WhitewalkerInPhilly

F5 is currently ground up and in the freezer. Not shocked, but it's a little sad to see him go.

I mean, it's fine for me if they do it, but it puts them $3.5M over the cap. They can make cuts to fit, and pay their rookies, but they weren't terribly deep anywhere last year.

Ok, so is there any actual new information or news, or are we just still spinning our wheels waiting?

Honestly? Yeah. I love me some Aaron Williams, but A) He's better when he can fly around the field rather than be a box safety, B) Williams might not make it the entire season with his injuries and... C) Rex liked to play the Big Nickel with the Jets, where he swapped a LB for a S. He really couldn't do that last year with our safety group so dinged. Is there anyone I'm our safety group besides Williams and Graham who particularly inspire confidence?

Quinn has written for three different websites I know of: Queen City sports section, Billsmafia/Fambase and now Building the herd. He keeps being the best writer wherever he goes.

I said it before, I'll say it again: look at what happened to Manning. Starting at where Brady is now age wise, a Hall of Fame QB went from being a powerhouse to being borderline unwatchable within Superbowl 48 and Superbowl 50.

That's what I get for listening to Vic I guess...

I'm still waiting for Gleason to say anything mature.

Yes, it's getting booed that motivates him to win it all. Not the fame, or the millions of dollars, or the record books, but if you boo him, watch out. For serious though, his window is closing. Remember, he's only a year and a half younger than Manning. Two years ago Manning was coming off one of his most prolific seasons. The next year, he fell off a cliff in the postseason. This year, he was painful to watch. It really happened that fast.

Yeah. I've heard so many "the sky is falling" responses that it's confusing to me. Yes, some hard choices will have to be made, but I'm not stressing too much.

They did replace them already. Fred with Karlos and a tackling dummy for Cassel.

Doesn't shock me. If they put the bottle in someone's hand, that would be aggravated assault, and I can see that being the sticking point.

But how will the Bills move on without their veteran presences to stabilize them? #Going Rogue But seriously, this is a good sign. With carry over, we're pretty much at the cap with a number of easy calls to make. According to Spotrac, we're $909K over with our top 51 with the rollover cap before we draft. I'm going to suggest two cuts that I don't think will blow anyone away, or would seem incredibly difficult to fill on a third day draft pick or waiver wire pickup: Urbik (backup guard) Carpenter (can't hit the new extra points) That puts the Bills $1.25M over the cap after the draft. That's before even needing to debate if you want McKelvin, Graham or Lawson back, but at a lower number and you might want to restructure. That's before rolling in up to I think $7.5M if we choose to turn Clays roster bonus to a signing bonus. That's before seeing how much a pay cut Mario is willing to take. That's before we possibly sign Gilmore up long term for Talib or Byron Maxwell money, which could knock off a few million. I think Whaley has room to work.

I will say that the mayor's office has gone silence since the early days where it looked like an arrest was imminent. To me, just looking at everything, the reason why the DA hasn't filed any charges is because even if he won, he'd look bad doing so. I can't imagine any case which he could win without putting the two off duty officers on the stand, under oath. And then, at that point, things such as "how much were you drinking that night?", "did you drive under the influence before or after this event occured?", "Did you put one of the defendants into a choke hold? What's is your entire history of police brutality or excessive force complaints." And "why weren't you charged for any of the things you've been forced to admit to under oath" become fair game. No one in the city gov, not the DA, not the PPD, not the FOP want those questions asked or answered.

If he's willing to take a paycut, I don't see how we don't keep him, and I think that if the Bills were sure they didn't want him he would be gone already. Thats one fewer hole to fill in the draft.

Philly radio (at least Innes on 94.1) is raking Shady over the coals. They are really pissed that they cancel the meeting. In fairness, I would much prefer that he had just gone in, waded past some cameras and made a deal.

Especially because I looked up Disorderly Conduct, and that's probably a slam dunk. Even if Shady started off in self defense, that's not a terribly hard charge to prove.

Probably to talk about a plea. If they make an offer to some thing minor, maybe plead it down to Disorderly Conduct, a class three misdemeanor with minimal sentence, it let's Shady move on and save a bundle on legal fees and the DA gets a pound of flesh.

From what I've heard from bouncers, it doesn't matter. Once fights start to break out they can shut down an evening, and they usually don't spend much time differentiating.

Here's the part I found most interesting:

To be fair, Shady is not a shiny beacon of model behavior. There's been a pattern of being a little, well, Shady: lousy tipping, an incident with a woman on a party bus, and forays at being a raconteur (the females only party). But there is a bit of a difference between "kind of a douche" and "repeat criminal offender".

Definitely not for the kind of money he got.

He's referring to the Shady "Ladies only" party which people slammed him over last offseason. I've seen people use that to try to justify Shady's apparent guilt.

I think this is the real reason for the holdup. Shady almost assuredly threw a punch, but it sounds like the further we go, the further we get into "he said she said". With a high profile case I'm not at all shocked that the DA is taking his time.

"Tank" is a nickname for Hollis Thomas, who's been a contributor for Philly sports station 94.1, WIP for at least as long as I can remember since I moved out here about four years ago. Since then, he's been moved up to a full time part on the Josh Innes show, which is their powerhouse 2-6 home commute block. He has a rep, albeit a joking one, of being a fine conniseur of Philly nightlife, bars and strip clubs, so when the bar fight went dowm, it seemed that he started reaching out to friends and aquaintances to see if they knew what happened. Again, this is far from solid witnesses in court, but hopefully this is the context you were looking for.