I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: No one loves judging the media more than me. With the calender year coming to a close, it is time to relive the great memories of media hubris and player conflicts. (For fun, you can also re-live 2013 and 2014 if you’d like.) While Doug Marrone and others are gone, new faces have come into play. It was such a toxic year in local media that Mike Harrington actually didn’t even make the list. Mike, you gotta start picking fights with Tim Murray in 2016 if you want to make the list next year.
Here’s the lowdown:
Jerry Sullivan vs. LeSean McCoy
Ah, yes. Jerry Sullivan is back. He’s made the countdown for 3 straight years now. In 2012 it was Sully vs. Stevie Johnson. In 2013 it was Sully vs. Mario Williams. And last year he took on Marcell Dareus. Of course, Sully never stopped going after either Mario or Marcell in 2015. He went to town on Dareus negotiating his contract through the media which Rich took him to the woodshed for. Then Sully recently decided to go after Mario and declared that he’s underachieved since signing here. Yes, the guy who was 4th in sacks last year and helped guide the Bills to the 2-highest seasons in sacks in team history…underachieved…
I think I’d be doing a disservice to our readers, however, if I just retold the Mario/Dareus stories. Instead, let’s focus on Sully’s new bitch and that’s LeSean McCoy. If you went with under 45 days for when Sully would attack LeSean McCoy, you’d be the winner. His first attack on McCoy came when the former Eagles running back bashed Chip Kelly for being racist. Notice how a bunch of African-American players from Oregon/Philly failed to come to Kelly’s defense (Sarcasm). Instead, 2 other former Eagles supported McCoy’s claim and now that he’s fired, everyone is basically saying he was a dictator. Anyway, Sully tried his hardest to be some sort of beacon of light on racism, but he failed miserably.
But it seems pointless and self-serving for McCoy to bring race into the discussion about Kelly and the Eagles. It cheapens the larger discussion and feeds into the tired bias of people who contend that blacks use the “race card” for their own convenience. It makes McCoy seem petty and resentful, like he’s too proud to accept the fact that Kelly got rid of him because he didn’t feel he was worth top running back money. Maybe what Kelly didn’t like was backs who don’t always hit the hole and run sideways at times. But McCoy should zip it. He should stop obsessing about Kelly and move on. He’s embarrassing the Bills, which is too much in fashion these days.
Yes, I guess unless you are a black man getting shot, you aren’t allowed to bring up any racism in America. Uh-huh. Also, don’t you love it when a media person goes off on a player for speaking honestly? McCoy’s quotes were from ESPN the Magazine. They asked McCoy about his time in Philly, and he answered honestly. Sully is acting like McCoy called the press and released a 300-word essay on why guys named Chip are racists. Do you want candid answers or canned answers? Sully apparently wants whatever fits his silly column.
Sully went on to talk about how Philly signed DeMarco Murray and drafted 5 African-American players. But you know who Sully forgot to mention in the article? Riley Cooper. You know, the guy who used the N word on camera at a concert and lo and behold, is still with the Eagles. That’s a hell of a point to miss, huh? No one loves to twist the story to support their idiotic narrative like Sully. However, we aren’t done there. Remember McCoy’s canceled party, the one that got every moralist’s panties in a bunch? Well, no one was more jealous outraged that he didn’t get the invite than Sully.
Any self-respecting woman would have been insulted. A confidentiality agreement? Why, in case they witnessed a player punching out his date in an elevator? Actually, people who objected to the invitation took it exactly the right way.
Um…probably because McCoy was looking to have sex and he didn’t want someone to tweet out photos of his dick? Seriously? That’s why you thought a confidentially agreement was needed to be signed? What a dumb fucking exaggerated example to use. If you guys remember, McCoy was peppered with a bunch of questions about this and I think most Bills fans didn’t give a rat’s ass. Eventually McCoy got moody and decided not to answer anymore questions about a party that ended up getting canceled. Gee..I remember getting in trouble when I had a house party as a kid, not when I actually canceled one.
Finally, a few weeks back, McCoy decided to not answer questions after losing to the Eagles which is the ultimate no-no for Sully.
The Bills should make McCoy watch “Four Falls of Buffalo,” to see how Buffalo players handled much more crushing defeats with class.
— Jerry Sullivan (@TBNSully) December 13, 2015
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsUgh. I went to town about this in my recap. Sully decided to not include the fact that the Bills of the ’90s were bipolar pricks after losses and would make McCoy sound like Frank Reich. Sully then wrote a piece on how McCoy didn’t answer questions or whatever. It was typical Sully: outrage that he was jilted at the interview altar, insistent that fans should also be outraged. Nah. We are on 16 years of zero playoffs. I’m all outraged out.
Verdict: As long as I run this site, Jerry Sullivan will never win any of these unless he goes off against Russ Brandon. But seriously, how can Sully go off about McCoy’s takes about the Philly locker room when Sully wasn’t even there to cover it? I doubt he called the Sullivan of Philly (yes, there’s a Sully everywhere) to get any sort of inside knowledge. Also, stop with your fake outrage about him having a party that he eventually canceled. Jim Kelly used to have house parties all the time, and God knows what the hell was going on there (I picture Jordan Belfort’s parties in Wolf of Wall Street). I’m sure Sully wrote that those parties brought the team together somehow. Winner: McCoy
Bucky Gleason vs. Howard Simon
The first of a few media-on-media crimes on the list. You guys should know how much I adore these. Let me let you guys in on a little secret: the Entercom Radio/TBN folks aren’t pals. This actually goes beyond WGR/TBN and goes to WBEN as well. If you read a few of TBN pieces from Alan Pergament, he’s always gone to town about WBEN stealing TBN stories without crediting them. It wasn’t too long ago that TBN folks like Sully and Tim Graham had regular radio spots on WGR. Now I can’t think of the last guy who was on their shows. Supposedly, the reason why Sully left WGR was because he signed an exclusive contract with WBBZ to do a TV show (Bucky/Sully show) so they could have exclusive rights to his hot speaking takes. Of course, the show got moved to channel 2 and now you can find them on the radio on 1270 in Buffalo. Strange that they didn’t go back to WGR after that “Exclusive contract” stuff. I’m willing to bet WGR didn’t want to pay for them anymore because they already have the Bills/Sabres. Of course, depending on who you talk to, some feel WGR was ticked off that Sully left while others feel the print guys aren’t happy that they aren’t on the #1 sports station in town. Hmmm…
Anyway, the topic of the Sabres tank led to many WGR vs. TBN battles. Last year, Mike Harrington vs. Jeremy White was on this list. I believe, without looking, that I voted for White. From my POV, I was fine with the tank because that’s what the Sabres wanted to do and I understood their logic. What I wasn’t fine with was how both WGR and TBN yelled at fans about how we had to feel one way or the other or we were doing it wrong. Both entities thrived off each other’s opposite POV and Bucky did his whole thing about how tanking was bad. There were some things I agreed with (the NHL should probably make it harder to get 1st pick and yes, you still have to build your team up), but Bucky had to do his pontificating spiel about embracing losing being for well, losers.
To me, there’s a name for people who embrace losing under any circumstances: “losers.” The Bills and Sabres have lost so much over the past generation that fans have accepted losing as winning. I never expected to see the day when Buffalo fans would cheer for the other team and compromise their values.
This was a trash line because he knew that fans who wanted the Sabres to lose were cheering for the team to be better in the long run. Also, how many times have Bucky and TBN shit on fans for cheering on the heroic run to 8th? Are we supposed to cheer for a bad team or not? Howard Simon went off on Bucky one morning, telling him “screw you, I’m tired of the losing and the Sabres were always reloading for a run etc “… After hearing that, Bucky decided to post a bit of a rebuttal, but it was totally tame. Just basically about how everyone has an opinion and blah, blah, blah.
Verdict: This was a tough one because as I said earlier, I think both WGR/TBN had their own contrived agendas and basically became angrier based on the counter point. I could have done without Simon saying screw you multiple times and I think the whole “Sick of the old Sabres” rhetoric was a little hyberbole since the Sabres at times have been fun since the 1st lockout (see: Playoff years). It was just a little over the top. Still, Bucky said we are losers and he’s a hypocrite since as Simon said, he always bitched about the Sabres making a run for 8th. Winner: Simon
Doug Whaley vs. print folks (Tim Graham/Bucky/Sully/John Wawrow)
Look, I was sad that the Bills said goodbye to Fred Jackson. He was a nice player. But I understood the logic in cutting him. He wasn’t the 1st or 2nd best running back on the team and he couldn’t play special teams. This was all proven in the 2015 season. However, there were folks at One Bills Drive who couldn’t get over it. The leaks started flowing to Tim Graham as some within the office were pissed off and called Whaley a rogue for the move. What annoyed me most about this was that one of Graham’s sources came from the marketing department which was pissed off because of the many businesses in the local community that used Freddy as their spokesperson. Please. I could give a fuck if M&T Bank is upset because they have to paste McCoy’s head on a Fred Jackson cutout next to a bank teller trying to sell me on some horrible interest rate credit card. Anyway, its Fred, so I got some of the angst by some.
Now when we start talking about a backup QB, that’s when I go ballistic.
I remember being on the subway home from work when I learned that the Bills had traded Matt Cassel. I laughed at it and thought it was a good move for Whaley since he just cut the bum 2 weeks earlier. However, I came to realize that some lamestream folks were just chomping at the bit to bury Whaley because of the move. At first, they reported that the coaching staff (Greg Roman/David Lee are my guess) wasn’t happy about the move. Fine. I think they’re idiots for thinking this since we have these things called facts which tell us that all backup QBs (including Matt Cassel) suck. But I’m fine with Wawrow and Graham reporting what the coaching staff thinks. Hey, that’s their job.
However, when they go on for a good 5 weeks – seriously, 5 F’N weeks on Twitter pontificating about how stupid it was to trade Cassel – you are either:
A) not very bright and never watched Matt Cassel play QB.
B) pandering to your sources by doing their bidding in public.
I think I counted at least 3 columns in 10 days from Bucky and Sully basically crapping all over Whaley for trading Cassel. Only in Buffalo, NY could we have 3 fucking columns dedicated to Matt Cassel, a guy who is 10-23 in his last 33 F’N STARTS. Jesus Christ. Did these guys think we were trading Steve Young? Ridiculous.
Verdict: You guys already know where my judgement is going, right? So, I’ll just say this. I think what probably pissed me off the most was this tweet by Tim Graham after Matt Cassel had a riveting 96-yard performance against Seattle.
Some sad people on Twitter. 1) Proud to express they can’t comprehend a point; 2) Pouncing after the clock hits 0:00 https://t.co/sqAqRjZrnF — Tim Graham (@ByTimGraham) November 2, 2015
At this point, the chickens were coming home to roost. Yet he calls us sad for actually being like…HEY, YOU WERE WRONG!! Maybe if you didn’t shove this narrative down our throats for a month, we wouldn’t have took a dump on you. Oh, and then we get this Bucky gem where he speaks out of both sides of his mouth regarding Cassel in just a span of 8 hours!!
The 2 faces of @TheBuffaloNews sports reporters is on full display #billsmafia https://t.co/t19fbG0d4w pic.twitter.com/Pv1TPOoBGg — Mike Rusher (@mjrusher) October 25, 2015
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsWhen you have an ax to grind, you gotta be 2-faced about it sometimes. You know what the saddest thing in all of this is? That I had to dedicate 300 words to such a stupid debate. Matt F’N Cassel. Get bent. BTW, EJ Manuel, who also sucks, had much better numbers than Matt Cassel. Winner: Doug Whaley
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsMatthew Coller vs. Tim Graham
Oh. My. God. Not since Chuck Dickerson passed out the nicknames of Mike “No Balls” Schopp or John “Pumpkinhead” Murphy have we had such juicy media-on-media crime. This was insane. Normally when you get these sorts of tiffs, they go on for like, 5 minutes. Sometimes I think it’s just contrived BS where the two media parties fake beef and then they high-five each other in the press box and boast about how idiots like me were talking about it. But that was definitely not the case here. This one had hatred in it and lasted for days. It all started back in March and, of course, started with our old friend, the tank.
I get the impression the two sides on the Sabres tank issue are performing only for each other. We need a fresh angle, please. — Tim Graham (@ByTimGraham) March 3, 2015
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAt this point, I completely agreed with Graham. The Tank narrative was awful and it was pretty much built on hating each other’s point-of-view. He also kind of took a swipe at his own paper when you think that Harrington/Bucky were the face of the anti-tank narrative. At this point, Coller didn’t exactly take kindly to Graham bashing the narrative.
I thought our jobs were to come up with them RT @MatthewWGR We’ll take suggestions
— Tim Graham (@ByTimGraham) March 3, 2015
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We’ll have to disagree. RT @MatthewWGR We’ve been doing great, but if you’ve got a fun angle, we’re open. We like fun. — Tim Graham (@ByTimGraham) March 3, 2015
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js @MatthewWGR and if another station had Bills and Sabres rights and streamed a trade deadline show, it would draw. WGR spends the $ @DMGiac
— Tim Graham (@ByTimGraham) March 4, 2015
Now this on its own would make the top 5. I can’t really include more of the tweets embedded on this because it would take forever. But basically Graham went on about how WGR is the radio home for the Bills/Sabres and that’s why they are #1. Coller said it was hard to do programming when your team is last and didn’t take too kindly to the radio home stuff. Basically, if you want to get under the skin of anyone from WGR, you gotta hit them with the radio home for both teams and for TBN, you gotta tell them print is dying. Anyway, this was where the seeds were planted in this feud.
Let’s flash forward 6 months to when the really good shit starts.
Basically on the Howard Simon show, Simon and Coller pretty much questioned the whole “Doug Whaley is a rogue” report that surfaced after the Fred Jackson cut. It basically boiled down to them saying that it all turned into a bigger story than it was because behind-the-scenes disagreements happen all the time. They never mentioned Graham or TBN by name and what I believe got Graham’s goat was when Coller said the story was “fabricated.” Now, Jackson had recently done an interview with TBN where he stated that Whaley had told him a few months back that he wasn’t going anywhere. Coller commented that when he was playing baseball in college, one of his coaches said that he’d be a starting pitcher and when it didn’t happen, he moved on even though he was lied to. This is was all the ammo Graham needed. First, Graham complained that WGR didn’t even bother calling him to be on their show so he could talk about his story.
Now before I get into this, it was really hard for me to find their tweets to each other cause there were so many people chiming in that it would take me days to find specifics. Graham had decided he was going to hit Coller’s credibility about his baseball claims and tweeted out that Coller never played baseball in college.
I did. Sports information director and two baseball coaches never heard of him. On record as student, not a player. https://t.co/SdBXKlQGO8
— Tim Graham (@ByTimGraham) September 3, 2015
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsYes, Graham actually called up the SID at Finger Lakes Community College to find out if Coller had played there. Graham even tweeted out the email he got from the SID saying that there’s no record of Coller playing there. Coller then tweeted out an email from his baseball coach saying that he did play there, but it was in a fall league which I guess is basically a more minor league tryout for the team or something. So basically, Coller did play baseball, but it was in lesser ranks. This whole thing went on for an entire day with Graham just going nuts. He wouldn’t let the thing die and subsequently Coller blocked him.
@ByTimGraham You’re mad about me not having you on the air, but you never asked me before publishing your FLCC baseball story. Bye now. — Matthew Coller (@MatthewWGR) September 5, 2015
Then things got EVEN WEIRDER when a few days later, Coller decided to tweet out a Vine of him throwing a baseball in the WGR parking lot while channeling his Napoleon Dynamite //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
I mean, it’s too nice out to be angry. Better to get out there and exercise https://t.co/QUXmMbdP2T — Matthew Coller (@MatthewWGR) September 5, 2015
This then started another barrage of angry exchanges. Basically if we could bottom line this feud: Graham was pissed that Coller called his story fabricated and didn’t have him on the show to defend himself and he decided to turn the tables on Coller for talking about his baseball career and in essence, his baseball career being a bit of a fabrication.
I always found it interesting that Graham never went after Howard Simon which is why I pointed back to their angry exchange in March. Simon has been in sports media for 30 years and if he wanted to get Graham on the show, he could have easily told Coller to do that. It’s not like these hosts have zero say in their shows. Also, Graham had a tweet thanking those from WGR who texted him in support. Seriously? WTF did these texts sound like? Fuck Coller and his analytics? I’d be willing to bet that text came from Paulrus Hamilton. It was a hot mess that we will never ever see again.
Verdict: There is so much garbage to suss through. I would say that Graham had a legit beef with WGR not giving him a call to discuss his story. I think it would have been good radio and it would only make sense for them to ask him questions about it. If you are going to spend a good 10 minutes debating a person’s story, give the guy a call and have him on. I know for a fact that WGR used to do this in the past with TBN guys, but as I alluded to in the Bucky/Simon portion, that relationship is dead. I wonder if they had mentioned Graham/TBN by name, maybe Tim wouldn’t have been so pissed. Sometimes these print guys just want their name to be heard on the air. All publicity is good publicity etc.
As for the baseball stuff? I actually never heard Coller mention his baseball past before. Now, I don’t listen to the morning show that often, so maybe he has. It’s not like Coller said he was an all-world player and really it was a throwaway line in their 10-minute takedown of the story. I also felt Coller going outside and doing his baseball throwing was extremely strange. At that point, things had died down. Why bring it back? The context of this debate says I should side with Graham, but it’s the delivery that’s going to make me go with Coller.
Graham went insane on Twitter.
Graham is a good writer, but the way he handles Twitter completely overshadows it. For a barrage of tweets, Graham couldn’t get off the baseball part which ended up being kind of true based on the email evidence from both parties. He played…just in a lesser league, I guess. I also thought it was creepy that he went into Coller’s baseball past to incite this. It was a lot more personal than these arguments usually are and I think he needed to go after Simon too if he was that upset. Sometimes less is more and the problem with many folks in the media in Buffalo is that they don’t know when to stop. Graham’s exchange with Coller was maybe the best evidence ever of that. Winner: Coller
Honorable mentions:
Sammy Watkins vs. Tyler Dunne- Dunne had written a fair piece on Watkins wanting the ball which some painted as Sammy being selfish. Sammy called Dunne out on Twitter, but Sammy was in the wrong as Dunne did mention some nice things about Sammy’s attitude of wanting to just win. However, and this is just me spreading rumors, I think Sammy read the ESPN piece. Mike Rodak- whose about as useless on the Bills beat as tits on a bull- just copied and pasted the “selfish” portion of the story on his ESPN article. I don’t mean to make fun of Rodak as I give zero fucks about his affiliation with Boston, but the next astute observation he makes on Twitter or his articles will be his first.
Sammy Watkins vs. Instagram- Remember when Sully tried pretending that Sammy was telling “ALL OF BUFFALO THEY WERE LOSERS” when he was just telling the asshole trolls on his Instagram who insulted his daughter to get a life? Remember when I was talking about twisting story to support his narrative? Anyways, if you are insulting an athlete on Instagram, I want a pitch fork stabbed into your balls.
Mario Williams vs. Everyone- I’ve beaten this to death on Twitter. Basically I think Mario deserves some of the blame, but there are those who have had an agenda against him since 2012 (See: Sully/Fridges). They couldn’t wait to kick his ass out of town. Plus, you know there are some Bills shills who are doing the bidding of the team with making him the fall guy so they can get juicy gossip on the DL in the future.
John Warwow vs. Twitter- Up until 2015, I had zero problem with Warwow. He was fine on Twitter and had always broken some decent Bills/Sabres stories. Maybe it was a combination of WGR’s tank narrative eating at him or wanting to adapt Tim Graham’s dickheaded shtick on Twitter, but he lost his mind this year. I remember him tweeting out that the Sabres weren’t happy with Sam Reinhart and then wouldn’t tell us why for like a good 40 minutes. Then, he preceded to be a giant dick to everyone who wanted him to tell us what the deal was. Dude is a strange cat with even stranger music taste.
Doug Marrone vs. WGR- No one likes making fun of Doug Marrone more than WGR. If Marrone gets attached to an interview, you can count on Jeremy White just burying him on Twitter. I don’t like Doug Marrone because he was a lousy coach, but I really didn’t give a rat’s ass about how he treated the press. I think WGR’s criticisms of him is more about him being a dick to them when he was on the morning show last year. Like I’ve always said…if you are a dick to the press, they will never forget or forgive you.
Mike Harrington vs. everyone- Then. Now. Forever. Tanking…Bloggers…lack of Year end pressers..hating state run radio (I’m with him on that) Rinse and repeat…No one beats dead horses into Elmer’s glue more efficiently than Mike.
Favorite media personalities: Joe B., Bulldog and Tyler Dunne.
Least favorite media personalities: Jerry Sullivan, Tim Graham, Paul Hamilton, Jeremy White, AP guy and everyone else.
Dumbest Media Tweet of the year: Mike Schopp’s opinion on where winning the tank would rank for him. Sorry, but I disagree.
I think winning this is worth more than a Cup. Every big game in 06 and 07, they never had a clincher post-Round 1. Yeah, this is bigger. — Mike Schopp (@Schopptalk) March 26, 2015
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That’s it folks. I look forward to 2016 and more hot beefs!
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