Buffalo Rising Online

All nice and good. Friends on Oakland Place love him, he is a great neighbor, no doubt and a friend of the city vs. suburbs, But can he win?

And Ryan Miller owns one of the units in the new Brantford Townhomes IIRC.

all sounds great - they guy still sucks - overthrows, underthrows, has made very little progress as a quaterback - not the guy we need !

gaustad did you miss the end of last season? please keep your negative comments to yourself. J.P. is a true professional, both on and off the field. I see big things to come for him this season! Lets go buffalo!

He's perfect for Buffalo. He's very friendly and loses all the time. Lets go B U F F A L O!!!!

Losman is on the verge of a breakout year. These Football novices should stick to complaining about every now project that is started in this city.

JP has been picked as one player to break out this year. Remember last year was his first full year being the starter. Broke his leg rookie year, then played behind Kelly.

Artvoice also had another good article about him recently, talking about Buffalo Lives (buffalolives.com). I couldnt believe this was our QB speaking.

We should give him a break and remember, off the field performance is sometimes just as important as on field performance.

Who would you rather have right here right now - JP on a learning curve and a great pro-Buffalo attitude, or Rob Johnson, surfer boy from Cali who never said anything positive about WNY?

How can you not love the fact that this guy dove right into the community? He's had some struggles in his first few years (but what young NFL QB doesn't?) but his numbers trend in the right direction. I think he'll have a great year and hopefully secures a long-term extension along w/ Evans. Two young guys the community can be proud of.

He will be great marketing for other sports heroes to move into the city. While his team mates are living in their plastic sided McMansions out in the hinter lands he will be living in style with a real mansion. They will notice the difference.

most bisons and a respectable amount of sabres reside in the city since they play there...which explains why i dont know of any bills other than losman who dont live in the southtowns. people say that a downtown stadium wouldn't do anything for downtown outside of 10 games a year but i guarantee that at least a couple dozen members of the bills organization would live in the city if it made life more convenient for them.

Regarding a downtown stadium... Age old debate... I know, I know, once Rich/Ralph was built. I think they should move it downtown for a number of reasons or retrofit Pilot Field.

It may be only 10 weeks (if they do training camp there, it turns it into 24 weeks with more than one day per week). This would provide a tourist attraction for people (from Syracuse, Erie, Toronto, Rochester) to sample downtown Buffalo and experience all of the great things it has to offer, as written about endlessly on this site. If Buffalo is so great, why not use popular culture to help show it off.

National exposue. Sorry but the NFL is the greatest marketing vehicle known in today's pop culture. Buffalo is lucky to have participation in this, being a small market and Green Bay bent over backwards to keep the Packers playing in that town. What is Green Bay Wisconson known for anyway? The Sabres, as much as I love them, are not the Bills, as the NHL is not the NFL when it comes to national and international attentention. CBS, FOX, NBC and ESPN as well as ABC pay the NFL ungoddly amounts of money and stake their broadcast finances on having the NFL on thier airwaves, simply to promote other programs, they make very little money when all is said and done. Municipalities should take a page from busieness and invest in a loss leader to promote more profitable endeavors. Again, use the biggest marketing asset and exploit it.

Marketing opportunities for the city to exploit and benefit from.

Shops, restaurants and other creative ways to spread the stadium's appeal.

Baltimore, San Francisco, Denver, Detroit, Cincinatti, Cleveland, Pittsburgh (note all are rust belt cities except for Denver and SF) all learned from the benefit from having downtown stadiums, all have turned around or are in the process of (Detroit).

The fact is, the NFL is imbedded in our pop culture. The Bills are as much a part of the national culture as chicken wings (thank you Theresa). The NFL is the most powerful cartel in sports. Why Buffalo still has a team is a mystery to me but it does and the city and people should do everything to improve not only the Bills but use the Bills as a way to market the city. If Buffalo looses the Bills, it has lost a golden marketing opportunity. The NHL and Sabres may be in voyue in Buffalo but the NFL is the golden goose... Buffalo is damn lucky to have it (thank you Ralph Wilson!)

With smart marketing (Kraft family, who tried to get the stadium in Boston, but failed, and has now turned it into a tourist destination in Foxboro, similar distance to OP) the stadium can be a year round facilitiy. I for one, love the idea of retrofitting Pilot Field and creating a state of the art training facility for Bills training camp adjacent to the park. Figure out a way where the Bills and Bisons can coexist and we have a great use of land, tourist attraction(s), marketing opportunity for the entire city, sampling opportunities for the entire city from the region, national exposure, possibility of income tax from players, property tax from teams, corporate tax from the teams, possibility of more high income players moving into the city (maybe a reach but who knows) not to mention a damn good statement for the city.

Oh, one more thing, Rich Stadium was built during a time of urban blight. The 1970's were a time when people were running from cities in fear. This is reversed now and it might be time to strike.

The suburban UB was built upon a land deal with connected state Senators who owned the land sold to the State. Rich was built in Orchard Park due to the fear that people would not go to the Rockpile. All of that changed with Pete Rozelle and his network deals and revenue sharing (which Ralph Wilson participated actively)...

People can mock Ralph all they want but he truly is one of the leaders who created the NFL system and it was designed to protect teams like Buffalo, Oakland, Cincinatti, Green Bay, etc. He and Pete Rozelle were visionaries (even though it is essentially a cartel, but Buffalo benifits more from it).

Finally, Buffalo is better with the Bills than without them.

GO BILLS!