Pat Moran: Don't Be First. Be Right.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The sound of podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:13  
Pat Moran is the host of talking buffalo, a show that emanates from Buffalo. The western New York native has emerged as one of many podcasters on the planet who has managed to build a successful show that is local and ingrained into the local sports culture. Now I hesitate to call talking buffalo a sports show, even though the talk is 95% about the NFL Buffalo Bills and the NHL buffalo sabers. There's also some wrestling and that other buffalo wings. Pat has sampled nearly 100 establishments in Western New York and has a really solid list of what wings are best. Now I've asked him on the show today to talk about something that is important for content creators with a blog or microphone, and that is the trust and credibility that comes from doing your show. Over the last few weeks, there have been a rash of errors from podcasters who have tried to break stories only to find themselves wrong and scrambling to save face. And it's not just podcasters. The local Denver TV station that was carrying the NFL preseason game between the Cardinals and the Broncos featured 84 seconds of chatter discussing how the Dallas Cowboys, Micah Parsons was quoted as saying he would like to play for the Broncos. The only thing was, he never said that, and the source a fake tweet from a dude named Normie who has an ax emoji in his Twitter handle. And that's where we're at. We have a lot of people behind microphones with a lot of time to kill endless hot takes of nonsense, with the end result hurting everyone who makes a living behind the mic. So Pat's on the show today, because he's worked in this space for a long time. He's built up trust with sports teams. He's made the mistake of running with a story when he should have waited, and he built his credibility back up again, successfully. And now Pat Moran joins me from Buffalo New York. Pat, when did you first start covering the Buffalo Bills? Well

Pat Moran  2:11  
as a podcaster back not too far, 2017 I first covered the Buffalo Bills in the early 2000s I started, I created, I should say, a neighborhood tabloid publication. You want to call it the time before the era of blogs becoming popular and kind of, for the most part, making community newspapers. And, you know, specialty little tabloids extinct. It was called Queen City sports. And at the time, I was able to get a credential to cover the Buffalo Bills. The first season I could definitely remember was the 2002 season. It was the first year that Drew Bledsoe came to Buffalo. And the bills at the time were only a year and a half or so, what what would become a 17 year drought, but there was a lot of enthusiasm about the team when Drew Bledsoe got here and started out really good offensively anyway, and it went downhill pretty quickly and went on to become what would be a a disaster. But yeah, early 2000s is when I can first remember covering the Buffalo Bills for a newspaper that people would actually read. It's crazy. I even remember

Matt Cundill  3:22  
that I went to a game. Went to a game in 2002 I went to week four against Chicago, and it was an overtime win.

Pat Moran  3:27  
Do you know my first memory, one of my first memories from covering the team as a credentialed reporter, as opposed to, you know, just a fan who was following the team, and newsletters were a big deal, you know, 2025, years ago. So I'm in the press box. They were playing the Raiders. I don't remember if it was a home opener, but it was one of the first games that was week five. Week five. Okay, so it was the Raiders game, and the Raiders won that game. But Jerry Rice, who was with the Raiders at the time, didn't have a very big game. Nate Clemens, a very young Nate Clemens, did a really good job handling him. So after the game, I go downstairs, you know, from the press box down to the locker room area where there's going to be interviews. And again, at the time, completely clueless, no experience. They can just fake it till you make it. So I get down there, and now all of a sudden, I'm standing one on one, directly in front of Jerry Rice. I wanted to ask him about the game. And in my mind, I'm like, you know, tell me what Nate Clemens did. Was it part of the game plan? You know, all these questions in my mind at the time that I had, and to be completely honest with you, when the moment came and I'm in front of Jerry Rice and I have a tape recorder, I pretty much crapped myself, right? I got so nervous. And I mean, Jerry Rice one of the greatest athletes ever, and I just I was in awe of him, and I didn't think I was gonna be but when the moment came, it was. The moment was too big for me. Hear that in sports all the time, or the moment might be too big for a team or for a player, that moment specifically was too big for me, and I pretty much crapped on myself. Man, I was fumbling words left and right, and I could tell that he was being polite, but also annoyed that I was wasting his time because I couldn't even really get a real question out. So there are really short answers, like I asked someone, you know, if Nate Clemens did anything specifically, no, they're pretty much one or two word answers. We could just tell I didn't know what I was doing, and he was annoyed that I didn't know what I was doing at that time. So that was a lesson for sure.

Matt Cundill  5:37  
Well, the Raiders went to the Super Bowl that year, and they didn't find it until the fourth quarter in that Super Bowl game. So again, I've got this silly memory that just has all these useless facts.

Pat Moran  5:47  
I used to have a good memory, man. Now it's the God I struggle to remember training camp from a couple weeks ago. One

Matt Cundill  5:53  
of the things that just stuck out here is that you said 2002 and you're talking about the power of newsletters and publications. Yes, there was a tabloid format to it, but as well, it was probably being emailed out as

Pat Moran  6:04  
well. Am I guessing? Yes, I believe so. It was being emailed out, but primarily it was still newsprint only. I said Queen City sports it was actually that was a little venture that I had before that. This was buffalo sports report. So my again, my memory, little bit shy. It was buffalo sports report, where I got the credential to cover bills. Case before that, I had a community little sports rag. They're called, commonly, sports rags. That was called Queen City sports but, yeah, I think it was starting to have some email, but primarily it was old school. Designed it on the printer, which I had somebody helping me with, print it up, bring it to the news press, and then they would print up the tabloid paper, like I said, just like you would get, you know, like the west side times, or whatever in your neighborhood, and print them up, send them off to stores. Well, at first they were free. Then we tried charging, and it didn't go too well from a business standpoint back in those days. But yeah, we'll see. God. What a great learning experience. It's just a great time in my life to really get involved doing something that I love doing, and I tried to try to make the most of it, and it did open a lot of doors for me in terms of connections with players, with other media members, and things like that for the future, even if it didn't necessarily work on its own at that time,

Matt Cundill  7:18  
and then you dovetailed into blogs, I believe After that would almost be like a natural progression. Yeah, 2006

Pat Moran  7:25  
I was blogging for scout.com which covered, well, they covered all the football teams and a fun story from that back in 2006 it was like two or three people on each team, bloggers and the boss of the Buffalo Bills, the person who ran the bills report slash scout.com was a fresh out of college, hadn't made his mark in professional journalism yet, named Tyler Dunn. And Tyler, of course, today, has become one of the most well known and respected sports writers in the entire country, and he's done something that's almost unprecedented, the way, you know, he left an outlet and started his own sub stack, and it's been widely successful. But back in those days, despite the fact, I was much older than Tyler and still am, obviously, but Tyler Dunn was my boss there, back in the early blogging days, I did some blogging at Fox sports.com in 2006 and to this day, I still remember covering the Buffalo Bills draft for Fox Sports. And it was the year that the bills, they didn't trade out, but they took Dante Whitner eighth, traded up for John McCargo, Ashton, ubody Coach, Simpson. They traded up in the end of the first round to get John McCargo as well, five defensive players, right off the bat. And I remember saying, this was a transformative draft. You know, the bills defense is going to become one of the best in the league. And, you know, it was just a complete bust of a draft, with the exception of a fifth round pick, unheralded guy that nobody talked about, who was Kyle Williams. He went on to become the one great player you know, from that draft, a bills legend to this day, but yeah, the blogging days, I remember them very, very well, and doing those eventually led to doing my own thing, Buffalo sports daily, which kind of really took me to a level that I hadn't been at before. And that's really where I started to truly develop a lot of relationships with sports media, and where I've grew a pretty big audience too, with a lot of fans, I mean, and I work really, really, really hard at doing that as well.

Matt Cundill  9:31  
You mentioned a keyword, and that's relationships. And I think there's a lot of people who get into the sports blogging and the sports podcasting, and they go in figuring, we don't need relationships. And, you know, maybe you don't for a little bit, but you're gonna

Pat Moran  9:46  
you ultimately do. I mean, it's, it's naive that they kill less without having relationships. Everybody leans on peers to some level, and as it pertains to. To what would become my podcast that I started in 2018 I'll say this, it was the relationships that I developed with other media people and some former players while I was blogging that led to what would become, I don't want to say a completely smooth, but a relatively smooth transition into podcasting. I had never done a podcast before. I didn't have any real podcasting experience podcasting, or just podcasts in general, were nowhere near as popular, even going back eight years ago or so, as they are now. But because of those relationships, and I'm being buffalo specific here, but because of those relationships, right off the bat, the very first episode I ever have Seattle, capaccio is my guest, a very well known personality. Tim Graham is on episode number two. Tyler Dunn was one of my first five guests. Jay skiersky, who's been a longtime reporter now at the Buffalo News he was on right off the bat. Those were all guys that I were able to talk to before I even launched the podcast, and say, Listen, I you know, you could really help me establish some some street cred, so to speak, by coming on these shows early, and they did, and by having those local people on that really kind of got a little bit of a buzz going. That would lead to me getting a lot of national people that I guarantee you I probably don't get were and not for the bigger name local people that I had developed a relationship with through those years that really helped me kind of kick off the show in the right fashion.

Matt Cundill  11:32  
Just to clarify, this podcast that you started 2017, this is really your first time behind a microphone,

Pat Moran  11:38  
first time. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a sports writer. When I was a kid, that's all I wanted to do. Well, I wanted to be center fielder for the New York Yankees, but I was smart enough to know that was not going to happen at a a very young age. I love sports. I grew up loving sports for some reason I just knew as a young kid, and I was pretty good at sports, you know. But, you know, kids grew up dreaming of playing. I just dreamed of being the guy who would be covering the team. I always loved the thought of being the team sports writer or whatever general columnist, or whatever it was going to be. But even growing up, that's what I wanted to be. High school, I played sports and stuff, but my most fondest memories of high school is being the sports editor of the school newspaper. You know, that's, it's what I always wanted to do. I wanted to be a writer. I never envisioned ever, ever doing broadcasting. There was no such thing as podcasting when I went to school. But, you know, no, it's, I never had any real experience other than doing, you know, some interviews as I was writing or blogging or whatever, with outlets I would do an interview or so, but not polished at all whatsoever, no, no true broadcasting experience. Didn't go to school

Matt Cundill  12:47  
for it or anything. So there are a lot of writers out there who just can't make the jump to get behind the microphone and be and you're not, you're not the most polished person here doing this, but it's not nearly the same as writing, and not every writer can successfully, you know, maneuver their way around the microphone, with the headphones, with the technology, with the words, with being fast enough to respond to do live interviews. And, you know, some people just can't even connect to YouTube.

Pat Moran  13:12  
Agreed 100% it's kind of wild seeing, you know, some of these older cats here that colleagues in the sports media market here in Buffalo, they've gotten much better. But like Tim I just named a few of them, Tim Graham. Tim Graham is not that guy, you know what I mean, who? He's not really computer savvy, tech savvy sale for a long time, even though they've been on the air like sales been on the radio for a long time. Tim Graham actually had a radio show at an alternative sports radio station before, but, yeah, there's a lot of people that are like that, myself included. I just, you know, going back to before I started the podcast, I just studied, I just learned everything I could. I watched so many YouTube videos. There were some podcasts that I were following already, and just really dug into those and tried to pick some brains and just learn a lot. But it's about being I think you get past the technical stuff, and then it just becomes about getting comfortable and confident in yourself. And that's a process. It doesn't it doesn't happen easy. It used to be, I used to be so nervous anytime I would have a podcast, and it didn't have to be live, didn't have to be video, even if it was just audio, I'd be really, really nervous, like, if, if you're going to be on my show, I probably would walk around my my house, pace it around for two hours, trying to calm myself down because of the nerves. It definitely took quite a while. Was not easy, and it didn't happen overnight.

Matt Cundill  14:32  
And the entire franchise of talking buffalo survived your move to Bradenton, Florida, because, I mean, you get warmer weather, you'll be in contact with the team at least once a year, maybe twice, depending on what the bill schedule is like. But how did the show manage itself while you're not in Buffalo?

Pat Moran  14:50  
Well, actually, the show itself started when I was not in Buffalo. It started when I was in Florida. So the story goes in 2016 We moved my family, we moved to Florida, from Buffalo braided to Florida, like you said, to be exact, for primarily, for two reasons. Number one, my wife had an opportunity to get a promotion at her company. Their headquarters is in Sarasota, Florida. So that was the biggest reason. The other semi big reason was our son was an exceptionally good football player as a kid. I mean, he was you could just sometimes, you could just see it with kids at certain ages where they had that extra gear. And Florida, along with Texas and Ohio, are considered, you know, high school football hot beds. So having the chance to go down to Florida and see if he can hang with those boys. Was certainly, at least, maybe not on my wife's mind at the time, but it was definitely on my mind at the time, so that played a role. So we go down to Florida, and it's nice. It's like a vacation at first. You know you're you spend your whole life in Buffalo or New York City, and it just seems like a tropical paradise. It felt like the first six to nine months, it was a working vacation. I worked from home, my primary job, but then I started getting homesick, and I started getting bored, and I never stopped liking writing, but I just, I don't know, man, I got, kind of got a little bit lazy, like I didn't want to sit down and bang out a 1300 word post four or five times a week anymore, and I just figured I felt disconnected from Buffalo I missed buffalo sports. I felt like I wasn't close to it anymore. And when I was there in Florida, that's when I started to say, You know what? I could do a podcast here. There's a lot of people. You'd be surprised at how many good buffalo sports based podcasts are hosted by people who are not living in Buffalo. So I did it primarily out of boredom, being homesick and not wanting to write anymore and attempting to do something different. So that's how it started. I moved back to Buffalo in 2021 and by that time, I had established the show as a relatively, pretty well known, you know commodity when it comes to Buffalo podcasts,

Matt Cundill  17:09  
how does a team like the bills look at the alternative media like the bloggers and the podcasters inside the building? What is the prevailing attitude, you know, towards shows like yours. And I guess we can include the sabers as well. And for those who don't know, both the sabers and the bills have the same ownership group,

Pat Moran  17:30  
yeah, tough. Getting better, though, getting better. I'll say that. I'll give credit to the Buffalo Bills. I really haven't dealt much with the sabers in terms of their media you know, their public relations and their media relations, but the Buffalo Bills have gotten better. I still think there's a ways to go and but I also understand why they are the way they are. Because anybody literally, can start a podcast. Anybody could start a blog. That doesn't make you a professional, it doesn't mean you're, you know, you're good enough to cover a team professionally, even if you think you are. There's lots of factors. But I would say the bills used to kind of shun outlets like mine, other podcasts, blogs, alternative media, so to speak. But they've gotten better now. They still won't credential like, say, for an example, we'll just use talking buffalo. They won't credential me to cover the team, you know, during the regular season, if I were to apply the the bills play Baltimore to start the season, if I apply for a credential, I'm going to get denied. However, where they've really improved is they will let established blogs, and they pay attention. They pay attention to the good ones, or the ones. If you're trying to get a credential, they'll start paying attention to you. They will grant credentials for a day, for a couple days, in some cases, for training camp. There are a lot of alternative media outlets out there, like train wreck sports was there. Lockdown bills was there for a full week. Joe Marino, there's there's a few others as well. They've gotten better. It's improving, but it's still very difficult to be taken serious, whether it's by, you know, professional organizations, or that I found just in some cases, fans, casual fans, who, you know, if they don't know a lot about blogs or podcasts, especially, you know, it's kind of a natural tendency to kind of stick your nose up at him, because it's like, oh, he's in mommy's basement, you know, making content, thinking that he's whoever Sal kapaccio or Howard Simon, or whatever you name, a famous, you know, Buffalo sports figure that they're playing, make pretend. And there's a lot of people who have that perception, and sometimes professional sports organizations still had them, but they are getting better, and they do a good job of recognizing which ones are more credible than others.

Matt Cundill  19:51  
So years ago, it was really easy for a team like the bills, they just had to pay attention to WGR 55 they could listen and find out what was going on. There are. The rights holder. They're owned by Odyssey, I believe. And you know, it's tough being a rights holder to a radio station and being critical at the same time. That's, that's a slippery slope. I think we acknowledge that. But now you've got podcasts everywhere. You've got, you mentioned an alternative radio station. There's, there's another sports station out there, and now they've got actual players doing their own podcast as well. I know Dion Dawkins has a very, very popular podcast, so there's a lot for them to pay attention to. It's it's got to be hard just to keep the messaging on

Pat Moran  20:30  
brand. It's a very saturated market, and I feel like, in today's day and age, and I would assume it's the same way I don't pay attention to 31 other NFL teams and 31 other, you know, fan bases in media markets, but I would assume that it's pretty much the same everywhere. If you're going to be in today's world, if you're going to be a sports writer, you're going to cover the but we'll just stick with the Buffalo Bills for the purpose of this conversation. You better be able to do the other stuff. If you don't have a podcast yourself, you better be able to go on other shows, be a guest regularly, and talk and brand yourself so to speak. But I could go up and down the line right now. I won't, but I could go up and down the line and name me a buffalo sports media member who covers his team, and I'll name you somebody who's got their own podcast, who's part of a podcast, literally, everybody has some form of their own podcast, and that's the professionals. Which makes a a market for the alternative, people like myself, for an example, and makes that competition even harder. There's more competition for eyes and ears right now than I've ever seen. And God, even just this is recent three or four years ago, that was not the case. Man, I used to have sports media people on my show literally all the time, and they still do the show, but just not as often. In the biggest reason why they don't is because they're busy now they all have their own shows as well. So it is really wild that is a very, very competitive and a very, very saturated, over saturated market these days,

Matt Cundill  22:08  
which leads to a lot of these outlets wanting to get the most clicks, most views, and a race to be first, which led to, a couple weeks ago, train wreck sports had the red helmets. Error, red helmets. I mean, this was silly. I mean, whether the bills have red helmets or blue helmets or White Helmets, whatever. But you know, breaking news, the bills were not going to have red helmets. And train wreck ran with that, put up a meme, and then 24 hours later, it was wrong, and then they had to roll it back. And, you know, they did the MIA culpa sort of thing, and said, sorry. We apologize. We're going to become more accountable all this stuff. But I think you and I were on Twitter, when we see stuff like that, it's like, oh, that's going to be damaging for everybody who wants an interview with the team, or at least want some credibility, or it's it's not good for the community.

Pat Moran  22:56  
I agree with you 100% there's been a couple instances. One of them, I'm sure we're gonna get into in a second. Some of them are more significant and consequential about being wrong than others. I'll say this just because I know the outlet and I know the people who would put it out there, I do believe in that scenario, there was a source that had, we'll say, a miscommunication, because they are going to wear those helmets. Obviously, we know that now, but without getting too into the weeds, there's another alternative helmet that will be worn for rivalry week that I thought that that's what they anyway. It was a mistake, and it's an inexcusable mistake. You can't make that mistake. And you said it perfect, the biggest thing. And I've done this before. Trust me, I have learned this the hard way, and I'm more than willing to expose myself to teach somebody else a lesson. But it's about being right. It's not about being first. And in part, like you said, it's a competitive market, a race to get those clicks, those views, people to hit that subscribe button to your show or to your video, to like it, leave a comment, all that stuff, and you want to be the one who breaks news and yeah, they were wrong, and they did handle it, I thought adequately, as adequately as you can Do. I guess I feel like they were apologetic, and I do think, I think they'll learn from it, as opposed to, you know, something more significant that was completely inaccurate, where it's just, it's not defendable, I should say, and the trademark sports thing not to say that it is defendable, but it's a big deal, and it matters. And these are the kind of things that make it more difficult for an organization to take people serious who do this because of things like that, but not as big as some other things that have happened.

Matt Cundill  24:53  
I like train wreck. I've spoken with the guys before. I like the shows. I just sometimes think, you know, as a four. Former radio program director, I'd probably go up to the Madison. Was it really worth it over red helmets? Is this what we're breaking?

Pat Moran  25:07  
So I've learned the story about writing first the hard way, and I'll go back. I mean, I'll be brief with this. I don't need to get into every little detail. But many years ago, I talked about having my own blog, Buffalo sports daily. I started it in 2009 and over a couple years, I really built a good following, and I had interviews with Darryl Talley and Eric molds. And, you know, just I was getting some credentials. I was just things were going great, and I did break some news here and there, and I got greedy, and I heard, I can't remember what year was, so I worked really hard to build up a trust and a fan base and a little bit of loyalty amongst readers, because this was only a blog, no podcast at that time. Well, I threw that all away in one day for the same reason about trying to be first set of being right. Sean Merryman got detained at the border, and I heard about it, and I know some of what I have reported was accurate. However, instead of confirming or getting a second source for something that's that big and doing things the right way and fact checking and making sure that everything I'm putting out there is going to be accurate, I knew that somebody at the Buffalo News also knew about it, and I was determined to be first, so I put out something that was partially accurate, but easy to pick apart in plausible deniability, because I wrote, you know, I reported some stuff that just it wasn't right. And long story short, it disgraced me. Abe really did. Shawn Merryman denied it. He did not get arrested at the border. That was common knowledge, and I was screwed, and it really messed me up. And in one report, in one decision, three, four years of building a really good fan base. I took a big chunk of that I threw in the garbage because I wanted to be first on this story. And there were little details that I should have waited on and found out and confirmed that I didn't. And I paid a heavy price. I mean, I got ridiculed, Matt relentless, and it was deserved too. You know what? I mean, I got ripped apart. Media people, people who, you know, I thought were always on my side. It was grave. Read this and that, blah, blah, blah, go on other websites. It was reported nationally. I was getting ripped to shreds, and it was deserved. So when I speak on stuff like this, it comes from experience about being right and not being first, let the people who do that for a living be the ones who do that, because you could be right nine times that 10th time when you're wrong. That's all people are going to talk about. So what I would say, like in the case of train wreck, I'll verify what you said, Was it worth it? Now, was it worth it to be wrong? Some people don't give a crap about the red helmet story, not something, and I understand why. And some people just say, I can't take them serious. I can understand both sides of it. But

Matt Cundill  28:09  
then that moves us to the next one, which was way more critical, I think, and that was number one draft pick, Max Hairston. So for those who are watching Hart knocks, we all saw the play. Max goes down. He hurts his knee, but there was an outlet in Buffalo podcast that ran with he's out for the year ACL. And how do you get there?

Pat Moran  28:29  
I don't know how you get there, because I'll tell you this, I was there. I was at camp. I was right on the track. Joe Dibiase, who's at WGR, was with him. And I'll say this so it was a non contact injury, which typically means somebody tears their Achilles, or they tear their ACL. He was grabbing his knee. He looked emotionally distraught. Going into there was some video out there, had his head down, you know, on the shoulders of a trainer, Christian Bedford, praying for him. A couple bills players are praying for him. They're talking about it like it's, it's the kind of talk that leads to an ACL. And I'm with Joe, like I said, Joe Dibiase from WGR 550 and somebody who is with the team came up and just said, it's a significant injury. I'll say that this before any testing. It's not nothing, basically, they were saying. So it's something. So in terms of the podcast, should we say what the podcast is? I kind of feel like if they're going to put themselves out there and get 300,000 views, it's okay to say, Yeah, circle the wagons. Yeah, circle the wagons. And look, on a personal level, nothing against them. I've listened to them before. I got no issues. I've had no issues with them. I've enjoyed some of their content. They're kind of let's talk about the game. Let's rant a little bit. They have a lane, and they've done a good job. They got a much bigger Twitter following that I have, so they've done a lot of good things. But in this case, I think that. The next afternoon, they decided to jump the gun, take an educated guess and assume that he tore his ACL because I'm sorry, Matt, but I refuse to believe that any source would tell you that, because it was not even remotely accurate. I also found out that the bills knew that night he got hurt on a Tuesday, Tuesday night they knew he did not tear his ACL. They knew that Tuesday before nine o'clock. So if you have a source, that source don't like you very much because they are giving you absolute awful information, and they said that they've had the source, the source has been right before, yada yada yada. You know that whole routine, this comes down to, like, journalistic integrity, and I get it with just blogs or podcasts in some cases, but if you're gonna have an audience, I still feel like there should be some journalistic integrity. I just, I have a hard time believing that a source would tell them something that was that often to make it worse, like I said, going back to years ago with my reporting, how I just the way I worded some things they said is confirmed too. So that, did you confirm this source? I just, I don't understand it, but it was a it was a mess. And Max Harrison himself tweeted that be called it a bald faced lie, but then he deleted the tweet afterwards, but there was nothing about that that was remotely accurate, and I got vocal over it, because those are the things, more than the red helmet thing. Those are the things that give podcasters, in general, a very bad name. We work hard as it is, it is hard enough to be considered credible by the average person. As it is, I can't tell you how many times I'll tell somebody I got a podcast auto listen to podcast, podcast full of crap, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, those are the things that set us all back. So people are like, Well, what do you care? I care because it sets everybody back when stuff like that happens, there's that is not defendable.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  31:53  
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Matt Cundill  32:28  
So a lot of the time when this stuff happens any market, there's always this sort of hand wringing about what's going to happen to this podcast. What happens if you get it wrong? Because I know that if Sal got it wrong, he's out of a job. If Alana getsenberg, she gets it wrong. She's out at ESPN, she's out of a job, and everybody else gets to show up the next day.

Pat Moran  32:47  
Yeah, part of the reason why things like that happen, I could do it. I won't, but I could, if that would have been me. Yeah, I'll get ridiculed, I will get ripped, I will lose followers. I'll lose subscribers. But guess what? I could do a podcast tomorrow if I want what? Am I gonna fire myself? You know what I mean? I'm not going to do that, but you're right. If that's Jay scurvy from the Buffalo News, if that's a TV reporter from Channel Four Seven, they're getting canned. They're gone. You're gone, man, if you're if you're reporting and a source can and you use the word source and confirmed and you're wrong, that's the end of you. So yes, there's consequence for media, as there should be for being wrong like that, and there's not really accountability other than, like I said, I guess, depending on what your definition of accountability is. And I also didn't like the way it was handled afterwards, that got under my skin a lot as well. Well, there's nothing

Matt Cundill  33:39  
you can do except just walk it back and keep apologizing until everybody stops, you know, and forgets about it.

Pat Moran  33:45  
Didn't really do that, though, not in this case. They said it was botched source information, which, again, that kind of triggered me a little bit. Then they had a couple, like comedic gifts of, you know, I'm a dummy, kind of gifts like Happy Gilmore singing into the doorbell or whatever, and then it was just blah, blah, and then they deleted the tweet again. If I'm willing to throw myself under the bus for other people to learn from it, I would like to see these guys take some real accountability and do the same. And I don't have anything personal against them. I'm not competing against them. It got 340,000 views on that tweet map before ultimately it got deleted, which, again, own it, but you said it perfect. If that's Elena, if that's Captain Fitzgerald that sale, they're getting canned. And there's just, there's not accountability or consequence, and it just things like that. Just set the entire thing that we all do. It just sets us all back, and we all lose credibility when things like that happen.

Matt Cundill  34:41  
I'll just give some advice to anybody who is in this business. You're way better off just retweeting these people or sharing their information or making the people who are in legitimate positions make them the source, and then invite them on your show. They're going to want to come on partner with these people. Podcasting is really all about partnering more than anything. You're not going to take down WGR, you're not taking down the Buffalo News and Channel Four, you're not taking any of these people down. And nobody is making better wings than bar bill by the end of today.

Pat Moran  35:15  
I don't know about that, but okay,

Matt Cundill  35:18  
well, we'll talk about the wings in a second, but it's nobody's getting to number one by the end of today, you're better off. You know, the rising tide lifting all boats. And just again, right back to the relationships. You should be forming relationships with people who are close and in the know, they're happy to promote their brands. And you should be promoting their brands as well.

Pat Moran  35:34  
Again, I think they decided, they concluded that it was a way, by being first, to get more followers, and the consequence of backfiring is is just it's way worse. I agree with you 100% Listen, there's been plenty of times I could tell you, and again, it's about learning from your mistakes. And I'm not saying I've never like, I'll be careful too. If like, if something, if I know someone, I'll be like, Hey, I've heard this or that. But I'm not going to use the word source, and I'm certainly not going to use the word confirmed, unless I'm willing to bet my life on it. But I'll tell you, Matt, there has been times where I have learned of things that have gone on with the Buffalo Bills, where I know I'm right and I still I'm not going to put it out there, because if something happens to change and the 13th hour to last second is going to be a bad look for you. So to your point, I would just much rather let someone else do that. I will retweet it, or I'll quote tweet it, and I'll add my own little thought to it, and I will, I'll try to get whoever on the show, or whoever I already have on the show anyway. It'll be a great talking point. I don't need to try to bra. I'm not a news breaker. People aren't tuning I'm pretty sure people aren't tuning in to talking buffalo. Those who do because they want to hear Patrick Moran or a guest break news, or go to my Twitter because I'm going to break news, I don't do that. That's not what I'm expected to do. It's not what I'm supposed to do. So let Adam Schefter do that. Let Jordan Schultz do that. Let Ian Rapoport be those people, even if you notice the local media people, none of them reported on max Harrison. Don't you think there's a reason why nobody, guys who cover the team, women who cover the team, or in the locker room, who know countless players, who have relationships with a lot of players on this team, nobody reported a word about any potential Max Hairston ACL injury. You know why? Because they're smart enough or professional enough to know that that's not really what they're supposed to do.

Matt Cundill  37:25  
What's the dynamic between the local and the national every time I go to Buffalo and I listen to WGR, there's definitely a local feel to it. But then somebody always calls in and starts banging on what they're talking about nationally. Is there still that self esteem issue with Buffalo and the national media?

Pat Moran  37:41  
Maybe to an extent, maybe a little bit. I mean, I think it's widely accepted now that it's the national guys who pretty much break news, I think a lot of fans that like to crap on the local media, they'd be like, Well, why is it always Adam Schefter that's telling me about something with the bills? Why is it not Jay Skir Sal or Joe Biscay or somebody who's there in the building every day they don't know anything. There's always Adam Schefter who finds Well, that's because those agents, like literally, directly leak everything to the national guys. I would say, in today's era of Sports Talk, it's about sensationalism. It's about clicks. And a lot of the national people are easy targets because they say things skip. Bayless pretty much started in Stephen A Smith and all you know, these guys and they just say outlandish things, because they know that WGR is going to talk about it the next day if you say something outrageous about the bills the radio and locally is going to talk about or they're gonna write about it, or they're gonna have podcast conversations about it. I don't know. I mean, maybe I'm not the best person to ask what the local versus national, you know, perception is. I think it's final

Matt Cundill  38:52  
for the most part. But buffalo feels like it's they're so popular now as a team that everybody knows everything about it, and they get talked about every day. Used to be people would just sort of poke in on just sort of

Pat Moran  39:03  
poke in on the team. Yeah, well, that's that way with the sabers. Now, you know, people are making fun of the sabers nationally, and what are you going to do? You know, it's not, there's not a lot of defending it. The bills being good matters. It matters for people like me. It matters for professional journalists. Matters for the fans. Obviously it matters for the relationship between player or media person or media person and fan, the interactions that you see on social media. Give you a perfect example. Today's Curtis Samuels birthday for the Buffalo Bills, and he's been often injured. He's done a little bit, but hasn't done much. And fans, were you going to mention it's pretty respectful. Happy birthday. Hope you get back. Blah, blah, blah, blah, go to a buffalo sabers tweet where it's somebody's birthday. I don't care who it is. I don't care who the player, if it's the players, Lindy Rolf, if it's Kevin Adams, if it's Terry begula, whatever it may be. And watch all hell break loose anytime the sabers are tweeted about or mentioned. You because of all the losing, the animosity between fans and the organization, the fans and some of the media, people like Mike Harrington who cover the team professionally, the bloggers who write about the team, you name it, and then the national outlets that just make fun of the sabers. So I don't know the dynamics a little bit different here with hockey and football.

Matt Cundill  40:23  
I think I'm obliged right now to give a plug to two goalies, one Mike and Dwayne. They're part of our network.

Pat Moran  40:29  
Yeah, I just did a show. I went on their show last week. It was fun.

Matt Cundill  40:33  
They're talking sabers, and they are hanging in and I've never heard more dedicated sabers. People talking about the sabers.

Pat Moran  40:41  
You got to be dedicated to want to talk about the sabers right now, but Dwayne, for better, for worse, Dwayne is a very passionate, you know, sabers fan. You can hear it in his voice. You can hear the frustration a lot of times in his voice. And that's their lane. That's kind of what we were talking about earlier. That's the lane to be in. That's what Dwayne does, I think resonates with fans. If Dwayne started trying to be a news breaker, it's not gonna work. So good dude, though, good show, too.

Matt Cundill  41:11  
So on the other side, interestingly, you got Brandon bean comes back from the draft, and then he has this sort of you know moment where he's on WGR, on the morning show, I hear this sigh, and then he is saying, Why are you guys always banging on me about the receivers, you know? And what is it with WGR and the offense? It's almost like everybody wants to question what Joe Brady does and the offense does, and do we have the right receivers? And I even saw a video where they have a receivers board inside the room. I mean, they're just running with it. It's wild. It feels like therapy.

Pat Moran  41:43  
Jeremy white, the leader, the conductor of the wide receiver train, he was just on, I, I did a live show at a bar a couple weeks ago with Joe Marino, and Jeremy White was on, and we had a fun conversation about that. What's interesting is, so Brandon bean went on WGR, and you know, that immediately became sort of fireworks. Brandon came on WGR again last week, and I talked to Jeremy, I knew what that Brandon beam was coming on. He knew a handful of days and it was going to be kind of a continuation of that. That was the plan. However, sometimes in football, news happens and everything else takes a back seat, and that happened to be the day right after James Cook decided to start having his holding where he's not going to practice. So that's what the conversation was about for that segment, which kind of sucked, because I was really looking forward to that look. I think Brandon being a great general manager by all accounts, a good person too, but I will say he has a reputation of being incredibly over sensitive to some criticism. And the wide receiver thing, well, it wasn't valid much last year because of the everybody hates mantra that was successful. This was the best Buffalo Bills offense statistically in the history of the franchise. And they really didn't have a great wide receiver on this team. And I still don't think they have a great wide receiver on this team. And I think Brandon V might have got some information at Jeremy, and Joe and the WGR crew were a little bit more on the wide receiver train and howling on that two years ago. Think they're a little bit late to the information party, because I was with Jeremy at a draft party, as you know, some of a couple of receivers going off the board, and he wasn't mad at the bills. And take a receiver, and I heard about his next show afterwards, and he talked about, you know, liking what they did about overhauling the defense. I think Brandon, being on that specific day, that particular day with gr kind of had an agenda, and he was, I don't know if he was just trying to have a little bit of fun, make a little bit of noise, kind of get the fans to talk. I don't know what it was, but he kind of had his own agenda that day. Yeah, why receiver training? It's It's been fun. It's been fun. Fans get annoyed with it too, as well. But look, when you're on the air four hours a day, five days a week, I think people kind of get a little triggered by anything. They'll say at some point,

Matt Cundill  44:01  
oh, all I could figure was that Brandon beam came back from Green Bay. That's going to be two flights. That's not going to be easy. It's a Monday. It's right after draft weekend, which is exhausting. And it sounded like he was just exasperated. But I'll tell you, it's great radio. That was fun.

Pat Moran  44:16  
It was fun. Jeremy, you know, he had some fun with it, but I also think he was a little, I think he was a little taken back by it, a little little bit defensive, a little bit defensive at some fans, because, look, Brandon bean brought the fight, so to speak, and some fans, or Bills fans that don't really care about WGR or whatever, they're obviously going to take the GM side and all of it. So yeah, a little little uncomfortable, but to your point, that does definitely make for some some good radio. I'm just mad. I'm mad that James Cook's not practicing as we record this with the bills, but I'm more mad because he ruined what could have been a a really fun interview between Brandon and Jeremy on gr your podcast a little

Matt Cundill  44:57  
bit different, because you're probably. Of the blue wire network. So what's the difference between just having, like, a regular podcast and then being hooked up with blue

Pat Moran  45:05  
wire money?

Matt Cundill  45:10  
But this is, like, money is the number one thing that people talk about in podcasting. How do I monetize my podcast? So share whatever you can about being a podcaster and making money with a network.

Pat Moran  45:19  
Well, I was half joking. I mean, I wasn't fully joking. I do, like, you know, getting some money for the time and the effort that I put in, but I can't speak on other networks I've so the first I've been doing this now for seven and a half years, and I think the first two and a half to three years, I didn't have any network, and I didn't make any money either. Like, literally, I had a local sponsor to throw a couple bucks, mention me on the air, put up a little logo, or whatever. They'll throw you a few bucks. I don't even remember quite how blue wire came calling. I know they got me and Tyler done at the time, right around the same time when I was in Florida. Look, they do everything they'll provide you with. Well, I shouldn't say they'll do everything. They will give you know the platform that you need to stream on, or whatever it is that you upload your stuff. They'll give you those tools. They will promote you throughout. You know their network, their socials. They'll know the website, things like that. In terms of advertising, they do everything they I don't do anything like literally, at least in this specific case. Now I have from time to time, but it's been a while, I'll get an email and I had to do an ad read, you know, because the sponsor wants an ad read done instead of something that's baked into the show. So once in a blue moon, I've had to do some ad reads, but for the most part, right now, for me personally, I can only speak for myself, they handle everything. They handle getting the handle, getting the advertisers, the campaigns paying. I've never had an issue, getting a check every month. And the best part for me personally, is I'm left alone. And I don't say I know that sounds like I'm trying to be funny. I'm not trying to be funny. They literally leave me alone, like there's I've never had an email saying, don't, you know, don't talk about this, or don't do that. Anything I've wanted to do I've been able to do with no issues. I can't suggest other networks for other people, but I will suggest, if you have a following, and you feel like you could get, you know, at least 10,000 or more downloads per month, you might want to hook up with a network. And for me personally, blue wire has been fantastic. Like I said, they leave me alone. I never don't get paid, and it's just very easy. They pretty much do everything. I just do my podcast, I upload it to their server, and pretty much everything else gets taken care of on

Matt Cundill  47:40  
their end, and you have a sub stack, and it is excellent. That's fun.

Pat Moran  47:46  
That's the enjoyment thing that I like doing. I don't write enough. I don't know what happened to me. Matt, there's a case to be made that between doing a podcast and writing out extensive show notes and copy and pasting and putting a sub stack, post every day, up and things like that, that I actually do more writing than if I just said, You know what? I'm gonna write a column. I'm gonna write an observational column. But my sub stack, for me, is just fun. I post on my podcast there, but I also love doing chicken wing reviews. I'll watch a Netflix series. I'll do TV reviews, Christmas movie reviews, just reviews. I like reviewing things. They're fun. And I keep it very rudimentary, you know, so easy to understand, because I'm not really an elaborate type of writer anyway, but that's like my my fun doing a sub stack is just straight up fun for me.

Matt Cundill  48:34  
Yeah, and you've got close to 100 chicken wing reviews, and you've got them all tiered properly. Listen, I don't go to Buffalo enough to be able to compare against others, but I do a lot of reading about, you know what the best ones are, which ones I like and which ones you like. So I'm going to ask you about three. Let's start with bar bill, because I already mentioned it. So you do have bar bill in your top, right at the top. I mean, a lot of people regard it as the best Josh Allen with the Cajun butter, Cajun honey butter flavor. I love bar pill. I really do.

Pat Moran  49:07  
Here's a well, I don't know if it's a fun fact or not. Josh Allen is maybe the best player in football right now. Okay, most popular figure in Buffalo, larger than life, polarizing. Great human being does so many good things. Josh Allen has some of the worst food takes I've ever seen in my life. He is awful with his food takes. I want to put that out there, and I will say this, and then I'll answer about power bill specifically to start out as a joke, I started doing ring reviews when I moved to Florida. I came back to Buffalo at least a handful of times a year for work reasons. And I realized when I lived here growing up that I only went to the same two or three spots. I always got the same wings from the same places. And when I was in Florida, you cannot find a good wing to save your life. It is ridiculously bad. So I would come back and I would start going to new places. Well, new to me. Me, and then I would just write reviews, and I'd start ranking them, comparing them to football teams, things like that. And it got fun, and it still is fun. However, I grew a following on the wing side that I would argue people probably care more about what I say or think about wings and what I see, or think about the Buffalo Bills or sports in general, they cross. So then I started feeling a responsibility, to be honest, because the last thing I take Matt that anybody wants to do is go to a place, try some wings, not like them, and be kind of mean to a place. You don't want to take food off somebody's table there, you know what I mean, or, or, you know, dis a place and tell somebody, yeah, I wouldn't you shouldn't go here. You shouldn't go spend your money. I have a hard time doing that. So I'll try to find another thing about the place that, hey, maybe the wings ain't it, but go here for this food or this vibe or whatever the energy or something to try. So I just wanted to point that out in terms of power bill, they're just consistent. The difference between the good places and the great and then the best places is just consistency. There's so many really good places where you and I could go on Monday, we could have hot wings, and you'll be like, Oh my God, these are incredible. Then we go back a week and a half later and they don't even they're nothing like they were before. They're rubbery, or they're not cooked enough, they're not saucy enough, or they're too saucy. There's just not consistency. Bar Bill, you go to barbell 100 times, whatever you think of them, you're going to feel the same way every single time they kind of paint their sauce on the wings too. And they're hot. Is hot, but it's not it's not punishing hot, but it's hot enough to make you start questioning, do I want another one like you're starting to make? You know, decisions here. You got decisions to make when it comes to their hot wings. I absolutely love them. It's ironically, the Josh Allen wing, the butter Barbie county barbecue, yeah, the Cajun honey barbecue, yeah, yeah. I don't like those as much. Just to regular, traditional medium or hot wings are the bomb man. They're, they're, they're almost perfect. They really, truly are. Love that place, they live up to the hype everything you know you gotta wait. You'd be very lucky to go there and not have to wait for an hour. But I think it's worth it. It's if you come to Western New York and you want a real wing experience, you're not getting it. If barbell is not one of your two or three stops.

Matt Cundill  52:17  
Give me a little insight on a place that I know, you know, and is also in your top tier. And that's sunny reds.

Pat Moran  52:24  
Love sunny reds. It's the kind of the new kid on the block here. So it's in Lackawanna. It's only minutes from Highmark stadium, though, so technically it's Lackawanna, but it's actually about six minutes from Highmark stadium, and it's right on aber road, so anybody can find it if they want. So it's a neighborhood bar. It's open and closed a handful of times through the years. I'm not it was called the press box before. I don't know how long it's been sunny rights now, but they became popular a little bit, or I heard about them, I should say, word of mouth, when I moved in Florida, and I just, I don't know, man, I fell in love with them right away. And they're another one that they're super consistent, and not just their wings. I mean, they got really other brick oven pizza and some chicken tenders that kind of like, are bear battered. It's like a fish fry eating a fish fry. It's really weird. But their wings are big, and their sauce, which their traditional sauce, is actually, it was originally called the ERIC What Eric Wood had something to do with the formation of their sauce. Ah, maybe he didn't. Maybe he just liked him, and he said Apple slapped the Eric wood name on I don't know for sure. They've become a very popular place. And what's really cool is the word of mouth is spread. It used to be a neighborhood place. Now people are coming in from like Kenmore, Tonawanda, other suburbs of Buffalo, and they're hitting that up all the time. I got people. I had the Bulldog from WGR on live with his son, Owen, not too long ago. He's been there like three or four times since we had our show last month. It's like every time somebody goes there, they're discovering it. And it's, it's becoming, it's not bar bill. I mean, bar bill is the most popular place now, bar none by far, but it's becoming a very popular place. I used to feel like it was a well kept secret, but like, The secret's out now, and their wings are fantastic. Lots of different types of wings as well. To choose from a few of the other

Matt Cundill  54:12  
ones that I have tried. I have tried them at mulberry Italian restaurante. You'd never think that this restaurant, which really majors in Italian food would cough up these wings, but they are fantastic there.

Pat Moran  54:24  
You know what's funny, they're very much like Sonny Red's, like, there's a same guy who's in an ownership group. They're not quite the same, but they are similar. So if you do like Mulberry, there's a good chance you're really gonna like Sonny Red's

Matt Cundill  54:35  
the only other two I can speak to is Duff's and Gabriel's gate. Those are the only other two after that. You've just left me with a whole bunch of places to try.

Pat Moran  54:46  
And we, being honest, here, duffs and Gabriel's gate are fine, but I don't really personally consider them among the best wings in Western New York. Duff's at least the Orchard Park location. Man, it's, it's been. It's been like rolling the dice. Now they have a Sheridan drive location that is consistently better, but the one in Orchard Park, where a lot of bills players go to, by the way, because it's not far from the stadium, that just doesn't do it for me. And Gabriel's gate, it's downtown. There's not a lot of, you know, for all the great wing places in Buffalo and Western New York, there's not a lot of great wing spots in downtown Buffalo, Gabriel's gate is far and away the popular choice, and they're good. I just don't consider them, like, great, like, I wouldn't put them in the same category as sunny reds or bar bill or a couple

Matt Cundill  55:34  
others, yeah, and because it was downtown, and I was staying downtown at the time, that's why I chose that one. And both those that we mentioned, Duff's and Gabriel's gate, are on tier four. Everybody else. Sign up for the sub stack. You'll get all everything you need to know.

Pat Moran  55:47  
Well, we didn't talk about the best one. The next time you come to Buffalo, you have to go to 911 tavern. Oh, where is this? It's number one on my list. It's the best. They're the best wings in the world. They're the best traditional wings in the world, and you will hate everything about it until you get the food. It's cash only, so no credit cards, no reservations. You might have to wait in a significantly long line. Pro tip. Go there Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Do not go there Friday or Saturday. You ain't going to sit down and eat. But yeah, no cash. Tiny place, old, rundown. But when those wings come out, they are the best. They are the best wings, and they only have medium or hot. That's it. If you want barbecue, if you want Cajun, honey, butter, whatever, they'll tell you, get out of here. Go somewhere else. It's medium, it's hot, or get out of here. That's their philosophy. Awesome, awesome

Matt Cundill  56:40  
weeks. I now have to change my flight and create additional days, because I'll be, by the way, I'm going to be there week one when the bills play the ravens, possibly a preview to the AFC Championship for this year. But, and of course, I didn't want to bug you too much about hot takes. I think we've sort of exhausted the subject matter of hot takes. But go ahead with a prediction for the year for the Buffalo

Pat Moran  57:00  
Bills. This is a very good football team right now, and they're not without flaws. There's, you know, Ken Trey white, hold up for a full season, Max seriously, got hurt. How far behind does that put him? When will he get on the field? Will he get on the field? So they're not without flaws here. The safety position is pretty iffy to begin with, and it's also a position where they just can't stay healthy. Too many injuries, same guys getting hurt over and over. I like Taylor rap a lot, but you know, it's just he's out a week right now. Well, guess what? He's been out weeks at a time many times. The last two times, the bills have lost in the playoffs elimination games to the chiefs. Taylor rap has missed both those games with an injury. Cole Bishop was hurt last summer, put him behind. He's hurt again, and he's missed over a week now. So you know, they're they're closer tomorrow, Hamlin being a starter again, which I'm obviously not a big fan of. So there's holes on this football team, but the depth on this team, the overall talent, obviously, having the best player in the NFL, or at least one of them, for sure, They're well coached, they know how to win, they're composed, they don't get rattled. This is a team that has every opportunity to finally get out of the AFC it would be if they could stay relatively healthy. There's no reason why this team doesn't win a minimum of 12 games this year.

Matt Cundill  58:21  
I hate asking this question, but kind of have to ask the question, and that's if the bills don't get over the hump. And I think the hump is, get to the Super Bowl, will there be coaching changes? Man,

Pat Moran  58:33  
it's a great question, and it's a fascinating discussion to have, but I would say no, and part of it is Terry begula. Also owns the buffalo sabers, and he has seen firsthand what coaching changes and not having continuity, all that stuff, what it does. He is a Big Sean McDermott guy, and Sean McDermott is, look, I mean, we'll never forget 13 seconds. It's just that you can't coach. You cannot coach worse than that. It's just not possible to have a worse sequence of coaching than that. And we've seen other questionable decisions. But I think Terry begula is, I don't want to say he's content and satisfied necessarily, but it means a lot to him that this team is consistently in the hunt, that they're knocking down the door every year. The fans are so excited they're selling out. Nobody's turning their back on this team. Should there be a coaching change if they can't get over the hump, like if they were to lose in their divisional round again and again City Chiefs this year, if you're asking me, should the bills make a coaching change? I would say, I would highly consider it. Who's going to be that coach, though, who's out there, who's going to be a clear and present upgrade? So you have to answer that. But could they yet? Would I Yes? Will they? I would say, Absolutely not. I think this would have to be a team where the bottom fell off and. Missing the playoffs, maybe even having to miss the playoffs twice before Terry beguille would actually pull the trigger and fire. Sean McDermott, I

Matt Cundill  1:00:07  
just had a flashback. We're in the car. We're leaving arrowhead. I'm sitting there with my Zubaz on and I'm full of rum because we have to wait an hour before leaving. And I had, I just finished off the whole bottle of rum. And first of all, it's half chiefs fans and two bills fans. And they said, maybe you need a coaching change. And I said, and get who, like, you know, who?

Pat Moran  1:00:32  
There's not a lot of great coaches out there. I mean, look, I'm sure there would be some available. And if there is a good coach out there, he'd be completely out of his mind to not want to come to Buffalo. Who wouldn't want to come to Buffalo? And, you know, work with Josh Allen and a lot of other talent that's here. Look, it's a it's a very fair point to make that sometimes a coach will get you to a level, but he's not going to get you over the hump. We saw that in Tampa Bay many years ago with Tony Dungy. He had that team consistently good. They were contenders, but they did not get over the hump. They got Jon Gruden and they won a Super Bowl. So, you know, I mean, it's, it's a very fair point, but again, it comes down to, what would you do versus what will happen? And I just, I do not see a scenario where Sean McDermott is fired by begula. The only scenario I could see that Matt is if Josh Allen, which he's not going to do, and Josh Allen went in Terry beguiller office and says, Look, this isn't working. We got to get rid of this coach. I need a new coach. That is the one thing that possibly could sway Terry begula to pull that trigger. But other than that, I just, I don't see it happening. So

Matt Cundill  1:01:42  
that's an excellent script you just wrote, but that's going to play out in Cincinnati. That's not going to happen in Buffalo.

Pat Moran  1:01:48  
Very likely. Very well, good. I could totally see that happening in Cincinnati.

Matt Cundill  1:01:54  
You've been so generous with your time. Thanks a lot for taking the time talking buffalo

Pat Moran  1:01:57  
today. Appreciate you, man, it's always a good time talking to you. The sound off podcast is written

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  1:02:01  
and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan sirminsky, edited by Taylor McLean, social media by Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com you.