Bowen Byram Extended & Bills Training Camp Preview (BSC Ep. 09)

Bowen Byram Extended & Bills Training Camp Preview (BSC Ep. 09)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to episode nine of Buffalo Talk Center. I am Don. With me today is Cal. We’ve actually both shown up at the same time to two consecutive meetings. This is a pretty monumental occasion. Um, and we got a lot to talk about. Not really. It’s the off seasonason, but Kell, how are you doing? I’m doing great. How about yourself? Uh, you know, I’m surviving. Um, we talked a little bit before we got on about my ASMR introductions. So, folks, if you like that, if you want me to get more ASMR, I can really do that for you guys. A nice soothing voice. We can make it work. We can make it happen. Um, but I think the top news of the week, Cal, is the Bone Byum news. He just was resigned to a two-year extension. A little surprising if you ask me, but I mean, what are your thoughts on Bo Byum? Yeah, I mean I’ve been saying that he’s going to get traded for the longest time. Absolutely shocked that he ends up staying in Buffalo, but it seems like that’s their plan. Um, some people are saying potentially this means that they’re going to look to get rid of Matias Samson. Maybe they think that might be their way out from Samuelson keeping Bram and then they know even if they got to give up stuff to to get rid of him, they they’ll be able to. It it leaves a giant gap open in the top six forward spot though, not trading him. And of course, Meturka is gone. So, your your offense, if they do nothing else this off seasonason, which I’d be shocked by, um is very weak, but that defense is the best it’s been um in a long time as well. So, you kind of take take and take and give, and I I don’t think it’s going to work out for them. I think they’re still a forward away from being a realistic playoff team. But, who knows? Maybe this is all they needed. And maybe the better defense will lead to better goalending. And maybe you only need to score two to three goals a game to win. Yeah. Well, that’s certainly what they’re betting on. I we’ve talked about it previously, but I I I think that the Sabres don’t really view losing Purka and all those goals as a huge problem. Clearly, based on their uh the way that they’ve gone about with this whole Bayum situation, if you’re going to trade Byum, you’re going to try to trade him for a top six forward. In the end, they felt comfortable enough keeping Bo Byum for at least another season or two. So maybe they’re betting on in-house improvements from Yuri Koulik and Zack Benson and Jack Quinn. We’re doing this again, Cal. Hope is a shitty strategy. We talked about it before. Yeah, but it just doesn’t work. Another It’s not great, right? I mean, we Yeah, it’s pretty brutal. Another year of Kevin Adams in a make orb breakak season. He’s betting on his young guys taking the next steps. That strategy sure hasn’t bitten him in the ass over the last two seasons. The same thing they they’ve done every year. And you you look back, you know, a couple seasons ago and that was the thing, right? Oh, we trust our guys. These guys want to be here and it just hasn’t worked out. And it’s just it’s repetition. And at this point, again, I guess the defense looks good. That that’ll be something we’ll be watching a much different structurally built team. Um, and maybe Lindy Ruff will use that to his advantage. Again, a a former defender in the league. Maybe he shifts back to his original coaching skills, which was heavy defense and gritty forward uh play. And maybe it suits him well and he’s able to coach this team and somehow get to a point at the trade deadline where they’re in it and they are willing to make a move. Again, I could probably count a million before that happens, but who knows? um there is a chance and I guess we can’t really you know call them out completely until we see the results. So, we’ll see what happens. Again, I’d be shocked if the Sabres aren’t at least in talks to try to do at least one more move before the season starts. Still got plenty of time, but it is later um in the offseason now and they they simply haven’t done enough. Yeah, they haven’t. I think at best this team is a 94 point team, but more realistically given how this team just absolutely loses itself in December, we’re probably looking at another 80s something team, which is definitely not enough to make the playoffs. And well, we’ve we’ve complained a lot over the very brief history of this podcast about Kevin Adams and the job that he’s doing and how the Sabres just continue to tear us apart and uh I don’t know. I I I’m kind of over the Sabres at this point. We’ll probably still talk about them next week, Cal. Oh, yeah. Knowing us, we definitely will. But yeah, you want to shift focus to the old Buffalo Bills? Yeah, we haven’t we haven’t talked about the football team of Buffalo. Did you know that there’s a football team in Buffalo? Well, I’ve heard our viewers probably had no idea. Well, yeah, our viewers probably had no idea that there was a football team in Buffalo given how little we cover them over the last few weeks. But to be honest, there’s been nothing really to talk about other than the fact that training camp is coming up here in what on Monday? the tw tomorrow. We’re recording this on the 20th. Yeah. So, we were I think we’re like three days away at this point by the time this comes out. Three days away from from training camp, which is really exciting. Again, they’re back at St. John Fischers. The team has uh you know, some work to do. I think the return of the red and blue is coming up as well. So, that’ll be the first event at um at the stadium, which will be having its last final final year at the old stadium before they move across the street. We got some position battles to talk about. I know we’re going to make videos about it, and I know we’re going to, you know, continuously talk about it, uh, you know, on this podcast as training camp advances, but let’s start off with an early one. And, um, let’s talk about the tight end position. You got Dawson Knox, Daltton Concincaid. Both guys had disappointing years. You would have liked to see more out of both of them last year. It seems most fans where their heads are at is they’re expecting the moon from Dalton Concaden. They’ve kind of moved on from Dawson Knox. They’ve slotted him in of a more blocking guy, a situational guy. I still believe in Dawson Knox. I think people are kind of throwing him out too soon. With that being said, though, if a healthy Daltton Concade shows up and stays healthy this year, he could be that guy that we thought we drafted. And again, he hasn’t shown his top potential yet. But he’s a guy who gets open in space. He’s a guy who can make crazy good catches, which unfortunately we’ve seen kind of the opposite side of that. We’ve seen some really bad drops from him, including, you know, that the end of that playoff game against the Chiefs last year. Uh, but I’m excited for our tight end position. I like both guys. Um, when healthy, I think they’ll both be good. Uh, what’s your opinion on this? Do you think that, you know, maybe Dawson Knox has a better year and, you know, overtakes that tight end one spot again or do you think it’s Concaid’s spot to lose? And do you think Concade can bounce back from a really bad year? I hope Concaid can bounce back. I think he will. Uh, by the end, by the start of the season, you’ll probably have Dalton Concaid in a 1A Dawson Ox 1B sort of situation with another blocking tight end routing out the tight end group. But I have been really disappointed with Dalton Concaid up to this point in his career. He was expected to be the next Travis Kelce. Obviously hasn’t been that nowhere close to that. And I think Dawson Knox has sort of been relegated to, like you said, a more blocking role. And even before that, Knox, both of our tight ends have got some issues with drops, right? Wouldn’t you say? I don’t know what the exact statistics are on this, but Concaid had a really poor season. him and Keon Coleman in terms of how many uh targets they had dropped and like you said um that that Chiefs game where he dropped the fourth and five an absolutely brilliant ball from Josh Shalon. I feel like that there did he go on to Tyler Dunn’s podcast recently and he talked about it or Tyler Dunn was like going to bath for the concaid saying oh you know it was a tough catch to make for any guy. He was just kind of spinning around and jumping for it. And I have to disagree a little bit. I think that catch was very much in line with his performances throughout the season as a guy who took him in fantasy. He just disappeared too many weeks. All right. He he was just extremely inconsistent and I don’t know if you were dealing with injuries or whatnot. I know he’s had the knee thing for a little while now, stretching back to two seasons ago even. But I I’ve just I’ve been really disappointed conceded and I know the fans are expecting the mood of him. I I I’m a little more pessimistic on him. I don’t know if we’ve really we’re going to see more from him. Yeah. Going back to that catch, I mean, it’s it’s not a routine catch in any sense of the imagination for an NFL player. Again, they’re not trained to kind of sit in coverage and then it’s like, you know, you know, you don’t see that. That’s not a a scripted play where it’s like, “All right, you know, 20 seconds later, I’m going to chuck you a ball that you got to jump back for and dive, but it’s an NFL player. You got to make that catch.” Moving on. Um because, you know, we we can’t sit here and dwell about Chiefs losses. If we do, I’m going to throw up about five times before the end of this podcast. Um let’s talk about the defensive line because there’s going to be a heavy heavy competition there. We know Bean and McDermott love to keep a bunch of guys on the Dline and rotate them around. Um, can we talk about Joey Bosa because I feel like nobody’s been talking about Joey Bosa. People have forgotten that Joey Bosa is a member of the Buffalo Bills right now. Um, that should significantly help the pressure rate that the Bills have this year. Again, Greg Rouso, a guy who has, you know, an unreal ceiling, but just hasn’t really put it together game and game and game, right? It’s it’s kind of every fourth game with him. Epanessa, lower ceiling, a guy kind of like Rouso that shows up once every four games. It it seems like when the Bills Dline, when a guy on the Dline gets going, it’s one guy. It it’s never, you know, multiple guys. It’s one guy and then the next week it’s another guy, which is good in one sense, but also bad because nobody is consistent. I feel like I feel like Leonard Floyd was the last consistent defensive lineman we had on this team, which is crazy to say, but who else who else has there been in the last couple years? You had a half or three4s of a season with Von Miller, but like you said, that’s pretty much it. There hasn’t been really anything since this Bills let go. Some of their big guys from 2019. I think of Jordan Phillips, Jerry Hughes, um, Star Lutle. No, not really. Not Star. Star was disappointing. But I think with Greg Russo, Kell, and you can disagree if you want, but with Greg Russo, he’s got so much talent, but the problem has been that the Bills haven’t really had a guy on the opposite side of the D line. So teams have been able to put all of their focus into Greg Russo because they know that the other guy at the end of the other side of the D line that could be, you know, Epanessa, some of these other guys, Dwayne Smoot, uh, Carter maybe, they’re not really game breakers the way that Greg Rouso has shown he can be. So it’s allowed teams to double triple team him, put an extra running back to help chip him as well. And I think with Joey Bosa, that’s going to bring an added dimension because teams are going to have to worry about him. Joey Bosa has proven in this league that he can get after the quarterback pretty consistently when he’s on the field, of course. So, that’s definitely a nice thing to have it on both sides. And I feel like that’s what the thought process was for Brandon Bean when he brought in Von Miller. another guy who is veteran, can show Russo the ropes, has been proven to, you know, been a consistent pro bowler, probably gonna be in the Hall of Fame, get to the quarterback, get him with ease, and before his injury, that’s what Von Miller did. It’s just the signing didn’t work out after that. Yeah, and Von Miller, congrats to Von. Uh $10 million deal to the Commanders. Hopefully, he does well there. again. Uh I know he had some legal trouble here as well, but um you know, hoping and you know, hoping that the judgment was right on that and that nothing happened there. He seemed like a great guy in Buffalo. Definitely did a lot for the community. Um and was a good team guy in the locker room, so that’s uh good. And you know, wishing him the best over there in Washington. But yeah, I mean it leaves our D line with a hole there, but I think Joey Bosa will more than fill that hole. Couple other good um additions. Oen Joby and Hoy coming over. Both guys suspended for the first what, six games. Um, yep. So, that’s a little unfortunate, but I think, uh, I think they’ll be able to hold their own. Again, the Bill schedule isn’t too bad this year. Um, that could always change. Of course, we always make schedule judgments and then the first three weeks of the season happen and we go, “Oh boy, we were wrong about these five teams and wrong about these five teams and they flip-flop in our power rankings and all that sort of stuff.” So, we we don’t truly know what the schedule looks like, but preseason wise looks pretty solid. Looks like the Bills should be able to um easily make the playoffs. I don’t want to say anything about the division yet, uh, because I haven’t seen how, you know, the new look Patriots, they they have certainly gotten better. Are you a little concerned about the division or do you think the Bills walk it again? Um, I don’t I’m not very concerned about it. I still think the second best team in the division are the Dolphins. Even with all of their defensive issues and the fact that they’ve never been able to stop the Bills and that their fans are obnoxious and annoying with all those problems going against them, I still think the Dolphins are the second best because look, the Patriots did get better. Yes, but they were so bad last season that they could only get better. There was no way they could have gotten worse. And I also hope they don’t, you know, maybe it’s good if they become good again because then we can bring in Stefon Diggs and have a real heated rivalry. I feel like that’s a storyline no one’s really been talking about. The fact that Stefon Diggs decided to sign for our arch rivals over there in Boston. So if you you know I I’ve not been a big time Stefan lover since he left Buffalo. He’s kind of been treating us pretty poorly, I’d say. Yeah, we don’t know all the details about that, but yeah, I mean the Patriots again got M. Holland, too. Another former Bills receiver jumping ship over there to New England getting paid good. Good for Mollins. Again, loved him in Buffalo. Um definitely outperformed what I thought he was going to be. Was he a good receiver, you know, a mid-tier guy, but u I I thought he definitely brought some energy and was a great locker room guy. Good to see him get the bag. Uh a thing that some people are talking about is Terry McLuren potentially unhappy in Washington. Could you imagine the Patriots getting him? They’ve been linked a little bit. If that happens, then I am a little bit concerned about that offense. But right now, I’m not too concerned. I I’m with you where I think the Dolphins are coming into the season, the the team to beat uh the Jets. No more Aaron Rodgers, so you know, they they probably will be a little bit better there. Um Aaron Rogers obviously going to the Steelers. Um and again, it’s tough. We’re filming this before camp has started. So, um, you know, next week and the weeks after, we’ll we’ll really deep dive into the Bills, but I you want to do a little bit of generic league talk, like some projections. Do you have any hot takes for the league this year? Anything that you think, you know, maybe a team, you know, does better than what everyone’s saying or vice versa. I think this is the year where the Steelers do not finish above 500. I think they will finish with an 8-9 record and miss the playoffs. I it’s the that doesn’t feel too controversial, but it’s the Steelers and Mike Talin. They always find a way to get to nine wins. I think this is probably the even more controversial part of that take. I think the Jaguars replace the Steelers in the playoff picture. Okay. Big big Trevor Lawrence bounceback year. Not even a big Trevor Lawrence guy. I just like the crew that they brought in. I like Liam Cohen even though he’s a little cringe master, but I I I thought I thought their team was good. They definitely added to Yeah. Um I I’m just mainly a big Travis Hunter guy. I love Travis Hunter and if they can play him on defense where they desperately need him, um that’d be great for that team. Yeah, Travis Hunter absolute beast, right? Like I I don’t care if you, you know, hate, you know, Coach Prime and Colorado and all that. Just put put that aside. He’s in the league now. And Travis Hunter is going to be a very fun piece of the NFL for a long time. I’d love to see him get some reps on offense, too, because I I u I agree with what they did. They’re starting him on defense. I think, you know, I no matter where he went, I would have liked to see him start as a cornerback. I I feel like that’s always um you know, when when you’re younger, you can definitely play that. But maybe as he gets a little bit older and loses a step with speedwise, maybe he flips to the opposite side of the ball. Who knows? Um it’s it’s pretty rare in football to see that at the highest level of college football. I know we see that in baseball all the time with the two-way players um and even, you know, even uh football in like high school, but college-wise, not so much. Um for for me, I I can also see the Steelers not making the playoffs and not having that 500 record. Again, watching Rogers last year, he still made some good throws, but some games were just brutal. Yeah, if you get the littlest bit of pressure on this guy, he can’t move anymore. Aaron Rogers has no more mobility due to the injury and his age as well. The compounding factors. So, and I I’m also not impressed with the Steelers O line. So, this is kind of a formula where it’s not going to go well. Aaron Rogers kind of be setting up to fail, which I’m not a too sad about that. It’s it’s Aaron Rogers. I I’m okay with that. Um and I’m okay with the Steelers not being good. They’ve been mediocre forever. they they need to commit and I feel like them missing the playoffs will force them to commit one way or the other whether or not they want to rebuild or go all in while they still have TJ Watt. So yeah, they’re kind of in a in a tough spot because they again they’re kind of just in the middle. Can’t get over the hump right now. Um and like you said like TJ Watt getting that massive deal that’s uh good for him. Again I saw JJ Watt on X put out, you know, this man even thinks about making me reach for my wallet at dinner. I’m going to go crazy. Um but yeah, good to see that big money there. Um let’s talk uh Bengals a little bit. Still uh still some money issues over there in Cincinnati. Uh I mean, is Texas A&M going to have the Bengals first round pick playing for them this year? Is that what we’re hearing? Well, Shamar Stewart, he has shown no desire to sign in Cincinnati. And it’s not because he doesn’t want to play in Cincinnati. It’s because the Bengals are just nick nickeling and dimeming him. They’re not giving him all this money. He wants more. Now, do I think this is a toxic culture where you have first round picks getting a little greedy? Yes and no. Yes, because they are they haven’t proven anything. Why do they think they’re entitled to their money? Conversely, these are first round picks. You’re not guaranteed to have more than two years in the NFL. You want to get as much bag as you can while you still can, right? So, I get both sides of it, but it’s it’s leading to a very weird situation. in Cincinnati. And hey, as a Bills fan, I’m all here for it. Anything to make that Bengals defense even worse than it already is. Yeah, it’s it’s going to be another year, I think, where Joe Burrow is going to have to put up 50 plus to get wins, unless he’s playing the Carolina Panthers. Um it’s it’s a tough situation there in Cincinnati. And uh hopefully they get that figured out because if you let again if you let a kid go back to college um and you know with with a lawsuit that just opens up a window for absolute chaos in the future. A guy is getting drafted and going back getting drafted going back. They can’t let that happen. Have to fix that situation for sure. Um there’s been some talk around the league um that some rule changes that could come up in the future. Um some schedule changes that could come up in the future. maybe cutting another preseason game, adding another regular season game. We saw the NHL just did that in their new agreement, adding two regular season games, cutting some preseason. Do you think the NFL and the CBA and all that will will ever let um let uh let an extra game be played? Because I know the players association is definitely against it, right? Anything with more games and, you know, equal pay or similar contracts is obviously going to cause a scene, especially in a physical game such as football. Do you think they ever allow that to happen? Because it’s a lot of money that they’re that they’re um leaving off the table if they decide not to do it, but players are certainly at risk of more injuries. Well, I think the only way it happens is if there’s a compromise. If you add another NFL game, you probably have to add another by week. and that increases your season by another two weeks. At which point do you just get rid of the preseason entirely? Like you’re pushing back your schedule pretty substantially. That’s the only way though that the NFL is going to go for another game like that, an 18th game. It’s through adding another bye-week, which you know probably is good. They I I think they should already have a second by week. Mhm. to be honest because if especially if you have like a by-week say in week six then that’s 13 straight games 13 straight weeks of absolutely brutal um wear and tear on your body but that’s the only way they go for it. I’m I wouldn’t be crying to see the preseason games go away. I’m sure the coaches and execs who are trying to evaluate their rosters in the offseasons probably would like to keep those. They’d very much be against those uh be against losing another preseason game. I think at the most if you got rid of that third preseason game because usually that’s the one that doesn’t matter, right? You know, even now with 17 weeks, the third preseason game, you started your fourth and fifth stringers and just kind of relax a little bit. That game doesn’t exactly matter very much. But if you’re going to have add another game and then add another by week, where are you going to get that extra week from? Are you going to push the regular season back into January or you going to move up the start of each season and make it the first week of September right before Labor Day? That’s you don’t really have any other options. Yeah. And you talk about adding a second by week. I’ve always thought that there should be leaguewide by weeks. And now I know that uh you know you may say, “Oh, that’s not great because you know the leagues off for a week and uh moneywise and all that.” Um, number one, there’s always an issue with scheduling, right? Um, you know, you play a team fresh off their bye-week and you lose and you know, you’re going to complain about that and then it goes back the other way, too. But some teams, I mean, some teams end up playing three teams in a row fresh off their byee and you know, you have a tired group going into a late bye-week and it could really change the point of a season. So, what if they had like week six and week 12 were your two leaguewide by weeks and everyone got a week off. It’s even for every single team. Um, and you know, you kind of give the the hot weather teams a by-week when it gets hotter out. You give the cold weather teams a by-week when, you know, in in a snowy week and it it evens out. I I don’t know um if that would ever be a thing. Obviously, the NFL because they love their money, would have to find something to fill those weekends with. Um the football fans wouldn’t care. I mean, college football would just say, “Okay, well, week six and 12, we’re just going to put half the slate on Sunday and call it a day.” And every football fan would be happy. But obviously the NFL would be losing money on that as well. That makes you think maybe a week 12 or 13 Pro Bowl in the middle of the year. Bring that back where it’s actually real football with, you know, softer tackling. But, you know, you bring something like that back maybe. I don’t know. Um, but I I think they they certainly are going to have to add another by-week like you said and maybe that’s the the solution there. Set by weeks. Yeah. Well, I I don’t think that seems like a radical proposal. definitely one that the NFL PA would be getting behind. Um I don’t think I could ever see the NFL doing that though. They want money consistently every single week. They don’t want to leave two weeks on the table cuz you’re just condensing all the others. And maybe you get that same profit, but you could also stretch it out to those add additional two weeks. So I still think you got your random team by weeks, but again, if you’re going to add another game, you’re going to have to add another bye-week. There’s no way the NFL is going to go for it any other way. There’s not a compromise. That is the compromise. That is the compromise. Cuz at this point, the NFL PA, like we said before, they don’t want to add another game. They were vehemently opposed to adding a 17th game to begin with. So, you know, you just you keep walking down that line. And I don’t know, with the NFL, I I don’t understand why they want to keep adding games to begin with. I get there’s revenue to be left on that’s being left on the table, but I I kind of miss the days where there were only 16 games. The more games you add, the less each individual one the less important each individual game is. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Um again, you can’t you can’t add too many games. Like again, if they came out next season, they’re like, “Oh, we’re doing 20 games.” That would be extreme. That’d be way too much. Adding one more game would be okay, but that’s where it has to stop. Um again, you you you run the risk of making the games mean less. And we see what happens in the MLB again. You got over 160 games. You have, you know, the dog days of summer where the stadiums a quarter full in some cities, half full. Even the major markets don’t sell out games because so what if you lose, so what if you win? It doesn’t matter, right? You’re trying to win the series. You’re trying to win, you know, seven out of 10 or six out of 10. A single game doesn’t really matter. And football is could not be more opposite, right? football. I think that’s why it’s so popular in uh the United States, too, is every game is just so pivotal. Um but at the same point, you can make the counter argument where you add an extra game and maybe a team like the Panthers last year or a really bad team last year, they’re not out of it by week six or seven, they’re still hanging around in the wild card race because they could, you know, win eight of their last nine and get in instead of being ruled out of the playoffs halfway through the season. So, there’s there’s arguments both ways. Um, let’s talk a little bit more about training camp now. Um, have you are you planning on going to training camp this year? Uh, do you do you find that exciting at all to watch them at St. John Fischers? Um, it used to get me excited. I given my work schedule, I probably won’t be able to make it out there. Um, it’s training camp. This team is pretty much set. if there’s, you know, during the drought years where there’s so many more question marks and maybe as to who the starting quarterback’s going to be, who your top wide receivers are, starting Dline, maybe then I go out because there’s just so much more on the line. Um, but the Bills have been preset. Their core roster is here. We know what it’s going to be week one. There’s only like, you know, a few tertiary is issues that Shawn McDermott’s got to go through, and that’s a good thing. I’m not complaining about that. It’s just it’s not enough of a draw to bring me out to uh uh Rochester, but I may go to you know what what the blue and red day or something that scrimmage. Yeah, I went to that I think two years ago and the only reason I went was to watch uh to watch Matt Arisa, which is a a weird thing to say now. Um of course, but uh I mean that was the the draw, right? And it’s it’s kind of weird because the Bills added heavy defense this year. And if you’re if you’re a team that adds heavy defense, you know, if you’re going to training camp, you’re not going to see those guys really do too much. But like again, if you get a new quarterback or a new running back or new wide receiver, you know, it’s very biasly offense there. So again, the Bills haven’t added too much on the offensive side of the ball. I don’t think anyone’s really going to be making any special trips to go out there, but I’m sure it will be sold out every single time because just the people in Rochester that are right there are going to go to that as always. Yeah, probably. And that’s always been designed to get more Rochester folks involved and have, you know, engaged with the Bills. That’s always for them, catered towards them. We got everything here in Buffalo. Um, but Cal, you know, speaking of all these leaguewide changes and format changes, there’s been some rumblings recently over the NHL that whenever Gary Bman steps aside in the next few years, he finally retires that the NHL may look to do what the NBA has sort of done, the NB or the MO as well and have like a playin wild card sort of game. What are you What are your thoughts on something like that? So, initially, again, I’m going to be against the idea. Um, when when the NBA first did it, I was against the idea and then I watched the playin and it’s just more important games, fun playoff games. Uh, for somebody who, you know, is a Knicks fan, but that there’s no team in Buffalo. It, you know, the Knicks have not been in the playin yet. Um, so I don’t really know cheering for a team in it how it would be. But I find it entertaining. I mean, again, I’m not going to watch just a random NBA game on a weekday, but all of a sudden it’s a playin game. It’s a best of one. all of a sudden I’m completely involved. So, uh I think it’s a good idea. Um am I biased as a Sabres fan saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Please get us in. Get us in any way possible. Yes. Because any playoff appearance could change the trajectory of this franchise. We saw it with the Bills. Um but if the NHL does it, um I don’t mind it. I I think it uh it gets more people involved, more teams involved, more fans involved, creates more crazy moments. We saw how well the Four Nations tournament did this year with just more eyes on hockey. So, more important games. Sounds good to me. Um, again, the playin is for teams that wouldn’t make the playoffs or are fringe playoff teams anyway. The the the team that would have made the playoffs just has to win one of two games if they do it how the NBA does. And then other teams that aren’t going to be, it would just be an extra team. So, I don’t know. It’s it’s a decent idea. Um, but if they don’t do it, I’m not, you know, in shambles either. I think uh I think the NBA’s done a good job with it, but the NHL, I don’t know. They struggle with marketing and all that, so I don’t know how it would go. Well, maybe they wouldn’t struggle if they had a different commissioner. Hint hint, Gary. Get out of the way. Yeah. Um, and speaking of the home office for the NHL, Chris Johnston, insider for The Athletic, was reporting earlier this week or maybe last weekend about how the NHL is growing increasingly concerned about the direction of the Buffalo Sabres. And if that’s true, what took them so long? It’s been 14 years. Yeah, you should be concerned. Yeah. I again, it’s I couldn’t have said it better. It’s It’s been It’s been the same thing for 10 of those 14 years, right? There hasn’t been a change. It’s not like, you know, oh, we’re trying this and then, oh, we’re trying that. No, like there’s been a couple, you know, all-in gives again, the O’Reilly, Vander Kane era, then, oh, Taylor Hall, that’s going to get us to the Stanley Cup. No, it’s not. And, um, and the last five years especially have been zero effort to get anyone in here besides, you know, mid-tier players that are going to play very mid-tier and we’re going to sit again below the playoffs. Again, I’m I’m excited for the season to start just because I’m ready for hockey and I, you know, want want to watch Savers hockey again. But at the same time, like this is the least excited I’ve been, least optimistic I’ve been, I should say. Which maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe maybe they got us all sleeping and they’re going to, you know, overachieve instead of underachieve like they always do. Yeah. I don’t know. The Sabres, anything to get Terry Terry Pigo’s dead hands away from Buffalo or from the Sabres. Get him away from day-to-day operations. He’s not involved dayto-day in the Bills and look how they’re going. Exactly. Just leave the Sabres alone. You can watch. You can go to every single game like you normally do. Just stop making personnel decisions, Terry. You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re not the president of hockey ops. Oh gosh, Kale, we did it again. We talked about the Sabres. Damn it. Damn it. Always always find a way in. Always find a way in. They are. Absolutely. Um I think we’re going to close today’s podcast off. We got one more topic I want to briefly discuss and that is again the Buffalo potential USL soccer team. Uh we briefly mentioned it for like 30 seconds last week, but Cal, you actually texted me this earlier this week. Um talking about some recent developments here with the Buffalo Pro Soccer Stadium that they could be looking to a downtown location. You have anything else you want to say about that? Any other details? Yeah. Uh yeah, downtown location. Um they’re back to behind the Buffalo News here. Let’s see if I can pull up the exact details here. Um which is probably, you know, the best possible spot yet. They’re in a rush to kick off in 2026. Help pushed by a team um to the now discarded Elk Street site. Um public funding may not be needed now, which is really good. Um a whole lot of money behind it in a short span. So hey, the less public funding needed the better. Again, you you don’t want that to affect taxes either. Um, and then of course the Buffalo News site. That’s going to be where they probably put it. Again, they haven’t started yet. Nothing is confirmed confirmed yet, but they better start working on that thing because I’m sick of hearing about it. We want soccer here in Buffalo. Um, I it’ll be exciting. I, you know, as somebody who’s, you know, starting to starting to watch more, you know, got into, you know, whatever. And we’ll we’ll see the World Cup and all that coming to the United States as well next season or next year. Um, it’s it’s going to be a fun one. And I think uh you know USA soccer I will continue to be disappointed year in and year out. How do we have the best athletes in the world and you know it’s just it’s it’s tough because right the best athletes and most other countries play soccer. We see it in the Olympics right certain certain countries just dominate and you know one sport or the other sport but there’s no one as complete as the United States. The United States provides athletes at the top of the game in every single sport. It’s just if you’re if you are a a person in the United States and you’re one of the most athletic people, you know, in your school, whatever, you’re not going to be playing soccer, right? You’re going to be playing football because it’s more cool or whatever. You’re going to be playing hockey because you’re from Minnesota or up north and it’s the cool thing to do. You’re going to be playing baseball from your because you’re from the south and that’s the cool thing to do. Soccer doesn’t really have, you know, it’s kind of like, you know, if you’re a kicker for football and you don’t go to college for it, then you transition to soccer. Or you’re super fast and you’re done doing track, you transition to soccer. You look at some of these other countries, they are all in on soccer and I love it. The atmosphere is great. I, you know, I was somebody who used to not like soccer. I like it now. I enjoy watching soccer. Um, it’s just one of those things where I don’t think the United States is ever going to be at the top, um, like some of these other, you know, dominant countries are in Europe and South America. I I just don’t think they’re ever going to be at that level, but hopefully they improve as the years go on. Yeah, I agree. Well, one of the big problems here, and other YouTube channels have spoken about this before, it’s that soccer is a very elitist sport here in America. It costs a lot of money to get your kid into a good soccer program. I used to play soccer and it was expensive. I I don’t I didn’t play soccer anymore because of that. Um, and it’s unfortunate because as you look around the world, the bea best athletes are able to play soccer because it’s very accessible. You can do it anywhere. You can do it almost any time of the se of this year. You just need a clear field and soccer ball and a net. It’s pretty easy. And uh unfortunately the American system and how they run it with US Soccer Federation, it’s very expensive elitist. You got to have connections as well to get up into the world. you almost have to send your kids out to one of thesemies, youthmies very early on when they’re really young and that just breaks up families and that causes more problems than it’s than really necessary. So there’s a lot of problems with the soccer system here in America which has kind of inhibited its growth compared to other nations and other countries and regions. But it’s getting better. I mean the MLS is growing. the USL with this new re or relegation promotion tier system that they’re doing that the bu Buffalo hopefully is involved in. Uh that’s pretty exciting as well. And I I again I’ve said it before, but I’m going to be a huge supporter of this Buffalo soccer team whenever it comes out. I’m extremely excited for it because I’ve always loved soccer. We’ve talked about this so many times off air, but we are we are both soccer fans now. So, the sooner they can get the stadium built Yeah, for real. And uh the sooner they can get this stadium built, the sooner they can start getting some players in, some personnel as well with coaching staff, you know, get fans in the stands and we’ll be happy. And if they put it downtown right across from the Key Bank Center and behind the Buffalo News Stadium, that’s pretty cool. You got a mini sports district kind of, right, with the Sabres, the soccer stadium, and then Salem Salem Park right across the highway there. That’s that’s kind of cool for downtown. That’d be a good another potential source of uh economic cash flow there for downtown Buffalo as they try to get rejuvenated again. Gross soccer in the area have championship games at that field as well. Very easy. And like you said, one more point on United States Soccer. All the guys on, you know, Team USA, they go overseas to play, right? Or a majority of them do. They’ve all had youth camps and they go to school in the UK or in Europe. because there, you know, we got to start, you know, building up the program in the United States, but one one step at a time, one brick by brick, one step at a time, as he said. Um, but anyways, folks, that’s going to do it here for episode 9 of Buffalo Talk Center. I am Don, this is Kale. Like I said, this Buffalo Talk Center. Um, make sure to follow this if you’re listening on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Um, uh, like and subscribe if you’re watching us on the YouTube and you’re still around. Uh, we appreciate you wa appreciate y’all watching. This was a fantastic outro. Did not stumble my words whatsoever. And we will see y’all next Monday. Cheers.

On episode 9 of Buffalo TalkCenter, Don and Cal discuss the recent extension of Bowen Byram. Plus, the guys look ahead to the Bills’ training camp, which starts on Wednesday, July 23rd. The pair also talks about recent development surrounding Buffalo’s potential new downtown stadium.

#sabres #bills #billsnews #billsmafia #nfltrainingcamp

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–
00:00 Intro
00:45 Sabres Extend Byram
04:50 Bills Training Camp Preview
13:10 AFC East Outlook
15:35 NFL Hot Takes for 2025
18:45 Shemar Stewart Holdout
20:10 Potential for 18 Game Season?
26:45 More Training Camp Talk
28:40 NHL Play-In Tournament Talks
30:40 Report on NHL Growing Concerned with State of Sabres
32:35 USL Buffalo Stadium Update
38:00 Outro