Buffalo Media Sports Blitz

Bills decade of disappointment doesn’t disappoint
If you readers don’t know, WGRZ and the Rochester Democratic & Chronicle are both owned by Gannett and during the fall both news organizations are working together and combining resources. Weekly, you can check out on WGRZ.com, a 5 minute round table with Sal Maiorana, Leo Roth and Ed Kilgore.

This week, I was in for a treat when the Rochester D&C website had an 18 minute round table discussion about what has gone wrong with the Bills over the last decade. It was highly entertaining. The Panelists brought up a lot of old (or bad) memories about the team, including the decision to give full power to Tom Donahoe, the Music City Miracle, and the epic Steelers season finale collapse. And that was just the first half of the decade! So, if you’re really into bashing Tom Donahoe, Drew Bledsoe, and pretty much everyone who has walked into One Bills Drive, the round table is a must a see.

He shoots, and he doesn’t exactly score
So now that WGRZ has their niche with the Rochester boys with their football coverage, the only logical thing to do is to get someone on board for their hockey coverage. Enter Randy Schultz, who?? Yeah, I had to google his name. But Schultz has covered the Sabres for over 17 years and actually co-authored a book with Dominik Hasek. Schultz, along with Stu Boyar and Ben Hayes air a weekly 7 minute segment on WGRZ.com called, “He Schultz, He Scores.”

I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t get into the segment. I don’t know if it’s the corny ass intro music with the stupid gigantic Sabres slug logo opening. Maybe, it’s Randy’s weird ass suits he wears that make him look as if he’s selling cows from Texas.

But the trio just doesn’t have any chemistry. I think they ask too much of Schultz by letting him be the focal point of the interview. He just doesn’t doesn’t seem to get too high or low about anything. Boyar, who I’m more high on then others (read his blogs), isn’t really a guy that you would want as a host, he’s more of a analyst. Boyar throwing questions to Schultz doesn’t maximize his opinions. Ben Hayes looks like a deer in the head lights. You wouldn’t even know he’s at the round table until they show a three shot of the panelists. I know it’s still early in the season, but the trio has a lot to do to get on track.

ESPN shows no love or hate for the Bills
This is how bad it gets for the Bills when they make Terrell Owens, the biggest media whore in ESPN history an afterthought. ESPN didn’t even give any air play to Owens agent, Drew Rosenhaus going off about the Bills problems from last week. If this was last year, Ed Werder would of opened up Sportscenter outside of Rosenhaus‘ home.

If you didn’t like ESPN crapping on us with that news, how about the segment they aired last week asking which franchise was the most dysfunctional? The choices were the Browns, Redskins and Raiders. All due respect to those teams, but the Bills franchise should of been up on the Mount Rushmore of stupidity.

I’m sure if Dick Jauron was the coach of the Raiders it would get some play. Maybe Jauron needs to beat up AVP or Wilson strip away Jauron’s play calling ability, oh wait, that would be a positive. Then you wonder why fans get so fed up with press cores not calling out the Bills enough. They can’t even get on ESPN. I do wonder how much Wilson’s relationship with Chris Berman has something to do with the Bills not getting knocked around by ESPN talking heads.

Does WGR have something against Bucky Gleason?
Maybe it’s the cynic in me, but whenever Mike Schopp criticizes the Sabres, it’s as if Dick Jauron is calling out one of his own players. In other words, it hardly ever happens. But on Monday, Schopp called out the Buffalo News for running an article about how Lindy Ruff changed his ways of coaching by acting like more of a nice guy.The latest example of this was Ruff giving his team Sunday off after back to back losses.

Schopp felt as if the article was giving Ruff too much credit too early in the season. It’s a valid point, but it wasn’t really a knock on Ruff, it was more towards the author of the article, Bucky Gleason.

It got me thinking back over the summer, whe
n Schopp was critical towards the Buffalo News for writing a piece on Rene Robert’s criticism of Larry Quinn and Tom Golisano. The article again was written by Bucky Gleason. Now here’s where the cynic in me comes out. Maybe WGR has something against Gleason because he has a weekly radio show with former WGR Staffer, Brad Riter. We all know that WGR and Riter had a big falling out a couple of years ago. Maybe criticising Gleason’s articles is a way to make him look inferior because he’s on a rival station. Again, just my “magic bullet theory” at work.