Thurman#1

I'm with you. Unless Josh really has some kind of physical regression and just can't do the things he can do now, we'll be competitive every year. He's that good. I hear you. Fair enough. But Beane is much better than Miami's GM all those years. And me personally, I'm perfectly capable of enjoying the hell out of this season while speculating about the future at the same time.

Well, I don't know if it's been studied. But my guess is that parents not allowing their children to play, and teachers and coaches being aware of the risks, and kids also being aware of it are absolutely the biggest factors. With perhaps the popularity of video games being probably in the top five. But rates of soccer participation are going up. And even ingrained stuff changes. Boxing was huge a couple of generations ago. And I think it was precisely the risks that have caused such massive drops in the numbers for boxing. EDIT: Here's another possible reason. Sports specialization. These days kids often stick with one sport only. https://www.kare11.com/article/sports/state-of-football-why-is-participation-down/89-587419390

About the stuff that I highlighted in red above, that's not clearly true. Football has the highest concussion rate, with ice hockey second but very significantly below, and soccer far below. Football: 64 -76.8 Boys’ ice hockey: 54 Boys’ soccer: 19 – 19.2 https://headcasecompany.com/concussion_info/stats_on_concussions_sports Rugby, on the other hand, is actually slightly higher than football. There are a lot of different studies out there, and kids rates appear to be different from adult rates, and womens rates different from mens. Womens ice hockey appears to have quite high rates, generally a bit below football but not much below. (Weird since women's hockey is non-contact.) Not to mention that CTE appears to be more about persistent impact as it is about concussions. And that most consussion frequency numbers are about number of injuries per "Athlete Exposures" (meaning number of practices or games), and that far more athlete exposures come in football than in hockey (six players on ice at a time and generally smaller teams, often much smaller) than in football. In this study, they estimated that football caused 55,007 concussions among HS and collegiate athletes, boys soccer 20,929 and girl's soccer 29,167. Far fewer concussions per exposure in soccer, so probably a lot more players and exposures. It's still early days in studying this. There's still a lot we don't know. And we do know that a fairly low percentage of concussion actually get reported. Somewhere around half. But linking stuff like the risks of football and the risks of driving, as you do above, doesn't make a lot of sense. It's hard to get by in society for most Americans without driving. Certainly not impossible, and easier in some big cities than elsewhere, but it's not hard at all to get by in society without playing football. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/15/health/concussion-high-school-sports-study/index.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140075/ https://www.medstarhealth.org/news-and-publications/articles-and-research-reports/which-youth-sports-cause-the-most-concussions

Even in Florida and Texas, this is having an effect. "In 42 states, the number of players went down year-over-year. In 25 of those states, the number of football schools went down as well. In seven, the number of players declined even though the number of schools in the survey increased. "In the eight states, plus the District of Columbia, where participation was the same or increased, four of them (DC, Nevada, Texas, Vermont) had more schools playing as well. (The other states: Alabama, Colorado, Hawaii and Oregon.) "Texas is the No. 1 state for participation (of course), but its participation-per-school rate is dropping quickly. In 2016-17 it was 153.3; in 2017-18, 135.3; and in 2018-19, 125.6. Meaning, its growth is coming from more schools offering football, not more boys showing up to play at every school." https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2019/08/29/high-school-football-participation-is-on-a-decade-long-decline/?sh=5374993633de That means Florida has fewer players and Texas has fewer players per school (the state's population has gone from 20.04M to 29.5M in the years the study lasted, from 1999 to this year. So schools are increasing as are student populations, but players per school are going down.)

What would he do if FanDuel called and said they'd cancel? Boy, that's a poser, Major. Um, He'd find another sponsor. The reason they paid him is he's worth it. He has millions of regular viewers. That's worth money to advertisers. Which is why FanDuel paid him. Oh, and yeah, the NFL sure did "chew them up and spit them out." You really were right on target there when you say "McAfee was no different." The NFL just abjectly apologized and backed down. It may well have been a mistake made further down the chain that the higher-ups didn't know about. McAfee put sunlight on the decision and all of a sudden, things change. The NFL doesn't like bad publicity any more than most big fat profitable corporations do. And McAfee is in a position to generate a lot of bad publicity, and we see what happens.

Yeah, I lived in northern VA for about six or seven years after college. Got several buddies who will be very happy about this.

If he sells, the game of football will be better off.

I like Eisen, very watchable. But he sometimes gets too excited, and if he said that, he clearly was having one of those moments.

We're the best team. But balls bounce funny. Teams get bad calls and bad breaks. Injuries happen. It's pretty frequent for even dominant teams to lose one of the three or four playoff games. Look at the 16-0 Pats. They didn't beat themselves. They just lost the game. But I wouldn't trade our team for any other at this point. Anyone saying that is using the word "elite" incorrectly. But in fairness, he might be a top ten guy now. Good news for the Fins.

We haven't heard when he'll return. His ankle was actually broken (October 3rd reported) and that's killer for a guy who has to cut. Wouldn't be surprised if it's another 2 - 3 weeks at least. Depends on how serious the break is, of course. https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2022/10/03/jamison-crowder-broke-his-ankle-sunday/

He is strong. But his speed is the killer. The OL had to get ahead of him and to do so he had to really commit and Von didn't let him get his legs under him. Great play. Baldy has it right that the whole D is playing really well right now, and it's everybody playing together. Even the rookie DBs are doing their jobs really well.

Um, because there are situations where trying to maximize your income will have unintended consequences that will actually end up costing you money overall. You do "give away your best *****" (do you really feel that team logos are the NFL's "best *****"? Seriously?) for free, if not giving your best ***** for free is going to cost you much more in the long run in bad publicity and aggravation, yes. McAfee might be a bull they don't want to poke. Too early to be sure, but it's quite possible. He's done a great job bringing the NFL a ton of good positive publicity. Could he end up costing them money and tremendous irritation in the long run? Maybe.

Reading the tea leaves is a good analogy. It's a way some people think they can look into the future but those people are deceiving themselves. We might not. Equally we might.

Fair enough that the money situation this offseason will be complex. I think there's a solid chance we get Singletary back. But I'm not sure if he'll give us a team-friendly deal. RBs, more than any other position have to maximize their second contract. I'm hopeful but not sure. They won't want to re-structure with everyone they can. That's not how Beane operates. He feels pressure to retain some of those "coupons," as Greg Tompsett calls 'em. It's just that we didn't use all the coupons we had available last year that is the reason we've got some of those this year. And this year, he'll save some for next year. Which is the smart play.

Yeah, we're not a perfect roster. Of course, there's never, in the history of football and in fact in the history of all team sports ever been a perfect roster. Nor will there be. Arguing that because the roster's not perfect we should make a move is like arguing that because it's a day ending in the letter "Y" we should make a move. We're an incredible roster. Best in the league. We don't have any needs or holes. Plenty of areas where we could make small improvements, but no real needs or holes. Anyone we pick up at this time would be a luxury. I could see a smaller move, definitely, but it's very far from a necessity.

Because there's not that much evidence yet that he did. The same people who generally see him doing badly see it this time too. That's more about confirmation bias than anything else. When and if more neutral folks come in with the same opinion, particualarly after a deep dive after the All-22 comes out, I'll start to believe it. As for not making plays in the second half, I just quick watched the third quarter and one play beyond. Edmunds had five tackles including one really nice one where he held the edge against an OL, forced the back inside, threw off the OL and made the tackle. One missed tackle on a swing pass that I didn't like, but he played just fine, it looked like to me. It was interesting, they seemed to be playing him a step or two deeper than usual. That would tie in with a deeper focus on defending the pass and not worrying if they ran.

Oh, please. Again, the Bills were averaging six-man boxes. That means the Pack averaged a man advantage on those plays. Blaming their run problems on Edmunds is nonsense. They were thrilled when the Pack ran, kept the clock moving and took the ball out of Rodgers' hands.

Still nonsense. Anyone judging TBD by whether they make a move within some particular three or four day period just flat out doesn't get it. We already made our move before the trade deadline. The fact that it was way before the trade deadline means absolutely nothing. Our move before the trade deadline is wearing #40, tearing OLs to shreds and putting QBs on the ground with regularity.

$14 to $10M not happening? Yeah, I think you're right about that. But if he comes down to probably $13M or $14M, somewhere in that area, the Bills would likely be thrilled and would do their best to grab him. If he insists on market value of probably $16 - $18M, he'll almost certainly be gone.

Yeah, his price may indeed have become too high. Hopefully he gives us a hometown discount the way Milano did. I'm guessing he does, but no way to be sure, of course.

Cover1 had a stat today. Know how many defenders we had in the box in the first half on average? 6.0. In the second half, 6.1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v_vxCQwqZk1fE It's at 0:0:30 When your D is running six man boxes, you're not going to have a lot of success stopping the run. But after the gain, the clock is still going tick-tick-tick-tick-tick. Frazier was saying, "Hey, go ahead, run it. G'ahead, keep it out of Rodgers' hands."

Both scenarios are unlikely. His scenario is much much more unlikely than yours. Even more so with a rookie. I think it's Madden that gets people thinking like this, switching guys like they're checkers that are all fungible. They're not. Suggesting we move guys like Tre and Taron, among the absolute best in the league at their positions, barring three or four injuries in one game forcing something unhinged, just doesn't make much sense. How often do these positions switches happen? Guys like Aaron Williams, Troy Vincent and George Wilson are out there, but it's pretty rare. How many of them were successful in their first position? The one exception there was Vincent and he was growing too old to play his first position and was a grizzled veteran with a ton of DB knowhow. Now how often does it happen in-season? Can't think of a one. There's a reason for that. Outside of crazy one-game responses to multiple injuries, this isn't a situation NFL coaches want to deal with. You're absolutely right it'll be heavy on their minds going into next season, though.

The ball landed on his hands but kept on going and the tip hit the ground before he squeezed it. I was hopeful for one replay but the others showed it really clearly. I was amazed the refs made the right call at game speed.

Oh, man. Sweet story. Really nice. Hope a ton of good karma goes to both of them.

Hadn't thought of Rodgers till you said this, but yeah. I don't like him at all. Other than that the guys who've been violent off the field and then it gets few and far between for me. Marshawn Lynch for forcing himself out of Buffalo. Really dirty players like Vontaze Burfict. When not taking guys heads off, a really good player, but just dirty. Suh, for stomping. Again, a good player but dirty. Hate's too strong, but I don't like Beasley. And for his first couple of years he was one of my two favorites. But he just wouldn't shut up, even during the season, or follow team rules. And Billy Joe Hobert, my #1 most hated guy.