HardyBoy

A lot of these kids start getting recruited at 13 or 14 years old, or even younger at camps and such. You very well might be right it has to do with their environment during their youth...college football programs are a huge part of that. To say college football's direct influence only starts when they walk on a campus is disingenuous. Also, are you sure a lot of these kids really even love football? I imagine a lot actually resent it and feel like they are forced into it because they have the natural talent. You read all the time that you'd be shocked how many pro players don't care at all about winning and losing, so I don't think using the mlb pitcher who just retired at 28 or a player like Aaron Maybin as examples of players feeling like they are forced to do something they don't love is a stretch. Also, look at Andrew Luck or Greg Oden. Players who got injured a lot and the constant rehab and pressure to meet expectations of their physical skill set, which does not define a human being, but sadly with highly talented players that's often all we as fans can see...those guys having significant mental health issues because they just couldn't keep meeting the unrealistic expectations of others. Shoot, look at Michael Phelps...best swimmer ever, and the lack of being viewed as anything other than his physical self caused him a ton of mental health issues. It's extremely not cool to create systems where people are only reinforced for a single aspect of their humanity so they can make billions, particularly when that aspect will be gone for many of these players by max 25 (avg nfl career is maybe 3 years), and 90% of the people that go into the system won't even start at a D1 college, let alone make the nfl.

Didn't the Bills trade up from a pick in the 20s to get up to 12? That's gotta count in the calculation no?

My guess: his primary goal is to learn the game and then go back to the UK and start an American footbal developmental program over there. Mostly, are we sure his ultimate goal is playing? Not saying he isn't trying his absolute hardest to get on the field for a regular season game, but this experience is extremely valuable for him if he wants to coach/start some type of developmental thing in Europe after his playing days are done.

Yeah, no chance bills fans suddenly go quiet though!

Yes, that looks like the most likely thing happening here 🙄 People also do a hell of a lot to get laid, and more to excert power over someone...like rape

He is significantly better than replacement level, and he's still constantly improving so you are likely going to be getting him at value because as his skill continues to improve he's going to continue being more valuable after you sign him. Punter and kicker are positions where if you have something that works, you pay a bit more so you don't need to worry about it for a decade...knock on wood, but those positions deal with far fewer injury risks, so you're more likely to have consistency and stats based on skill within random variance (bojo did get hurt in 2019 iirc, and that impacted his performance down the stretch that year...plus the crazy wind the bills played in basically every game the last half of 2019...mostly sneaking that in to say for the 100th time that that is the reason JA's deep ball accuracy was so bad in 2019).

Yup (edit: aw man, I bolded the high in high drama, but it collapsed the part I bolded, so looks like I'm just agreeing)

Will watch the video later, but Lawrence's pocket awareness concerned me a lot in the national championship game.

Isn't he still going to be super capable of being a sexual preditor when he gets out? Doesn't that type of behavior generally escalate or is there a solid chance he is able to work past it? Also, how many grams of crack equal 14 years exactly? Don't know, but at least until recently it was exactly 100 times less than the same number of years for cocaine. Think we might have some of our priorities mixed up somehow...and I'm usually very much on the rehabilitate over incarcerate side, but dude is attacking weak old ladies and raping them...aside from feeling the need for control over someone to that extent, that he is either not able to stop the drive to do that, or does not have the empathy to not do that is really scary because I have to imagine that type of stuff escalates over time.

I don't know that it could though. If you guys can get the list of just very good hofers to 20 players, you're still looking at only around 5% of the hall of fame. Also, some of those aren't recent inductees right (I understand recent is relative, and much respect if you are talking about the first 20 years or so of hall of fame and it changing after that)?

Was the hall of fame around from the very beginning? My guess is there was a backlog of only the best of the best to get through for a bit. Also, do you have some examples of more than a handful of players that aren't the best of the best recently who have gotten in?

Well, in that case that should be reviewable and reversed.

Yes it is...he absolutely impacted his momentum out of the break. It didn't look like much maybe, but he both slowed down his shoulder turn and grabbed the inside of his hip as he was trying to accelerate. Playing soccer, if I could get my wrist on someone's hip running side by side I could win everytime. You super rarely get called for it, but you have so much control over someone if you know where to apply very not obvious amounts of force. When you've been flat beat and you very obviously reach out for those spots like the chiefs player did there it's a foul. Basically chief's dude wasn't playing dirty or cheap by any means, but he tried to use gamesmanship in a situation where he was flat beat...not like it was a 50/50 break and both he and Evans were handfighting...Evans torched him and dude tried to keep it sneaky, but real tough with that much separation.

I dunno, Allen's stated goal is to get paid like Mahommes. You don't get paid like that by playing like Dilfer. Now, Allen being an mvp candidate surely helps the team, these aren't mutually exclusive, but Allen wants to be the best qb ever and a hall of famer period, no different from Rodgers. Would Allen trade some individual stats for championships, yes, I believe he is a very team driven player, but he wants to win while playing in a way that most helps the team win. If the coaches stopped using him in a way that he feels that is happening, especially if they take the ball out of his hands and go super run heavy, you would absolutely have a Diggs with the Vikings type situation. This coaching staff listens though and encourages players to give constructive input and use it as an opportunity to teach. Anyway, Rodgers is the same, he's just more honest about it, and in a place in his career where he can get away with saying it.

Haha, that's true, the contents left a bit to be desired for sure. I know it's a balancing act, and it's not me wanting quick twitter like threads. I like long form articles and will read through pages of a thread to get caught up, it's just that a really long general thread isn't something I'm going to click on and do that with...also my threshold seems to be about four pages to get into a thread, unless it's a thread where it's more of an informational thread and I can jump to the end to get caught up on latest news. Again, I get it's a balancing act and I think we largely do a really nice job of it here. I get the other side of it, where people are having a discussion and don't want everyone going to 10 different places to have that discussion and suddenly nobody is in the main thread anymore.

Except I'm not looking through any of those super general long threads that I haven't been engaged with from the start...I'm looking in a smaller very specific thread that caught my attention...guessing I'm not alone.

The current version of madden is not close to simulation football.

Uh, I think you're missing the part where he has never played in an afc champ game, which is why the "finally" is the wrong term...

I wouldn't be surprised if Daboll pulled out himself. Basically, the reports that he was the front runner came out, that made it much more real, he slept on it and decided it didn't feel right. Hopefully Dorsey can be patient and they give him a big raise and keep grooming him, because him leaving this year would almost be worse than Daboll leaving for the long term. I think he's seen close up what an involved, but not meddling owner open to a rebuild, a gm who is exactly on the same page and a perfect fit personality type wise and a really solid fanbase can do (yeah we can be negative as fans, but not really...we want to tinker and think we know better, but just because we care. It's part of what makes us such an awesome fanbase...that we can recognize the oline in a store by name). The chargers for sure do not have the owner or fans, and who knows on the gm...yeah they played together in high school, but I've played sports with plenty of people who I would not want to work that closely with, or them with me, and they might be a super close friend, just not a good match to work with in a crazy high pressure environment. No idea if that's the case, but Daboll is looking to win super bowls as a head coach, at least he damn better be with his resume, and that takes those three things being in place...just like a good foundation is needed to develop a player, it's needed to develop a coach, team and culture.

So glad people agree on this...honestly thought I was the only one...the power of the internet to unify on clear display!

Have the Bills proven they can win with a roster that includes a franchise qb's salary this year? Brown was out much of the end of the season, so they had a legit #1, a legit slot receiver, some money in the oline and then mostly players on rookie deals everywhere else. I know there is money spent on the defense and they have come up huge in key spots, but that's a middle of the road defense this year (did see they were third in the league in takeaways,which sort of surprised me, and does make a little concern for future regression). There are a lot of contributors on this team that are not making a ton of money...granted most drafts don't have a pretty legit #2 guy sitting there in the 4th round at wr, but they've drafted incredibly well for value and impact. So anyway, I am really hopeful that the bills are already showing us they can build a roster with a top qb salary added, though it will require injury luck, because with this roster, the backups are the people I'm talking about contributing post injuries, where in the future they are going to be the starters and perhaps the backups will look more like the backups from 2018.

The tweezer reprise intro for the falcons in the super bowl was so cool. It's such a regular thing now that my wife just started saying "yes I heard it" before I even ask at this point.

It would make sense if they had the super bowl, but I thought cbs had it.

It's a dumb take, but to be fair I'm pretty sure they go around in their production meetings and decide who's going to give what take. I don't think they make them say anything, but they probably encourage all points of view to get discussed. I mean that's why I listen to the Dan Le Batard show instead, because they parody these overly planned non-genuine radio/tv gas bag shows, but that's what you're getting on those shows.

Nice, thanks I'll definitely check this out! Super curious what he says about his growth compared to the last video he did on JA after the first dolphins game.