Sunday Bills Notes: All About the Rookies

by Brian Galliford on May 4, 2008 11:27 AM EDT in News

The Buffalo Bills are in the midst of their first mini-camp of the 2008-09 season - rookie mini-camp - and Buffalo's top draft picks are reportedly performing well in their first professional workouts. Be sure to catch the official site's coverage of the three-day camp - the fine folks over there do an outstanding job giving us practice reports, player interviews, and other information. It's all great stuff.

Not surprisingly, rookies are still the talk of the town this weekend in Buffalo. While I prepare for my final week of college classes and final exams today, here's some reading material for y'all:

- Sal Maiorana of the Democrat and Chronicle takes a look at Bills fourth-round cornerback Reggie Corner.

- Jeff Matthews of The Town Talk examines the non-existent relationship between Bills seventh-round pick OT Demetrius Bell and his biological father, former NBA star Karl Malone. Malone has been shockingly absent in Bell's life, but the new Bill may be starting to make a name for himself.

- Scott Pitoniak of the Democrat and Chronicle takes a look at the new rule that will allow Army football players, including Bills fullback Mike Viti, to pursue a career in professional football.

- What does the Toronto Sun think of Ralph Wilson Stadium? Well, it got mixed reviews.

- Finally, here's the article that's sure to spark the most discussion from y'all today. Jerry Sullivan believes that the money we're getting from Toronto should go directly to Lee Evans' bank account.

We'll be back early tomorrow morning with an article outlining reasonable expectations for WR James Hardy's rookie season. Until then, go Bills!

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The Toronto Sun

You have to take into account that the Toronto Sun is one of the worst newspapers around. My favorite frontpage headline about an incident with a stripper and some cops.

PEELER: COP BIT MY BUTT

They just like to start controversy and calling them a ‘news’ paper is a bit of a stretch.

That said, Buffalo fans are that rowdy probably because they’ve been drinking in the tailgate parties. Toronto probably won’t have them – and if they do it’ll be extremely tame and extremely policed.

The Sky Dome (I refuse to call it the Rogers Center which sounds like a convention hall – how hard would it have been to call it the Rogers Sky Dome?) was once state of the art but now just sucks. I don’t think it’s been sold out for a sporting event since the glory days of the Blue Jays so the preseason Bills/Steelers game should be a good indicator whether or not Toronto builds a new facility in 5 years (I’m guessing yes). (and sorry Buffalo, I really don’t like it but all signs point to a NFL team being in Toronto).

by Benaconda on May 4, 2008 12:20 PM EDT 0 recs

There are only two ways the NFL can put a team in Toronto

1) The Bills move to Toronto.
2) The Bills move somewhere else (Los Angeles?) and another team moves to Toronto.

Think about it this way: you need approval of 75% of the owners to do anything in the NFL. What happens if another team moves to Toronto while the Bills are still in Buffalo? According to the Bills, it hurts their long-term viability in Buffalo—that’s part of the rationale for having games in Toronto in the first place, to expand the fan base.

But Buffalo is the 46th most populous metropolitan area in the United States, with about 1.1 million people (according to the Census Bureau). Now consider some other small market teams with bigger or similar sized markets nearby:

- Jacksonville has about 1.3 million people and isn’t much farther from Orlando (2 million) than Buffalo is from Toronto.

- Green Bay has about 300,000 people; Milwaukee, about the same distance down the road as Toronto is from Buffalo, has about 1.5 million.

- Cincinnati and Cleveland each have about 2.1 million people; Columbus, which is about 100 miles from Cincinnati and 140 miles from Cleveland, has about 1.75 million.

- Charlotte has about 1.65 million people; Raleigh, about 140 miles away, has about 1.05 million.

The NFL would never put a team in Orlando, Milwaukee, Columbus, or Raleigh because they know doing so would undermine (and possibly even devastate) existing franchises, which would be bad for the league as a whole. And because each of those franchises knows that an attempt to move another franchise nearby would have severe consequences for them, it stands to reason that they’d protect each other because if it happens to one of them, it could happen to any of them.

Now, it’s certainly possible that the NFL would want the Bills to move, and Toronto certainly is a much bigger market. But Toronto isn’t going to get its own franchise as long as the Bills are in Buffalo. And it’ll be that much harder for the NFL to get the Bills to move anywhere but Toronto if Ralph can get the people of Toronto to start to identify with the Bills.

Then we just need to hope Jim Kelly will be able to buy the Bills from Ralph’s estate when he passes away.

by rexob on May 4, 2008 12:50 PM EDT up 0 recs

I don’t want to start a Toronto vs. Buffalo thread but the NFL wants to expand globally. They want a team in Canada, Mexico, Europe. The games they play in those countries are for a reason. It’s becoming painfully obvious that Buffalo as a city is having trouble financially supporting their teams. They won’t put an NFL team in Toronto while there’s on in Buffalo but come on – everyone can see what’s happening. Even a rich guy like Golisano has problems owning an NHL team – an NFL team is a whole different story. Toronto has deep pockets and they are playing pocket pool with the Bills fans.

by Benaconda on May 4, 2008 1:02 PM EDT up 0 recs

Reviews

I agree the Ralph is MUCH better than the Rogers. I do like that moveable roof though. Also in that article the Anchor Bar is mentioned as a beer place. OK if the wings are as hot as they can make. They really don’t make HOT wings. One of my favorite places for tasting different beers is the Blue Tusk in Syracuse. Unreal selection of beers. I go just for the beer because the Dino (we call it the Mecca) is just down the street.

by keuka121 on May 4, 2008 12:36 PM EDT 0 recs

Blue Tusk

Love that place. So many awesome beers to choose from. Of course, Dino is the greatest BBQ place I’ve ever been.

by Kurupt on May 4, 2008 1:01 PM EDT up 0 recs

First off, a move to toronto probably wont happen. The NFL is an all american

sport. No outside teams from other countries. I’d be very dissapointed if they tried to change that. And anyways, sports fans in Toronto are so dull. Look at the Blue Jays. When I go there for ball games they hardly ever cheer. They could care less. Buffalo has a tremendous amount of fans in and out of the country. They, we, are some of the greatest fans in football.

In an end note, I’d be severly dissapointed if the Bills were to move. Im not sure how I’d handle that. I think that even starting this kind of controversy is bad for fans, the team, the players, and other team owners because obviously our owner only cares about increasing the size of his wallet. Greedy decrepid old son of a you know what.

The bloggerformelyknownasBigBaddBubbaJ

by NYTXFAN on May 5, 2008 12:01 AM EDT 0 recs

Not disagreeing with you but...

The NFL doesn’t care if they cheer, as long as they paid for their seat.

The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me.

by sireric on May 5, 2008 6:52 AM EDT up 0 recs

I believe

that the Bills will make a reasonable offer to Lee Evans, but will not break the bank to keep him. It just isn’t their philosophy to overpay, especially at the WR position. Ask Andre Reed…

I hope that Evans and the Bills can reach a good compromise. Evans is a weapon offensively if he has some support.

Get the Bills back to the big game!

by Blitz on May 5, 2008 3:12 PM EDT 0 recs

Andre Reed

He got paid here pretty well, maybe not overpaying, but he still got his.

Prior to the first Super Bowl season the Bills locked him up with a 6 year $7M contract, which is peanuts now, but was quite large back then. I don’t remember if later in his career he whined about his contract, but at that point he did pretty well for himself….

by Kurupt on May 5, 2008 4:56 PM EDT up 0 recs

Actually

now that I think about it…I think the season after he tore his hamstring (1995, 1996 maybe?) he was a free agent and the Bills were hesitant to resign him to a big contract. He shopped his services around but teams found his hamstring to be less than 100%, so he and the Bills finally came to a happy medium. I’m not sure if the squabbling was about the actual money involved or the fact that he wasn’t 100% so the Bills were leery on signing him to that bigger deal…

by Kurupt on May 5, 2008 5:00 PM EDT up 0 recs

Andre certainly wasn't making

elite money, which didn’t sweeten his attitude here in the late ‘90’s. Granted, he wasn’t Jerry Rice (who is?), but he was a key reason why the K-Gun worked so well over the years. Plus, he was a guy who wasn’t afraid to go across the middle of the field when the team needed him to. I think he had a legitimate gripe with the ballclub, IMO. Think of all the big plays he came up with over the years, and he stacks up well with any of the other elite receivers of his era or this one (again, excepting Rice).

Get the Bills back to the big game!

by Blitz on May 6, 2008 1:21 PM EDT up 0 recs