So you want a new stadium....

It's looking more and more like part of the deal to keep the Buffalo Bills where they belong, is going to be a new stadium.  But where does the stadium belong?  By now, the list of options is quite public and has been scrutinized and speculated about ad nauseum.  The downtown Buffalo waterfront; Niagara Falls, NY; Niagara Falls, Ontario; Batavia; West Seneca; my back yard...  It seems like every piece of open space in Western New York and Southern Ontario (please God no) has been considered.  I don't understand the desire to mess with a good thing.

Any Buffalonian will tell you we have the best tailgating spot in the league. I've had friends who went to big time football colleges come up for games and say our scene is comparable.  During this seemingly never ending playoff drought, at least we have the 4+ hours before the game to grill, drink a few pops and play cornhole, KanJam etc.  I don't care if it's 20 degrees out, it's fun, and it's an experience.  For those who say the atmosphere is too rowdy, I beg to differ.  Sure there is general debauchery - but that's at every stadium in the league - and the Bills have done a good job in recent years of increasing security.  I can count on one hand the number of fights I saw at games last year.  The out of control "party" atmosphere is highly overrated.

Sometimes the grass is not greener on the other side of the field.  I went to all 16 Bills games last year which included 10 stadiums.  Granted, I'm most familiar with Ralph Wilson Stadium, which absolutely plays a role - but it was by far the easiest to get to and from.  The other stadiums with great tailgating and easy access all had one thing in common - they weren't downtown.  I've been to Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh among other cities with downtown stadiums.  The tailgating scenes there are mediocre at best.  I doubt anyone from those areas would credit the new stadium for any sort of economic boom in those areas.  Once the game is over, downtown clears out - slowly. The bars and restaurants around these areas work because they have Major League Baseball too.  I can't imagine that putting a stadium in downtown Buffalo for 8 events a year would lead to a tremendous increase in establishments that remain open the other 357 days too. The math doesn't make sense. Not to mention, putting in this new monstrosity on the waterfront, for example, could negatively impact the progress that is already being made.  Don't upset the apple cart on the development of what has long been a stagnant area.

In the current location, I can stay for the entire game at the Ralph and be home (at worst) by halftime of the 4pm games. I'm home, on my couch by 5:30 while people in places like Foxboro and East Rutherford get to sit in traffic for another hour.  Who doesn't want that?  The highway is right there for people traveling east and west on the I-90.  It's a great spot.

Western New Yorkers are nervous the team will leave if we don't get a shiny new stadium.  I get it - I'm on edge too while waiting for this new unknown owner to say "this team STAYS!" while pounding the podium. The news today that Terry Pegula, with his new found $1.75B in gas money, is throwing his hat in the ring is great - but if anything it makes the need for an expensive stadium less necessary.  He won't need the money from personal seat licenses.  We don't need to keep up with the Jerry Joneses and the other NFL fat cats that most Buffalonians despise.  Let's just stick to our roots and what we know and keep the stadium in a spot that is proven to work.

The Marcell Dareus Dilemma

For the record - the closest I've ever come to meeting Marcell Dareus is when he sat at the table next to me at Tempo Restaurant in Buffalo a couple of years ago.  He finished his 24 ounce Mario Williams steak - I came in a close second.  Beyond that, all I can go on is what I've read.  I don't think he's a bad guy - I think he's a bad decision maker, which is a lot closer to being stupid than it is to bad, or as he put it just two weeks ago "trouble."

But where is the line drawn?  Having synthetic marijuana in your car while speeding on an Alabama road is more stupid than dangerous, while this alleged drag race in peak travel time is more the latter.  What if he had killed another driver? A pedestrian?  A kid on a bike? Then we are having a whole different conversation.  It's one thing to risk your own health and safety, it's a completely different one to risk public safety - as he did for anyone on Milestrip Road at 3pm on a Friday.

So where do the Bills go from here?  The idea of cutting Dareus seems rash.  He would be picked up off of waivers faster than a speeding Jaguar, and rightfully so.  When his head is right, Dareus produces on the football field.  He may not be living up to 3rd overall pick status, but he's in the conversation when discussing the top 10 defensive tackles in the league.  That's pretty good on a team that cannot afford to lose talent as they go for broke in 2014.  Maybe football production shouldn't impact the punishment, but in reality it does.

From a locker room standpoint, what sort of precedent does letting him off scott free - other than the looming Roger Goodell imposed punishment - set?  This offseason the Bills have signed or drafted multiple players with ample talent and checkered pasts.  Brandon Spikes got a below market rate one year deal because of his antics in New England.  Mike Williams cost the Bills a 6th round pick and by all accounts is on his last chance to stay out of trouble and just play.  They drafted gifted but troubled offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson in the 7th round and made it clear immediately to him and the public that his first mistake in a Bills uniform will be his last.  How can they coddle and rehab Dareus while saying that multiple other guys are one and done?  It comes back to that blurred line between bad and stupid.  Dareus has had a lot of problems in his personal life over the past two seasons, most notably the murder of his brother, and the trouble he's gotten into has coincided with that aftermath.  Before that, he was noted as a good teammate and a good guy.  Read his personal history, it's loaded with tragedy and challenges but he persevered and stayed straight all the way through college.  His behavior has changed in the past year or so.

The agreement between Dareus and Doug Marrone to stay away from the remaining OTA's makes sense. Stay away from the voluntary practices, figure out what is really going on, and come back when the team reconvenes. Hopefully he fixes his path and stays on the straight and narrow.  If not, someone could actually get hurt - and that's when the football aspect goes out the window for the Bills and the decision to cut ties with him becomes more clear.