Thurman#1

Yeah. McKenzie is really athletic, and he's really dangerous. But he doesn't seem to have good instincts as a kick returner. I can't speak for anyone else, but I was happy in this game to see one of our heady safeties dealing with the kicks in that wind rather than McKenzie.

Yeah, good question. McDermott sends messages, even in public, all the time. This is one of the harshest he's ever sent publicly, IMO. But when it comes to NFL-speak, it just isn't much. I mean, McKenzie fumbled that without being touched. There was good reason for anger.

No, he really has not lost faith and trust in the process. What he did was he became angry. Your word, frustration, would also certainly be a fair one. That is about a level four of ten on a scale of response to bad events, with losing faith in the process being around a nine and a half with suicide being a ten. That's his foundation. He certainly has not lost it. He has become angry. Not blinded ... though where you come up with this is completely unapparent. Jeez the boards go nuts after bad games. And this certainly was an awful game.

As usual you're far beyond wrong into clueless and buried so deep into confirmation bias and wildly extreme pessimism as to be completely lost. Belichick is as much dealing with everyone's feelings and headspace as any other coach. So that's utter crap. He doesn't avoid that area. He simply deals with it differently. Every coach who deals with human beings deals with headspace and feelings. Being kind doesn't mean that McDermott needs to force himself to spend twelve hours a day asking everyone about their emotions and what their favorite Air Supply song is. Nor does Belichick avoid personal speech with his players. Everyone who's worked for Belichicks says he knows the names of their kids and spouses, that he fairly often asks about them and their families. You can be tough as hell and still have a human side. Autocrats and nice guys deal alike with time limits. McDermott certainly deals with his players more respectfully. Doesn't mean he allows people to waste his time. Plenty of nice guys have a terrific knowledge of x's and o's as well. Belichick is the best, arguably. There is zero evidence that's because he's an #######. Arians is a perfect example that a guy doesn't have to be an autocrat to be a very very successful head coach. Coughlin decided he couldn't keep the team as a martinet and mellowed out and that decision won him two Super Bowls and the ability to stay with one franchise for a period that felt like forever. And there are plenty more like them, like Harbaugh, Tomlin, and frankly McDermott though I'm sure he would agree he has a lot more to prove. And really? You're trying to use the Bills over the last 40 years as evidence on McDermott? McDermott, who's been here for just over 10% of that time? Good lord! You aren't aware that makes zero sense, like none? The Bills certainly are inconsistent this year. Much less so last year. In fact there's not much evidence of your whole thesis, mostly because it isn't anywhere near black and white. Where does McDermott fall on the scale of martinet to ball of jelly? 76%? Belichick? Everyone's a mix of these qualities, but even without any specific research it's easily observable that plenty of players coaches have done extremely well over the years in the modern era. Fair enough to note that some coaches become great in their second job, Belichick, Carroll and plenty of others included. Of course plenty do terrific in their first job. And plenty are probably terrible in their first job largely because the players on the roster at their first team suck and they luck into a Brady at your second job, as did both Belichick and Arians.

"Some players obviously didn't put in the work last offseason." That is utter nonsense, a flat-out guess with nothing behind it but that you appear to want it to be so. As for fear being the "most successful form of leadership in football," it's probably true historically. But the last 20 to 30 years there's no particular reason to think so. Belichick probably skews the numbers but he doesn't win because he creates fear. He wins because he's an absolutely sensational x's and o's guy, a terrific football mind, a constant innovator and ahead of the curve in coaching in every significant way. Including cheating by the way, but certainly not limited to it. Not to mention having selected Brady. Mac is no Brady. As society has changed, so has football. Plenty of less fear-based guys have had excellent success the past few decades.

The coaching staff wasn't great. Could've been improved. But it was mostly the mistakes, execution, penalties.

Pretty much any time someone asks that question, "Can it get any worse?" the answer is yes. Really, that's my observation. Every single time the answer is that it absolutely can get much much worse. Certainly true in this case. As evidence I will point to the fact that our record is 7-5. It Is not 0-12. Yes, it can get spectacularly worse. This is not a good idea. And while the play-calling could be improved ... it was not the problem yesterday. Execution was.

Insulting? It's a question. They could've calmly said no and explained what they thought. I think Sully has an argument there though if he'd come right out and said it. That was not an awful game against the run, but it sure wasn't anywhere near good. At some point they had to know they weren't throwing. But even with only three passes thrown we couldn't consistently stop the run. Reasonable question. Hey, the offense deserves its share of the blame as well. Very true. Doesn't mean the D played well, though.

Morse, Oliver, Rousseau, Brown and Zimmer to name a few. No, they haven't put together a great unit, but the lines got us to the championship game last year. Yeah, they need improvement. But you'd be crazy not to trust Beane.

Thank goodness you posted this. It came at just the right moment. The Texans are my second team and until you said this I was starting to get a bit worried about Davis Mills.

The casuals go to Super Bowl parties anyway. The teams don't matter, it's the occasion. And the small extra $$$ they gained by doing this are vastly dwarfed by the year-on-year-on-year profits they would be risking. It simply does not make sense.

Be afraid of the Bills not playing well enough. If we loses, that'll be why. They are extremely, wildly far-fetched. You're saying it's not far-fetched for the NFL to risk it's multi-billion dollar industry for like a ten or twenty percent bump in ratings? If that? Ratings are huge on the SB no matter who plays. Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs! It would be absolutely nuts to even think about it. What the owners want is stability over the decades. This would be a pretty sure way to avoid that for a miniscule possible gain.

Nah. It's of legit interest. He's got a source. It's completely reasonable. If he thought the source was good, there isn't a reporter around who wouldn't go with that story. And for good reason. If you want to say some of what the Bucs appear to be doing may be chickenshit, I won't argue, certainly until we get a better sense of how the deliberations turn out anyway.

A mauling can't be determined only by yards. The defense absolutely had a horrible game against Tennessee. There are no reasonable justifications. Same with the Colts. Yes, the D got their butts kicked. And I'd argue that the narrative on the Bills isn't that they've been proven soft. It's that it's a legit question to ask if they can be shown soft by a tough team with a real run game. Especially in games when the Bills offense doesn't score a lot, leaving opponents feeling they can take their time and run as much as they like. The weather hurts our offense more than any other unit on the field today if it's bad. Nobody's assuming we're afraid. But we're absolutely on alert and know we'll have to give our best effort.

Yeah, if the league were actually considering expanding to 40 teams and a source you trusted told you that, it would be the same type of report. Since they're not considering it, and I don't think a trusted source told him that, no, not the same at all.

????? One that reports on what is happening? The kind you write when a league source tells you something is happening? The kind in which words are used? Yeah, if the league were actually considering expanding to 40 teams and a source you trusted told you that, it would be the same type of report. Since they're not considering it, and I don't think a trusted source told him that, no, not the same at all. I'd cut him without any lengthy consideration. Particularly with Arians immuno-compromised. He'd be gone even knowing it would hurt my chances to repeat.

He also said it was never a passing league. So what can you expect? It is absolutely a passing league, but as usual it's cyclical and right now running is getting a bit of an awakening at least. Still a passing league, but as Ds more and more use nickel and dime and thus the D gets faster but lighter we're seeing run frequency increase. It won't get anywhere near 50%, but expect offenses to do their best to punish the light Ds that have mostly taken over. What we need is an improvement on the OL. I have little doubt we'll see Beane working on that during the offseason.

I don't think so. You could see he was a good system QB, a good game manager. You couldn't see greatness for four or five years.

I don't think the media has "already crowned him a franchise QB." Not at all. More that they're comparing him to Brady in his first few years, when he needed to be schemed around and have the system help him. The comparisons are more to Brady before he became a franchise QB. IMO they're more talking about how well the Pats are playing as a team, how well they are putting Jones in places where he can be helped while still limiting what they expect him to do, and how his limitations are not yet holding him back much. And I certainly disagree that he came in at his ceiling. He's been improving every week. They're expanding what they game plan for him as he gets better and learns. Is his ceiling lower than guys like Allen? Absolutely. But is he at his ceiling? No. Nor was Mayfield at his ceiling his first year. His INT percentage, for one thing, has consistently dropped. He's gotten better. Thank goodness the team is having some kind of drama every week. I haven't figured it out, maybe Mayfield is one of the main causes, but I'm not convinced of that yet.

Nope, that's not the question. No more than to be rich or poor is the question. It's way more complicated than that. Rich is better, right? Except if it means spending your whole life getting money and dying unloved and unlaughing. The system is way more complicated. Pretending it's an easy simple question is only one more way to deceive yourself All things being equal, sure you'd rather have a good running back than a not so good running back. Duh. Thing is, that's also true at every position. It's better to have a good DE than a not so good DE, a good punter than a not so good punter, a good long snapper than a not so good one. you don't have unlimited money to make it happen at every position. Nor unlimited draft picks. The actual question is this: Is it worth the compromises at other positions, the resources you will have to give up, the high draft pick you will have to use which will prevent you from selecting a pass rusher instead or a cornerback or whatever. Is it worth the probably $6 -$8M it'll cost you to bring in an FA RB who's good. Is it worth what you have to give up. Is it worth giving up what you have to give up to upgrade your RB from not so good to good? Oh, and Victory Formation is right above to say that Singletary is probably good right now, and actually he's excellent at pass blocking, a wildly important RB responsibility in our scheme. And while there are certainly exceptions, RB is one of the positions it's generally better to skimp on. The top eight RBs, all receiving $12M or more are McCaffrey, Elliott, Kamara, Cook, Henry, Nick Chubb, Joe Mixon and Aaron Jones. See any Super Bowl champs there? Great RBs behind poor OLs aren't generally that productive. Whereas average RBs behind good OLs can be very productive, and the OL is important on every play, the good RB not so much so.

The soccer players who were mostly unsymptomatic or had mild symptoms? When the new variant was developed precisely in a country with very low vaccination rates, which are said to be the most likely facilitator in the development of new variants? Yup. I certainly can blame them. I can't understand those who don't.

Of course. The guy's excellent. Some people don't like his voice, but whatever. Fair enough to have a personal preference but Collinsworth consistently comes in second behind Romo in the surveys. He's simply good.

A dome would cost in the area of $2B extra. Ain't happening.

Daniel Jones' bad performance might've had something to do with the fact it's mostly Cody Fords and Bobby Harts in front of him. I think he's got a chance to be pretty good.

Nope. The reason players do this is because it's nearly always the right move. And who says he'd have been the long term backup here. Pure guesswork. Go with the team that wants you more.