Thurman#1

They handled him poorly. No question about it. I still don't think he would have ever made it or will make it. But they handled the whole thing poorly. IMHO the problem wasn't that they benched him but that they started him in the first place. He wasn't ready. Should've developed him and worked (and worked and worked) on his mechanics and fundamentals. He was a smart guy and a hard worker. But with problems in his mechanics. Sit guys like that and keep them working on those issues till they're deep in muscle memory. Looks now like he's never going to be starter-caliber, but there's a small chance that with good development he might've.

The person with higher status at the company tends to get the the blame, and rightly so. Yeah, cold climates don't have beautiful women. That's why NYC doesn't have ... um, never mind. It ain't the weather, dude. Go visit Scandinavia if you don't believe me. It's a matter of population and whether young people go there for opportunity and especially for opportunity in fields like acting, modelling, etc. And the women I talk to say the same is true for guys, by the way.

I disagree strongly that Beane has been questionable on offensive player evals. He just hasn't addressed many resources towards the offense. Hasn't had a chance, really, since he became GM in May 2017 after the draft and after most of FA was over. But the guys he has picked up have been OK, particularly for the money he paid them. Kelvin Benjamin was a terrific pickup who looks to be a very good one over a lot of years for the Bills. Travaris Cadet was a good pickup for how little he was paid. Deonte Thompson was paid extremely little and gave them probably more than they paid for. The one decision approaching a major problem he had was trading for Jordan Matthews, and Matthews' ineffectiveness appears to have been as a result of an injury being more serious than the doctors had found, nor was he all that expensive, either. The Bills paid $1.04 mill for him last year against the cap. Where are Beane's massive misses on offense, the guys he paid big money for and got nothing? He's evaluated offensive players just fine as far as we know. He just didn't really address the offense last year in late FA and late trades, which were the only guys on offense he was able to bring in after May. Guys who we have seen play, anyway. We'll start to be able to judge him on offense probably during the 2019 season. That's what happens when you promise the owner that you're going to put the previously horrible cap situation to rights by 2018. You don't get to pick up all the guys you would have maybe liked to.

No. "It became clear the Steelers wanted to pay the position,not the player." - Bell's agent http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/24114399/leveon-bell-pittsburgh-steelers-fail-reach-long-term-deal-ahead-franchise-tag-deadline And that's what smart teams do for RBs. Great player but he will be too expensive. What about a WR making over 14 million per year and averagign 8.2 and 7.7 yards per reception over the last two years and 8.5 for his career. Bell is a very valuable RB. But he's an RB.

https://wgr550.radio.com/media/audio-channel/07-12-schopp-bulldog-hour-3 (around 25:00) Ah, no, you guys were right. It's a continuous bet, $200 every year. So yeah, the key quote is "in the life of the bet," and how long that lasted. Yes, having listened to the program just now, that's what he meant, Super Bowl or Stanley Cup.

I doubt he will get the same offer every year. "... if the football and hockey seasons both end ..." Right? "... the ... both ..." That means two seasons. Not four or six or eight or more. He means this year only, doesn't he? I wouldn't take that bet. Why throw away the $200?

Yes. Or no.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/07/12/lesean-mccoy-allegations-home-invasion-domestic-violence-what-we-know "Everything We Know About the Allegations Against LeSean McCoy," by Jenny Vrentas

Fair enough. Let me rephrase. I was amazed to find that he actually was on a roster last year.

I was fascinated to find just now, that he was still in the league. Wow.

Yup. And also totally consistent with a man struggling to put on a glove. I had never seen the video before and was interested enough to go back right now and watch the video. Not buying this argument, or the other argument above that you can see he held his fingers in a difficult position. I'm willing to listen to other arguments. But there's nothing to indicate he faked it. It really did look like the gloves were just too small, which is why the demonstration was so convincing to the jury and the country. Again, I tend to believe he was guilty, but there are a million reasonable arguments on both sides.

DNA didn't prove he was there. DNA proved his blood was there, but we have evidence that the cop brought his blood to the scene in a test tube. Very weird. The basics of the case is that none of the evidence made absolute proof. Either way. I still don't know, though I lean towards guilty. I was so happy to miss most of the trial, as I was already living in Japan at that time and this was no news at all here. I don't see a connection to the McCoy case here, a ridiculous connection of the OP.

Heh heh. Yeah, good point.

The entire background. Making decisions before you know much ... and being proud of it ... is solid evidence of problems in your decision-making methods. The legality of her being there, for one thing. What Shady originally promised her, for another. What she told and asked him for a third. What legal recourse Shady has been taking for yet another. And more. What else do we need to know? A lot.

Nah. It's just that the amount of coverage has multiplied by a factor of ... what? 100? 1000? And since 90% of pretty much absolutely everything is going to be crap and mediocrity, you get a ton more crap out there than ever before. You also get a lot of excellent journalism. But it's buried in the vast tsunamis of crap. Same with everything, really. Remember when you used to be able to go see a pretty good movie each week? Now? Crap crap crap. Still good stuff out there but you have to search and search through the gigantic piles of stuff that strives for adequacy and mostly comes close but fails to get there. It's what happens when everyone wants good coverage but not to pay for it. and everyone has access to platforms and dreams of fame.

Rosen should not be equated with those other guys. Nor Watkins (a salary cap and draft capital move if there ever was one). Probably Cutler besides, a guy whose career was ended by inconsistency rather than immaturity. Having said that, yeah, I like that they're building around character guys. Get enough of them and your locker room becomes a place where people work harder and get better.

Sometimes the story involves the writer. This one did. When it does, it's OK to report it. A war correspondent doesn't have to leave it out of the story if he gets shot in the leg, for instance. The Shady at the TV studio story is obviously a much less serious incident than my hypothetical there, but the point is the same. When the story overtakes the reporter and he becomes involved, there's nothing wrong with writing about that. I know, kinda funny. But in the OP this is presented as the conclusion, where in the story it's just somewhere in the middle as an interesting / funny note in paragraph 11 of 20.. Fair enough to think it's irrelevant. To me, though, it helps paint a picture.

The reporter was admitting that what he said ... tipping badly ... was frivolous. He wasn't accusing Shady of being frivolous by tipping badly.

Yeah, there were plenty of guys I didn't want playing for the Bills. Hobert was not a bad player, but was the only one I ever really despised. Too lazy to bother studying the playbook.

Great. Love it!!! Thanks for posting.

Oh, yeah, one day. My guess is it'll be when Brady retires or is injured. Won't be that long, is my guess. But outside of a serious Brady injury, this is highly unlikely to be the year. Fair enough .... ... as long as nobody with a positive outlook will pee on my Wheaties with their positive opinions. You folks will keep totally silent when anyone say something realistic, won't you? No? Well, then expect disagreement from the realists. This is a discussion board. One thing those two teams had in common ... their new young quarterbacks were both in their SECOND years, not their rookies seasons. That's pretty huge.

If you really think so, read this: https://buffalonews.com/2015/11/21/torell-troup-one-pick-ahead-of-gronk/ In no way was he anywhere near the worst. And it was his devotion to duty and to doing his best that led to the injury. Excerpt: "Through the 2011 lockout, Troup trained with a vengeance. He reported to training camp at a chiseled 319 pounds, eager to break out. Practices began at St. John Fisher and the kid who had 23 tackles and no sacks the year prior was dominant for stretches. “Honestly, I was killing the offensive line,” Troup said. “Eric Wood, I’m good friends with him, but they couldn’t handle me.” One day in the lunchroom, head coach Chan Gailey and General Manager Buddy Nix couldn’t contain their excitement. The two asked Troup to sit down with them and told this bull in a china shop they had no clue what he did over the offseason, but, wow, were they ecstatic to see this all transfer to game day. Their words added more fuel to Troup’s fire. His tear continued. Teammates today still remember Troup’s raw strength. “Low center of gravity,” guard Kraig Urbik said. “Super strong. Legs were very thick. Strong dude – he was tough to move for sure.” “He was a strong dude,” Wood said. “Big, powerful guy,” added veteran Kyle Williams. “He’s probably not your pass rusher, but a guy who could stack things up at the line and make plays at the line of scrimmage and do some good things there.” Reached by phone, Nix instantly remembers this camp well. “Those big guys are hard to find! Especially him,” Nix said. “He had some movement ability and was really a strong anchor guy.” As Nix recalls, the Bills were shifting to a 3-4 scheme when they took Troup and needed a nose to take on double teams. He doesn’t remember teams being scared off by Gronkowski’s injury history, but the Arizona tight end was the one with the shoddy Carfax report. Back surgery sidelined him his entire final season at Arizona. Troup? He missed a few games due to a knee scope as a freshman but was healthy in totaling 52 tackles (12.5 for loss) as a junior and 35 tackles (five for loss) as a senior. Then, without warning, his world started to crumble down. In a one-on-one pass rushing drill against Wood, Troup used a head bob to freeze the center. He smacked Wood with his right arm and Troup’s hand snapped, breaking the bone underneath his right knuckle. Initially, Troup thought he jammed the finger. By the time he reached the trainers he said his hand looked like a baseball glove. Troup missed one week of practice, wrapped the paw in a club and was prepared to punctuate his knockout summer in the preseason finale against Detroit. To this day, he cannot pinpoint the play, the moment, but during this game he fractured his lower back. “I played all through the game doped up,” he said, “so I couldn’t feel it.” On Wednesday, it felt like he pulled both hamstrings. He received an epidural. Tests later revealed the fracture. A disc in his back was slipping and pushing against nerves, causing burning and numbness down his legs. Troup sat out the first three weeks of the season and returned. “It’s easy to look back now and say, ‘I should have sat my ass down,’ ” Troup said. “But I was young. I was stupid. And it cost me my career.” ‘They wanted me to play’ In New England, there was a revolution. Gronkowski became Tom Brady’s No. 1 target, torching secondaries for 1,327 yards and 17 touchdowns en route to the Super Bowl. Back in Buffalo, there was only misery. Pain. Buffalo’s 5-2 start bled to a 6-10 finish as Troup eked by day to day. Teammates told him to stop playing. Coaches, he said, instructed him to play. His routine was simple. Pain pills for practice: Troup took usually took 7.5 or 9.5 mg of Percocet or a different medication. Toradol for game day: He used this magic potion to completely numb his body in the trenches. Despite serious side effects, players have treated this drug like Popeye’s spinach since the mid-1990s. Misuse can lead to kidney failure, liver damage and gastrointestinal bleeding. In a recent lawsuit, former NFL players claimed Toradol’s blood-thinning effects also worsen the effects of concussions. But Troup needed to play. He took the 1.5-inch, 22-gauge needle injection and suited up for six games. In addition to this, he took muscle relaxers. “They doped me up so much I couldn’t feel anything,” Troup said. “Now that I look back at it, I don’t really understand why I played. We weren’t having a great season. But like I said, if somebody told me to play … I didn’t know better. If somebody told me to play with my head cracked, I would’ve played.”

It wasn't fans on boards saying this. "The game plan was to make [Tyrod] a quarterback," is what the Ravens said after holding the Bills offense to seven points in 2016. And we heard it from several other teams. It may be a cliche at this point, but so is "Look both ways before you cross the street." Some cliches are cliches because they're dead on target. And this is one Oh, and find us somewhere where teams said they wanted to make Aaron Rodgers be a quarterback. Please. They may try strategies like trying to keep Rodgers in the pocket, but making Aaron Rodgers a QB is not something you'll hear a team claim was their game plan. Oh, and that's more nonsense about Belichick. His defensive and offensive schemes are both complicated and multi-faceted. It's why they make a point of bringing in guys who are football smart. They have to be. Agreed that having Brady is huge but their defense has been a major part of their success over the years and a lot of that is scheme over talent. And you may have something there in your last paragraph about throwing guys open. After all, if your first read is Deonte Thompson covered by Jalen Ramsey, you're likely doing a poor job figuring out what reads to make.

Not even close to first. We hear it every year all through the off-season. And the first was a month or two ago from some other benign nut. Every year the Pats are over and the Bills have arrived till the season starts. But it is indeed more than confidence. It's well past that into wackiness.

Glad he's gone. Not surprised he looks amazing. This is the season of "He looks amazing." And having said that, the absolute best of luck to Tyrod. He gave us his best.