Buffalo Bills (5-10): Next game 12/30 vs. Dolphins (7-8); Kyle Willams Announces His Retirement

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yahhockey

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It's not like the game magically appeared on the schedule out of the blue. How does a multi billion dollar league not have someone responsible for ensuring their out of country games have an adequate field?
 
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Zman5778

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It's not like the game magically appeared on the schedule out of the blue. How does a multi billion dollar league not have someone responsible for ensuring their out of country games have an adequate field?

From what I understand, stadium ownership booked some sort of concert/party thing Friday or Saturday and the group that owns the stadium wouldn't let the NFL guys get onto the field until yesterday -- after a soccer game was played there Monday.

To me, this falls on the stadium ownership -- why would they risk the field being obliterated ahead of what is the Game Of The Year (up to this point)??? They're gonna make a TON of money from this game. Makes no sense.
 

26CornerBlitz

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Chiefs-Rams game moved from Mexico City to L.A.

The highly anticipated Monday night showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Rams will no longer be played at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.

The league announced Tuesday that the game featuring two 9-1 teams atop their respective divisions will now be played at the L.A. Coliseum on Monday, Nov. 19, because the playing surface at Estadio Azteca did not meet NFL standards.

"The decision is based on the determination -- in consultation with the NFLPA and following a meeting and field inspection this afternoon by NFL and club field experts as well as local and independent outside experts -- that the playing field at Estadio Azteca does not meet NFL standards for playability and consistency and will not meet those standards by next Monday," the league wrote in a statement.

NFL Network's Mike Garafolo reported earlier Tuesday that the league was monitoring the situation in Mexico City and was working with Estadio Azteca to ensure the field is up to league standards for next Monday's game.

 

Montag DP

Sabres fan in...
Apr 4, 2007
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Brings me back to my baseball-playing days and wishing I could have had the chance to play on a professional field, where bad hops are highly unusual rather than the norm.
 

26CornerBlitz

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How the NFL's chillest QB launched an offensive revolution

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In the midst of a wild three-year career arc that has taken him from rookie bust to MVP candidate, the Rams quarterback has learned to enjoy the ride. How far can his surge lift L.A.?

BY TIM KEOWN

A version of this story appears in ESPN The Magazine's November issue.

It's starting to feel like a revolution, and every revolution needs a frontman. Rams quarterback Jared Goff, under the progressive vision of head coach Sean McVay, is the leader of one of the NFL's most dynamic offenses. Just two years after 2016's top pick suffered through the turgid, sclerotic final days of the crumbling Jeff Fisher empire -- losing all seven of his rookie starts -- Goff is an ascendant star, an MVP candidate, a player who symbolizes the promise of the new over the stubbornness of the old.

"It's funny that the spread quarterback was seen as such a scary thing going into every draft," Goff says. "I played in the spread, Patrick Mahomes played in the spread, Deshaun Watson, Mitchell Trubisky -- the NFL is so stuck in its ways sometimes. If you don't innovate and adapt, you're going to be left behind. It's about coaches; how do you get the best out of your players? It's not by forcing someone to run what you want to run. It's how you can make A the best A can be."

This was a moment -- adapt or die -- and it called for something that's not exactly rampant in the NFL: men with the vision and confidence to change the paradigm. As it turns out, they didn't come to kill the game; they came to save it.
 

26CornerBlitz

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Bills superfan Pancho Billa delivers epic pregame pep talk

Ezra Castro's week began with the worst news imaginable. His cancer diagnosis was worsening --spreading to his stomachM strengthening in his lungs.

It ended with the best news imaginable: An invitation of a lifetime and a pep talk for the ages.

Castro, better known as Bills super fan Pancho Billa, was asked to deliver a pregame speech to his team in his trademark red, white, and blue luchador garb. It is amazing and probably requires a Kleenex or six just to get through.

This is a fanbase known for slamming through folding tables and taking condiment showers. But it is also a fanbase of Pancho Billas; people like Castro who feel connected to the team like few in professional sports.

Castro's fandom began as a kid in El Paso, Texas. According to the Buffalo News, he noticed Bills team colors were close enough to the Mexican flag and fell in love.

That love is reciprocal after a speech few Bills players and coaches will ever forget.
 

Rowley Birkin

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Oct 31, 2004
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What's the deal with cutting Pryor?

Was looking forward to seeing what he could do.

Would rather they cut Benjamin at least we know for sure that he is useless.
 

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Super Bowl or bust? Saints, Steelers among teams all in on 2018

By Gil Brandt, NFL Media senior analyst


In February, one team will triumphantly raise the Lombardi Trophy after achieving the goal that every team shares at the start of the season: winning the Super Bowl.
Of course, 31 other teams will not be doing that.

But which of the 31 non-Super Bowl winners will take it the hardest? A squad that is running out of time to win behind a quarterback defying Father Time? An organization that has made a flurry of aggressive moves to maximize a competitive window?

When I was vice president of player personnel for the Cowboys, we went to the playoffs 18 times in a 20-season stretch. We won the Super Bowl twice in that span -- but all other 16 trips to the postseason ended in a loss. No matter how successful you are, when you get beaten in the playoffs, it can feel like there's no tomorrow. Your season ends abruptly, in great disappointment, even if, by most measures, reaching the postseason qualifies as an achievement.

There are about 20 teams right now that look like they are in the playoff conversation. But some are facing higher expectations than others. I've isolated seven teams below for whom failing to win Super Bowl LIII would qualify as the bitterest of disappointments -- seven "Super Bowl or bust" squads with everything riding on the final outcome of the 2018 season, arranged in order of who would be most upset to miss their shot.
 

brian_griffin

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It's not like the game magically appeared on the schedule out of the blue. How does a multi billion dollar league not have someone responsible for ensuring their out of country games have an adequate field?
Any NFL representatives are going to be neutered in their attempts to leverage an outcome outside the United States. They will have essentially no authority in Mexico and more difficult legal recourse. Essentially, it's just a pretty-please request.

I think you're also implicitly assuming any money paid up front by the NFL (or paid post-event) would be directed to whatever the contract arrangements specified. Not clear to me that would be a valid assumption. i.e., corruption could be in play.

From what I understand, stadium ownership booked some sort of concert/party thing Friday or Saturday and the group that owns the stadium wouldn't let the NFL guys get onto the field until yesterday -- after a soccer game was played there Monday.

To me, this falls on the stadium ownership -- why would they risk the field being obliterated ahead of what is the Game Of The Year (up to this point)??? They're gonna make a TON of money from this game. Makes no sense.
Making money off the NFL doesn't preclude them from wanting / trying to make more money off of other events.

Further it's the NFL's game of the year. Probably no where close to the futbol game of the year in Mexico.

Stay thirsty, my friend.
 

Husko

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Jun 30, 2006
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That's great. Just wish it didn't take them half a season to relaize that receivers McKenzie, Foster, and Thompson are integral to a successful offense, much more so than the likes of Kelvin Benjamin and Andre Holmes.
 
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