hondo in seattle

I hike/trail run every weekend, usually in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California. Sometimes I move through redwood forests and sometimes I'm rewarded with beautiful views of the Monterey Bay. But the mountains themselves aren't this majestic. I'm jealous.

I think Rice's supposed time of 4.71 is an urban myth though he wasn't especially fast, and I agree about the importance of route running. Years ago, the Redskins did well with a bunch of short wideouts nicknamed the "Smurfs." Maybe we can line up Shavers and Keon and call 'em the "Turtles." If they're as productive as the Smurfs and bring home a Lombardi, I'll be happy. I still can't excited about a guy who's looked good in preseason against 2s, 3s, and 4s and has been so unimpressive in camp that he's been waived not once but twice. But I want you to be right and him to succeed so I won't argue the point. Let's both hope he makes the roster and shocks the football world with his production.

I don't know about that. He wasn't 'open' on his TD catch. And getting a step or two against scrubs on other reps doesn't prove anything. We already have one slow wideout on the 53, not sure we need two. Then again, both Keon and Shavers are faster than Hall of Famer Steven Largent who reportedly only ran a 4.7.

Del should be part of the selection committee. Tim Russert and Chris Berman would be my first two picks.

I like Shavers because we don't have a bunch of big targets for Josh and he seems like a good kid. And his one-handed grab was fantastic. But he's never been good enough to crack an opening day roster, and I wonder - at the ripe NFL age of 26 - if he's any better this year than last. It seems to me he's still slow (4.64 40) and has trouble gaining separation. We've seen a little of him in preseason games, but I wonder who he's been outperforming in camp.

That catch was a beautiful thing. But I've seen guys make circus catches in flag football leagues. If you can't separate, you don't belong in the NFL. With Shavers, that's a concern - though I am rooting for the kid.

The 46 defense put 8 in the box and relied on man coverage. In today's NFL with spread offenses, 3 wideouts, and TEs that often run like deer, I wouldn't see the 46 working. Coverage would break down and give up chunk plays. Also, the 46 relied on a lot of blitzing to brutalize QBs and make it hard for them to take advantage of man coverage. That could still work to some extent I suppose, but QBs are less statuesque and more mobile now than they were in the 1980s. Incidentally, it's the "46 defense" (named after #46, Doug Plank), not the "4-6 defense" because it has nothing to do with alignment. Living in a world where 64% of people lie on resumes and social media reeks of self-aggrandizement, I love the honest humility!

First, sometimes I think athletes are coddled. Second, I suspect there's more to the story.

Buffalo is something like the 450th biggest city in the world. Yet - adjusted for inflation - we're about to have the 8th most expensive sports stadium ever built on Planet Earth. That remarkable mismatch wasn't going to happen without state & county help. In short, I personally don't care if Terry has a nice yacht.

I don't get the needed rest thing. Can you imagine someone in the middle of Navy SEAL training telling one of the cadre, "I'm going home early if that's okay. I need a rest?"

I don't usually watch behind-the-scenes stuff because I don't care what twenty-somethings do with their time and money. He seems like a good kid and hope he's a star in the NFL. But even if I had his football success when I was young, I wouldn't adorn my home with posters, paintings, and life-sized cutouts of myself.

Good memory!

I've assumed that Moore has been outplaying Hamler/Virgil in camp simply because he was listed ahead of them earlier this year when the Bills posted a depth chart. However, there is no depth chart on the Bills website now. The difference between a JAG like Moore and a PS player is often thin. It's not inconceivable that Hamler and/or Virgil are outplaying him. I haven't seen any good comprehensive assessments of how the WRs have been performing throughout camp, just a few anecdotal reports here and there. I do worry that Keon is the only true X receiver projected to make the 53. There's an argument to keep Shavers over Moore. Then again, the Redskins did okay with the Smurfs years ago. If we do keep Moore, and I think we will, let's all hope he pans out better than MVS! And that Beane finds a stud wideout in the draft next year if Keon and Palmer don't have revelatory seasons.

Logic, I agree with most of your posts but am not so sure about your claim that Moore is equivalent to KJ Hamler or Jalen Virgil. Moore has averaged something like 540 yards per season (despite, yes, some lousy QB-ing). He's been good enough that coaches have put him on the field. Seems like a decent, not great, Everybody-Eats kind of guy. Hamler has averaged about 200 yards per season. He's struggled to earn snaps. Virgil has been in the league for 3 years, played one season, and accumulated a whopping 75 yards. I'm not sure if Moore has looked any better in camp than Hamler or Virgil, but he has been more productive in actual games and has the far stronger resume. I think that's why most of us see him higher on the depth chart than Hamler or Virgil and probably a member of the final 53.

I suppose that in the beginning, it was pretty clearly their 1s versus our 2s & 3s. But after that, there was a hodgepodge of 2s and 3s out there on both sides. So maybe they had more 2s and we had more 3s but if you looked at individual matchups, you'd see in some cases a Bills 2 versus a Bear 2 or a Bills 3 versus a Bear 3. And we weren't winning even those matchups. Maybe that was McD's point. For example, Buffalo Joe looked like AJ Kline. If I were the Bears QB, I'd throw to whoever he was covering because he couldn't cover anyone 1, 2, or 3.

Maybe he'd be a good #4. He certainly had some big catches and games for us. But far more often, he was invisible, unable to gain separation. And sometimes he was worse than invisible: not on the same page with Allen or dropping balls. How many of Josh's picks happened when Gabe zigged when Josh expected him to zag? I'd prefer not to see that again. And then there's this from Jalen Ramsey: “Gabe Davis only runs like three routes.”

I'm not sure of the truth of the matter, but here's what McD said... "Get out there and playing against their ones, I expect -- we expect -- to compete with them, and that wasn't the case early. And then our twos, who were out there against their twos, and our threes against their threes -- it didn't get much better." bleacherreport.com/articles/25239443-sean-mcdermott-rips-bills-after-38-0-loss-caleb-williams-bears-nfl-preseason

The 3 QBs who played combined for 12/28 and 103 yards. All of 'em sucked. It makes me wonder if coaching is part of the problem?

I grew up in the 70s. Our Bills fandom wasn't as extreme as it is nowadays. At least, not in my neighborhood. Everyone was a Bills fan to some extent, but we all followed other teams, too. None of the kids in my neighborhood were monogamous or fanatical.

Glad I could help!

Whatever dim hopes he may have had would have died with an injury. Sad.

Didn't McD say there were times when our 2s were up against their 2s and our 3s were up against their 3s? I don't know the Bear roster well enough to know if this was true. In any case, we're supposed to have a lot of depth this year yet our backups didn't look good.

For many, the enthusiasm wore off when they first found out. Beane mentioned the real grass on the Pat McAfee show two years ago (June 5, 2023) and it's been talked about since. Don't take the snarkiness personally; many of us like to tease our brothers and sisters. I think it's a sign of love, or camaraderie... or something like that. In any case, you're right. I suppose someday someone will invent artificial turf that's safer than real turf. In the meantime, we'll have real grass and that's good for our players.

In retrospect, I wish I had spent those three hours of my life doing something else - cleaning garbage cans, getting my teeth drilled, anything other than watching that game.

Gotta admit, Russell Copeland wasn't the first name that came to mind when I saw this thread. Or AVP, for that matter.