The Frankish Reich

That's some pretty splenetic talk from a man without a spleen.

If you really want me to go on (and on, and on, and on) I'm willing to do so ... Marvin Harrision and Reggie Wayne (peak Peyton Manning Colts) Diggs and Thelen (Vikes) Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb (peak Aaron Rodgers Packers) I'm not trying to be difficult here. Yes, many, many teams have won with one elite receiver and a couple of good ones. But all other things being equal: yes, it's better to have two great players at a position than it is to have one. It's not like teams aren't trying to do that. It's just that in any given year there aren't all that many elite receivers, and you kind of have to spread the money around to other positions too ...

Classic overthinking. It sounds wrong, so it must be right. Advice: rewrite that sentence so it isn't so awkward and avoid the problem. Larger picture: what happened to editors? Answer: the big rush to get out "breaking news" online ("Breaking: Joe Buck excited about calling MNF game!") there's no time for one. The Athletic is now owned by the NYT. The grey lady has given up too. The New Yorker is the last lady standing.

Yes, it has demonstrated success for about half a century. - Lynn Swann and John Stallworth (Steelers dynasty) - Fred Biletnikoff and Cliff Branch (peak Raiders) - Jerry Rice and John Taylor (49ers dynasty) - Isaac Bruce and Tory Holt (Greatest Show on Turf Rams SB winners) Ahh, to be young ...

Agreed. KC manages to pull 2 of the very few teams who’ve given up this season. Even the Texans are playing hard.

That was just a little sarcasm directed at the poster who started a thread about Tre dogging it … I agree with you: we are in no position to judge recovery times.

I get your point, but I'm not sure Josh wants to be in that company. Maybe we could go Phil Mickelson, Larry Walker, David Ortiz?

Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. Now, I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. - General (Manager) George Paton, upon dismissing loser clown Nathaniel Hacket.

Collins makes $8 million this year, which sounds like a lot, but it's not Tre money. Not sure if it's a big enough pile of money to lounge around on for a full year like Tre.

Question: Name the QBs with 10+ year career, on a Hall of Fame level trajectory, who were essentially done as effective starters by their Age 34 seasons. Answer: Cam Newton (29), Troy Aikman (34). That's all I got right now. I'm not counting early retirees like Andrew Luck, who actually played very well in his final season.

Honestly, I think it's just good old fashioned gloating. After 20+ years in QB hell, Bills fans finally have a true franchise QBs, so we now like to make fun of all the other teams and fanbases that are deluding themselves that maybe their own draft pick will become that guy, or that maybe they can resurrect the career of some previously great QB. Be honest: did you ever say "Drew Bledsoe will get this team back into SB contender status," or "I think JP Losman can develop into a Top 10 QB," or "I think Ryan Fitzpatrick could finally be the guy to get us past the Patriots." (Confession: I didn't say the first two, but I did say the 3rd one) For me, the Wilson story is fascinating. There just aren't many examples of 33/34 year old HOF or likely future HOF QBs falling off a cliff like him. The only recent one that comes to mind is Cam Newton: essentially done as a good starter by age 30. (Cautionary tale for us?). We talk about guys like Bledsoe being done early, but he was never on Wilson's level. Who else? The Broncos can't really be blamed for thinking that the worst case scenario was probably a continuing slow decline, in which they'd get the best QB they've had (by far!) since Peyton for the first couple years, and then have an overpaid but still playable starting QB for at least a couple more. This is almost unprecedented.

Yes. Everyday Pete Carroll bangs his head against the wall because the Bills got TJ Graham and he was stuck with Wilson a couple rounds later. 😃

Yeah, but I googled her too, and I just gotta say: "some people have ridiculously high standards." Either that or they don't have a girlfriend ...

Last I checked, he is Miami's answer to Shaq Lawson - a perfectly decent non-star player settin' that edge for them. 🤣

This will cause me to spend a chunk of a perfectly fine day off looking for pics.

If you read the SI article, the one that seems to be the real, on-field problem (not just envy or resentment in his teammates) is having the personal onsite QB coach. Apparently that guy came in with the Wilson contract, after Hackett and his team had been brought in. (Yes, this fits with the "Hackett was Aaron Rodgers bait" theory.) In the end, Hackett was kind of set up for failure. Hackett is a bozo, but he was in theory the guy running the offense, calling the plays, etc. And then he had an ostensible offensive coordinator, who seemed to do nothing. And then there was a QB coach, who couldn't do anything because of Hackett and Russ's trust in his longtime personal QB coach. Just a mess.

Right - I just started a topic on this (mods: feel free to merge). I was unaware of how deep the "entourage" thing went with Russell, right down to the personal on-site coach.

I somehow didn't know this, but the collapse of the Broncos has people talking. Russell Wilson has a whole entourage surrounding him, including: - personal QB coach, often onsite (whose advice may conflict with the official coaching staff) - social media assistants, also getting in the way - personal office in the team training complex, so he can, umm, attend to his other commitments - nutritionist/personal chef Not to mention his wife, and the more typical demands like extra hotel suites when on the road. This is all fine and dandy when you're winning (right, Tom Brady?). https://www.si.com/nfl/2014/08/26/russell-wilson-entourage-seattle-seahawks https://denverfan.com/2099516/why-its-no-big-deal-that-russell-wilson-has-an-entourage-with-him/ But when things go south, the resentment over preferential treatment bubbles up to the surface. And it's boiling over right now, with lots of local Colorado media talking openly about it, and about how the new coaching staff needs to rein this stuff in (assuming that it's not written into that now-horrific Wilson contract). https://www.si.com/nfl/broncos/news/russell-wilson-jake-heaps-involvement-broncos#:~:text=Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson's,Broncos News%2C Analysis and More Question: which other NFL QBs have similar "teams" surrounding them? I know Mahomes has his official groupies, but what about Josh? Rodgers?

A lot of people thought he was hanging it up after last year. It was probably a difficult decision. No knock on Mitch - a guy brought in to stabilize a very poor O line, who did exactly what we wanted him to do - but is it just coincidence/a bad Bears defense that resulted in our best rushing performance all year? Bates at C/Van Roten at G may actually provide better run blocking at least?

WHERE'S THE CINCY WEATHER THREAD! SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE A CINCY WEATHER THREAD!! WE ARE 7 DAYS AWAY AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE WEATHER MAY BE IN CINCY ON JAN 2. High in the mid-50s, cloudy, chance of rain.

I know, I know, Dolphins, their fans, all that. But ... Tua seems like a really great kid, and I hate to see this happening to him. This one is definitely at least one too many. He's got to step aside for the rest of this year and not think about coming back until he has 2nd, 3rd, 4th opinions on whether he can continue to play without endangering his future well being.

Agreed. Speed typically doesn't age well, and that team is all about expensive speed athletes. Other than QB, Miami is built to win now, or next year. But poor Dolphins: their window of opportunity coincides with ours.

True. He did "oversee" the 2019 draft. Last I checked, it's now 2022 ...

Pretty sure Josh Allen has never lost a game played under a roof: https://www.thestar.com/sports/sports-betting/2022/11/18/buffalo-bills-betting-trends-detroits-dome-is-an-advantage.html 4-0 in domed stadiums according to this article (which counts SoFi as a dome, which it pretty much is), written before this year's Detroit wins. So that would be 6-0, right? Josh is a good soldier, and he's not about to criticize the team's decision to move forward on an open air stadium. But the relevant question is this: let's say the Bills make it to the Super Bowl. Not knowing anything else, would you prefer something like the Meadowlands in early February (Super Bowl 50), or Super Bowl LVII in the Glendale, AZ dome? I believe we are the most talented team in the NFL, with the best QB in the NFL (or at least tied for the best). I want to eliminate randomness and let that true talent show. Weather injects randomness. We won't have a dome for many reasons, discussed to death here over the last decade or more. There's a Buffalo attitude that kind of amounts to "our weather sucks and we love it that way." And that's fine as a source of Buffalo pride. But if we're talking the game on the field (not the fan experience, whether there's enough nearby parking lots to destroy folding tables or be doused with ketchup and mustard, etc., etc), I'll take perfect weather conditions any day.

Weird thing is this: up until the Christmas Day fiasco, the Broncos had played hard (excepting Wilson, who's played like a man who's hurt, or a man who's afraid of getting hurt, or both). The offense has been a disaster all season, but the defense showed up every week. Today? After the bad start they just gave up. So the only thing Hackett had to fall back on this year - the "at least they're still playing hard for him" - is no longer the case. I think they let him coach thru next week so they don't hang a KC blowout on the interim guy, but I'd expect to see him gone even before black Monday. As for Wilson: he played kind of like the old Russell Wilson 2 weeks ago, and it ended with a concussion. Today: scared. Took 5 sacks, didn't run past the line of scrimmage at all. There's nothing the Broncos can do now other than try to squeeze a modest rebound out of him while they go maybe 6-11 or 7-10 next year, or move on from him with a colossal dead cap hit and a team of essentially replacement level players, trading away anyone of value, and bottoming out Lions pre-Stafford style.