nfreeman

First bolded: perhaps people aren't saying this explicitly, but there is a non-negligible percentage of posters here (including one who bizarrely claims upthread not to be complaining about the refs) who invariably blame the refs -- without naming any other factors -- every time the Bills lose. Second bolded: I'd argue "the difference" was the sum total of all of the things the Bills and the Bucs did and didn't do over the course of the game.

I thought it was impossible to tell from the replay angles they showed.

The refs have made the Bills go 0-5 in games decided by 7 points or less! It has nothing to do with coaching, QB play or pass rush! It’s the refs!

The refs made JA throw that terrible interception at the end of the first half! The refs made McD go for the fake punt on 4th and 2! The refs made McD punt it on 4th and 2 in the 2nd half from midfield! The refs made Brady magically able to do whatever he wanted in the first half! The refs blocked for Fournette on the 60 yard TD run! The refs, the refs! They’re conspiring against us!

The refs made us lose 5 out of 6! It’s not anything we did! It’s the refs!

Oh the refs, the refs, they took yet another game from us that we deserved despite our $250MM QB putting up 3 pts in the 1st half and our allegedly good defense getting worked yet again whenever they play a real team! The refs made us not run a play for some reason before the 2-minute warning! The refs made us not be able to pass protect, pass rush or run the ball! The refs made Diggs stop tracking a very catchable deep ball because he was too busy trash talking the DB! The refs made JA miss Diggs by a mile when he was wide open late in the 4th quarter! The refs made JA go 3 and out in OT! The refs made Edmunds whiff on the 3rd down short yardage tackle in OT and then made him get beat across the middle on the TD! The refs, the refs, those dastardly refs! Ridiculous

@PASabreFan -- do you not think the Sabres, or any team, would prefer to avoid having to submit the 3-year corrective action plan to the league? And do you not think the CBA sections you quoted create the possibility of losing revenue sharing?

Well, I think it depends on what is meant by "major rebuild". I think this team was deeply flawed and needed a major rebuild. You may be defining it differently, if you view a major rebuild as being mutually exclusive with the elements you mentioned upthread: I think a major rebuild can, and should, include these elements (with my tweak in bold), especially in the Sabres' case. Certainly Eichel's trade demand was part of it, but IMHO it was only a part, and probably less than half.

I agree and would also point out that not expecting to win next year would effectively be giving KA a 3-year pass, since his first year was a DFL debacle despite spending close to the cap. There's a reasonable argument to be made that giving him a pass for his first year in light of inherited lousy coach, injured/wanting out Eichel, huge disappointment Hall, covid, austerity measures in FO and cost-cutting apparently ordered by TP -- in fact, it's one of the strongest cases I can remember for giving a GM a pass for a crappy season. But even so, it's more than fair to hold KA accountable for the 2020 decisions not to extend Reino and not to upgrade the goaltending.

From the Athletic today, in an article partially entitled "The Taylor Hall Problem": Hall reminds me of former Bills QB Rob Johnson -- he has all the tools, and sometimes looks great, but something critical is missing -- and the net result is that he's just not effective. I am really glad the Sabres didn't give him a long-term deal.

I don't think there was any linkage whatsoever between the decision to sign Butcher and the decisions KA made on goaltending.

This is an excellent post. I agree with almost all of it, with the huge exception of giving KA a pass on the goalie debacle. I don't doubt the accuracy of the examples you gave, but IMHO the unavoidable facts are that KA has had 2 offseasons -- not one -- to improve the goaltending, that a ton of goalies play musical chairs every summer, and that KA didn't come up with anyone -- and that there is a high risk that what KA has provided in net is going to materially harm the development of the kids on whom the whole rebuilding plan is based. I simply cannot believe that he couldn't have done better than what we've got now. Separately, I agree with those upthread who do not understand why @GASabresIUFAN keeps harping on the Butcher signing. It seems completely inconsequential to me. And as always I agree with @Thorny that the results are all that matter. I also agree with much of @dudacek's post, but not with his assertion that the results for this year don't count. Everything counts, especially yet another terrible season that is over by the quarter-pole, and especially when that outcome was 100% foreseeable and is the direct result of terrible execution by KA at staffing the most important position on the team.

The offense produced 1 TD. They also produced zero points in 2 red zone possessions when the game was there to be won. If JA is going to be paid like an MVP, and the team is going to be constructed around him, he needs to deliver more. Otherwise they aren't going anywhere.

Another crappy game from JA.

"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

If KA were willing to give Ullmark a 3-year deal @ $5MM per year, he could've, and should've, found another goalie for that kind of contract instead of settling for the losers the Sabres currently have at the position, which he should've known would've chained an anchor to a team struggling to keep their heads above water. They've now lost 14 out of 17 and look utterly lost and like they expect to lose. We've seen this movie before. There is an unacceptably high risk that another bottom-3 finish will suffuse this group of kids with an ineradicable stink of losing in the same way the prior tank did to the prior group.

So you've forgotten...Cozens, Mittlestadt, Dahlin, Joker, UPL, Portillo, Olofsson, Johnson, Asplund, Bryson, etc? Who has ever suggested the bolded trade?

I would not fire him now, but there is a real case for doing so IMHO, and it goes like this: - KA’s choices at goalie indicate either an unacceptable inability to evaluate talent at the most critical position or a decision to tank this season. - If he’s decided to tank, he’s made a stupid decision that is highly likely to mire the franchise in the same quicksand it’s been in for the last 8 years. - Even worse, he made that decision despite having the results of the last stupid decision to tank staring him in the face. - In addition to the tank decision, he had the most precious asset in the NHL — a franchise #1 C — and he couldn’t keep him happy. And now he wants to tank to have a chance to replace that franchise C? No thank you. I don’t necessarily agree with all of the above, but it’s not from outer space.

Then it's a stupid freaking plan, just like the last tank was. Both of these are obnoxious.

Please let him be a count or some other kind of royalty with a cool title...

I like mountains too, but I think Charleston is great. Of course that’s based on a handful of visits, not living there. I have friends who live there too and love it.

For some reason I too am feeling perhaps irrationally confident about this game.

@Taro T -- just to be clear, do you think the Sabres offered Ullmark $5MM x 3 years at the trade deadline and he turned it down, and the Sabres should've offered him $5MM x 4 years at that point?

You keep making this point. Do you really not think the Sabres have a problem in net?

Antonio Brown and Mike Edwards of the Bucs have been suspended for using forged vaccine cards and will miss the game vs the Bills.