OBL 5/15: Full Bills Schedule Reaction, New Radio Home, Friday Fan Mailbag
Chris Brown and Maddy Glab updated the latest news from One Bills Drive, which included the announcement of a new radio home for games in Cumulus Media. The two then shared news from around the NFL and asked the listeners for their biggest takeaways from the Bills 2026 schedule. NFL VP of broadcast planning Mike North joined the show to dissect the construction of the schedule as a whole and the importance the league put on the Bills to be featured in primetime and marque windows. Finally, Brownie and Maddy opened up this week's Friday Fan Mailbag to answer the listeners most pressing questions.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Speaker 1: Nucky boys were what today? He is a feast for
Speaker 1: the capitol fiend. The cook is in the kitchen, looks
Speaker 1: down the sideline. He's got kickadd for a twenty three
Speaker 1: yard touchdown and it's intercepted.
Speaker 2: Jumping up in the air is bad for.
Speaker 1: These PLESE one Bill's live. All right? How's everybody doing
Speaker 1: here on a Friday? Beautiful sunny day here in western
Speaker 1: New York? Has spring finally sprung? We made it crossed,
Speaker 1: Cross your fingers and toes, but we should be okay,
Speaker 1: Chris Brown, Maddy glad with you here on a Friday,
Speaker 1: and a lot of stuff to get to today. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the schedule came out last night. We'll get to that
Speaker 1: in a second. The OBL Friday fan mail bag is open.
Speaker 1: You're well welcome to fire off questions at one Bills
Speaker 1: Live at your But we will have a topic of
Speaker 1: discussion today because the schedule dropped last night. But I
Speaker 1: think first and foremost, the Bills made an announcement today
Speaker 1: concerning their new radio partner. The club has a new
Speaker 1: partnership with Cumulus Media that will make ninety seven Rock
Speaker 1: the official flagship station for Bills broadcasts here in Buffalo
Speaker 1: starting this coming season. This marks a return to FM
Speaker 1: radio and to ninety seven Rock, which served as the
Speaker 1: team's flagship station from nineteen ninety eight to twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: The flagship partnership just the first announcement for the Buffalo
Speaker 1: Bills Radio network. The Bills will produce and manage all
Speaker 1: radio broadcasts, including our pregame and postgame coverage, with expanded
Speaker 1: analysis throughout the season. In addition to ninety seven Rock WSKO,
Speaker 1: the Score twelve sixty will serve as our Syracuse affiliate,
Speaker 1: with additional stations including Rochester and Southern Ontario joining the
Speaker 1: network and to be announced in the near future. It
Speaker 1: was also announced that Bill's Wall of Famer Steve Tasker,
Speaker 1: we'll be joining our game day broadcasts with myself and
Speaker 1: Eric Wood. He will be our new sideline reporter. This
Speaker 1: is a job that Steve did at CBS for the
Speaker 1: better part of twenty years, so I know he's excited
Speaker 1: to take on that role with us here on the
Speaker 1: Bills Radio network. Naturally, you know, we feel bad that
Speaker 1: sal Caapaju could not continue with us, but he works
Speaker 1: for another radio group. It's just the way the business works, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: But excited to get started with Cumulus as we begin
Speaker 1: a second run with them as an organization. And I'll
Speaker 1: just say my first year on the Bills Radio network
Speaker 1: was in two thousand and three. I was a pregame
Speaker 1: co host and it was Van Miller's last year. Wow
Speaker 1: calling back in two thousand and three, it was my
Speaker 1: first on the Bills Radio network and it was on
Speaker 1: Cumulus on ninety seven rocks. So it's nice to be
Speaker 1: back with those guys, and we'll be ready to roll,
Speaker 1: you know. And Steve is a network broadcast veteran, so
Speaker 1: I know he's going to be, you know, adding his
Speaker 1: expertise with our sideline coverage. So super excited about what's
Speaker 1: coming down the pike here in the fall. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: It's awesome and I know we've been waiting for this
Speaker 2: information for a while and it's great to finally be
Speaker 2: able to announce this right after schedule release and knowing
Speaker 2: that the Bills did an extensive amount of research in
Speaker 2: part with another firm to figure out what is the
Speaker 2: best home for Bills Radio.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so looking forward to that and some future announcements too.
Speaker 1: I know on the FM dial with that stereo sound.
Speaker 1: It's gonna sound great coming out of your radio or
Speaker 1: what have you, your phone if you got us up
Speaker 1: on the app. So looking forward to all of that,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking forward to the announcements to come. Like
Speaker 1: the Southern Ontario market, we respect our awesome Bills fan
Speaker 1: base in Southern Ontario. We know they're a big part
Speaker 1: of our game day crowd every home game. So our
Speaker 1: neighbors to the north, it sounds as though there are
Speaker 1: plans in the works to have you folks covered quite
Speaker 1: literally on the airwaves up there, So we look forward
Speaker 1: to that announcement as well as Rochester, which we all
Speaker 1: know has about fifteen percent of our season ticket members
Speaker 1: as well, so and we have training camp up there
Speaker 1: and it's one of the main reasons why. So we
Speaker 1: look forward to those future announcements coming up in the
Speaker 1: near future. As we said, the full schedule for the
Speaker 1: Bills dropped last night and it is a doozy. Two
Speaker 1: holiday games highlight a schedule that includes a record tying
Speaker 1: six primetime games for the Bills, another three four o'clock
Speaker 1: window games, and of course the Thursday night opener at
Speaker 1: home against the Lions in week two. Some notes for
Speaker 1: all of you that may not have noticed some of
Speaker 1: these things at first glance. The Bills will play the
Speaker 1: entire NFC North in primetime Lions Thursday Night Football home opener,
Speaker 1: Week two at Minnesota, Week nine, Monday Night Football at
Speaker 1: Green Bay, Week fourteen, Sunday Night Football Chicago, Week fifteen,
Speaker 1: Saturday Night at high Mark. Holy moly, Like you know,
Speaker 1: it's just these little quirks that you kind of notice
Speaker 1: in the schedule, And that one kind of grabbed me because,
Speaker 1: as we know, NFC North expected to be a strong
Speaker 1: division top to bottom, and clearly the league thought those
Speaker 1: were worthwhile primetime matchups for the Bills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild to look at it in its entirety
Speaker 2: to know the tough stretches that Buffalo faces at two
Speaker 2: different parts of the season. You start off the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty sixth season with a whammy against the Houston Texas.
Speaker 2: This was a tough opponent last year for Buffalo. You
Speaker 2: would guess it's going to be a tough opponent this
Speaker 2: upcoming season just because of that defense that they had
Speaker 2: last season that returns a lot of players they resigned
Speaker 2: and gave extensions to a lot of those foundational players
Speaker 2: on that defense over the last couple of seasons, and
Speaker 2: then you go from Houston to Detroit, a team who
Speaker 2: missed the playoffs last season, but you expect to be
Speaker 2: in playoff contention this season. And then you got the
Speaker 2: Chargers and New England and the Rams. No rest for Buffalo.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about this last night, trying to spin
Speaker 2: the first half of the season into like something positive,
Speaker 2: and we talked about it on the show a little
Speaker 2: bit yesterday. You have a new head coach and Joe Brady,
Speaker 2: You've got a new culture that you're ushering in, and
Speaker 2: in those first five weeks, there's going to be a
Speaker 2: stress test somewhere in one of these games where you
Speaker 2: face some adversity and you figure out what type of
Speaker 2: team you have backs against the wall. Maybe you get
Speaker 2: a win in the fourth quarter, the game goes to overtime,
Speaker 2: and you kind of look at each other and you say, Okay,
Speaker 2: we know what we have now, let's move.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, welcome to the head coaching ranks. Joe Brady,
Speaker 1: You're gonna play the number one defense in football that
Speaker 1: held your offense to points last year. Welcome to the league.
Speaker 1: I mean, holy cow. So yeah, the last two trips
Speaker 1: down there have been brutal for the Bills each of
Speaker 1: the last two years they've been at Houston. They're at
Speaker 1: Houston again. They lose on the sixty one yard field
Speaker 1: goal two years ago, and then Josh has the ball
Speaker 1: in his own end zone at the end of that
Speaker 1: game and they go throw, throw, throw, and don't get anywhere,
Speaker 1: and the game's over. They want a different outcome here
Speaker 1: because the Bills have not won in Houston since two
Speaker 1: thousand and six. You got to go all the way
Speaker 1: back to JP Lossman a peerless price in the back
Speaker 1: of the end zone with under a minute remaining for
Speaker 1: the last Bills win in Houston. So that is a
Speaker 1: stiff early test for Joe Brady. And then, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: three straight home games good but opponents Detroit Chargers, Patriots tough,
Speaker 1: made the playoffs, one should have made the playoffs and
Speaker 1: did not before a road game at the Rams, who
Speaker 1: went to the NFC title game last year. That's a
Speaker 1: tough and challenging opening stretch. And as Maddie mentioned, there
Speaker 1: is a similar gauntlet of opponents later in the season,
Speaker 1: starting with Kansas City on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2: Kansas City on Thanksgiving, How fun that that's gonna be
Speaker 2: in Heimark Stadium. I feel like it's the perfect way
Speaker 2: to celebrate this inaugural season. I love that it's the
Speaker 2: late game. We talked about that yesterday. Having a chance
Speaker 2: to enjoy Thanksgiving at home or come over early and
Speaker 2: just tailgate outside of this beautiful high Mark Stadium. It's
Speaker 2: gonna be so fun. It's a great opponent. We know
Speaker 2: the history that Bill's haves with the Chiefs, we know
Speaker 2: how those games come down to the wire in just
Speaker 2: about every single matchup. You figure that Patrick Mahomes is
Speaker 2: going to be healthy and back to looking like the
Speaker 2: Mahomes that we all know at that point in the season.
Speaker 2: And then from there it goes on. You're on the
Speaker 2: road against New England, You're going to Green Baygo's coming here,
Speaker 2: and then a divisional round rematch against Denver for Christmas Day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and all of those games either in primetime or
Speaker 1: the four o'clock window. I mean they go eight twenty
Speaker 1: four to twenty five, eight twenty eight, twenty four to thirty.
Speaker 1: So they've got a Thursday night game, which is obviously
Speaker 1: the Thanksgiving game. Then they have Sunday, big window game
Speaker 1: at New England in four to twenty five Saturday night
Speaker 1: game against Chicago at Denver on Christmas the Netflix game
Speaker 1: at four thirty. I mean, whew. So that's Those are
Speaker 1: two gauntlet like stretches in terms of high caliber opponents.
Speaker 1: And the crazy thing is that second stretch, three of
Speaker 1: the five are on the road. You're at New England,
Speaker 1: at Green Bay at Denver. Not all in a row,
Speaker 1: mind you, but three of the five are on the
Speaker 1: road in that gauntlet stretch. But I think another quirk
Speaker 1: in the schedule. And we didn't even talk about this
Speaker 1: yesterday when we were doing the schedule release live stream
Speaker 1: last night when the schedule dropped no division until week ten.
Speaker 1: The Bills do not play a division opponent until Week ten,
Speaker 1: when they play at the Jets. Buffalo doesn't play a
Speaker 1: division game until November fifteenth.
Speaker 2: Well they've got October four.
Speaker 1: Wait, I'm sorry I missed New England.
Speaker 2: Away and away division game.
Speaker 1: I'm an idiot. Week four New England.
Speaker 2: I remembered that originally first, Chris, I missed it originally
Speaker 2: first because I thought that too, and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, they're gonna it's gonna.
Speaker 1: Be I was how did I pass over them? I
Speaker 1: don't know how I did that. All right, so they
Speaker 1: are playing a Division game week four.
Speaker 2: But then you got a little break four through ten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so that's an oversight by me. We're going
Speaker 1: to delete that. But I think the really cool thing,
Speaker 1: and I know not everyone is a fan of this,
Speaker 1: but for the first time ever, the Bills host a
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving game, and for the first time ever the Bills
Speaker 1: play on Christmas Day. Just two very unique. It's one
Speaker 1: in primetime, the they're in the country wide four o'clock window.
Speaker 1: And I just think for a team that's moving into
Speaker 1: a new stadium to host a Thanksgiving game for the
Speaker 1: first time, that's just a cool deal. It's it's like
Speaker 1: a cherry on top, you know what I mean. Look,
Speaker 1: people got to work on Thanksgiving, people got to work
Speaker 1: on Christmas. We know the deal. It's kind of part
Speaker 1: of what we sign up for, you know, working for
Speaker 1: this team. And I know not every fan is going
Speaker 1: to be pumped up that their holiday has to be
Speaker 1: shared with the Bills, but I also think there's a
Speaker 1: good contingent of fans that are excited about that, like
Speaker 1: because it's like they say all the time, like the
Speaker 1: Bills are their second family. Well, now you can invite
Speaker 1: your second family to your holidays because they're gonna be
Speaker 1: playing football games. So I just remember when the Bills
Speaker 1: were had that stretch where they had three Thanksgiving Day
Speaker 1: games in four years, all on the road. Mind you,
Speaker 1: fans got pumped up for that, like they got really
Speaker 1: excited that their team was playing on Thanksgiving. Well now
Speaker 1: you get Thanksgiving and Christmas. So there it is.
Speaker 2: I saw one of our coaches post on social media
Speaker 2: after the schedule was released, and he was talking about
Speaker 2: the holiday games that Buffalo will play this season and
Speaker 2: posted the schedule to his Instagram story and said, good
Speaker 2: coaches and good players play on holidays. And I think
Speaker 2: it's it's a respect thing. It's knowing we have arrived
Speaker 2: to the point where the entire nation wants to see
Speaker 2: us in these big ticket windows. We heard from Mike
Speaker 2: North yesterday, we'll hear from him today on the show,
Speaker 2: but he said, these networks look at these holiday games
Speaker 2: now and think this is a big opportunity for us.
Speaker 2: We've gotten great viewership in years past, and now we
Speaker 2: want to put these marquee matchups on these holidays.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think, and as you said, we'll hear
Speaker 1: from Mike North in the second hour of the show.
Speaker 1: We had him on the live stream last night when
Speaker 1: the schedule show dropped. But yes, there are six primetime games,
Speaker 1: but where are they airing? The first primetime game is
Speaker 1: on Amazon, the second one is on ESPN. There's a
Speaker 1: third one on ESPN. Those are both the two Monday
Speaker 1: night games that the Bills play in. Then you have
Speaker 1: NBC for Sunday Night Football, NBC again for Sunday Night Football,
Speaker 1: and then the Saturday night game is CBS, and you
Speaker 1: even get a big window game for Netflix on Christmas Day.
Speaker 1: Every network wanted a piece of the Bills in primetime,
Speaker 1: and the league delivered. I just think it's an indication
Speaker 1: that everybody wants, you know, Josh Allen and this Bills
Speaker 1: team on their air, and the league did right by
Speaker 1: all of their network partners. I think everybody got a
Speaker 1: game except Fox in primetime.
Speaker 2: Everyone but Fox, and I'm sure every network too was
Speaker 2: looking for opportunities to get a big matchup at heigh
Speaker 2: Mark Stadium in a good window. I'm sure that was
Speaker 2: something that every network was jockeying for, knowing that this
Speaker 2: is the inaugural season at high Mark Stadium. Every single
Speaker 2: network wants their opportunity to kind of display what high
Speaker 2: Mark Stadium is and tell it their way to the world.
Speaker 1: The other thing we should mention is with short weeks
Speaker 1: leading up to the two Thursday night games and a
Speaker 1: couple of five day weeks coming off of Monday night
Speaker 1: and Sunday to Saturday game turno, we thought it worth
Speaker 1: examining how many rest advantages the Bills have against their
Speaker 1: opponents this season. The Bills only have two rest disadvantages
Speaker 1: on this entire schedule, and they are only one day differences.
Speaker 1: Really not a pretty insignificant if you ask me. When
Speaker 1: they come off the Monday night game at LA to
Speaker 1: play the Raiders the following Sunday, and when they come
Speaker 1: off the Monday night game in Minnesota to play the
Speaker 1: Jets the following Sunday, that's it, and it's a one
Speaker 1: day difference for each of them. The Bills do not
Speaker 1: play a single team coming off their bye week this season,
Speaker 1: so that's a plus. They are one of fourteen teams
Speaker 1: in the league this year who are not playing a
Speaker 1: single team coming off their bye week. Buffalo plays the
Speaker 1: Chargers off their Mini bi in the home opener, So
Speaker 1: that's Buffalo's mini bie we're talking about. Off the Detroit
Speaker 1: game on Thursday night, and they play Baltimore off their
Speaker 1: bye week, so the Bills get the buye, then play Baltimore,
Speaker 1: and then the Bills play the Patriots off their mini
Speaker 1: buy from their Thanksgiving Day game with Kansas City, so
Speaker 1: some extra rest built in. So the Bills get an
Speaker 1: extra day of rest against the Broncos because they'll play
Speaker 1: the previous Saturday heading into that Friday Christmas Day game,
Speaker 1: and the Broncos play Sunday, so with the travel to Denver,
Speaker 1: maybe that's a wash, so to speak. And then beyond that,
Speaker 1: they get two extra days of rest coming off the
Speaker 1: Christmas Day game because they play Miami, who's playing that
Speaker 1: following Sunday after Christmas before they host Buffalo. So all told,
Speaker 1: this is a long way of saying the Bills have
Speaker 1: a rest differential of plus fourteen days for the entire season.
Speaker 1: It ranks second most in the league. The only team
Speaker 1: with a greater rest differential is Chicago at plus fifteen days.
Speaker 1: But the Bears have the toughest schedule in the league. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're gonna.
Speaker 2: Need every one of those Bears are plent of uh
Speaker 2: something else when I'm thinking about rest. This is where
Speaker 2: my mind went, because I know we love to compare
Speaker 2: the Bills to some of these other AFC opponents that
Speaker 2: have won a lot of games, made it to the playoffs,
Speaker 2: super Bowl championships. The Chiefs had to have a very
Speaker 2: early bye week. Week five is their bye week. Thinking
Speaker 2: about advantages, Yes, the Bills, it's a couple weeks later
Speaker 2: in week seven, but you know week five. Nobody wants
Speaker 2: a week five bye week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we'll get to the Chiefs in a second,
Speaker 1: because there's something else ifoot there too. There are some
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists out there. So let's go around the NFL
Speaker 1: and among some of the tougher schedules out there, the
Speaker 1: Denver Broncos first six games. Are you ready?
Speaker 2: Let's hear it?
Speaker 1: At Kansas City Monday night football. We knew that game already, right, hm.
Speaker 1: Then home against Jacksonville, home against the Rams, Sunday night
Speaker 1: football at San Francisco at the Chargers home against Seattle
Speaker 1: on Thursday night. Yikes, that's Denver's first first six games.
Speaker 2: Good lord, Bownicks, you ready to go? I mean, guys, ready?
Speaker 1: Man alive? That is a gauntlet and then and the
Speaker 1: best part is at the very end they get a
Speaker 1: short week and face the Super Bowl champs, like holy moly.
Speaker 1: There are also, as I said, some conspiracy theorists who
Speaker 1: believe the Chiefs were helped by the league with a
Speaker 1: soft start to their schedule, knowing Patrick Mahomes may not
Speaker 1: be back or all the way back from his torn
Speaker 1: ACL and LCL suffered last December. I'll list the first
Speaker 1: four opponents for the Chiefs and you tell me what
Speaker 1: you think. Week one Denver Monday Night at home. Week two,
Speaker 1: Indy Sunday Night at home. Week three at Miami, Week
Speaker 1: four at Las Vegas. That's an indie team that might
Speaker 1: not even have Daniel Jones.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Okay. Week one not easy, not easy at all.
Speaker 2: Division Game two, three, and four, You're not facing the
Speaker 2: Krem de La Crem to start the season.
Speaker 1: So over the first four weeks it is the easiest
Speaker 1: strength of schedule in the league. Only Denver is projected
Speaker 1: amongst those four teams to have a winning record this season.
Speaker 1: What do you do for Andy and Patrick?
Speaker 2: What are you doing?
Speaker 1: So the conspiracy theorists are all over social media on
Speaker 1: that one. So people are still tired of the Chiefs.
Speaker 1: Apparently there were five NFL teams that did not get
Speaker 1: a single primetime game. Okay, Jets, Titans, Raiders, Cardinals, Dolphins.
Speaker 1: I think most people probably could have guessed most of
Speaker 1: those teams. Obviously the Jets and Dolphins in rebuilding, Titans
Speaker 1: new head coach, Raiders new head coach, Cardinals new head coach,
Speaker 1: and Cardinals really trying to find a quarterback. Raiders hope
Speaker 1: they found their franchise quarterback. Titan's second year with cam Ward.
Speaker 1: Make of it what you will, but I looked at
Speaker 1: the Jets schedule. They're all one o'clock starts. They have
Speaker 1: one four o'clock game. It's when they have to go
Speaker 1: out west.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: That used to be US.
Speaker 2: Okay back in the day. More thank god, primetime bills
Speaker 2: all the way.
Speaker 1: Some other news to get to and this will be
Speaker 1: something to keep an eye on. New York Giants wide
Speaker 1: receiver Molik Neighbors underwent a second procedure on his right
Speaker 1: knee this offseason. It was considered a cleanup procedure after
Speaker 1: Neighbors tour his ACL in September. The surgery was designed
Speaker 1: to remove scar tissue that was causing stiffness in the knee,
Speaker 1: so not uncommon, but the Giants are pushing his return
Speaker 1: back because of this. They remain hopeful he'll be ready
Speaker 1: for week one. As we know, the Giants open the
Speaker 1: season Sunday night football at home against the Cowboys in
Speaker 1: a divisional matchup. New York was optimistic back in January
Speaker 1: that Neighbors would be ready for the beginning of training
Speaker 1: camp in late July. That's been pushed back to later
Speaker 1: in the summer given the difficulties he has experienced with
Speaker 1: the recovery. This is why when head coaches are asked, hey,
Speaker 1: what's the timetable for that guy's return, they say, per
Speaker 1: every player is different, their recovery is different, how their
Speaker 1: body responds. As different guys again an ACL repair, they're
Speaker 1: back in seven to eight months and they're good as gold.
Speaker 1: And then you have other people that have some complications
Speaker 1: or the recovery isn't smooth, or there's an up and
Speaker 1: down roller coaster to the recovery, and you know there's
Speaker 1: some dark days in there where the knee feels like
Speaker 1: garbage or hear players say this all the time coming
Speaker 1: off in ACL, the knee feels loose, like it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel tight, sturdy and strong, and they got to work
Speaker 1: strength back into that leg to get that back. So
Speaker 1: neighbors clearly having some issues. And that's not nothing. I
Speaker 1: mean that guy is there, number one wide out. He
Speaker 1: was a top five draft choice. So Giants fans probably
Speaker 1: have their fingers and toes cross that he's going to
Speaker 1: be okay. So we'll have to.
Speaker 2: See something to monitor for sure in regards to a
Speaker 2: big star.
Speaker 1: That's a major weapon for their office.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like OTAs Hello, they start next week and he's
Speaker 2: not going.
Speaker 1: To be participating. I wouldn't think they're going to take
Speaker 1: their time with that. You don't have to beat anybody,
Speaker 1: you don't need to rack up any wins, you know,
Speaker 1: in May, June, July, or August. So let it be,
Speaker 1: let it be, let him recover and get him right
Speaker 1: for the games that are going to count. As we
Speaker 1: told you, Yes, the OBL Friday fan mail bag is
Speaker 1: open for any and all of your football related questions schedule, Bills, draft,
Speaker 1: free agency, what have you. But since the schedule did drop,
Speaker 1: we also wanted to talk to you about your biggest
Speaker 1: takeaways from the Bills twenty twenty six Regular season slate.
Speaker 1: What do you like? What do you don't like? What
Speaker 1: are you worried about? What are your concerns? Where do
Speaker 1: you think the Bills are going to make some hay
Speaker 1: and maybe rip off several wins in a row. We
Speaker 1: want all of your thoughts on the Bills twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six schedules, so lay them on us at one Bill's Live.
Speaker 1: That's where you can comment with us on the tweetsheet.
Speaker 1: And if you're in the neighborhood here on Avid Road
Speaker 1: in Orchard Park, we are at the Bills store and
Speaker 1: we have an open mike for you. Every show is
Speaker 1: open mic afternoon for you. You got a question, fire it
Speaker 1: off at us. You got to comment on the schedule.
Speaker 1: You can let us know as well here live on
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: Did you enjoy any schedule release videos?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got to get right. We should mention that
Speaker 1: social media super Bowl is the schedule release. I like
Speaker 1: what our people did. Josh of course hit it out
Speaker 1: of the park. I know. I know his wife Haley's
Speaker 1: gonna get a lot of credit for like coaching him up.
Speaker 1: But to be honest, Josh had pretty good acting chops
Speaker 1: before he got married. No offense to Haley. I'm sure
Speaker 1: she has fine tuned his acting skills, but he was
Speaker 1: pretty darn good before.
Speaker 2: That, right, good at everything?
Speaker 1: He really is.
Speaker 2: He could try something new, Josh is gonna knock it
Speaker 2: out of the park.
Speaker 1: I wonder if, like some of his closest friends are
Speaker 1: are a little bothered by that. Is there anything you
Speaker 1: can't do? Well?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Are you really good at everything? I could imagine some
Speaker 1: of his closest pals I would kind of wear on
Speaker 1: them a little bit.
Speaker 2: And the people in the room in like the meeting
Speaker 2: room for this video, they were co workers of ours,
Speaker 2: and I was really excited to see them, and I
Speaker 2: thought they did a fantastic job acting too, shop like
Speaker 2: this is really good.
Speaker 1: X in r PR department had some key lines in there.
Speaker 1: Kate Trump from our sales department was instrumental there. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there were some good performances. And of course Aaron Laporta,
Speaker 1: who was leading the he's like our head of design
Speaker 1: for graphics and everything that you see on our show
Speaker 1: on the Bill's website. He leads a great team over
Speaker 1: there on that side of the house. So yeah, they
Speaker 1: did a bang up job. And then the people they
Speaker 1: contracted to make a giant chrysalis, which was intriguing and
Speaker 1: a little disgusting all at the same time. Was magnificent.
Speaker 1: I mean, the end product with the Barbershop quartet fantastic.
Speaker 2: It was great.
Speaker 1: They always hit it.
Speaker 2: Out so weird, but that's what Bill's social media is.
Speaker 2: When you see some of these videos on TikTok, it
Speaker 2: fits the brand.
Speaker 1: And you know, as we said, this is kind of
Speaker 1: the super Bowl the schedule release for the social media
Speaker 1: departments around the league, and so you kind of contrast
Speaker 1: and compare, and it was funny. Maddie and I did
Speaker 1: not speak a word of the other schedule release videos
Speaker 1: that we had kind of seen over the last twenty
Speaker 1: four hours, and we sat down here right before we
Speaker 1: got on the air, and we were asking each other
Speaker 1: what we thought, and we both agreed, as begrudgingly as
Speaker 1: I have to admit this, the Chiefs did an excellent job.
Speaker 1: They did an old school nineties QVC channel take. One
Speaker 1: of their biggest fans is actor Rob Wriggle, and he
Speaker 1: was one of the QVC hosts with a woman and apparently,
Speaker 1: you know, they were divorces. They were previously married, so
Speaker 1: there's a little backbiting throughout the whole rendition when they're
Speaker 1: selling items related to each of the games.
Speaker 2: So funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to remember now. For the Bills game,
Speaker 1: what were they selling.
Speaker 2: They did the Indestructive Bills.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the folding table. Right. So they have a
Speaker 1: scene in the Chief's parking lot at Arrowhead the tables there.
Speaker 1: They have a guy climb up a ladder and ready
Speaker 1: to elbow drop the table, you know, like some of
Speaker 1: our Bill's Mafia people do here on tailgates, and he
Speaker 1: jumps up in the air and they do an edit
Speaker 1: cut and basically throw a giant dummy on top of
Speaker 1: the table and bounces off. Yeah, it was, it was,
Speaker 1: It was clever. I gotta give it to the Chiefs.
Speaker 1: They did a good job there the whole thing. The
Speaker 1: Titans often have a good showing.
Speaker 2: It's really funny to watch the Titans.
Speaker 1: On very simple concept. But they were back to Man
Speaker 1: on the Street, which is kind of which was kind
Speaker 1: of the video that put them on the map a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: Do that every year.
Speaker 1: I basically guess the team logo as to who they're playing,
Speaker 1: and apparently no one in Tennessee knows NFL logos to
Speaker 1: save their lives. That was a few years ago. This year,
Speaker 1: one of their social media people just started walking around
Speaker 1: looking for people that looked like people related to the
Speaker 1: teams they're playing. So, for example, they're playing the Cowboys.
Speaker 1: The guy walked up on somebody he thought looked like
Speaker 1: Jerry Jones. He's clearly not. He's confused, and then the
Speaker 1: guy that he thought was Jerry Jones. The funniest thing
Speaker 1: was the guys from the United Kingdom. It was an
Speaker 1: English dude the UK. Yeah, so, I mean it was.
Speaker 1: It was hilarios.
Speaker 2: There's a Cam Scataboo lookalike, Pat McAfee look alike.
Speaker 1: And then there are some that don't look like them
Speaker 1: at all. Like they had a guy who was wearing
Speaker 1: the team's.
Speaker 2: Jersey, Miles Garrett jersey.
Speaker 1: He's wearing a Miles Garrett jersey. Let's just say this
Speaker 1: guy is not in the gym nearly as much as
Speaker 1: Miles Garrett. Didn't look anything like him. A little doe.
Speaker 1: So it was it was pretty funny. They did a
Speaker 1: good job with that. And then you like the Jets One.
Speaker 2: I did. I thought the Jets one was simple, but
Speaker 2: it was satisfying. If any of my friends out there
Speaker 2: listening or watching right now enjoy videos on social media
Speaker 2: where it's like people completing tasks that just it's calming.
Speaker 2: It's nice to watch. You should watch the Jets because
Speaker 2: it is somebody mixing paints to match the team color
Speaker 2: that they're playing and the Bill they don't. Yeah, like
Speaker 2: with the scalpel and it sounds nice, and then the
Speaker 2: paint names have to do with the team that they're playing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I like that. We're up against the break here,
Speaker 1: so we'll get to another one because I want to
Speaker 1: know what you thought. Speaking of painting about the Bears
Speaker 1: schedule release video had an interesting take involving Rome Dunzay.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that, but we also want your biggest
Speaker 1: takeaways from the bills twenty twenty six regular season schedule.
Speaker 1: What do you like? What do you don't like? You
Speaker 1: let us know next here on One Bill's Live. All right,
Speaker 1: welcome back to One Bill's Live. Chris Brown Matti lab
Speaker 1: with you here on a Friday. It's an OBL Friday
Speaker 1: fan mail bag. Any question you got under the sun
Speaker 1: about the Bills, the draft, the new stadium, the Bill's schedule,
Speaker 1: fire away at us it was live, But we're also
Speaker 1: asking for your biggest takeaways on the Bill's twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six schedule as it dropped last night. So peruse it,
Speaker 1: survey it, give us your thoughts. What do you like,
Speaker 1: what did you not like about the schedule. We'll take
Speaker 1: any and all of your comments at one Bill's Live
Speaker 1: on the tweet sheet. And why don't we before we
Speaker 1: get to the tweet sheet, just go over what I
Speaker 1: said we were going to cover here. The job by
Speaker 1: the Chicago Bears with their schedule release video. They go
Speaker 1: Bob Ross, Bob Ross Baby, the you know rip painter
Speaker 1: from public television who used to make happy little trees
Speaker 1: every week. They have Rome Adunza as their Bob Ross
Speaker 1: impersonator and it's just a mellow painting session and you know,
Speaker 1: he basically fills in his canvas with the teams that
Speaker 1: they'll be playing.
Speaker 2: Rome did a great job. And I think one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why schedule a release day is so cool
Speaker 2: is because you get some player participation and you get
Speaker 2: to see which players like are good at acting, which
Speaker 2: players are really into doing something that's different than you know,
Speaker 2: we're just gonna shoot video of you at practice. Rome
Speaker 2: bought into it. Rome was chill, Rome was calm. Rome
Speaker 2: was acting and he had some funny lines in there too.
Speaker 2: He's like drawing a bird and you could see messes up.
Speaker 2: He's like, whoop, well, if you just mess up this bird,
Speaker 2: you can just turn it into.
Speaker 1: A jet and then against the Jets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think it's really really good Bears.
Speaker 1: He did a good job with that. And look, if
Speaker 1: you don't know, like Roma Dunze from, you know, a
Speaker 1: hole in your head, like you get a feel for
Speaker 1: what he's like. I would venture to guess they showed
Speaker 1: him some videos of Bob Ross because he probably doesn't
Speaker 1: know Bob Rock, like right like that, he's too young
Speaker 1: to know who Bob Ross.
Speaker 2: I would think, so.
Speaker 1: Uh. But let's get to the tweets sheet for biggest
Speaker 1: takeaways from the Bills twenty twenty six schedule, and Jack says,
Speaker 1: I like the schedule a little surprise, no home Sunday
Speaker 1: night football to show off new stadium. Not everyone can
Speaker 1: watch Thursday night football. He's kind of talking about how
Speaker 1: it's on Amazon Prime, the streaming service, not surprise, no
Speaker 1: home Monday night football games. But overall, really like it
Speaker 1: one thing I don't like is no home for twenty
Speaker 1: five games. Baltimore games should have been a main window game.
Speaker 1: That was a head scratcher. Yeah, that's a Week eight game,
Speaker 1: November first, one pm kickoff CBS. If they put that
Speaker 1: in the four o'clock window, the Bills from week five
Speaker 1: to week nine would have been Monday Night Sunday Big
Speaker 1: window game by Sunday Primetime, Monday Primetime. I mean they
Speaker 1: would have had five games outside of one o'clock there, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, they do have from week twelve to sixteen.
Speaker 1: So that would I think that might have been overkill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, adding a Ravens.
Speaker 1: I mean you could justify it. It's a quality matchup.
Speaker 2: Primetime game four twenty five. Yeah, that's what I thought too.
Speaker 2: We all did a schedule test where we all wrote
Speaker 2: what we thought would be and I thought the Ravens
Speaker 2: would play the Bills on Thursday night. It's a one
Speaker 2: o'clock game. Speaking of these one o'clock games, like, there
Speaker 2: are some really good games that are going to be
Speaker 2: played at one o'clock for Buffalo's twenty twenty six schedule,
Speaker 2: like Week three against the Chargers, Week one against the Texans,
Speaker 2: one o'clock Week four against the Patriots one o'clock, and
Speaker 2: then you've got a Ravens game Week eight at kind
Speaker 2: of like the midpoint of the season. Yeah, when you're
Speaker 2: figuring out who you are and kind of the lay
Speaker 2: of the AFC. Where are going to be the must
Speaker 2: win games in the second half of the season. This
Speaker 2: could be a big time game for Buffalo played in
Speaker 2: a one o'clock window.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of fans are happy to see
Speaker 1: a couple of one o'clock home games in September, right
Speaker 1: because the home games in September, I think are the
Speaker 1: ones that Bill's Mafia holds closest to them because it's
Speaker 1: the traditional tailgate ideal scenario, good weather, September's elite season.
Speaker 1: You've got two home games there at one o'clock starts
Speaker 1: in week three and week four September twenty seventh, October fourth.
Speaker 1: I mean we had home games here last year at
Speaker 1: that time. I mean that New Orleans game. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: it was shangri la here. People were having a whale
Speaker 1: of a time. It was like almost seventy degrees. It
Speaker 1: was beautiful.
Speaker 2: That was the ticket that everybody wanted to I had
Speaker 2: so many people asking me for that ticket.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I think one o'clock home games in September
Speaker 1: are coveted just because of how it levels up the
Speaker 1: tailgate experience, because the weather's going to be good and
Speaker 1: you can really enjoy yourself out here. TL says, yikes,
Speaker 1: looks like a hard schedule. Glad we're playing Houston early
Speaker 1: before we have lots of injuries. Now that's a good
Speaker 1: point from TL because last two times the Bills played
Speaker 1: the Texans down in Houston, they did not have players
Speaker 1: in their lineup. Cole Bishop had to start as a
Speaker 1: rookie because I'm trying to remember if who got hurt
Speaker 1: in that game, but one of their starting safeties might
Speaker 1: have been Tailor rap but I'm not sure. Cole Bishop
Speaker 1: had to start as a rookie, make his first career start,
Speaker 1: and that was tough in a road environment. And then
Speaker 1: last year they were missing another defensive player. I want
Speaker 1: to say it was Terrell Bernard or Tarren Johnson, but
Speaker 1: either way, they've been nicked up every year by the
Speaker 1: time they get down to Houston, and it's been pretty
Speaker 1: early in the season. It's usually Week five or six.
Speaker 1: But by the time they get there, they have one
Speaker 1: or two major injuries, and you always feel like they're
Speaker 1: playing the text and shorthanded. To TL's point, hopefully in
Speaker 1: week one, they're relatively healthy going into the season. They
Speaker 1: don't have any major training camp or preseason game injuries.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great point. While it's the first
Speaker 2: game of the season and you may want a little
Speaker 2: ramp up before you played the Houston Texans, you have
Speaker 2: health on your side. Hopefully in week one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is more of a mail bag question, but
Speaker 1: Sarah asks, as Bill's employees, do you prefer holiday games
Speaker 1: or is that a disappointment, especially when you have two
Speaker 1: holiday games this year. Well, as I said earlier, we
Speaker 1: kind of know what we sign up for working for
Speaker 1: the team. When it's game day, you're working and you
Speaker 1: have to know all of the possibilities. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: any memos, Maddie, but I would like to think we
Speaker 1: get a com day of some kind.
Speaker 2: I would hope so I would, I wouldn't. I would
Speaker 2: be surprised if we don't. Honestly, I think we will,
Speaker 2: just knowing how a lot of people are gonna have
Speaker 2: to work Thanksgiving, and quite a few people are gonna
Speaker 2: have to work Christmas Day as well. Not everybody travels
Speaker 2: two away games to work them, but a home game,
Speaker 2: you have so many people who work on the business
Speaker 2: side that are going to be working long hours on
Speaker 2: that day. And just talking about holiday games in general
Speaker 2: and just holidays if you work in sports. This might
Speaker 2: be a little sad to say, but the moment you
Speaker 2: start working in sports, I think the glitz and the
Speaker 2: glam and the pizazz of a holiday goes away a
Speaker 2: little bit. Holidays are still fun and really important, and
Speaker 2: it's great to spend time with family, but I think
Speaker 2: it's something that you give up in certain ways when
Speaker 2: you walk into working in sports. I mean, we've missed
Speaker 2: a lot of weddings, you missed holidays, you miss big
Speaker 2: life events. So I think it's when a schedule comes
Speaker 2: out and we have two holiday games, I'm not like, oh,
Speaker 2: what the heck. I already worked through that when I
Speaker 2: decided to work in sports.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, as soon as you decide you're going
Speaker 1: to work in the sports industry, you may as well
Speaker 1: expect to give up a lot of weekends. You're gonna
Speaker 1: be working a lot of weekends. It's just part of
Speaker 1: the deal. Holidays are an added part of that. Look,
Speaker 1: we'd all rather be spending holidays and home curled up
Speaker 1: by the fire with our family, but that's just not realistic.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna happen every year. And I know that
Speaker 1: might sound a little callous, but it's like I said,
Speaker 1: you kind of know what you're signing up for if
Speaker 1: you want a career in this industry, and I think
Speaker 1: you know we all come around to accepting that for
Speaker 1: what it is. Andrew, with a mailbag question, wants to
Speaker 1: know do you potentially see if the Bills make an
Speaker 1: early playoff spot with the last two games being divisional
Speaker 1: Jets and Dolphins, could you see Alan being taken out
Speaker 1: of those games to rest up for the playoffs? I
Speaker 1: think if seating cannot be improved, yes, But I mean
Speaker 1: not that we can say that for certain because we
Speaker 1: have a new head coach. We don't know what Joe
Speaker 1: Brady's approach will be. If such a scenario presents itself,
Speaker 1: perhaps things are done differently, but I would like to think,
Speaker 1: knowing how competitive coach Brady is, that if there is
Speaker 1: an opportunity to improve their playoff seating with wins in
Speaker 1: those last two weeks against the Dolphins and Jets, which
Speaker 1: are let's not forget AFC conference games, which would could
Speaker 1: impact tiebreaker situations with non division competitors. I would think
Speaker 1: he would play at least enough to put the game
Speaker 1: in a position where you know you're going to win
Speaker 1: the game and then he can sided.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We talked about this yesterday on our Instant Reaction
Speaker 2: schedule release show that you can find on YouTube if
Speaker 2: you haven't watched already. We named some sneaky tough games,
Speaker 2: and I had the Week eighteen game against the Jets
Speaker 2: as a sneaky tough game because you don't know, at
Speaker 2: least right now what's going to happen in the AFC East.
Speaker 2: With those AFC games, you're trying to stack as many
Speaker 2: wins as possible, and if you have a misstep somewhere
Speaker 2: against an AFC East opponent before Week eighteen, the division
Speaker 2: could very very well come down to a game or
Speaker 2: two like that at the end of the season, if
Speaker 2: you're kind of fighting with the paid triots in the
Speaker 2: last few weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could totally see that. Yes, that is a possibility,
Speaker 1: although hopefully that doesn't. The Patriots are playing a first
Speaker 1: place schedule, so let's do. Let's see how they do
Speaker 1: with the first place.
Speaker 2: I want to see right now? Do they end with
Speaker 2: a couple of AFC East opponents too.
Speaker 1: Let's see that would make sense.
Speaker 2: Yep, they go final three weeks of the season Jets, Broncos, Dolphins.
Speaker 1: Okay, AFC Championship game rematch?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Uh in week seventeen of all places. Yeah, it's They
Speaker 1: like to put the division games at the end for
Speaker 1: that very reason. They want teams to still field their
Speaker 1: full roster of players, knowing they probably need that game
Speaker 1: unless some team is just so far out in front.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Patriots last year did not clinch the
Speaker 1: division until Week sixteen when the Bills lost here against
Speaker 1: the Eagles, and they won their game in Week sixteen.
Speaker 1: The Bills could not catch them at that point in time.
Speaker 1: So that was a relatively tight race. There might be
Speaker 1: others around the league that aren't is tight.
Speaker 2: But what year was it that Buffalo won the AFC
Speaker 2: East at home against the Dolphins the final game of
Speaker 2: the season.
Speaker 1: So that are you talking about that fifty six to
Speaker 1: think twenty game or something? The blowout game?
Speaker 2: Remembering correctly, again, my brain doesn't work as well.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess twenty one or do you think about these?
Speaker 1: I would say twenty one or twenty two.
Speaker 2: Is that game twenty one, twenty two?
Speaker 1: No, it's twenty it's twenty twenty, twenty twenty, the Isaiah
Speaker 1: McKenzie game, fifty six.
Speaker 2: They clinched the division that game, right.
Speaker 1: I think that's right. Uh what thirteen and three? No,
Speaker 1: I think they might have clinched it before that, but
Speaker 1: because Josh sat down in the second half Matt Barkley
Speaker 1: played the second half of that game, I think they
Speaker 1: had a c clinch already, But don't hold me to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I it's an interesting discussion. I think we're getting way
Speaker 1: ahead of ourselves here talking about week seventeen and eighteen,
Speaker 1: But it will be.
Speaker 2: It was twenty twenty one against the Jets.
Speaker 1: That's when they clinched at the end.
Speaker 2: They secured the title, ye over the New York Jets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they did the same thing obviously in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four when they walked down the Dolphins and beat
Speaker 1: them in Week eighteen on Sunday Night football down there.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was dramatic because it was it was for
Speaker 1: all the marbles because between Miami and Buffalo, the winner
Speaker 1: of that game was not only going to win the division,
Speaker 1: they were gonna be the number two seed and the
Speaker 1: other team was going to be the number seven seed. Yep.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's it.
Speaker 1: And so the Bill's won down there, and the Bills
Speaker 1: got to host a playoff game the Chiefs. The Bill
Speaker 1: the Dolphins had to go to the Chiefs yep, and
Speaker 1: play in like five degree weather.
Speaker 2: Now it's coming together. Now it's coming together.
Speaker 1: We put the pieces of the puzzle together there.
Speaker 2: I'm guy, goes straight to week eighteen.
Speaker 1: I can't see the Vision opponents in the first half
Speaker 1: of the schedule.
Speaker 2: And you know, Maddie can't remember.
Speaker 1: You can't remember games from two years ago. So what
Speaker 1: a team. We got to take a break here, But
Speaker 1: more of your comments from the OBL Friday fan mail bag,
Speaker 1: as well as your biggest takeaways on The Bill's twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six season schedule when we return here on One
Speaker 1: Bill's Live. Back here on One Bill's Live on a Friday.
Speaker 1: OBL Friday fan mail bag open for you, Chris Brown,
Speaker 1: Matty lab here at the end of the week and
Speaker 1: less than twenty four hours after the Bills twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six week reason schedule dropped, we should mention the preseason
Speaker 1: schedule was also announced with dates. We don't always get
Speaker 1: the exact dates for the preseason games, but those are
Speaker 1: out as well. Week one Saturday, August fifteenth against Carolina
Speaker 1: one pm kick, Week two Saturday August twenty second at
Speaker 1: Cleveland also a one pm kick, and then Week three
Speaker 1: Thursday night against Pittsburgh seven pm kick. That's August twenty seventh.
Speaker 1: So because the Bills only have eight home regular season games,
Speaker 1: they get two home preseason games. Last year was flipped
Speaker 1: nine home regular season games only one home preseason game, So.
Speaker 2: It'll be nice to have two preseason games in New
Speaker 2: Heimark Stadium before we officially start this for Week one.
Speaker 1: Because John Polka, who we had on the show yesterday,
Speaker 1: was telling us, Oh, yeah, those will be major dress
Speaker 1: rehearsals for us, you know, to be ready. And I
Speaker 1: think the crazy thing is the return of the Blue
Speaker 1: and Red scrimmage and the two home preseason games. The
Speaker 1: place might be full just from pure curiosity as to like,
Speaker 1: for the first time in a long time, people might
Speaker 1: not be giving their preseason tickets to their neighbor who
Speaker 1: have kids, like you know what I mean. I, Oh,
Speaker 1: you want to go to Like you want to take
Speaker 1: your kid to the game. Here, take my preseason game tickets.
Speaker 1: They'll love it, you know, like the kids day game
Speaker 1: for example, because because we've done that in the past,
Speaker 1: I don't know if people are doing that, they might
Speaker 1: be like, I'm going I want to see this place.
Speaker 1: So because what the preseason games will afford the fan
Speaker 1: base is the opportunity to kind of explore because if
Speaker 1: you miss a series during a preseason game, not a
Speaker 1: huge deal, and you have time to kind of peruse
Speaker 1: the stadium, find some nooks and cranny. He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: look at this cool area. I want to come here
Speaker 1: on a.
Speaker 2: Game day when it's nice outside too. Sign me up.
Speaker 1: That's going to happen. Back in the mail bag, we
Speaker 1: go where RJ asks, what's your record prediction for the Bills.
Speaker 1: I know the odds makers Maddie have him at I
Speaker 1: want to say ten point nine or eleven something. I
Speaker 1: think they can get to twelve based on what I'm
Speaker 1: looking at here. It's not gonna be easy, but I
Speaker 1: did find a way to get to twelve, and I
Speaker 1: think a big help in that regard is the fact
Speaker 1: that they have Miami and the Jets twice. I don't
Speaker 1: expect them to be easy games, because division games never
Speaker 1: seem to be. But I see them winning those and
Speaker 1: I think Las Vegas is a road win. So with
Speaker 1: those five games alone, I can see my way to
Speaker 1: seven more wins on the rest of the schedule. So
Speaker 1: I'm thinking they're probably gonna have like five or six
Speaker 1: losses and they're probably eleven and six or twelve and five.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: I'm somewhere in.
Speaker 2: There bouncing around count and wins. You know. RJ is
Speaker 2: like me, let's just jump into the whole thing and
Speaker 2: talk about the end of the season, what the record's
Speaker 2: gonna be. I'm ready to talk about week eighteen. It's
Speaker 2: gonna matter or not. And RJ wants to know what
Speaker 2: our record prediction is. I could find I could see
Speaker 2: my way or find my way to twelve wins for
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty six season. I think that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Just with the caliber of opponents that Buffalo's going to face.
Speaker 2: New head coach, new coaching staff, You're gonna have time
Speaker 2: to It's gonna take time to figure out who you
Speaker 2: truly are on offense and defense. I could see thirteen two,
Speaker 2: I could see sneaking away with an extra win in
Speaker 2: a big time game, but I would go along with you, Brownie.
Speaker 2: I think twelve makes a lot of sense for this team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think. I think the odds makers I
Speaker 1: understand why they sit there right at eleven. They try
Speaker 1: to factor in potential injury or a stinker. As we know,
Speaker 1: the last six years in a row, Maddie Bils have
Speaker 1: had one set of back to back losses. Maybe that
Speaker 1: changes with a new head coach. We'll have to wait
Speaker 1: and see, but that is out there and it's been
Speaker 1: an annual occurrence. For some unknown reason. Brian and Asks
Speaker 1: can't have anything nice. Playing the second best division schedule
Speaker 1: puts US right back into playing the usuals. Bye week
Speaker 1: is too early for the playoff benefits, holidays yuck. Oh.
Speaker 1: Brian apparently is very work.
Speaker 2: In the games with us.
Speaker 1: Ran apparently is very disappointed in the state of this schedule.
Speaker 1: My goodness, a little bitter critter.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Brian, I'm sorry yesterday was not fun for you.
Speaker 1: I know that he's not alone in the thought about
Speaker 1: you know, for the first time in six years, the
Speaker 1: Bills aren't the ones playing a first place schedule. They're
Speaker 1: playing a second place schedule. And I think he was
Speaker 1: hopeful that the Bills would reap more benefits in terms
Speaker 1: of the quality of opponents. But when you have divisions
Speaker 1: like the NFC West, where the Rams go twelve and
Speaker 1: five and finish second, you gotta play the Rams, and
Speaker 1: the Ravens have a down year and finish second in
Speaker 1: their division.
Speaker 2: And the NFC North is just like rocketed to the
Speaker 2: moon in the last few years, Like the Bears woke
Speaker 2: up last year and figured it out with a new
Speaker 2: coaching staff coming in and Caleb Williams finding his way,
Speaker 2: and the Packers have had good years, and the Lions
Speaker 2: as well, And sure the Vikings have some question marks,
Speaker 2: but you got a new quarterback and you got three
Speaker 2: really good receivers.
Speaker 1: And for the first time in nine years that the
Speaker 1: Chiefs don't win the division, it's the same year the
Speaker 1: Bills don't win the division. They both finished second. You
Speaker 1: gotta play the Chiefs again. So I think that's why
Speaker 1: Brian's all hot and bothered and hot under the college.
Speaker 1: I get that, David says, I personally appreciate that there
Speaker 1: are several Sunday one pm games at home this year.
Speaker 1: It just makes attending easier and in a larger sense,
Speaker 1: the entire country gets two holiday presents by being able
Speaker 1: to watch Josh Allen play on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Aimen
Speaker 1: to that. Like I said at the top of the show,
Speaker 1: it's just a very very cool, unique part of the schedule,
Speaker 1: and the Bills are going to be a part of
Speaker 1: it on both holidays. You know, not ideal for our families,
Speaker 1: as we all know. But you know, I even saw
Speaker 1: somebody tweet yesterday I feel bad for Josh. He's a
Speaker 1: new dad and he's not going to be home on
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving or Christmas with his new baby daughter. And I
Speaker 1: get that, totally get that. I had I had to
Speaker 1: do that back in two thousand and four, Bills at
Speaker 1: San Francisco Christmas Day. So I did Christmas Eve morning.
Speaker 1: My son's a newborn, he's never gonna remember it. My
Speaker 1: daughter was two. But I'm there. I am sitting with
Speaker 1: my family opening gives Christmas Eve morning because I wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna be there Christmas Day because we're flying out for
Speaker 1: the game the next day. Yeah, it stinks, so I
Speaker 1: get it, but there it is again though, the affinity
Speaker 1: for the one pm kick for home games for the Bills.
Speaker 2: Four home one pm games this season. You got three
Speaker 2: one pm games on the road and as so. But
Speaker 2: he noted earlier, no home for twenty five games. That's
Speaker 2: something my husband noted too. It's like, there's no there's
Speaker 2: no four o'clock games at home. Yeah, and I don't
Speaker 2: I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think Bill's fans mind the
Speaker 1: four o'clock game. Yes, it's all the night games, particularly
Speaker 1: ones late in the season if they're at home. Gotta
Speaker 1: take a break here, we're at the top of the hour.
Speaker 1: But when we come back, we're gonna talk to somebody
Speaker 1: who knows all too well about the process of scheduling
Speaker 1: the entire league. His name's Mike North, and he's gonna
Speaker 1: join us when we return here.
Speaker 4: On One Bill's Life, Louy boys, he is a feast
Speaker 4: for the Capitol. Fie the fuck is in the kitchen,
Speaker 4: looks down the sideline.
Speaker 1: He's got kick Kade for a twenty three yard touchdown
Speaker 1: and it's intercepted.
Speaker 2: Jumping over the.
Speaker 1: Air is bad for the one Bills.
Speaker 5: Live all right, Our number two on a Friday obl
Speaker 5: Friday Day.
Speaker 1: Mail bags open for any and all of your questions.
Speaker 1: Also watch your biggest takeaways from the Bills twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six sular season schedule, which just dropped last night. We'll
Speaker 1: be talking with NFL Vice President of Broadcast Planning Mike
Speaker 1: North in just a little bit. He was our interview
Speaker 1: subject on our schedule release show last night that Mattie
Speaker 1: and I did right when the schedule dropped to kind
Speaker 1: of take you through all the nooks and crannies of
Speaker 1: the schedule. But you've had a chance to look at
Speaker 1: it now, let us know what you think. David on
Speaker 1: the tweet sheets said, I personally, oh no, we already
Speaker 1: had that one. He like the once Sunday one o'clock games.
Speaker 1: Greg said the schedule looks like a gauntlet from game
Speaker 1: one on. The only potential break is Las of AGAs,
Speaker 1: then a bye that bleeds into Baltimore Buffalo feels like
Speaker 1: the NFL's Show Pony, exciting and stressful. Again, what I'm
Speaker 1: wondering is does New England have a difficult schedule? We
Speaker 1: know they're playing a first place schedule, but how it
Speaker 1: lays out could be a much different story. I do
Speaker 1: know that it doesn't start easy. They're at Seattle, defending
Speaker 1: Super Bowl champs, on the road at lumen Field, not
Speaker 1: an easy place to play. We'll see if they have
Speaker 1: aj Brown or not by then. That's widely speculated to
Speaker 1: be a post June first transaction home against Pittsburgh at
Speaker 1: Jacksonville at Buffalo. So back to back road games against
Speaker 1: two playoff teams, home against Las Vegas, home against the Jets.
Speaker 1: Those are pretty easy. But then at Chicago at Miami,
Speaker 1: Green Bay, Detroit at Los Angeles. I mean, their schedule
Speaker 1: is very similar to that of the Bills. The only
Speaker 1: different are they're playing Seattle, Bills are playing the Rams,
Speaker 1: they're playing Pittsburgh, Bills are playing Baltimore, they're playing Jacksonville,
Speaker 1: Bills are playing Houston. So that's the hilarious thing that
Speaker 1: one of our other tweeters, we're talking about the one
Speaker 1: year that the Bills finish in second and don't play
Speaker 1: the first play schedule. The Ravens don't win their division,
Speaker 1: the Chiefs don't win their division, you know, and the
Speaker 1: Rams don't win their division. So we end up playing
Speaker 1: all those teams because they're all in second place and
Speaker 1: then they have to play the entire NFC North like
Speaker 1: the Bills do. They obviously have to play the rest
Speaker 1: of the AFC East like the Bills do, and they
Speaker 1: have to play the whole AFC West like the Bills do,
Speaker 1: with varying degrees of home and away games. But they're
Speaker 1: at the Chargers, they're at the Chiefs, so they have.
Speaker 2: A tough end to their season after their bye week
Speaker 2: is kind of win some of those games stack in
Speaker 2: terms of gauntlet because the Patriots have a week eleven bye,
Speaker 2: and then you go charge at Chargers, against the Bills,
Speaker 2: then the Vikings, then at the Chiefs, you get the Jets,
Speaker 2: then you go or home game against the Broncos and
Speaker 2: finish up against the Dolphins. So you have some tough
Speaker 2: weeks there as you finish out the season.
Speaker 1: Right, So for a first place schedule, it doesn't look
Speaker 1: nearly as intimidating as some of the others we've seen
Speaker 1: in recent years for the Bills playing a first place schedule,
Speaker 1: So I don't know, we'll have to kind of sort
Speaker 1: things out in the coming days a little bit more
Speaker 1: as to who really has the tougher schedule, They're very
Speaker 1: much alike with only a few differences because obviously they're
Speaker 1: both sitting in the AFC East. As we said, we
Speaker 1: had an opportunity to talk to NFL Vice President of
Speaker 1: Broadcast Planning Mike North on our schedule release show, and
Speaker 1: for those of you that missed the show, we wanted
Speaker 1: to share some of his insights on how they landed
Speaker 1: on some of the decisions for the bills schedule, including
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and Christmas. So you know, Maddy kicked off that interview,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna let her do that again. Here.
Speaker 2: We were wondering with Mike North just how much time
Speaker 2: he and his team have poured into creating this schedule.
Speaker 2: They've had no rest and now they get to enjoy
Speaker 2: it all the last twenty four hours. For Mike North,
Speaker 2: it has had to have been crazy.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a long month this week, but it's
Speaker 6: it's an honor, so humble, so grateful, so appreciative, so
Speaker 6: proud of the work that the team did. This one
Speaker 6: really came down to the wire. We did not get
Speaker 6: the Commissioner's final blessing until Tuesday at around noon, so
Speaker 6: this one was used every second they gave us. And
Speaker 6: there's always another option out there. It's grains of sand
Speaker 6: on a beach. I wish they.
Speaker 1: Would have given us another month.
Speaker 6: I'm sure we could have found something different. But really
Speaker 6: happy with the product, really proud of the effort, and
Speaker 6: really happy with everybody's reaction. The club's got it yesterday Wednesday,
Speaker 6: where partners got it today Thursday, and now the world
Speaker 6: gets it tonight.
Speaker 2: It's going to be amazing to see the world's reaction.
Speaker 2: I think Bills fans are going to feel pretty grateful
Speaker 2: for the fact that they're going to be playing in
Speaker 2: some big time windows. Two holiday games for Buffalo at.
Speaker 3: Home Timark Stadium.
Speaker 1: Are about it.
Speaker 3: How did the Bills land with two holiday games?
Speaker 6: Well, the one thing we're always cognizant of is not
Speaker 6: scheduling both of those at home for any one team,
Speaker 6: so to ask the fans leave ant Gladys and come
Speaker 6: out Thanksgiving and then again on Christmas. Always cognizant of
Speaker 6: not asking teams to play two home games in those windows.
Speaker 6: But as you guys can imagine, those have become really
Speaker 6: high profile windows for us. And you'll remember the Bill's
Speaker 6: playing on Thanksgiving. What was it like three out of
Speaker 6: four years something like that. I remember Detroit New Orleans
Speaker 6: like that was almost, to me like the Bills coming
Speaker 6: out party. Obviously, the quarterback helps a lot, but that
Speaker 6: was sort of the coming sing out party where the
Speaker 6: Bills were legitimizing themselves as perennial playoff contenders. At Earns,
Speaker 6: you opportunities to play in these bigger windows, and Thanksgiving
Speaker 6: has become a juggernaut for us, with you know, forty
Speaker 6: seven fifty to fifty seven million people watching last year,
Speaker 6: and then Christmas is starting to inch up into those
Speaker 6: same kind of numbers twenty five twenty eight thirty million viewers.
Speaker 6: The fans are telling us that they're there and they
Speaker 6: vote with their remotes, and we become really a part
Speaker 6: of the fabric of those holidays. And a team like
Speaker 6: the Bills, who what do any of us know, it's May.
Speaker 6: We're talking about stuff that's not going to happen for
Speaker 6: seven more months. But sitting here today, I think we
Speaker 6: all expect the Bills to be playing games with playoff
Speaker 6: implications and being postseason relevant. And you look at the
Speaker 6: opponents that they, you know, drew for those holiday games.
Speaker 6: Hard to say right now that don't feel like two
Speaker 6: of the biggest games of the year. They belong in
Speaker 6: two of the biggest windows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and speaking of big games, you've got the Bills
Speaker 1: heavily involved in the primetime slates six primetime games, tying
Speaker 1: a team high last repeated in twenty twenty three when
Speaker 1: they had six. So for the Bills, what does that
Speaker 1: continue to say about them as a marquee attraction for
Speaker 1: your league?
Speaker 6: They're relevant, they're important, and maybe more than that, they've
Speaker 6: earned it. You know, you don't draft your way into
Speaker 6: primetime in this league. You don't trade your way into primetime.
Speaker 6: You don't get a primetime game just because you play
Speaker 6: in a big market. You get a primetime game because
Speaker 6: your record warrants it, your on field success demands it.
Speaker 6: And then, like we said earlier, you know, the fans
Speaker 6: tell us what's important to them. And when you see
Speaker 6: the kind of viewership numbers that Buffalo Bills games have
Speaker 6: been doing, that the Thanksgiving games and Christmas games have
Speaker 6: been doing, it really is a perfect marriage. And when
Speaker 6: you think about the opponents, you know that Kansas City
Speaker 6: Buffalo game, for what the last five, six, eight years
Speaker 6: is always one of the games of the year. Want
Speaker 6: to see them meet up again in the playoffs, it's
Speaker 6: been a minute. And then obviously you know that Christmas
Speaker 6: Day game we're talking about, you know, a couple of
Speaker 6: guys rolling over each other in overtime, whoever ends up
Speaker 6: with the ball? You know, going to the super Bowl.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's just these are the kind of things
Speaker 6: that fans remember, and it's important to us as the
Speaker 6: scheduling team to make sure that the games that the
Speaker 6: fans care the most about are in windows where they
Speaker 6: can get to them. And judging by fan behavior these
Speaker 6: last couple of years, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Speaker 1: Check that box.
Speaker 2: The Bills have an ulter talented quarterback and Josh Allen.
Speaker 2: They have last year's leading rusher in James Cook, also
Speaker 2: a new head coach. But guess what a new stadium
Speaker 2: the inaugural season in high Mark Stadium, fans are really
Speaker 2: eager to see about.
Speaker 3: When that home opener is.
Speaker 2: You guys slated it for Week two on Thursday Night
Speaker 2: Football against the Lions.
Speaker 3: Why was Thursday Night and the Detroit Lions.
Speaker 2: The perfect two matchups for this home open a game?
Speaker 6: Yeah, the truth is you could have done just about
Speaker 6: anything with the Bills stadium opener. It was going to
Speaker 6: be a story the bills, whomever they were playing in
Speaker 6: whatever window in weeks one and two are going to
Speaker 6: be a story. So we absolutely looked at it for
Speaker 6: Sunday night a week one, for Monday night a week one,
Speaker 6: where the momentum really started to pick up. For Thursday
Speaker 6: of week two, honestly kind of started with our friends
Speaker 6: at Amazon, certainly your old QB. Fitzpatrick. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 6: I made a phone call to the Pagoula Family offices
Speaker 6: and reminded them what they could bring to the family,
Speaker 6: bring to the party, just in terms of an all
Speaker 6: day affair. You've seen what happens when Amazon comes into
Speaker 6: your building and comes into your town, really and it's
Speaker 6: an all day it's an all day celebration, and you know,
Speaker 6: it would have been great on Monday night, It would
Speaker 6: have been great on Sunday night. It would have been
Speaker 6: great week one. But obviously there's a lot of good
Speaker 6: stories in week one, so kind of felt like saving
Speaker 6: it to week two and using it to kind of
Speaker 6: kick off kind of bookend, you know, a week two
Speaker 6: after everybody kind of catches their breath after a Week
Speaker 6: one that we've all been waiting for for, you know,
Speaker 6: four months, Having that you know, key storyline to start
Speaker 6: Week two, knowing our friends at Amazon are really going
Speaker 6: to rally behind it and make it into a fantastic
Speaker 6: scene out there on that Thursday, and kicks off a
Speaker 6: really strong schedule for our friends at Amazon.
Speaker 1: Dove tailing off of that matchup with the Lions in
Speaker 1: Week two in primetime. I noticed, and this is probably
Speaker 1: a byproduct of just who the Bills are playing this year,
Speaker 1: but there are other divisions that they face in their
Speaker 1: entirety of the NFC North and the AFC West, two
Speaker 1: really strong divisions from top to bottom. I couldn't help
Speaker 1: but notice the entire NFC North schedule for the Bills.
Speaker 1: All those games, all four of them are in prime time.
Speaker 1: My question to you, Mike, is is that a deliberate
Speaker 1: thing or just kind of how it turned out knowing
Speaker 1: that division is strong top to bottom.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the matchups really, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 6: say that ranked one through two hundred and seventy two,
Speaker 6: but they're certainly tiered. And when you look at a
Speaker 6: you know, schedule for a team like the Buffalo Bills,
Speaker 6: you know we're heading for five, six, seven primetime games,
Speaker 6: eight nine, ten national television windows so you kind of
Speaker 6: look to the you know, top tier, maybe bait maybe
Speaker 6: into the second tier, but I'm not sure there is
Speaker 6: one with the Bills schedule. So, like you said, all
Speaker 6: of the games from the NFC North, all the games
Speaker 6: from the AFC West. I mean, it's remarkable when you
Speaker 6: think about, you know, coming out of the AFC West
Speaker 6: playoff teams coming out of the NFC North, and that
Speaker 6: doesn't include Kansas City and Detroit. So there's so many
Speaker 6: good games on the Bill schedule. Any one of them
Speaker 6: could have checked a lot of boxes for us and
Speaker 6: a lot of different television windows. Totally fluky that they
Speaker 6: all ended up in national windows as far as they're
Speaker 6: NFCY North opponents. But no hesitation whatso all whatsoever. No
Speaker 6: fans are eager to see those four games. I don't
Speaker 6: think we're doing our jobs if all those games land
Speaker 6: at one o'clock on a Sunday afternoon and only available
Speaker 6: in twenty or twenty five percent of the country.
Speaker 2: The Bills have a couple of tough stretches. Weeks one
Speaker 2: through five look really tough to start the season, as
Speaker 2: well as later in the season, Weeks twelve through sixteen
Speaker 2: going to be a gauntlet as well as you think
Speaker 2: about Buffalo schedule and really the NFL schedule at large
Speaker 2: for the twenty twenty sixth season, what was the toughest
Speaker 2: part about putting it all together this year?
Speaker 1: You know, every year is.
Speaker 6: A unique challenge. I wouldn't necessarily say this one was
Speaker 6: tougher than any of the others. I would say this
Speaker 6: one was unique. You've got a handful of things there
Speaker 6: that we've never dealt with before, things like, you know,
Speaker 6: the record number of international games. Anytime you're playing nine
Speaker 6: games outside of the States, there's a whole bunch of
Speaker 6: considerations in terms of where the teams who are playing
Speaker 6: in those games the week before, where are they the
Speaker 6: week after? When is their by gonna fall? Should it
Speaker 6: be right after their international trip, should it be later
Speaker 6: in the season, How late is too late? How early
Speaker 6: is too early? We're playing on a Wednesday night for
Speaker 6: the first time ever on Thanksgiving Eve. You know, it's
Speaker 6: just it's stuff that we haven't really encountered before. So
Speaker 6: each one brings a unique challenge, and you kind of,
Speaker 6: you know, survive in advance, if that's the right way
Speaker 6: to say it. You figure out what you want to
Speaker 6: do you check the box. You make sure the boss,
Speaker 6: Hans Schroeder, who runs our media team, and obviously the
Speaker 6: boss Capital T Capital B Commissioner Goodell, all of this
Speaker 6: crosses his desk. He sees every one of these schedules
Speaker 6: and he makes sure we're focused on the right things.
Speaker 6: Strategic partnership, strategic investments, growing the game, best games, and
Speaker 6: best windows. Which teams warrant the most exposure, Which teams
Speaker 6: maybe might be on the come up, and you know,
Speaker 6: you wouldn't expect necessarily to see them three or four
Speaker 6: prime time games, but you know we're gonna lean in
Speaker 6: and we're gonna think. You know, a quarterback playing in
Speaker 6: year two. There tends to be that jump in this
Speaker 6: league when they get out of their rookie year and
Speaker 6: they start playing year two. It slows down for them
Speaker 6: a little bit. So I wouldn't say this year is
Speaker 6: any harder than any others, but it was unique in
Speaker 6: its own way and always brings challenges, and you know,
Speaker 6: the goal is always the same, making sure that the
Speaker 6: games that the fans most want to see are in
Speaker 6: windows where they can see them or on platforms that
Speaker 6: they have access to. And you know it's out now
Speaker 6: We'll cross our fingers. We'll hope for good health and
Speaker 6: playoff implications for every game down the stretch. I'm hoping
Speaker 6: every team's eight and eight heading into Week eighteen.
Speaker 2: That's my dream, eight and eight heading into the final
Speaker 2: stretch of the season. Oh my gosh, it's going to
Speaker 2: be so fun to watch the Bills with the schedule
Speaker 2: they've been given for the twenty twenty six season. Mike,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for the time. We know it's
Speaker 2: been a lot.
Speaker 3: Of hard work.
Speaker 2: We hope you can step back and enjoy all of
Speaker 2: your work and enjoy the world finding out the schedule
Speaker 2: as well as the amazing videos that are going to.
Speaker 3: Be released by every single team.
Speaker 6: Yep, that's the best part. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 6: Good talking to you, all right.
Speaker 1: So that's Mike North who joined us on the schedule
Speaker 1: release show that we ran on our social channels last
Speaker 1: night and on can find it on YouTube as well.
Speaker 1: I think the most interesting thing that he mentioned because
Speaker 1: when you asked him right off the top about the
Speaker 1: holiday games, they make a point if there is a
Speaker 1: team that's going to play on both holidays, and this
Speaker 1: year there are two such teams, the Bills and the
Speaker 1: Bears that they're not going to have them have home
Speaker 1: games for both of those because they don't, as Mike said,
Speaker 1: have everybody leave and gladys at the table and go
Speaker 1: to a football game. So that's one of the main
Speaker 1: reasons why the Bills are not hosting both holiday games.
Speaker 1: It's something they do not want to put on one
Speaker 1: single team. So home for Thanksgiving away for Christmas are
Speaker 1: the Bears the opposite of that, and the Bears they're away.
Speaker 2: Okay, I just like had a realization. This is Maddie
Speaker 2: figuring stuff out like on the fly. Fourteen hours after
Speaker 2: this information has been released. The Bills are playing on Christmas. No, dah,
Speaker 2: I know that already. The Bears are too. But I'll
Speaker 2: be busy working on Christmas. But you know what, my
Speaker 2: family will also be busy either at the Bears game
Speaker 2: on christ which is a home game, which is a
Speaker 2: home game in Chicago, or watching the game somewhere. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't feel like I'm going to miss out on
Speaker 2: too much now for Christmas? Yeah, okay, so they're flippball
Speaker 2: goes off.
Speaker 1: Ye, Bears are flipped. They're away Thanksgiving at Detroit home
Speaker 1: Christmas against the Packers, which is I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: huge game, huge game. They hate the Packers.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. When I was young and was taught about
Speaker 2: our Chicago fandom for Chicago teams, quickly that what came
Speaker 2: with that was we do not like the Green Bay
Speaker 2: Packers in this household. I can remember as a kid
Speaker 2: being in Wisconsin and we climbed to this tower and
Speaker 2: we yelled the Packers suck over and over again at
Speaker 2: like ten years of age, and my dad was like,
Speaker 2: you guys, cut it out, because I'm gonna get in
Speaker 2: a fight if you keep saying Green Bay stinks. So yeah,
Speaker 2: we knew about the Packers from a young age and
Speaker 2: how we do not like them.
Speaker 1: Well, everybody in Chicago would probably say you were raised right,
Speaker 1: So there it is exactly. But I've heard that like
Speaker 1: people in Chicago don't even wear anything green to the
Speaker 1: office Bears Packers week, Like they just don't do it.
Speaker 2: Ye say, that sounds about right, And it's similar with
Speaker 2: just how passionate Bills fans are about their team. And
Speaker 2: I really respect that and that's why I love being
Speaker 2: part of Bill's family. Now, one thing that I thought
Speaker 2: about with the Mike North interview and I should have
Speaker 2: asked this question. But now, in the days of AI,
Speaker 2: I wonder how much they use AI as a supplement
Speaker 2: or as a tool to kind of figure out this
Speaker 2: schedule because it takes a lot of thinking scenarios through
Speaker 2: and I'm sure they use AI to help with some
Speaker 2: of it, But just in the day and age that
Speaker 2: we are in, how much do they.
Speaker 1: Use Yeah, I know they have in recent years had
Speaker 1: models designed where they can put certain stipulations in, such
Speaker 1: as the bills like home games in September, so they
Speaker 1: can put that in and the Jaguars want to buy
Speaker 1: before their first trip to London, so that work, you know,
Speaker 1: So they can put these little requests actually into the
Speaker 1: system and it generates, you know, a final schedule that
Speaker 1: checks all the boxes for every team. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be the person that had to code that, but
Speaker 1: they did somehow, and as at least as I understand it,
Speaker 1: they have the capabilities of doing that so and I
Speaker 1: would imagine AI is yet another layer that if they
Speaker 1: feel there's an easy way to incorporate it and it
Speaker 1: makes their job more seamless, Absolutely, they'd be all for it.
Speaker 1: Got to take a break here when we return more
Speaker 1: of your questions in the OBL Friday fan mail bag,
Speaker 1: and more of your thoughts on the Bills twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six regular season schedule. All that coming your way next
Speaker 1: to here on One Bill's.
Speaker 5: Life Time Now for this week Scoop of the Week
Speaker 5: presented by Blue Bunny, the official frozen treat of the
Speaker 5: Buffalo Bills, and.
Speaker 1: Scoop of the Week this week was the Bill's announcement
Speaker 1: concerning a new radio partner, as the club as a
Speaker 1: new partnership with Cumulus Media that will make ninety seven
Speaker 1: Rock the official flagship station for Bills broadcasts here in
Speaker 1: Buffalo starting this season. It's the second stint with ninety
Speaker 1: seven Rocks served as the team's flagship from nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: eight to twenty eleven. And we should also tell you
Speaker 1: the flagship partnership is just the first announcement for the
Speaker 1: Bills Radio network, as they will produce and manage all
Speaker 1: radio broadcasts, including pregame and postgame coverage. WSKO the Score
Speaker 1: twelve sixty will serve as the Syracuse affiliate, with additional
Speaker 1: stations including Rochester and Southern Ontario to join the network
Speaker 1: and be announced soon. So kind of a cool deal.
Speaker 1: We've been waiting on it. This is the first announcement.
Speaker 1: There will be others to follow with other radio affiliates,
Speaker 1: because we know we got a lot of people in
Speaker 1: southern Ontario that listen in and they're going to be
Speaker 1: sure to have a signal that they'll be able to
Speaker 1: pull in up there north of the border in the
Speaker 1: not too distant future. So we're excited about the future
Speaker 1: announcements as well, and excited to get started with Cumulus
Speaker 1: to begin a second run with them as an organization.
Speaker 1: So that's your scoop of the week. Want to get
Speaker 1: back into the mail bag and the tweet sheet your
Speaker 1: thoughts on the twenty twenty six bills schedule, and Nate says,
Speaker 1: the NFL loves Josh, the NFL hates Josh. Josh is incredible.
Speaker 1: This is going to be a crazy ride. We have
Speaker 1: to secure a round one by and finish strong. That
Speaker 1: has been the elusive carrot on the stick, Maddie. They
Speaker 1: have never had the one seed since we've gone to
Speaker 1: the new playoff format where only one team per conference
Speaker 1: gets the buy the top seed.
Speaker 2: It's important, it's what you gotta get, It's what's this.
Speaker 2: This team has been searching for since they drafted Josh
Speaker 2: Allen and realized he is our quarterback for the present
Speaker 2: and for the future. It's something that this team is
Speaker 2: going to be working for again this season. It doesn't
Speaker 2: matter who's your head coach, it doesn't matter who's on
Speaker 2: the team. A lot of the goals stay the same
Speaker 2: because you know just how important that number one seed is.
Speaker 2: I would love for the Bills to get it this season,
Speaker 2: even though they have a really tough schedule ahead of them.
Speaker 2: I think that weak arrest is so important and it
Speaker 2: sets yourself up for the entirety of the playoffs.
Speaker 1: I think it's been instrumental in helping the Chiefs win
Speaker 1: three Super Bowl titles and get to five in like
Speaker 1: seven years because you take out a lot of variables.
Speaker 1: Number One, you're playing one less game. So you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen playoff games where goofy things happen and you,
Speaker 1: even though you're the better team, you don't win the
Speaker 1: game see Denver last year. And then injuries like the
Speaker 1: Bills have been knocked out of the playoffs, and in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases they've been without some frontline players
Speaker 1: due to injury, like that year we were talking about
Speaker 1: a couple of segments ago when they walked Miami down
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three and won the division in Week eighteen.
Speaker 1: They lost Gabe Davis in that game. They lost Taylor
Speaker 1: Rapp in that game. They lost Terrell Bernard in that game,
Speaker 1: they lost Christian Benford, and you know then they got
Speaker 1: to go in the playoffs. And you know they're playing
Speaker 1: the Chiefs with AJ Klein no offense to AJ Clyme,
Speaker 1: but off the couch like that's if you're not playing
Speaker 1: in round one. Maybe those guys are healed up. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm saying they can play the next game. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just you eliminate a lot of the potential pitfalls
Speaker 1: by playing one less game, less wear and tear on
Speaker 1: your players bodies, less chance for injury, less chance for
Speaker 1: something goofy happening, and getting knocked out of the playoffs early.
Speaker 1: So the value is obvious. Gus says, two holiday games,
Speaker 1: all right. Normally I host games, but with the two holidays,
Speaker 1: I get to just go over to my parents and
Speaker 1: be a TV couch potato alongside helping with the dishes.
Speaker 1: I think we'll wreck the Texans. I do think the
Speaker 1: matchup is interesting because it's right in week one. Now,
Speaker 1: I think the only concern for Bills at Texans is
Speaker 1: Buffalo's new revamped defense. They're gonna be in a brand
Speaker 1: new scheme with a brand new play caller. And while
Speaker 1: there's a lot of time between now and then as
Speaker 1: a run up to get all your ducks in a
Speaker 1: roso to speak, I think to believe it's going to
Speaker 1: operate like a well oiled machine right off the jump
Speaker 1: in week one might be a little bit lofty of
Speaker 1: an expectation because oftentimes when teams make changes to this degree,
Speaker 1: this is a wholesale defensive scheme change, going from a
Speaker 1: four to three to a three four, it takes time
Speaker 1: on task to not only master the scheme itself in
Speaker 1: all its little idiosyncrasies, but to also master how to
Speaker 1: play in that system with those teammates, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So you not only have to learn the little nuances
Speaker 1: of the scheme, but you also have to learn the
Speaker 1: nuances of your teammates that are around you, and that
Speaker 1: takes time on task at regular season speed, which is
Speaker 1: very hard to replicate in training camp and the preseason.
Speaker 2: One thing that's also hard to replicate as you're switching
Speaker 2: into a new identify identity on either side of the
Speaker 2: ball is you want to keep that identity and you
Speaker 2: want to do what you do best. But opponents are
Speaker 2: going to throw things at you that maybe you haven't
Speaker 2: prepared for and you have to react and you have
Speaker 2: to adjust. And that time on task that you talked about,
Speaker 2: I think that takes time as well within the communication
Speaker 2: of oh, something's just been thrown at us that we
Speaker 2: didn't know, who's communicating, who's adjusting, Who do we look
Speaker 2: to in times of struggle, struggle and stress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, James in the Mailbag says, this schedule is going
Speaker 1: to be a rough one. Can't wait the tailgate and
Speaker 1: see familiar faces along with another year of checking my
Speaker 1: heart rate monitor? Who needs exercise when you can watch
Speaker 1: Bills games? There are a lot of people that wring
Speaker 1: their hands and bite their fingernails watching Bills games.
Speaker 2: It's funny though, filled with angst. Yeah, and to hear
Speaker 2: about people who like where an aura ring or have
Speaker 2: an Apple watch that monitors that, and you see them
Speaker 2: post on social media after an intense game and you
Speaker 2: see the heart rate just spike in the intense moment.
Speaker 1: I was sitting on my couch, but my heart rate
Speaker 1: was one hundred and sixty five beats per minute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I guess you can qualify that as exercise. James,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I'm not a cardiologist, but I'm not
Speaker 1: surprised that it happens. Steven says, schedule stinks. Schedule makers
Speaker 1: don't want us in a super Bowl. It's not the
Speaker 1: teams we play that worry me. There is no structure
Speaker 1: for me. It's never being able to get a routine.
Speaker 1: If you include four twenty five games, that's nine primetime games.
Speaker 1: I don't have enough sick time from work for this
Speaker 1: year's schedule. Wow, Stephen coming in strong hot take hot
Speaker 1: take from Steven. He thinks to schedule makers by moving
Speaker 1: them all around the big window and primetime time slots,
Speaker 1: that there's no way for a player to establish a routine.
Speaker 1: I get it. Like the Bills for all long time
Speaker 1: have not had a long string of one o'clock kickoffs,
Speaker 1: But I think the vast majority of this roster is
Speaker 1: kind of accustomed to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: The last four or five years, the Bills have been
Speaker 1: playing a lot of primetime games, a lot of four
Speaker 1: o'clock games, a couple of Thursday night games, Monday night games.
Speaker 1: I would like to think the vast majority of the
Speaker 1: roster knows how to handle this, and for the young
Speaker 1: guys coming in the door, hopefully the veterans will school
Speaker 1: them up on how to properly take care of their
Speaker 1: body preventative maintenance prehab instead of rehab. So I think
Speaker 1: they'll get schooled up right quick on how to handle
Speaker 1: a schedule like this. I mean, the one that sticks
Speaker 1: out the most is obviously week twelve to sixteen when
Speaker 1: they go Thursday night A twenty to Sunday four twenty
Speaker 1: five to Sunday A twenty to Saturday A twenty to
Speaker 1: Friday four thirty. Like that's a much day, is it.
Speaker 1: That's a jumble And people say, ah, what's the big deal,
Speaker 1: it's one day here or there. For players, Steve will
Speaker 1: tell you all the time. They covet routine. Get up,
Speaker 1: have my meal at this time, get in the car,
Speaker 1: go to the facility, get my treatment, do my conditioning,
Speaker 1: get my weight training, get my lift in, you know,
Speaker 1: get my lunch, practice, field, tape, job, rehab, therapy, pool.
Speaker 1: Like they have it like mapped out every single day
Speaker 1: of those things around because your game is a different
Speaker 1: day or a different time. It just disrupts the schedule,
Speaker 1: which sometimes can disrupt the body. So that's what they're
Speaker 1: getting at. I mean, I was watching ESPN's Get Up
Speaker 1: this morning and Damian Woody was on there, and he
Speaker 1: was talking about how he loves the Jets' schedule because
Speaker 1: they're all one o'clock starts except for one four o'clock game.
Speaker 1: He goes, I love it, and he said the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's all about the routine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And speaking of routine and the lack of routine
Speaker 2: that sometimes the Bills have. Yeah, they have all these
Speaker 2: primetime games. They've played in these primetime games, a bunch
Speaker 2: of them in the last several years. But something else
Speaker 2: they've also been dealt with a card they've been dealt
Speaker 2: has been games changing due to weather. That's something that
Speaker 2: you really can't prepare for at all. It's not on
Speaker 2: the schedule. You don't know there's gonna be a snow
Speaker 2: out and you're gonna have to push a game one
Speaker 2: day or you're gonna have to change the location of
Speaker 2: where the game is going to be played. And Buffalo's
Speaker 2: had to deal with that in the last few seasons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Steelers playoff game got moved back a day
Speaker 1: to Monday a couple of years ago because of snow.
Speaker 1: Connor says, in the words of Joe Brady, put the
Speaker 1: ball down, I'm ready for football. There will definitely be
Speaker 1: some opportunities to see how Joe Brady handles situations, especially
Speaker 1: the West Coast swing. We haven't really talked about that enough.
Speaker 1: Manny Bills at the RAMS Monday Night Football October twelfth,
Speaker 1: six days later at Las Vegas for a Sunday four
Speaker 1: to twenty five kick. That's a eight. If you come
Speaker 1: back from that RAMS game to the East Coast, you're
Speaker 1: landing here at about six am Tuesday. Probably can't have
Speaker 1: your players come in for treatment and film corrections until
Speaker 1: one two in the afternoon, and then your coaches are
Speaker 1: putting the game plan in that day because you have
Speaker 1: you still have a day of travel on Saturday that
Speaker 1: you got to worry about. So do they decide to
Speaker 1: stay on the West Coast the entire week? Not that
Speaker 1: that's an easy thing. It's easy travel wise, but now
Speaker 1: your logistics team has to be pressed into action because
Speaker 1: now you're talking about finding a practice facility for that
Speaker 1: week out on the West Coast. How long are we
Speaker 1: stay Are we staying in the same hotel we stayed
Speaker 1: in for the Rams game? Where we move in hotels
Speaker 1: closer to wherever the practice facility is. So you've got
Speaker 1: all these meals, How are we handling that? We don't
Speaker 1: have our cafeteria staff out here on site? How are
Speaker 1: we doing that? What's our food service? You know? Training rooms?
Speaker 1: How are we treating our players? Logistics? Where are we
Speaker 1: lifting weights? Where are players getting their lifts in? These
Speaker 1: are all things you're gonna have to map out and
Speaker 1: have answers for if you're gonna stay out West for
Speaker 1: the week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And thankfully the Bills have experience doing that,
Speaker 2: not in not in like the extensiveness of staying out
Speaker 2: there for a full week. But last year when we
Speaker 2: did joint practices with the Bears, you're there a couple
Speaker 2: more days than you usually are, so you know how
Speaker 2: to set up shop. But I would you would have
Speaker 2: to guess. It's something that's being considered, and with a
Speaker 2: new coach and new coaching staff, it'll be interesting to
Speaker 2: see what they decide.
Speaker 1: The last time the Bills did do that was in
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, Chan Gaily was the head coach. They were
Speaker 1: at San Francisco and at Arizona back to back weeks.
Speaker 1: They chose to stay out there. Played San Francisco, got slacked,
Speaker 1: lost forty five to three. I think Keryl Owens had
Speaker 1: almost two hundred yards receiving, and uh yeah, I was right,
Speaker 1: forty five to three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh good job Brownie. Oh my gosh, well.
Speaker 1: That one was hard to forget. That was very lopsided.
Speaker 1: And then we left San Francisco that right after the game,
Speaker 1: flew to Phoenix, spent the week in Phoenix on a resort.
Speaker 1: They practiced in the Arizona State Bubble in Tempe for
Speaker 1: the whole week. They had an indoor like bubble field
Speaker 1: to practice. It is too hot even then that at
Speaker 1: that point in the season, and play Arizona. The game
Speaker 1: goes to overtime and they win nineteen sixteen I want, yeah,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen on a field goal. So at least we
Speaker 1: went home happy. But that was a long week, like
Speaker 1: because we're we were still doing all the normal content
Speaker 1: stuff for the website, but we were doing it remotely,
Speaker 1: which you know, in twenty twenty twelve, doing stuff remotely
Speaker 1: was not even a vocabulary word. So that was a
Speaker 1: long haul. I would say the biggest benefit we ate
Speaker 1: at a different Mexican restaurant every single night, and it
Speaker 1: was Gloria. Absolutely I could do that. Glorious. I had
Speaker 1: more nachos in a week than I had probably had
Speaker 1: in the previous three months. It was out of control.
Speaker 2: You deserve it.
Speaker 1: That might have been where my nacho addiction started. I
Speaker 1: think about it. I can't stop. I have zero control,
Speaker 1: zero willpower. We're up against the clock. We got to
Speaker 1: take a break. We'll get some final thoughts from the
Speaker 1: mailbag and the tweets sheet when we return here on
Speaker 1: One Bill's Line. Welcome back to One Bill's Live. One
Speaker 1: final secret before you hear on a Friday Live for
Speaker 1: The Bill's Store on abid Road. Chris Brown Matti lab
Speaker 1: with you. Kate, in response to the look of the schedule, says,
Speaker 1: an early bye week seven again this year, just like
Speaker 1: last year. But I also looked at the other teams
Speaker 1: and case is a week five by and Buffalo doesn't
Speaker 1: play any team coming off thereby, which is great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we talked about that. At the top. The Bills are
Speaker 1: a plus fourteen in rest advantage on this schedule, and
Speaker 1: to Kate's point, they do not play a single team
Speaker 1: coming off their bye week, so no one with extra
Speaker 1: time to prepare for the Bills. That's nice.
Speaker 2: That rest advantage, I think is going to really come
Speaker 2: in handy when you look at weeks thirteen through sixteen
Speaker 2: with how the Bills will travel in those weeks and
Speaker 2: where they're traveling to cold weather towns, Patriots, Packers, Broncos.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a tough road stretch at that
Speaker 2: point in the season. Then you add the Dolphins into
Speaker 2: the mix, and you got four away games and five
Speaker 2: weeks kind of to finish out the season.
Speaker 1: And two of their longer trips on Christmas and then
Speaker 1: nine days later to Miami, Denver and Miami two of
Speaker 1: the longer trips at the back end of the schedule.
Speaker 1: Scott says they will be tested early with formidable opponents
Speaker 1: hopefully go four and two going into the by weeks
Speaker 1: eleven to sixteen will be tough as well, before playing
Speaker 1: a couple of lesser opponents to close it out. Gonna
Speaker 1: be tough to take back the AFC East Crown. Every
Speaker 1: game matters. Put the ball down, Yeah, Mannie and I
Speaker 1: were talking about it during the break. The Patriots, as
Speaker 1: we know, have a very similar schedule to that of
Speaker 1: the Bills. They have to play some first place teams
Speaker 1: like Seattle for example, but you know, Pittsburgh they get
Speaker 1: instead of Baltimore. You know, just a weird wacky thing.
Speaker 1: They get Denver instead of Kansas City. So those are
Speaker 1: some of the changes, but some of their easier games
Speaker 1: are sprinkled in between those tougher opponents a little bit
Speaker 1: better than the Bills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they see the Seahawks, Stealers, Jags, Bills to start
Speaker 2: the season, but then you got the Raiders, the Jets,
Speaker 2: then you see the Bears, then you see the Dolphins,
Speaker 2: and toward the end of the season you get Kansas City,
Speaker 2: but then the Jets, then Denver, but then the Dolphins.
Speaker 2: I feel like Buffalo's schedule is chunked with opponents that
Speaker 2: did not make the playoffs last season, where the Patriots
Speaker 2: schedule is spliced with opponents who didn't make the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Because that's why they have the gauntlets at the front
Speaker 1: end week one through five and at the back end
Speaker 1: week twelve through sixteen. Those are like gauntlet stretches for
Speaker 1: the Bills, on their schedule. Finally, James on the tweets
Speaker 1: sheet says, excited about the Thanksgiving game. My brother's coming
Speaker 1: up from North Carolina. It'll be his first Bills home
Speaker 1: game in ten years. I think that's the other benefit
Speaker 1: to hosting the Thanksgiving game. A lot of Buffalo transplants
Speaker 1: who live out of state in other locales around the
Speaker 1: country are coming home anyway for the holiday. Now they
Speaker 1: get a chance to attend a game at the same time.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a two for one deal.
Speaker 2: Come on to Buffalo for Thanksgiving. We welcome everyone, come
Speaker 2: tailgate with us. It's going to be a packed house.
Speaker 1: Maddie, thanks for your help this week filling in for Steve.
Speaker 1: Steve will be back on the air with us on
Speaker 1: Monday as we resume at one o'clock on one Bills Live.
Speaker 1: We'll also have Eric Wood on Monday as we talk
Speaker 1: radio broadcast team. So we will see you Monday at
Speaker 1: one