billsfan89

Penalties - Its not that amount of penalties (I don't know how you legislate lower amount of penalties without resulting in a bunch of missed calls) but rather it should be about consistency in the rules. Rules - Changing rules year to year is fairly common in sports leagues. I don't have an issue with tweaking things. The rules of the NFL and how they are enforced aren't set in stone they are subject to adjustment. Taunting and Celebrations - No one liked the No Fun League the loosening of the celebration rules are a good thing. It allows the players to have a personality. I think the biggest issue with the NFL is the Thursday Night Games and the lack of consistent enforcement in the games. The Thursday games have overexposed the product and resulted in most bad games played on Thursdays. The players hate it a lot of fans don't like it. It used to be that after Monday NFL football went away. If you are a college fan and an NFL fan it used to be that you got a 4 day break between Monday and Saturday games. Now football is just on all days of the week and its causing fatigue among the audience. I also think the lack of consistency and innovation in rules is lacking which is hurting in the product.

Jury still out? I think Allen has the potential to be a top 5 QB in the league. Allen has the size and mobility you want, he has arguably the strongest arm in the league, he also has a very quick and compact release. The question is will Allen develop his footwork and decision making? If Allen doesn't develop that decision making and footwork he won't develop the accuracy and approach to the game needed to be a high end starting caliber QB. I hope to see Allen take a step up next year when he has a year under his belt and hopefully the team massively upgrades the offensive talent around him.

The cap savings on Shady are significant, I think cutting Shady does give the team 7+ million in cap space. However you probably would have to give a upper tier free agent RB 7 million aav with a significant bonus anyway. Shady on a one year deal might be better since the backs on the open market that would fall into that sensible range (Basically anyone not named Lev Bell) might not rep[resent much of an upgrade over Shady at age 31. I think there does need to be a RB drafted in rounds 3-5 at the very least. This team can't go into the season with two older backs in Shady and Ivory without having a young high potential back behind them.

I am not shocked that some team would want to kick the tires on KB. Teams are very thirsty for WR play and there aren't many decent WR's on the market so bringing a guy in for a workout who just hit the market makes sense.

Zay will probably finish the year with about 50-55 receptions, 600 plus yards, and 5-6 TD's, that's with one of the worst QB situations in the league throwing to him. That's a legit NFL WR right there. Those numbers alone without any context are better than average WR3 numbers but factoring in the context of the season that's even more impressive. If Zay can be a solid WR2 that 2017 draft will have provided 2 good to great starters on both sides of the ball all at fairly critical positions.

Lorax should be brought back. I think he will probably command about 6 million a year and would be easily worth it. Dude has 6.5 sacks with 4 games left to play and he plays at the LB position for a lot of snaps. He also is by all accounts a great locker room guy and adds tremendous versatility to the defense being able to anchor the line backer position and play DE and DT in pass rushing situations.

I don't think Richardson fits the McBeane mold (Seemed to have issues on his way out with the Jets) and I think that assuming Kyle retires the Bills could resign Jordan Cameron and draft a mid round rookie to have 3 proven DT's in rotation and add a young player too. Personally my blueprint for the off-season would be to fill 3 or more offensive needs via free agency and add a starter to the defense via free agency. Then add as much offense talent early in the draft to supplement the improved offense. My targets would be listed below. Resign Lorax and Cameron (I assume Kyle retires, if Kyle wants back sign him too) the rest of the depth free agents can stay or go but those 2-3 would be critical to retain. 1- Matt Pradis and Rodger Saffold - I think you can easily justify 20+ million on signing two high end veteran starters on the offense. Yes they are older (which is why I would make sure both deals are easy to get out of after 2 seasons) but O-line players tend to play well through age 33 so its a position that you can justify signing a 30 and 31 year old at. 2- Tyrell Williams or Golden Tate - This is another position that is in desperate need of help. 10+ million should be spent to find a high end starting caliber receiver. 3- Trade for Mo Sanu or another veteran receiver - Much like the O-line you need a lot of help here. Mo Sanu was rumored to be available at the trade deadline and would make for a good steady slot receiver while Zay and your other free agent acquisition hold down the outside. 4- Sign EJ Gaines. The Bills probably would have spent 50 million or more to sign and trade for those 4 players on offense and resigning those two defensive players. However the Bills with 90 million in cap space (and easily another 10 million they can free up by cutting some fat on the roster) can afford to do that and go out and sign Gaines back to fill the CB2 need. If the Bills add Gaines and keep Lorax and Kyle/Cameron the Bills are looking at a very complete defensive unit. The Bills can and should draft defensive depth in rounds 4-6 with those extra picks. In the draft I would go BPA round 1 although if I had my pick of position regardless of prospect value I would love to see the Bills nab a RT high. Solidify the last starter you need along the O-line. Then in round 2 grab a tight end (I would keep Clay for one last year and let a prospect beat him out but I wouldn't be sad to see Clay go) and another young receiver in round 3. Grab a running back in round 4 to be the heir apparent to Shady (who I would keep for one more year) and then with the other 4th and your 5th round picks grab up some defensive depth (DT, Safety, DE/pass rush and LB are areas where defensive depth can be addressed.) That's the way I am approaching the off-season hoping to use the cap space to take several critical needs off the board (OL and WR heavily) and retain and add some talent to the defense. Then fill in the draft to address what needs remain. I hope McBeane is aggressive in free agency, the cap space is what you sacrificed a lot of talent for now you need to go out and use it.

Spending massively while you have a QB on a rookie contract is the best way to take advantage of a under market value QB and puts the QB in the best position to have success and develop. The Rams added Wintworth to the O-line, and Sammy, Woods, and Kupp to the receiving core all in one off-season. The Bears added Burton, Allen Robinson, Gabrielle, and DJ Moore to the pass catching core all in one off-season (While adding Mack a major piece to the defense.) The Eagles added Alshon Jeffery, Blount, and traded for Jay Ajai to an already pretty stacked team to make sure that Wentz had better offensive talent around him in year two. Even the Chiefs spent on adding Sammy to help make Mahomes have a more complete WR core. The Bills should be aggressive this off-season. Yes the Colts, Browns, Jets, Cardinals and some other teams will have cap space and a big need to surround a QB with O-line and WR talent. So the Bills will have to over pay heavily for O-line and WR talent and certainly at least 2 out of the 3 high draft picks will have to be spent on the offensive side of the ball. But I think that in order to make Allen be successful the team needs to pay up for talent.

Bodine and Ducasse can be dumped for low amounts of dead cap hits, neither are really starting caliber players so I don't think them being under contract matters. I wouldn't mind having them compete for backup spots but if the front office thinks 2 of them should start they deserve to see the offense struggle again. O-line players tend to play at a high level into their early 30's. The typical fall off is around 32-34 for O-line players. So I don't mind signing Pradis to a deal that is easy to get out of after one or two years. This team needs at least 2 impact starters along the O-line to make it into a top 10 unit and most of the top players on the free agent market at the O-line position will be between 29-31. Groy stinks (at least he does in this system) Bodine is a high end backup center and I would like to see him be off the bench. And Sirles is a bubble player who probably is best competing for a backup job. I suspect that Groy will not be resigned, I think odds are they move Bodine to the backup center/guard spot, and they have Vlad and a rookie compete for the RG Spot.

I doubt it but then I thought Lynn wouldn't get a coaching job and he did. Who knows what makes a coaching candidate hot on the market.

I wouldn't sign Trent Brown. NE signings don't typically play well on other teams. I also think that Dawkins is not suited to play RT. Dawkins play in 2017 at RT wasn't that great, his skillset seems to be better suited for LT. As far as O-line I think you need 3 starters in general from C to RT. I think out of the three need positions I would hope the Bills target Center first and foremost in free agency. I think it would help Teller's development in 2019 and if they go with a rookie guard having a quality vet center next to Teller and a rookie RG would be very helpful to the lines development. Overall I think the Bills should target two high quality veteran starters along the O-line. They can go with a rookie at one of those positions but they need to put as much talent around Allen as possible and the O-line is in major need of help to be able to provide good to great pass blocking and generate a push in the ground game.

The Falcons are not trading Julio. Matt Ryan will be 34 next season and you don't really rebuild with a Stud QB entering his mid 30's. The Falcons despite having Ridley will not trade away the player that makes their offense elite because they can't afford to wate Matt Ryan. Julio will be 30 next year, which means he will face 2 to 3 elite seasons left as receivers typically play at a high level into their early 30s. That's not something the Falcons can afford to pass on.

That play has a lot of moving parts, Allen did an excellent job getting a pass catcher to be in position to make a play on the ball. It wasn't the easiest play but it was one a player should have made. Yes if you run the play the exact same way 100 times there are many ways it can be done better. But that's also easy to diagnose in hindsight where almost every play can be done better. Allen did a great job on that play. Clay adjusted to the ball enough to be able to make a play on it but couldn't seal the deal.

Mayfield is having the best rookie season above all the rest by far. I think Allen might be number 2 but not by much, everyone seems to be kind of middling rookie numbers. Still 4 games left to play but some levels of optimism with this rookie class overall. Glad to see the Browns might have found a keeper at QB, hopefully the Bills did too.

If these single payer systems in other nations are so horrendous and result in such terrible wait times then why aren't these nations rushing to switch to free market systems? Why is it that the US has a horribly unpopular system despite having the most free market oriented system in the developed world? If the single payer systems were so horrible surly in Canada during the highly conservative Harper administration they would have begun to switch to a privatized system to get out from under the horrid single payer system? The answer is because single payer healthcare remains popular. Even a majority of American doctors now prefer single payer health care (54% for, 42% opposed.) I also never denied that scarcity exists in a single payer system. In fact your argument about rationing is destroyed by your own point about scarcity (every system will have rationing.) The bottom line is that in any healthcare system there will be people that can't afford treatment. In America we do not deny treatment to people on the basis that they can not afford it. Thus there are costs that are absorbed by the general system no matter what. So the idea that there are these 3 pillars and universality is one of them is absurd due to the fact that you can not ethically withhold care from people just on the grounds that they can't afford it. Thus everyone even those who can't afford it has access to care, thus you cannot have cost be a barrier to entry for extreme needs of care. I also brought up very specific points about billing, preventative care, profit motive, and drug costs that point to specific ways that single payer drives costs down whereas your only argument against it is the government sucks. Despite the fact that in the real world there are outcomes and data that show you otherwise.

Why do other countries who have government insurance pay drastically less for insurance and get the same or better outcomes? Even the Swiss who have a more free market oriented approach have a more heavily regulated system that results in better care for significantly less? Healthcare is a utility not some product subject to free market forces.

Releasing KB is addition by subtraction. Use those snaps on better younger players. Holmes is the same, although Holmes didn't seem to have a bad attitude like KB he is what he is at this point (A Jag) and given his age he isn't likely going to amount to more than he is.

That's a fair point, I would prefer to keep Murphy but I am not going to be that upset to see him go for a 5 million dollar cap savings. Although I think Murphy could be in line for major improvement in 2019 as he gets another year removed from injury. Sometimes it takes a player an additional season to fully recover from a major ACL injury. I think getting 5 ish sacks and solid run defense in limited snaps as a rotational player is pretty good for 5 million. But its possible to better use that money elsewhere.

I have illustrated specifically that it will drive costs down. There are real world examples of countries implementing these systems and spending much less to get the same or better healthcare outcomes. As a whole the US spends more on billing in the private system, the US has the low levels of preventative care which drives up costs, the US has a horrid prescription drug system which drives up costs, and the US doesn't do basic thing like lump sum payments that can make costs for providers much more stable. Just to be clear we both agree that Healthcare is a finite commodity thus rationing of care happens in any system. Thus you can't argue that rationing of care would happen as a result of single payer. My point in regards to universality is that anyone will get treated by the healthcare system in the US to the best of its ability regardless of your ability to pay. So we have a universal system of care where costs for people who get treated but are unable to afford it are absorbed into the general system. Creating a single payer system where everyone has a baseline form of insurance actually accounts for those costs. Having the current system where you ask hospitals and providers to do charity care or overcharge insurance companies on other patients is the unaccounted costs systems. And yes as DC Tom point out there are times when the system can't treat everyone but who and how it treats people are not determined by your ability to pay but rather by medical need. To the rest of your specific points 1- Please explain the magical phenomenon in which monopoly and price fixing are a net consumer good. Single payer systems are able to negotiate using their collective bargaining power and through price transparency. There is a reason why treatments in Canada and other single payer systems are much cheaper. You can't have one hospital charging 10 times more for a procedure without justification in a single payer system. Whereas in the US even if you had full price transparency people in emergency scenarios can't shop around like a typical commodity. So in the real world you have the US spending 17.9% of GDP on healthcare whereas the average developed nation spends 10.7%, the next highest system is the Swiss who spend 12.7% of GDP on healthcare. We don't look at police and fire fighters as commodities who are monopolies and priced fixed. 2- Please explain how increased government bureaucracy lowers costs, and how that would scale up in a takeover of 20% of the domestic economy. A private system has dozens if not hundreds of insurance providers, each provider has many different plans. A hospital or provider has to bill each patient and navigate each different insurance billing system to do so. The private system generates far more bureaucracy. Hospitals have to have specialists for each major insurance provider they deal with. A hospital has to hire staff to negotiate rates every year with many providers. In a single payer system that is consolidated into one negotiation. As I said before real world examples show the US private system spends 14-16% on billing, Medicare spends about 4% because Medicare only has one set of codes and a limited amount of plan. Even Medigap insurance uses Medicare codes. Other nations which just have one set of billing codes that 90% of their patients use. Even private over the top insurance in those nations bills with similar codes and pricing. Imagine having to have police insurance to call the police and the police have to bill 32 different providers to get paid and each provider has different billing and different plans. Single payer systems offer payment in lump sums too where hospitals can operate off of a yearly budget as opposed to having to nickle and dime each patient and go back and forth with insurance. Also the issue of scale makes no sense to me. About 50% of insurance is paid for by the public through Medicare, Medicade, and the VA. The government already has the infrastructure in place its just a matter of scaling a tax (A payroll tax most likely) to incorporate the rest of the population. So I don't see scaling what is already in place (Medicare) as a major burden. The most conservative studies still say that Medicare for all saves general healthcare spending 2 trillion dollars over a 10 year period. 3- Please explain why it is desirable to place unaccountable government bureaucrats between patients and their care. Why is it more desirable to have a company who will make more money not covering your claim in between patients and their care? Insurance companies are no better than bureaucrats. I don't argue that a single payer system is perfect but I argue that it is the best system we have to pay for healthcare. Why do you have the government between you and the police? Why do you have the government heavily regulating you and your water? Healthcare is a basic human need not a commodity. 4- Please explain how profit motivation does not lead to dynamic innovation in industry. Because as you said healthcare is a finite product that can't be ethically denied to lack of payment. The US doesn't spend that much more money on R and D than single payer countries. In fact many drugs that are on the consumer market were researched and developed at Universities and then drug companies buy the patents from the Universities on the cheap. US insurance companies are mandated by law to make the most money, thus they are mandated to pay out as little claims as possible. That's a perverse system.

Universality exists in the sense that a doctor will not deny someone due to inability to pay. If you need care a doctor or service provider will do their best to take care of you regardless of your ability to pay. I never argued that everyone gets treatment but rather that no one gets denied treatment because of inability to pay. Thus it does not operate in a true free market commodity fashion. I understand very well that in any system rationing of care exists (Which destroys the conservative argument that single payer healthcare would lead to rationing of care.) I understand fully the concepts in play here. A common conservative argument against single payer is that healthcare can be 2 out of 3. Affordable, Quality, or Universal. I argued that because doctors and providers do not deny people due to inability to pay that the system in the US and any system that will not deny people based off of inability to pay is universal. That there will be people that can't afford treatment and unless you deny them treatment those costs will be absorbed into the general system either way.

Take what the defense gives you. Although I do agree Allen can't continue to rely on the run as heavily in the future. But with a limited receiving core Allen shouldn't be too afraid to take cheap and easy yards on the ground.

I am not sure how much teams play 3 LB's. Milano and Edumonds will be the LB's for the foreseable future and it seems like teams play nickle as their base defense more than 4-3. I would love to see how often the Bills have played 3 LB's this season. I can't see it being more than 50%. I would rather the team draft a mid round LB to sit behind Lorax and act as depth than to pay big for a player that will be in a limited role.

Triage is used in terms of overwhelming emergencies and when hospitals are flooded. But no hospital/doctor will deny a patient based off an inability to pay. Even triage goes off of medical need and not ability to pay. The US system can't save money in a private market unless providers are allowed to deny people based off of inability to pay.

Murphy is one year removed from a very serious injury and while he has struggled with injury when he is able to get out on the field he looks like a good rotational pass rusher (Which you need in the modern NFL.) So I would bring him back in 2019 for one more year. By then he will be 2 years removed from an ACL injury and the cap saving are good but not great so you might as well keep him and not open up a hole on the roster. I wouldn't hate them moving on from Murphy but I think rather than take a modest amount of dead money you are better off keeping him for one more year then get rid of him in 2020 when his deal produces almost no dead money if were to still be over paid and underproductive. I am not sure how much more a player for under 5 million AAV will produce more than Murphy. Murphy has 4 sacks with 4 games left to go and he hasn't played all that many games nor has he been taking a majority of the snaps either. If he finishes with 5+ sacks in limited rotation with limited games played that's a pretty productive season for a situational player behind Hughes, Lorax, and Shaq. I also think that Murphy stands a chance of being more productive in 2019 because he will be farther removed from an ACL injury and the Bills can manage his knee over the full course of the off-season. So I think the Bills are better off keeping him as I think finding a 5+ sack situational pass rusher will either cost more than 5 million AAV or require more bonus money and a commitment through 2020.

It does drive costs down and I would argue that the "Three Prongs" argument is very flawed because you have Universality in any system that adheres to the Hippocratic oath which states you can't deny care to someone who needs it simply because they can't afford it. So then your argument comes down to quality vs. affordability which is also flawed because US Healthcare outcomes are mid-level to upper mid-level despite the US spending the most on healthcare per-capita and by far the largest portion of GDP. So the US system is universal, unaffordable, and not the best quality for a variety of factors. I also fail to see where a black market would arise? I have yet to hear an argument that is compelling and fact based that the current system can be corrected by deregulation and free market forces (Healthcare is also not an elastic product which makes it less susceptible to market forces) as long as the Hippocratic Oath exists. Yes if you wanted to treat healthcare like an actual commodity (one where a doctor or provider can deny treatment to those in need) then you probably could drive costs down. But unless you want to live in a society where people are left to die because they can't afford healthcare then a for profit system won't be able to drive down costs. I would also argue that every system rations care. As I said before Healthcare is not an elastic product, its not easy to create more of it and you can't ethically deny people access to it. In the US we ration care off of how big your wallet is (Not even wither or not you work because self-employed people and people who work for a small business don't always have insurance, and even full time workers for big companies can be underinsured.) In single payer countries they go by medical need. So it is an outright scare tacit to claim rationing of care when 10-40k people die from lack of medical access in the US. The Main reasons Healthcare in the United States is so unaffordable and lacks general quality for a system so expensive is due to billing, prescription drug prices, lack of preventative care, and the profit motive. The US private Healthcare system spends 14-20% on billing, Medicare spends about 4% on billing most single payer systems spend about 3-8% on billing. That's mainly because if you have dozens of health insurance companies with dozens of plans each of them have their own billing codes and each plan is its own soup of benefits. You also have each insurance provider looking to get its own pricing for services for each of their providers in their own network. That means each provider needs to have people to navigate and negotiate with each insurance company patient by patient. In single payer systems they have a singular billing code and singular models of pricing. Hospitals can also get paid in lump sums yearly as opposed to having to get paid on a per-patient basis. This is not a result of the government being better at doing something but rather universality and simplicity winning out over a more complex and unnecessary network of middle men. Prescription Drugs also add to the cost of care because the Medicare system is driven up against the private system. Corruption is also at play because thanks to legalized bribery known as campaign contribution the drug industry is a powerful lobby. The US also sees worse outcomes and more costs because uninsured and under insured people will not get preventative care do to cost and they will wait for things to get worse because of costs. When things are found sooner they are cheaper to treat. In the US we have a system where we don't have great access to catch thing early and then we treat people later on when a condition has progressed worse. Then there is the profit motive. Profits in the US Healthcare system are 2% or less of the system. Certainly it would be nice to get rid of that 2% but we aren't being driven to the cleaners for 2% or less (Usually less.) But the profit motive is one that creates a perverse relationship between the patient and their insurance company. A private insurance company has an incentive (profit) to not pay out a claim, this generates a lot of back and forth between the insurance company and the provider (More bureaucracy) it also ends up with insurance companies not paying out claims (Often for frivolous reasons) and then placing the costs onto the patient who will go bankrupt or pay the full inflated costs. There are also other benefits to a single payer system where the government can have access to rates across the whole system and bring down costs (Why does X procedure cost less in this other hospital.) I have laid out a detailed and specific argument for single payer driving down costs and recording better outcomes. Can you please tell me how more free market drives down costs while still having the Hippocratic Oath?