, random thing, then I'd prefer it if you moved down south and became a Panthers fan. I'm sure they're much better about those kinds of things while being always terrible. Just like you.

That ALL said.... fucking Sabres. That's so like you dumb assholes to do something that stupid. Even it ranks very near the bottom of stupid things your franchise has done this year.

...

MH:  So you don’t feel the need to apologize to your fans for that point at all?

TB: For the timing? If the timing was insulting, absolutely. Fan appreciation night was a wonderful night, wonderful game, we enjoy what the fans provide to us and vice versa. The suggestion that we timed it that way is completely untrue. And as I said it’s in or about this time every year that it goes out. It may have turned on that people received it for the last game of the season last year and in years past I haven’t really benchmarked it. But, when things are going the way they are now, that becomes the headline story if that’s the headline story that needs to be written.

... needs to be written by dumb as fuck journalists who are willing to concoct any narrative so long as it passes muster with the knuckledraggers of our fan base. When do we get to talk about hockey in this presser?

MH: You have an exceedingly wealthy owner, everyone knows that. Why does this franchise, with an exceedingly wealthy owner who just happens to be working in Buffalo, New York, need to qualify for revenue sharing and why do ticket prices go up based on the changes in the revenue of the CBA as pointed out very accurately in the NY Post story?

I guess not yet. 

For the record, the NY Post "story" referred to by Harrington here is written by Mikey's NYC counterpart in creepy-faced, terrible hockey coverage, Larry Brooks. And when Harrington says "story," he really means snarky, unsubstantiated rebuttal of the Sabres' claim that the CBA forced them to raise ticket prices. Again, NONE OF US HAVE THE DOCUMENT. We don't know what exactly the CBA does.  Brooks' rebuttal is a fan-centered, "fuck the owners" piece of nothing reporting. Indeed, there was no reporting. There was no story apart from "Sabres do thing that can't possibly be true, according to me, and hahahaha what assholes they are."


For the record, we at the Deeg are supposed to write that kind of nonsense. Not Larry fucking Brooks of the New York Po.... wait, yeah, actually him, too. Nevermind.

TB: I answered all those, but I’ll repeat it again. I can’t take for granted that Terry’s always going to be the owner. I can’t take for granted that revenue sharing won’t be important to this club long-term. And I also, half of the increase, of the 4% of increase, is actually going to HRR that the players will benefit from.

MH: Do you regret that Terry said he would just drill an oil well?

TB: No I think it was pretty funny.

MH: But it’s coming back to this organization:

TB: It was addressed this time last year. We did the exact same thing. We raised prices last year as well. And the ability to have a snarky comment to something like that is going to live forever. I thought it was a great line that Terry made and it’s out there. And again, we addressed the same thing last year.

At this point, Ted Black got a little tired from throwing Jerry and Mikey around with such intellectual vigor/obfuscaction, so he punted a question about hockey philosophy to Darcy and then Darcy gave a long-winded Dary response that included the following:

the vision.... trade deadline .... more top ... about ... two .... runs.... You want ... will .... in ... period... obvious ways ... the bottom ... Crosby ... Malkin ... do it... in between ... length of ... agent ... not what it once was... less ... able ... to be ... back to the ... other way... top ... top ... about ... which ... I’m not ... asking ... a big part ... on a daily ... search of ... stronger ... suffering.... suffering.  And .. moving ... is part of the top ... currently ... to ... to win a ... timeline ...  that could be one....

GREAT ANSWER, there. Believe me, you got enough to know the important bits.


Put another way: we're fucked with him still in charge. 


Q: can you speak specifically, then, because I know a lot of fans have these questions, how the approach you’re talking about pertains to the futures of Thomas Vanek and Ryan Miller?

DR: They’re both under contract for one more season. I’ve talked to both of them. They are aware that this is about the Stanley Cup. We can do a number of things, and nothing has been decided, because quite honestly we’re going to get through this playoff in the National Hockey League we’re going to go into the draft, teams are going to be in different positions, there’s just so much undecided right now. It may involve both of them being here,  it may involve one of them being here, it may involve none of them being here. I can only tell you that obviously they are upper-echelon, top-level players, and can certainly be a part of a Stanley Cup team.


This is terrible.

Paul H: Darcy in both cases, I had a chance to chat with them before, while they cleaned out their lockers, and as you said they want to know, they want to talk to you, they want to talk to Terry Pegula if they could just to find out where things are going. If one or both of those men say, you know I just can’t see re-signing him or whatever, does it become imperative then that you have to move one or both of those guys?

DR: It changes the equation, certainly. I have spoken with both of those players; Terry has spoken with both of those players. There is, and I can speak to it, there is very obvious direction from within the hockey team and the hockey department. Not avoiding your question, Paul, I’m just not able to answer it because we don’t know what the marketplace is going to make available and we don’t know for sure if these players, if we’re in a position to sign them long-term. But certainly as it goes, the value of players that are entering  the last year of their contracts, they have one value at a trade deadline the year before, they have another value at the draft, they have another value following free agency, and then the last value is really at the following trade deadline.

Q: [inaudible]

A: The last one certainly goes down, the one at next year’s trade deadline goes down, but the reality whether this trade deadline or the draft is more valuable, in their case, it wasn’t the trade deadline


While I'm here: don't trade those guys. Re-sign them. Give them what they want. They are the only reason I care about this team and sure as shit I don't trust Darcy to get good return for them. Paranoia? Sure. Justified paranoia? Of course. Trading them would ruin our lives as fans, not to mention the, I'm sure, promising returns the team acquires who would be destined for failure in Buffalo. Vanek and Miller are the guys who've been great despite the historically scary voodoo that must have been put on Buffalo years back. They're resilient. They stay. 

For sake of relative brevity, I'm skipping some questions on Tyler Myers (cliffnotes: he blows), and then we get to the moment we all suspected and feared was coming. 


Scott Brown, from WGRZ, takes the reigns for this journey:

Q: For Ted, why isn’t Mr. Pegula here today? You’re raising ticket prices, team has missed the playoffs. Doesn’t he have an obligation answer questions about both the hockey side and the business side of the operation?

TB: That’s a great question, and the way you phrased it too: Terry hired me to run the business and speak for the business. He hired Darcy to run the hockey operations and speak for the hockey operations.  He has a high level of trust in us to do that and he has empowered us to do that.

So, that’s our role. Terry’s role is more of being a typical owner.  I worked for an owner, two owners in Pittsburgh, Ron Burkle and Mario [Lemieux] and they would never be somewhere like this. It’s just not, it’s not what a typical owner does.

Scott: Well, can I say for Buffalo fans they expect their owners to be responsible and responsive to what’s going on, and that means answering questions.

No, you cannot "say" for Buffalo fans. If you're going to speak for anyone, speak for stupid Buffalo fans who can't bother to understand why a man with multiple business interests clicking at one time, not to mention a family, not to mention a completely understandable aversion to answering questions from maggot reporters who are forever stuck in a sports market they publicly loathe. 


You don't speak for me. I expect nothing from Terry other than an open checkbook for gnarly players and, eventually, the head of Darcy Regier. Answering questions at a press conference won't satisfy those desires. 

TB: I don’t know that that’s completely true. That happens in this or any other market. Terry’s certainly available and speaks publicly and will continue to…

<some asshole probably Harrington> when is Terry available, come on? When is he available? He wouldn’t answer hockey questions one time, I have to stop it right there, Ted, come on that’s ridiculous.

TB: Terry was available to the media two, three weeks ago…

MH: … and didn’t answer any hockey questions when he was there. He refused to answer hockey questions that should have been answered by the owner. <voice raises> You weren’t even there when Lindy was fired, as Darcy told us, you were out of town…

TB: Sorry, what question do you want me to answer, do you want to know where I was that weekend?

MH: … that’s just ridiculous.

DR: What bearing would that had, that last comment about him [Black] not being here?

MH: Well, the point is…

TB: I was at a business meeting in New York.

MH: … right, you’re supposed to be speaking for Terry when he fired the coach, you weren’t even there, Darcy had to do that, you’re saying Terry’s available….

TB: Terry is available to speak on matters that involve the franchise.

MH: Alright, so I want to make an interview request right now…

TB: Let’s be clear. Mike, Mike, Terry’s not going to be available to answer every question you want to ask him. 

Harrington's heart skips a beat, his brain reluctant to accept this simple undeniable truth.

MH: Maybe he should be about the firing of a 16 year head coach.

TB: No, No, That’s what he has Darcy do.

MH: And Darcy did a fine job.

Tb: EXACTLY! You get it now!

Translation: "I've explained this shit how many times since we sat down? and I've come to the conclusion that you're a self-righteous moron with terrible body odor and the reasoning skills of a second grader. I see now why people swear at you so often on Twitter since you're just such a massive douchebag." 

MH: The owner should be there, too, because the owner was certainly there at the beginning.

TB: The owner was there at the beginning …

<MH interrupts inaudibly, probably something about sandwiches>

TB: Mike, behave yourself professionally, can you?

MH: <like a child> I am being professional, I’m asking a question.

Harrington is nothing more than the "are we there yet?" kid. The kid who asks "why?" all the time because he didn't understand in journalism school - if he even went? - that you only keep asking questions until you've gotten a reasonable answer and not until you've received some satisfaction akin to the time you beat your younger brother in Monopoly after stealing a few $500 bills while he was in the bathroom.

TB: Which question do you want me to answer before you interrupt me again?

MH: You say Terry is available, and I’m …

TB: Terry speaks when it’s appropriate for the owner to speak, and in the right capacity that he going to speak.

MH: The owner ..

TB: Let me finish an answer to your question! It’s not that hard!

I'll tell you something that IS hard when I hear Theodore talk like that. It reminds with "fry mick."

MH: Go ahead. It was appropriate for him to answer questions about the coach and he refused.

TB: When? What are you talking about?

MH: He was at the Harbor Center, he would not answer questions about firing of the coach, that was the first time anyone had a chance to ask him about it.

TB: And he wasn’t there to do that.

MH: He should have been. He was asked about Harbor Center, he could’ve answered reasonable question about firing the coach.

But he didn't. But he didn't have to. But he shouldn't have to when posed to him in the snarky tone of disgruntled USPS employee waiting for her smoke break. 

TB: He was there to announce the investment of $172 million into our community. That’s what he did. He wasn’t there to talk about the hockey department or hiring or firing of coaches that took place two or three months before that, I don’t know…

MH: <inaudible something about “just for the record” as if he’s in a fucking courtroom and the “record” actually fucking matters, Jesus Christ this fucking guy>

TB: I understand that you want to talk to him all the time. And I understand that because he’s a dynamic person to speak with. Lies. I’d love to speak to your boss. I’d love to have Warren Buffett come in here and chat it would be awesome.

This is by far my favorite rebuttal to the "where's Pegula?" crap. Fuck it, I want to talk to Henry Ford and and am going to act like a vagina until I get my way.

MH: <some smartass comment about Terry being here around all the time>

DR: In fairness, he’s really not…

MH: … we see him on the road.

DR: No, no.

TB: You understand that he’s just not going to be at a press conference like this. You don’t like it, you don’t like it, but I wanna make sure that everyone has that expectation.

MH: I don’t want you to sit there and lie like you just did.

TB: Mike, that’s defamatory.

MH: That’s not defamatory, that’s fact, you said Terry’s available and he’s not and we all know it.

To be fair, Black did kind of bullshit them with the "Terry is available" stuff. To be fair squared, the Buffalo News sports staff could try to track down Pegula outside of a public press conference setting and do some actual reporting and journalism, as opposed to simple regurgitation of the Sabres' company line. We fans want that. We don't want you acting like little bitches when someone actually acknowledges that you're due NOTHING. 

TB: Terry’s available to speak and he does. And he does. And he’s a very dynamic speaker.

Again, a lie. Pegula sounds like a pussy.

Scott Brown: When is he available and can we set up a press conference right now for next week or next month with Mr. Pegula so we can ask…

Scott! I forgot you were still here. 

TB: I understand that. He hires me to run the business and speak for the business. He hired Darcy to run the hockey operations and speak for the hockey operations. And that’s what we do. When there’s appropriate times for the owner to come forward and speak, he will.  HarborCenter is a great example of that, there will certainly be social events that he speaks at. That’s the typical role of an owner.  I understand that everyone here wants to grill Terry and hold his feet to the fire and things like that. That should.. that’s not what the owner of a typical business does.

<Harrington speaks off mic, reportedly again about sandwiches and how he thinks the Sabres PR intern is hot>

TB: Mike, you’re really showing your bias here. I really wish…

MH: There’s no bias here.

No bias. Just stupidity with a generous helping of laziness and a side of creepy mullet.

TB: Well, I’ve already heard one of your colleagues say that they’ve written a story for tomorrow, and now you’re handling yourself this way, interrupting questions and answers.

MH: <inaudible>

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The Buffalo News can suck it.

Scott: If I could follow up, because Darcy just said something. I saw Terry Pegula yesterday in Buffalo. So, it’s not like he was in Florida or out of town on business. Why couldn’t he be here today? We’re spending half of the news conference on why.

He could be here today, he just chooses not to because he despises each of you with a flame so incredibly fierce it was probably lit by an unchecked line of natural gas seeping from Pegula's latest fracking adventure.


Also, you've been talking about it for half the press conference because you're all petulant children still yearning for another suckle at the teet taken from you so many years ago. This is YOUR fault. Not Ted Black's.  


Also you're fault? Apartheid.

TB: Maybe I’m not being very clear because I’m not being as articulate as I need to be. Terry is not going to speak on the day-today operations of the franchise. He’s not going to speak on the business side; he hired me to do that. He hired Darcy to run the hockey operations and speak to that. The hiring or firing of a coach, that’s Darcy’s job and that’s what he’s empowered to do. And Terry’s role as an owner is going to be that of a more of a traditional owner… of any business.

Scott: He’s not going to speak on a day-to-day basis, but how about a year-to-year basis?

TB: And I don’t know, quantify the number of times Terry has spoken in the last year, but I can get that for you, he certainly has.

Don't.

More from Darcy...

John Wawrow, again I am told: Darcy, looking ahead to the fact that you are getting one more opportunity and some people may say “one too many opportunities,” you know the criticism that’s been leveled at you. Why do you believe you have earned that opportunity given that some, there’s a criticism out there that perhaps you over-estimated the lineup that you had three or four years ago, and why do you believe you get that opportunity and what challenge do you face in knowing that you have the Stanley Cup objective ahead of you?

I hate it when reporters do this. YOU believe this. It is YOUR criticism. It's the Katie Couric "some say you've lied while on the floor of Congress" bullshit she spouts because she's a fucking coward and wants to be well-liked. Pro tip: Don't worry if Darcy likes you. He's a terrible GM and rambles on like he's desperate to find words to convince himself otherwise. 

Those words don't exist. Please. Resign.

DR: I don’t take any of this for granted in any way, and I’m extremely grateful not just for this opportunity but for being here even on a day like today. I think this is great! The reality of it, if I didn’t have the confidence that I, in the general manager’s position along with the people I work with, could accomplish building a Stanley Cup winner, I wouldn’t be here. I can tell you that going back to ’05-’06, ’06-’07, we did build a team that contended for the Stanley Cup. We didn’t get it there, we came close, we did finish 5th overall, we did win the President’s Trophy, there’s unfinished business there, I have a lot more insight into and experience and I’ve learned a lot more in that process. I’m not an old man. My goal is to come to work every day learning something new. And it hasn’t changed, and I am. And I recognize that you can look at the performance of the team which is what you’re commenting about, and it doesn’t reflect it. I can tell you that, just that I told you before, we have gone with more determination in a very distinct direction which is about the Stanley Cup. So, I feel good about it. I love the opportunity. I understand what we’re talking about here. I understand our fan base. And I would like to think that people would give up some suffering to win the Stanley Cup. I’m willing to do it, I believe our fan base is willing to do it. We certainly don’t want to extend it for a long period of time, we want to make it as short as possible, and that’s the goal.


My boner from Black earlier, now definitely gone, and while I need to check with a Doctor, I'm pretty sure my testicles may have ascended.

Q: Just as a follow-up, because suffering has been mentioned multiple times, or at least that’s the second time.

DR: Well that’s what we’re talking about here, we’re talking about not making the playoffs, you know, the hardships. 


Sports co-opting laughably overstated language to talk about fan disappointment is my favorite.

Q: Some could say Sabres fans have gone through enough suffering, for, going back to bankruptcy. Beyond that

DR: Sure.

Q: I guess the follow-up would be how much suffering’s enough?

DR: Well you have to pay the price to win the Stanley Cup. It hasn't always been the direction to win the Stanley Cup, it’s the playoffs first and hope you can roll through the playoffs. The reality of Stanley Cup championship teams outside of last season for the first time from a 13th place overall team, you had to be in the top 5. And you have to have very good teams and you have to have very good players and you have to suffer or go through the process of acquiring those players and putting those teams together. Not every franchise is willing to do that. And so you satisfy yourselves and your fan base with a playoff. But you have to do more than that if you’re set on winning a championship.

The thing that bugs me the most about this, besides the fact that this dick still has a job, is that he uses '05-'07 as some sort of badge of honor, as evidence he has what it takes to build a winner, but then talks about how the franchise is shifting towards a new paradigm. If he could basically build a contender under Golisano, why are we being fed this narrative - see the Sabres have one, too - about needing to suffer through some shit years. Unless that narrative is just a fucking excuse to make us tolerate the team failing to meet even the most basic of expectations. 

Jerry: Ted, simple point. You said early on here that you, that he wasn’t your employee. Are you saying that you’re not Darcy’s boss? And I’m just wondering, assuming you are his boss, also, who is involved or was involved in this organization up to the top in deciding whether he [Regier] was going to be retained as General Manager. … 

And as a sidenote, if you’re suggesting that I’m out of line to tell you what I’m going to write tomorrow, after 14 years following this team, it’s pretty easy to have an inkling of what you’re going to say about the Buffalo Sabres.

Oh man I hope you stayed around for this one. After 14 years of following this team (read: I've been doing this too long), it's pretty easy to have an inkling of what you're going to say (read: such that I've stopped having independent thoughts based on the circumstances unfolding around me, but instead reach into my file cabinet brain and mail it in). 

Jerry isn't trying anymore. He wanted to write a piece about the Sabres taking advantage of a "captive audience" in their fan base, because it sure seemed a reasonable conclusion and would make for great page views, and rather than listen to Black's apparently honest response, and internalize the explanation about revenue sharing and the need to grow ticket revenue as a motivation for higher pricing, Jerry was intent on writing the story he knew was the truth. 

I repeat: You're a hack. Leave the hackery to the amateurs like me.

TB: I appreciate you sharing that last part with me. The first question was “is Darcy my employee?”, no. Darcy reports to Terry Pegula. As do I. The decision …

<inaudible from press>

<inaudible from Darcy>

TB: Terry was here, to answer the point earlier, when does Terry speak, Terry spoke when the lockout was over, announcing Darcy’s …I’m sorry

Q: The question was, who decides Darcy…

TB: Well I was using that as an example that that would be Terry and that would be an announcement that Terry would make. If he replaced me, I would assume Terry would make that announcement himself as well.


I know this is long. Fuck, I know. But I'm still enjoying it. And I hope you are, too. 

On the bright side, I still think all the reporters there are still clueless as to the organizational structure of the Sabres, despite Black explaining it a half dozen times today.

I'll cut some sections for all of our sake, but we finally got to some actual hockey questions:

Q: Darcy, would you speak to the future makeup of the team? Let’s see you got Armia, Larsson, Girgensons, and you mentioned centers earlier.Are you confident that that position is headed in the right direction? Also, Steve Ott, will there be any contract talks with him? And John Scott as well?

Whoever asked this needs to get the fuck out.

DR: Yes on the last two. SCOTT. JOHN SCOTT. This is hell we're in. Armia was part of the championship team that won the Finnish league. So he is obviously a good prospect. Larsson and Girgensons have both performed really well at the American League level, they’re on a line together and have played very well in the first two games. Mikhail came back, as you know, from Quebec, played here and as shown very good, is moving in the right direction, has developed, for me, has made very good progress this year. And he will play in Rochester, he played the second game, and will play Wednesday and Thursday as well. So those players are moving in the right direction. They reflect the future of this franchise. We hope to continue that and add to that in this draft.

Paul H: With <walrus exhale>, you’re already the youngest team when you made those trades that happened, moving forward now, and looking at a trade, are you just looking for picks or are you looking for young players or are you looking for a 29 year old guy who might be in the top 10 in scoring or is it too early to be looking for guys like that, er er,  in free agency, are you looking for the top free agents or isn’t that what you’re about right now as far as trying to build this team?

This motherfucker talks like he writes which means shitty. Translation: "Are you considering all options possible?"

DR: You’re looking at, in the right situation you’re looking at all of those. You asked about Steve Ott. Steve Ott plays a very important role for this hockey club. Not only what he does on the ice, but what he does off the ice. The work he does in and around the younger players, teaching them what it means to be a professional. Like licking fools. So he becomes a very important player. With respect to the top players who we hope to acquire, they need to fit into, you know, preferably into an age group. You certainly need to block enough quality players together so that they can grow and compete together and win together, and not have the older guys fall off on the one end or the younger guys be too young to contribute. So your resources have to  be brought together in a form that is going to allow a group to win.

Q: When you’re talking about suffering in terms of the rebuild, um, it sounds like you’re asking for patience, is that at a fair thing to say?

DR: It is.

Q: And if so, is it fair to expect that with the disappointment over the last two seasons and the timeframe set up by this organization saying the Stanley Cup was, you know, three years away, three years ago. Is it fair to expect that?

DR: If there was another alternative and if there is another alternative, we will do everything we can to find it. Short of that alternative, it may well require some patience and, but the payout is what it’s about, it’s about and where Terry is, it’s about a Stanley Cup championship, not just a playoff run.

I highly doubt the franchise expects this kind of patience from us. They're for sure asking for it, and fuck we're probably going to give it to them because we're idiots but well, sports, right guys?

Q: Darcy a couple of hockey questions. One guy we didn’t see on locker cleanout day, just as things went, was Ville Leino. What is his current health status looking forward to potential surgeries and how will that impact, potentially, his candidacy if he were going to be an amnesty buyout.

DR: He is going to have a procedure to take care of his issue.

Q. The hip or the lung?

IT HAS TO BE THE LUNG, RIGHT? HIS LUNG IS FUCKED UP oh man #becauseitsbuffalo

DR: The hip.  And he should be 100% at the start of the season. 

DAMMIT. Not sure how a fucked lung can allow you to be at 100% but Darcy is a magician with maths. 

Q: The other question would be are you dismayed at all by some of the comments that Ryan and Thomas have said, I mean you want to talk to them, you've already said here you’d be interested in having them in a Stanley Cup team. They seem to be one foot out the door, and certainly the five hundredth game looked like Ryan’s farewell to everybody.

Nice command of the narrative with this question. Really well done.

DR: I know that things, and how you feel, and how you even feel a day later or days later… it changes. It changes. I feel like I’ve got a great relationship with those two individuals. They;’re both terrific people and terrific hockey players and I would love to keep them here going forward. It’s an unknown right now. They’re under contract for next season. We’ll do everything we can to make them a part of this, but we’ll have to see. Beyond that, I have the utmost respect for those individuals.

Oh. Um. Ok, I'll be over here crying if you need me.

MH: Last one, Ted, one quick question on hockey. Is there any concern organizationally that any cost overruns at HarborCenter might affect hockey operations?

TB: No, and that’s a good question. And before we end here, I want to apologize to you, Mike. That was very rude of me. And for anyone listening, Mike Harrington, I want to apologize to you for suggesting to you that you were showing your bias. I lost my temper. And I also want to apologize to you, Jerry, and ask if you’d both forgive me….  I apologize, you guys have your jobs to do and I respect what you do.

No. No. No. NO!!!!


This was going so well. If you can't give me good hockey, Ted Black, at least give me hilarious smack-on-the-taint snark towards our unbelievably deficient local sports media. You had these guys dead to rights, and then you fucking apologize. Christ on a cracker, the Sabres are fucking soft.


There was other stuff, but I just can't. This fucking team.

The Outlander

Tomorrow night the longest lockout shortened season in the history of sports is coming to an end. Seriously, it’s only been three months; I have the schedule in front of me and everything. If you want highlights only, this will be a quick read for you: season opener, three Boston wins, comeback against Montreal, snapping Pittsburgh’s win streak. There, you can go back to whatever it was you were doing before you got here; I’m only writing this because the Wild Card is some sort of wunderkind and I’m feeling inadequate.  Actually I’ll give you one more highlight: waking up at the gate in JFK at 7:30am after Occupy Newark, surrounded by dozens of people with only hazy recollection of how I got there. Probably should have just taken Scizz’s couch invite instead of taking a cab to the airport at 4am, but I am thankful for whatever TSA agent kindly let me through security.

That still-intoxicated confusion amongst the chaos of a crowded airport terminal is indicative of the season we just watched. What happened? Why was everything so terrible? Why am I still wearing this Vanek jersey? Well, I watched nearly every game and I don’t have the slightest goddamn clue. All I know is this is the first season I didn’t see a win in person since 2003-2004 and I’ve spent nearly all of those seasons in between living hours away.  Well that, and that there were many specific things that came together like some sort of horrifying, malevolent Captain Planet to ruin our evenings three times a week. 

At first I was just going to list all the things that were horrible about this season but as I got to eleven it struck me that first, with enough time this list could go on perpetually as if I was writing out the decimals in pi, looking for an end, and second, I wanted to identify what was worse than all the others; what, when matched up against the other “worst” things on the list, made the others look better. Think of this like a Bill Simmons' NBA trade value column, except you’ve heard of these names and I don’t get paid for it. To properly settle this, I decided to seed the eight worst entities about this season and match them up in a tournament format to see what exactly would come out on top (bottom?), along with my analysis. 


To the seedings:

9 (Honorable Mention): John Scott - I definitely bitched about his presence on the ice more than some of the things found below, but when compiling this list I felt he may have gotten a bad rap from me. First, we all knew coming in he wasn't skilled at hockey. Two, it wasn't his decision to put him in the lineup constantly, leaving talented- err, less awful players scratched. However, he would have cracked my top 8 if it wasn't for his photobombing post-game interviews late in the season. So, thanks to some stellar off-ice moves, Scott does not make the most hated tournament. But seriously, get the fuck off my team now.

8) Jochen Hecht: I’m not sure what I hate more, his complete ineptitude on offense, the rare moments when that ineptitude disappears, or the fact that everyone involved in making organizational decisions loves this guy for reasons beyond understanding. Ruff, Regier and Rolston have raved about this statue and I haven’t the slightest fucking clue. Giving Hecht top line minutes was effectively hoping for a 1-0 win or a 2-1 overtime loss, and despite this I STILL don’t trust them to cut ties after this season. He’s a fucking 80’s horror villain. Go away.

7) Drew Stafford: Fuck Drew Stafford. Thanks for those two shootout goals I guess, dickface.

6) The Buffalo News: This is primarily a credit to their belief that all the teams ills would have been solved if the owner had commented about Regier or the Pominville trade. Watching them slowly melt down during the season into petulant children was pretty funny when I wasn’t annoyed by the pettiness and lack of professionalism by people who actually do get paid to write for a living. Plus they’re fucking creepy. Solid dark horse as a six seed

5) Management of Mikhail Grigorenko: I don’t work in sports, but I’m going to assume this is not how you handle the best prospect that you've drafted since Vanek: take him from his junior team, play him with Scott and Hecht, or play him five minutes, or scratch him, never give him power play minutes in favor of Stafford, then send him back to juniors two months later only to call him back up for the final five games, two of which he’s scratched again. Genius.

4) Power Play: You know what’s terrible? Allowing lots of goals when you have more players than the other team, something I thought only happened in NHL 2001 on the original Playstation console. Carry the puck in, shooting it in, it hasn't mattered because this was a fucking train wreck.

3) Tyler Myers/Jordan Leopold: If you want to think of this category as simply Myers, I won’t stop you. Myers' absence has actually made the games infinitely less frustrating to watch, as well as making the team better on the ice, which is exactly the effect you want the absence of your Calder winning defenseman to have. Out of position, getting outmuscled, standing around, these two oafs combined gave more nightmares to children than anything else this winter. At least Myers doesn’t cost eight figures…

(goes to capgeek, head explodes)

2) Southeast Division: You know what’s not a secret about me? Well, most things, but especially my hatred for the Southeast division. Three of these teams are well deserving of relocation or contraction, one is full of bandwagon fans that couldn’t be bothered to attend games until they started winning President’s trophy’s and the other…well the other I don’t hate since the league smartened up and sent them to Winnipeg. I suppose now I just hate them because like the rest of their divisional brethren, the Sabres were wholly incapable of beating them. This division is going to have one representative in the playoffs while three teams draft ahead of the Sabres, and yet they were swept by Carolina, Winnipeg and Washington and could only grab three wins from the two teams located in America’s own penal colony of Florida. Fuck.

1) Twitter: My god. A heavy favorite to win, considering this encompasses the booing arguments, the tanking arguments, the anti-Miller weasels, the Ruff defenders and everything else terrible about all of you. Well not you specifically because you’re reading this and are a well-valued consumer of my written words, with nuanced views. But everyone else? Yeah fuck those folks. During the 2011 playoff push twitter was a way to share in the optimism and excitement while I was marooned in a in a Vermont town referred to as “Scary Barre.” This year it offered a outlet to deflect our hate from the team to each other and to asinine discussions about what it means to be a fan. Granted, I got roped into most of these discussions because, well, I’m not very good at resistance, but that doesn't mean I liked any of it. 

Matchups:

(1) Twitter v. (8) Jochen Hecht: Ironically when these two entities combine, you get a thoroughly enjoyable experience trashing Hecht on twitter. Kind of like with John Scott, half my problem with Hecht is that everyone in charge likes him so much. Look, I know nice people too, that doesn’t mean I don’t want them doing anything important, like fixing my car, shopping for my beer, or skating on the second line for my favorite hockey team. Plus I can’t hate a guy too much who went through the concussion issues Jochen did. That said, if he’s back next season he gets a 2 seed. This time though, twitter wins in a walk as the boos drown out Hecht. 
Winner: TWITTER

(2) Southeast Division v. (7) Drew Stafford: The next time Stafford says something interesting, it’ll be the first time. He’s been on the team for the better part of a decade and my best memories of him consist of a couple overtime goals and a hat trick in a losing effort in 2011. That’s it. Oh, and his penchant for scoring meaningless goals in blowouts and missing open nets when it matters. Whenever I see someone at games in a Stafford jersey, I just feel sad for them. That said, they got swept by fucking Carolina. Early in the season or not, the bullshit of the Southeast trumps one of many underachieving douches.
Winner: SOUTHEAST DIVISION

(3) Myers/Leopold v. (6) The Buffalo News: What an epic matchup. This is that 5-12 game in the NCAA tournament that does to double overtime. This is difficult for me to quantify seeing as I only follow Vogl on twitter and refuse to read anything by Sullivan or Harrington unless it’s making the rounds, whereas I’ve seen plenty of Myers skating around like Clifford the Big Red Dog, chasing the puck without the slightest fucking clue of what to do when he got it. Pass across the zone? Picked off! Flip puck out of the zone? Kept in! Hit the guy down low? Leave guy wide open in the slot! Lost behind the play? Slide across the ice after the goal to make it seem like you tried! In the opposing corner we have Sully using the owner’s daughters for fodder and Harrington creeping on female bloggers. It comes down to professionalism and what Myers has done this season more closely reflects hockey than Sully/Harrington reflects journalism. Our first upset. 
Winner: THE BUFFALO NEWS

(4) Power Play v. (5) Grigorenko’s Management: At its worst, a power play is supposed to be at least an opportunity to not be scored on for a couple minutes. This season even that seemed to be out of reach. Obviously there were plenty of shorthanded goals allowed, but beyond that there were oodles of shorthanded goals almost allowed, kept out only thanks to the emo guy or the Swedish meatball. How many times were the Sabres up one, going to the power play, only to not create any chances and later give up the tying goal? A lot. Grigorenko? Well, he’s young and while this season sure as shit didn't help him any (that we know of), they can’t butcher it up this badly next year, right? What are they gonna do, play Luke Adam instead? Re-sign Hecht and Scott? Oh fuck no (breathes into paper bag) let’s just deal with that next year. 
Winner: POWER PLAY



Semi-finals

(1) Twitter v. (4) Power Play: The fact that “Hecht on 2nd power play line” is currently on my twitter feed is a solid statement about both of these terrible things. It got to the point where a power play is usually when I would get up and grab a beer, or make a sandwich. The power play was so terrible I wished we could decline them not because I feared a shorthanded goal (though there is that), but because I knew the power play would just make me more pissed off and negative about the game than I would be without watching them haplessly enter the zone only to be sent chasing back into their own end for two minutes. Power plays were rarely more than the death knell of any enthusiasm one could muster for these games. But twitter was the reason there was rarely any enthusiasm before the game in the first place. Twitter made me download an app so I could mute some of you fucktards. First the Sabres twitter feed wasn't funny, then it was trying too hard to be funny. And my god, the crowd’s too quiet, and the music sucks. No, you suck. I was watching the Drury goal against the Rangers last weekend as I usually do after several cocktails, and you know what was playing before the faceoff? Fucking Smashmouth! Their music sucked then too, along with the jerseys and probably half a million other little things that no one gave a shit about because the team was good! And that rant alone is enough to blow the impotent PP away. 
Winner: TWITTER

(2) Southeast Division v. (6) The Buffalo News: What was your favorite blown lead to Florida? Was it the two-goal lead on Super Bowl Sunday, or was it the one Easter weekend when points were at a premium? I tend to believe the former because I had least had wings, dips, and chili coming afterwards. You know what’s really fucking stupid? The first three sentences in this paragraph. However, the Southeast shall be no more come next season and besides, we will have plenty of time to put Tampa and Florida back in their rightful places as the bitches of our division. At least until Florida moves to Kansas City or Seattle and then we have to do realignment all over again because the league is run by morons. However, we’re stuck with our newspaper. The petty snipes, the lazy narratives, the hard-hitting “reporting” on what Pegula daughter is tweeting what or what former Sabre scored a goal despite not playing for the team in half a decade. Better yet, what former Sabres should be coaching and how this franchise would just get over the hump if the owner could tell us WHERE HIS PENN STATE SLUSH FUND IS KEPT!!!! Hacks beat hicks. 
Winner: THE BUFFALO NEWS

Final

(1) Twitter v. (6) The Buffalo News: Hmm. Do I hate the people who read our blog for enjoyment, or the people who read our blog for evidence of libel? This is really a “chicken or the egg” argument. What made the booing crap so annoying? The fans (including myself) that went back and forth about it, or the men who insisted on asking the players about it every single night? Together these two forces laid waste to all coherence and enjoyment, like a black blizzard from the dust bowl seeping into every crevice of discourse even though you unfollowed these idiots long ago and MY GOD LINDY MIGHT COACH THE LIGHTNING EVEN THOUGH WE HELPED RUN HIM OUT OF TOWN EVERYONE MUST KNOW!!!! As for the pettiness over Pegula rightfully snubbing them, I’ve stated before that I don’t think the News’ problem is as much the fact that the owner doesn't talk to them, as it is that the fans really don’t care. I know the problems with the franchise, we all do. I know that there’s nothing I can do but hope those problems are fixed, starting with trades, free agency and the draft this offseason. Do I like the general manager? Of course not. But listening to the owner answer asinine questions about fracking and Penn State isn't going to get any of that done faster. As a matter of fact, it won’t get any of it done at all.

And that’s why Twitter, while it certainly amplified the disgust of this season and sent the fan base fracturing over a bunch of meaningless garbage in lieu of debates over lineups and strategy - you know, stuff that matters when your team wins enough games - we all at least could agree that all we wanted in the end was for the team to succeed. I don’t expect the same from reporters, but I do expect that they show the neutrality they like to hold up like some sort of fucking award. I don’t see neutrality.  I see a desire to assign blame and if there isn't something to assign blame about, then I see an entity that simply makes something up for the fans to blame. You don’t like the power play? Pegula won’t comment! You wondering why Myers has regressed so much? Steve Ott hates your booing! Curious about the coaching situation for next season? It’s your fault for supporting them! No, in the end the worst thing about this season has been the continuing erosion of respectable journalism in this town and the unwarranted hostility towards the owner, the players, and the fans (except for us, I’d like to think we've earned that hostility). I didn't expect this result when I assigned the seeds, but in the end it was pretty obvious.

And besides, I want you all to follow me on Twitter.

Winner: THE BUFFALO NEWS

These 4-picture collages are quickly becoming my thing. And that title was literally the last thing I wrote. I didn’t even mean it to rhyme. Until I included fuck you. Then needed something to rhyme with it. 

ANYWAYS… Don’t get me wrong - I loves me some mock drafts. But let’s face it - it’s a crap shoot and nobody knows a fuck about fuckin’ nothin’. But I wonder who knows the least nothing... rrr most nothing... -achm- I wonder who sucks the most at it?!

Well, in the words of that creepy owl from the Tootsie Pop commercials, LEEEET’S FIIIIIND OOOUUUT!

I employ a grizzly monster the Westerners call “statistics.” It’s actually really great. You just throw some numbers together and then when the simpletons disagree with you, you just say “hey, the numbers never lie.” They get red in the face and say something like “whatever, I mean, I just feel like...” and then you laugh inside a deep, bellowing laugh that echoes across your inner kingdom because you know you’ve won. So finish your 168x IPA kick off your oxfords, and throw on an episode of Workaholics because you’re a nasty prick and that’s what nasty pricks seem to like these days.

Whoa, what the hell happened? Oh yeah, I was going to write about sports. Anyway, so here’s what I did: I basically just compared where each mocker had each player going with where the player actually went for 2012. And I figured, while I was at it, I could see which positions they sucked the most at projecting. And what teams reached the most for players! And maybe some other nerdy shit!!!

But before I get into the numbers, I think a furious monologue is in order:

Dear mock drafters: GO FUCK YOUR FUCKING SELVES. Seriously. Basically every mock draft I looked at got me progressively more bloodthirsty.

- Kiper/McShay: jesus christ. I get that ESPN has to push it’s Insider subscription bullshit, and that if I can just pull up your mock drafts with a simple Google search, maybe I won’t pay whatever silly, delusional, self-aggrandizing price ESPN demands for Insider, but cccoooommeee ooonnnnn! I challenge any of you to go out and find me Kiper/McShay’s full mock drafts on the internet for free. In the end, I had to grab Bleacher Report’s evaluation of the Kiper/McShay first round mocks. Shit’s wizzeak.

- Basically everybody else: you’re only going to mock the first round? Seriously? There’s 32 picks in the first round. I looked at 13 mock drafts. Thirteen. Collectively, those 13 mocks had a grand total of 45 different names. 20 players were in every single 1st round mock (to the credit of the mockers, those players were all taken in the 1st), and 28 players were in at least 10 of the 13 mocks. My point? YOU’RE NOT DOING ANYTHING!! You’re just regurgitating the names that all your fellow pundits are throwing out there in a slightly different order. That does nothing for me. Oh, you guessed at a few trades in your mock? WOW.  Props to Joe Buscaglia and Walterfootball.com for going well beyond the first round and talking about the prospects and the team needs. Their mocks are enjoyable. The rest that I looked at are just the same cookie cutter mainstream media bullshit that I like to think my generation is slowly beginning to reject. Have a little pride and put some actual human thought into the shit you publish for millions.

Soooo, because of how lazy and incompetent all these mockers were, I couldn’t get into the really fun nerdy shit like which teams reached the most for players. But I can give you the best and worst first round mockers of 2012. Here you go:

Whew. All that anticipation. How does it feel to know that Don Banks is your go-to guy for mock drafts? But fuck that, WGR’s own Joe Buscaglia is my guy. The kid killed it. 

For the record, there’s a metric ton of mock drafts out there, and I’ll wager that a lot of them are really high quality. But I grabbed the ones that came out on the top of Google searches because these are the ones most people look at and they suck soooo hard.

On that note: MY 2013 MOCK DRAFT!!!

I tell you folks, this mock is the product of DOZENS of minutes of film study. I’ve looked under every rock (rotoworld), barked up every tree (other mocks), considered every angle (even McShay) aaaaand threw this shit together. In true Wild Card fashion the first round includes 86 trades. Just kidding.

1          Chiefs

Luke Joeckel (OT, Texas A&M) – I guess. That’s what everybody’s fuckin saying.


2          Jaguars

*** TRADE *** I think the Jags trade out of this pick. The value here is for a tackle or possibly a QB. The Jags need a QB, but I have a feeling that fresh GM David Caldwell doesn’t want to stake his new career on any of the risky QB prospects this year. He can give Gabbert his last chance and then get his guy next year. Since the Lions desperately need an OT, they find a trade partner.

LIONS (from Jax)

Lane Johnson (OT, Oklahoma) – The Lions are dependent on airing it out, and an extra fraction of a second for Mr. Calvin Johnson to get open and Mr. Matthew Stafford to toss it can be all the difference. Johnson is the quicker, better pass protector between the remaining of the top-2 OTs. Eric Fisher is great too, but the Lions will be worried about his pass protection skills after only starting 3 games on the left. So they make sure they get their guy in Johnson.


3          Raiders

Dion Jordan (DE/OLB Oregon) – Raiders Coordinator Jason Tarver is really a 3-4 guy and I would think he’d like to make the switch. Jordan is perfect as a 3-4 OLB. Fast, nasty, and a little too small to play DE. The pick could also be Shariff Floyd here, but I think that would indicate more 4-3 looks.


4          Eagles

Geno Smith (QB, West Virgina) – I didn’t want to do this, but it just makes too much sense. Geno will give Chip Kelly the ability to do whatever he wants on offense. Kelly has to like that Geno comes from a fast paced, dynamic offense, so he doesn’t have to worry that he won’t grasp the system. I’m sure Chip thinks he can win with Vick too, but with Geno falling into his lap, why not?


5          Jaguars (from Lions)

Dee Milliner (CB, Bama) – Hooooly balls do the Jags need help at CB. Their current #1 is Alan Ball. He used to play for the Cowboys I guess. Hope you like Florida, Dee.


6          Browns

** TRADE ** The Browns are in a good spot to trade, and they’re a bit short on picks (they lost their 2nd rounder grabbing Josh Gordon). Eric Fisher is still on the board, as are QBs not named Geno and WRs that are named Tavon. The guards are on the board too. I just have to be thinking the phone is ringing off the hook. But Cleveland definitely needs to add some talent, so how far back are they willing to fall? They could use players at QB, OG, WR, CB.

CHARGERS (from Browns)

Eric Fisher (OT, Central Michigan) – The Chargers are desperate to help Rivers. Afraid that Arizona takes the best OT left, the Chargers pounce.



7          Cardinals

Tavon Austin (WR, West Virginia) – Bruce Arians grabs a playmaker for Carson Palmer, and a nice complement to the timeless Fitzgerald.


8          Bills

Ryan Nassib (QB, Syracuse) – When the Bills hired Marrone, I actually figured Nassib was even less likely than before. I mean, it’s a big risk for Marrone, right? If he starts Nassib, and Nassib doesn’t pan out it’s going to look like a really bad case of cronyism. But, in the end, I just think Nassib is the best QB available. And I think he’s pretty damn good, too. After watching the kid, he just looks like an NFL quarterback. You see the ball snap off his arm, he zips it into tight windows, looks off safeties, and has GREAT awareness in the pocket. This is going to be the pick and I’m fuckin excited about it. Now, could they possibly wait and trade back into the first or some shit? Yea. Maybe. But keep a few things in mind: (a) Nix’s track record: he’s missed on too many QBs by biding his time, even though he knows you have to reach for them. (b) The pressure’s on. The fan base is simply not going to accept coming out of this draft without a top QB prospect. (c) Teams that draft between the Bills at #8 and the Bills at #41: Jets thrice, Vikings twice, Titans twice, Philly, Arizona, and Jacksonville. That’s 10 times they’d have to pray that Nassib isn’t taken. And who knows if one of those teams isn’t thinking about hopping back into the 1st round themselves?

Now for the record, I think Nassib and Barkley are neck and neck. I could see the Bills rolling the dice a little bit and trading back, but not too far. In the end, I think Nix just says “fuck it” and pulls the trigger. Oh, and stop it with the EJ Manuel shit. Not gonna happen. The kid just doesn’t throw with an NFL velocity. He’s a touch passer. The windows close a lot faster in the Bigs, and Manuel’s going to have to a lot of work to do to adapt.

Here’s a nice cut-up of Nassib vs. USC. Take a look at the zip on balls, the tough throws he hits, and his pocket awareness.

9          Jets

Barkevious Mingo (DE/OLB, LSU) - Jets could go a lot of different ways with this pick. I think they take whoever they think is the best defensive player on the board. I hear they like Mingo, idk.


10        Titans

Chance Warmack (OG, Bama) - Titans gotta be pretty psyched to grab one of the highest rated players in the draft at a position they need. Shariff Floyd and Star lalalolo or whatever his fuckin name is is also on the board, and they could go in that direction too.

 
11        Browns (from Chargers)

Kenny Vacarro (S, Texas) – Browns make a great fuckin move bringing in one of my #draftdarlings – the hard hitting, fly all over the field Longhorn. Seriously. You have to check out this hit:

Cleveland is beasting up on defense and I like it. Feel like they’re embracing the character of their city. Yeah, they need a QB, but… next year. Or just in another round.


12        Dolphins

DJ Fluker (OT, Bama) – After busting their nut in free agency, Dolphings miss out on aaaalll this wonderful D-line talent falling right into their lap to take a position of need. One of my fav things about this mock is that the Dolphins fail to trade up to get one of the top 3 tackles, and also fail to get Milliner. –squish-



13        Jets (from Bucs in Revis trade)

Shariff Floyd (DT, Florida) – Floyd falls all the way to the Jets and Rex jiggles his fat as he runs laps around their draft room. Call it a hunch but I feel like Rex feels the only way to save his job is to return his defense to its former glory. I actually think Mingo and Floyd are a touch over rated, but still really nice players. Jets get better on D for sure.

Oh, and obligatory QB mention: they can’t take another USC QB even if they wanted to. It’s NYC – they’ll stone the Jets brass and dump their bodies in Jersey like the good ol’ days.



14        Panthers

Tank Carradine (DE, Florida State) – Love this damn pick. It’s a bit risky with Tank coming off the ACL, but the kid put up insane numbers before getting hurt, and he’s a JuCo kid, so his ceiling is probably high. He’s fun to watch, he’s fierce, high motor, and sheds blocks. I see some Bruce in him:

15        Saints

 Star Lotulelei (DT, Utah) – A nose tackle falls right into their lap in the middle of the first round to help them switch to the 3-4. Does that term even mean anything anymore? “Well, really we’ll show you a lot of looks and the way the league’s goin, we’ll spend a lot of time in the nickel…”

 
16        Rams

Jonathan Cooper (OG, UNC) – Rams need a guard and I hear this guy’s good. Wow half way through the first and I’m already getting lazy.


17        Steelers

Jarvis Jones (OLB, Georgia) – Son of a bitch. Why do the same teams always get these great players that fit their scheme and attitude perfectly to fall right into their damn lap? Jones is nasty and physical and he’s got Steeler written all over him. –sigh-

 
18        Cowboys

DJ Swearinger (S, South Carolina) – Cowboys really need a safety. Or even two.


19        Giants

Alec Ogletree (LB, Georgia) – Giants take a gamble and take the LB with the most upside despite the off-field concerns.


20        Bears

Cordarrelle Patterson (WR, Tennessee) – weapons for Cutler.

 
21        Bengals

 Tyler Eifert (TE, Notre Dame) – Eifert:Gresham::Gronk:Hernandez. Ok, not exactly. But you get the point – they want two fuckin tight ends. And it happens to play well to Ser Dalton’s strengths.

 
22        Rams (from Redskins)

DeAndre Hopkins (WR, Clemson) – Whatevs yo – told ya we’d get our guy.


23        Vikings

Manti Te’o (LB, Southern Fupatwat State) – hey, you make up girls, I make up whole colleges pal. You’re not a fightin irish I know that much - no Irish man ever weaped over a fake woman. And yeah its Fupatwat. Not Fupa Twat. That’s gross.


24        Colts

Ziggy Ansah (DE, BYU) – Colts grab the highest upside D prospect left.



25        Vikings (from Seahawks)

Sheldon Richardson (DT, Missouri) – Now they just gotta find another DT named Richardson to replace the last remaining Williams…


26        Packers

*** TRADE *** Packers get the call from SF and decide to wait a little to see what shakes out and get a couple of picks.

49ers (from Packers)

Bjoern Werner (DE, Florida State) – Niners grab a guy to groom underneath Justin Smith. Similar player too, I think.

 
27        Texans

Keenan Allen (WR, Cal) – or some other wide receiver they like.


28        Broncos

Xavier Rhodes (CB, Florida State) – Damn that’s a lot of Seminoles… said some white guy in the 18th century before getting fucking impaled with a spear. Oh, but the Broncos? Yeah, you remember how their season ended, right? They take a CB. The CB’s appear to be slipping, in this, my mock draft, at 1:30 AM. And I likey. Cuz the Bills needy CBs.


29        Patriots

*** TRADE *** Well, you know Bellycheck. And you know, one of the things I hate most about him is the last name really provides limited options for word play. I mean, even Belicheat was pretty weak.

Cardinals (From Patriots)

Matt Barkley (QB, USC) – afraid that the Jaguars grab him, the Cards hop in front and really get a steal. As I said, I think Barkley and Nassib are both pretty good, and worthy of 1st rounders.
 

30        Falcons

Desmond Trufant (CB, Washington) – Falcons need a corner. I dunno, maybe its this guy?


31        Packers (from 49ers)

Larry Warford (OG, Kentucky) – Aaron Rodgers will make plays no matter who he’s throwing to. He just needs to stay off his back.


32        Ravens

John Cyprien (S, Florida Int’l) – Oh whadd’ya know? The Super Bowl champs need a safety and one falls right into their lap at 32. Unreal.



ROUND 2

1 (33)   Jaguars

Menelik Watson (OT, Florida State) – Jags miss out on Barkley but shrug and grab a Tackle.



2 (34)   49ers (from Chiefs)

Jesse Williams (DT, Bama) – Niners have the flexibility to just stick to their board and grab the best player available. They can always use size on D.


3 (35)   Eagles

Datone Jones (DE, UCLA) – Eagles also need an OT, but not particularly enamoured with anyone on the board, they grab a guy in the 3-4 DE prototype.


4 (36)   Lions

***TRADE*** The niners offer a deal the lions cant refuse, since they had to give up their 3rd rounder to move up and also don’t have a 4th. They get SF’s late 2nd and late 3rd rounders in exchange.

Niners (From Lions)

Quinton Patton (WR, LA Tech) – Sensing a possible run on wideouts, the Niners use their bevvy of picks to move up and grab the guy they like most. My hunch is they’d like a guy who’s balanced. Harbaugh still likes to run the football, and knows the value of a guy with the size to throw blocks. From what I’ve read, this guy sounds to me a bit like Hines Ward – a bit short, but feisty and well-built. Oh, and I guess he catches the ball well too.


5 (37)   Bengals (from Raiders)

Jamar Taylor (CB, Boise St) – Bengals grab a corner to hopefully add to an increasingly stout secondary.


6 (38)   Patriots (from Cardinals)

Robert Woods (WR, USC) – blah. I like Woods. He goes to Pats.


7          Browns (exercised pick in Supplemental Draft)



8 (39)   Jets

Eddie Lacy (RB, Bama) – How they went to war with Shonn Greene for so long is utterly beyond me.


9 (40)   Titans

Arthur Brown (LB, K-State) – Titans could use an upgrade for their run D. The high-rated LB could be perfect.


10 (41) Bills

** TRADE ** Buddy wants more picks and he gets a call from his pals in San Diego. They get a 5th out of the deal. I even checked the holy trade value chart guys – it adds up like fuckin perfect. I’m sure the Bills are tempted to take Ertz themselves in this scenario, but with desperate needs at CB and WR, Buddy elects to get some more picks.

Chargers (From Bills)

Zach Ertz (TE, Stanford) – Chargers need playmakers for Rivers. They grab the California tight end everybody really likes, scared that BUF, MIA, TB or CAR would take him. They could take a WR but they have proven to suck at that. So they grab a buy to play opposite Gates and eventually replace him.


11 (42) Dolphins

 Johnthan Banks (CB, Miss St)

 
12 (43) Buccaneers

 Alex Okafor (DE, Texas) – Desperately need a pass rush. Good pass rusher.


13 (44) Panthers

 Justin Hunter (WR, Tenn) – Nice big target for Cam


14        Saints (forfeited)


15 (45) Bills (from Chargers) –

Terrance Williams (WR, Baylor) whew. I’m sure Bills liked Wood and Hunter and Patterson, and are probably a bit disappointed at the run on corners, but they still get a guy I think you have to like. Even though the Bills didn’t host Williams for a visit, I feel like maybe they felt comfortable with him anyway since his production was so good even after RGIII left. Bills get the type of receiver Buddy has said he’s looking for – the go up and get it open when he’s not type.

16 (46) Rams

Eric Reid (S, LSU) – Rams desperately need one, and the 2nd best one falls into their lap.



17 (47) Cowboys

DaMontre Moore (DE/OLB, Texas A&M) – Cowboys get the sliding hybrid to help their front 7.



18 (48) Steelers

Terron Armstead (OT, Ark-Pine Bluff)



19 (49) Giants

DJ Hayden (CB, Houston)



20 (50) Bears

Kevin Minter (LB, LSU) - possible replacement for urlacher falls right to them.



21 (51) Redskins

Margus Hunt (DE, SMU) - Shanny grabs the crazy athlete to help his D. Somewhere.



22 (52) Vikings

Ryan Swope (WR, Texas A&M) - and now they shall grab a WR. A Fast one.


23 (53) Bengals

Justin Pugh (OT, Syracuse)



24 (54) Dolphins (from Colts)

Montee Ball (RB, Wisconsin) - Dolphins still need an answer in the backfield.


25 (55) Packers

Kawann Short (DT, Purdue) - Packers take a guy they can throw in there to give Raji a rest or put in an occasional 4-3 looks. Maybe even stick him at 3-4 DE.


26 (56) Seahawks

John Jenkins (DT, Georgia) - Run stuffer baby.


27 (57) Texans

Gavin Escobar (TE, San Diego St)


28 (58) Broncos

Sam Montgomery (DE, LSU)


29 (59) Patriots

Johnathan Hankins (DT, OSU) - Wilfork is no spring chicken.


30 (60) Falcons

Vance McDonald (TE, Rice)


31 (61) Lions (From Niners)

William Gholston (DE, Mich St) - Lions go in-state to fill holes left by Vanden Bosch and Avril.


32 (62) Ravens

Marcus Lattimore (RB, South Carolina) - Hey, I had to close with a bang, right? As Rice gets longer in the tooth, the Ravens will have to limit his snaps. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still young enough, but what it really comes down to is this: the Ravens are the champs, so they can afford to take risks with high potential rewards. Lattimore is a SPECIAL talent - god save defenses if they have to worry about this guy and Rice together.

So, there it is. Believe me I would LOVE to watch a ton of film and do a full 7 round mock or two, buuuut finals are coming up and I’ve been a lazy turd all semester. Nay - year. Nay - life.

But here’s where I see the Bills going after this. They really do need help at CB, TE, and OL. If they sign Dansby that plugs the dike at linebacker for another year or two, but I don’t see them taking one unless there’s a guy they really love. They just don’t have enough picks. I think they’ll go some combination of TE, CB, OL in rounds 3&4 and after that I think they might target Tyler Wilson. He’s the type of guy that won’t threaten Nassib (or whoever they take) and could perfectly fit the back-up or long-term project QB role. If Wilson’s gone, they might be willing to take a shot on Bray. But my hunch is at the top of the 3rd, we’ll see a run on QBs, starting with Glennon, and then probably Manuel and Jones.

The time is now T - 35 hours. Wild Card signing off.