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I wanted to avoid this thread badly but oh well.... The issue I take with this is that an injury does not have to be substitued or miss another game to be seriously injured. Take Dempsey's injury for example. He has a broken nose and bruising but had to be back on the field quickly. Without the ability to substitute injured players they are faced with either going right back out or having their team play a man down. This happens regularly. I know you are on the "not a soccer fan" side but I can think of 2 injuries specifically that have happened to me that are debilitating in the moment but recoverable from eventually. They are getting cleated in the calf while running and taking a slide tackle to the ankle bone. Both of these hurt like hell but within a few minutes generally the pain subsides. It gets really tiring when people rag on soccer for the flopping when every other sport has it's variation and people don't make nearly as much the stink. Making it out of the "group of death" is a huge accomplishment. Pretty much every prognosticator including most American ones had them out before the second round. Their group included 2 top 5 teams and Ghana which has given them fits recently. Do you get mad when teams in other sports clinch playoff births even though they lost (I can think specifically of baseball teams celebrating on the field after a loss but clinching the playoffs)? This is a big deal regardless of how you feel.

I may be wrong but this sounds like you are falling victim to the dog days. Paralysis analysis. There is quite a bit to be very excited about with Manuel as well as some concerns. My barometer was this last year and it is why I still believe in him. I wanted him to look like he belonged. I didn't care about stats, didn't even care about his w/l record. That first New England game he looked like he belonged. He played very well off of a short preseason and went toe to toe with Brady/Belicheck. Then the come back against Carolina. He had some stinkers for sure (Pitt really sticks out to me) but that is to be expected from a Rookie QB. The dog days of summer are where you remember the bad much more than the good, read Rodak and the Jonah Jevad negative nancies, etc.. Come training camp, preseason games, that is when we will have a better idea of his progress.

Thank you! Sometimes I have to remind myself that this board is mostly older white guys. Sometimes the board does the reminding for me. People will buy merch for their favorite team because it is their favorite team. There are many more than 5 people that care about this issue and it could well be the majority of people. You finding "everyone getting butt hurt about everything ridiculous" is fair. Except that it is your personal feeling that this is ridiculous. To some people this is a big deal. As C. Biscuit said, how would feel if they were the Washington N**gers? What about the Washing K*ikes? Would your feeling change then? You are apathetic towards this movement and it is well within your rights to be so. However when your argument is more anti-movement than apathetic to it. Something like public opinion? This is a much bigger deal than it was 15 years ago.

Are we sure either of those guys are him and it isn't something he just posted? Or should I get the torches out and sharpen the pitchforks?

You have to lay the groundwork EARLY. I told my wife before getting married that there were 2 things I wouldn't negotiate on; playing cards once a week and watching football on Sunday. I get together with a few of my friends for the game and her and their wives usually go shopping. Now there are kids involved so it will be interesting to see what happens (2 of my friends have them - my wife and I are expecting in November). She hasn't ever really pushed the issue either. When she brings it up I remind her that I "warned" her about my love affair with football. If it is a waste of a day to her tell her to go do something that she would enjoy more. Her life doesn't have to revolve around football and the schedule but unfortunately ours does .

Care to make a wager? Put your money where your mouth is?

Can we please stop it with the mortgaging the future nonsense. They gave up 1 first round pick! This is nowhere near the RGIII trade.

You gotta be careful man! I had a roommate in college from Glens Falls. He used the word bud after every sentence. It was a replacement for dude etc... Well when we met him it went from mildly annoying to kinda funny. We then started picking on him (good natured - he was a good guy) and saying bud after every sentence ourselves. It was pretty funny for a while (it was college cut me some slack) then one day I noticed it had made it into all of our lexicon. We used it regularly and no longer ironically. You are going to find your self one Sunday this year celebrating some play Chris Hogan makes a little too hard. Heck it might even be in a preseason game. Then you are going to look around and be relieved nobody saw it. The thing is, even you don't tell anyone, you will know. You will know and come to realize that the little 7-11 bastard has worked his way into your heart. That all this time you were just reacting this way because a little part of you always liked him. You just didn't want to admit it. Or you know you'll probably waaaayyyyyy overreact to one catch Da'Rick makes and tell us all how he is a sure fire H.O.F.

I wonder what the narrative would be if any other team had made this trade. Watkins went from being the most dynamite offensive prospect to oh he's on the Bills? He won't be very good.

%inonthegroundfloor

It appears though from the tenor of this post you already have made up your mind that this wasn't a good trade. It doesn't appear to be a desperation move to me at all. They saw a guy they wanted and got him. Whether they make the playoffs doesn't make the difference on whether or not it was a good trade. Sammy Watkins being a difference maker and how good he is will determine that. If he is a guy who is a stud and everything he is supposed to be then the trade will have been a good one. There are too many moving parts on a football team and season to pin the entirety of it on one player. Also the trade of next years pick allowed the team to get better this year. By keeping the 2nd rounder the Bills were able to fix a glaring hole (rt) to make the team stronger for this upcoming year. It is a pick your poison here of either trading away a chance at being better this year or giving up a higher pick for next year. They chose (for once) to make strides to get better this year. One first round draft pick isn't mortgaging anything anyway. Than getting hit by a train yes of course. It is just as plausible that Manuel will have a good season and take steps forward (and even more so imo) that he will suck terribly. He didn't even suck last year. His numbers were very in line with what should be expected of a rookie qb. Add in the fact that he has been given many more tools (stud wr, o-line help, revamping of lb crew, dedicated qb coach, etc..) and I think he will progress this year. As for the 2015 first round qb selection I would like to say that the last 2 years were supposed to be very strong qb drafts when viewed a year out. Neither turned out to be that way. There is no guarantee that next year will either. Right now it looks like Hundley, Winston, and Mariota are the guys. If they are as good as advertised they wouldn't be available to the Bills save for a trade up or a severe bottoming out for the team. If they aren't they may be available at the bottom of the first where the Bills can trade back up and get them if they decide to go that course. It seems like most people against the trade are already convinced that Manuel isn't the guy. The team isn't.

%soclose

Well if it happened I would pick my 5 back up. The drive would be so much more manageable. This move would certainly open the Syracuse market which has no current allegiance to an NFL team. This would be a great "get" for the Bills in terms of regionalization. Indeed. I live in Auburn and used to travel myself for 5 years. It got to be too much but a move to Batavia and I am back in. I agree that is far fetched but so to me is NF. I know aesthetically it would be great but for many of the reasons stated here I don't think it is a great idea. With all of the developing that would have to happen the new owner could wait until the 7th year and pay less than 30 million or go all 10 years and get out of it for free. The new owner is going to have the County by the b**ls in the next negotiation.

This is so true!

While I don't disagree with the bolded I don't agree either. 2009 - no current starting qbs drafted after the Bills first pick 2010 - no current starting qbs drafted after the Bills first pick As a matter of fact the only 2 qbs still starting from either of these years are Bradford and Stafford the #1 overalls. 2011 - Andy Dalton and Colin Kaepernick drafted after the Bills first pick. You may have a case here although Dalton is 50/50 on whether it is him or the team that drives the Bengals success 2012 - Russel Wilson and Nick Foles in the 3rd round. Apparently the Bills were very high on Wilson in the 4th and sb winning is super bowl winning but he is another player that I don't think is as good as the team around him. Look at his last 6 regular season games. Still I will give you both of these guys. So in his tenure he missed out on 4 available bonafide NFL players at the QB position. You know what though? So did every other team at least once. None of these guys were highly regarded. So yes he missed out on the qb of the future but it wasn't as glaring of an omission as you are making it out to be.

Seriously. I didn't even have to read the article to know what his answer was.

Will Mike Rodak ever be positive about anything the Bills do? That is the real question.

Lb crew has been completely revamped!

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/players/1664125/preston-brown

http://www.nfl.com/draft/2014/profiles/preston-brown?id=2543814

Choo choo me too!

I'm going to pile on... Please mods pretty please?

I'd be very happy with (at 9): Evans, Matthews What I'm rooting for? If neither of those 2 are there then I want a trade down. Perhaps even multiple trade downs. I am not a big fan of the idea of trading up but to get Evans I think the Bills have to move to 6 at least. He is almost a lock to go to TB. If they do that and get him I won't be all that upset as he will fill 2 needs with one pick. He will be that #1 receiver (hopefully) as well as that huge target. He is like a better Ebron in my book. What don't I want at 9? Ebron, any DB, Martin, are the names recently mocked to the Bills that I wouldn't be thrilled with.

Maybe but I'll join you. I think Lewis did very well in spot duty last year. He is great as a backup; he knows the system, is incredibly intelligent, is a similar player to EJ athletically, and performed well considering his circumstances. I thought the trade for him was a throwaway of 2 guys that would get cut but I was more than pleasantly surprised by him.

I think you should start a thread to apologize for this!