HappyDays

No, I don't believe a fetus is a person. And that's not an uncommon opinion in this country. But I'm not gonna get stuck in the weeds on this point, it's the definition of a grey area. My arguments in favor of abortion rights work without ever needing to address that question. I believe bodily autonomy supersedes all else even when another person's life is involved. And that's kind of my point. Some of the pro-life arguments I see boil down to "if you have sex and get pregnant, your punishment is being forced to carry it to term." What about a woman who uses every possible form of birth control and still gets unluckily pregnant? Should she be forced to carry it to term? There's no logic in that.

I've never understood this rape exception argument. Just about every pro-life individual I've ever talked to is anti-abortion because they believe fetuses are persons. If that is the case it shouldn't matter how the fetus came to be. The choices of the mother that led to the pregnancy should have exactly zero bearing on the supposed person's right to exist. The fact that so many pro-life people agree with the rape exception tells me that deep down they know abortion isn't really killing a person. They know that the women have some level of autonomy in that decision.

Correct. I'm fine with the Supreme Court decision. I'm talking about my personal views on this subject. So you seemingly agree that having a moral opinion and forcing that opinion legally are two separate things. That's all I'm saying. Personally I don't believe abortion is inherently immoral. I respect those that think it is immoral. I would rather the law not force that decision. And for what it's worth I am consistent in that view with regards to all forms of bodily autonomy.

Poor analogy. No one is legally forced to get vaccinated, as in getting held down and jabbed with a needle. If you don't get vaccinated you lose certain social privileges. There are certain counties in America where if it is discovered that a woman had an abortion she would become a social pariah. That is a consequence of living in society. That isn't the same thing as totally stripping away a person's bodily autonomy and literally forcing them to make a choice they don't want to make.

Fetuses aren't considered persons by the government. And the woman carrying the fetus in essence is being forced to carry the pregnancy to term which is absolutely a violation of bodily autonomy. Would you support a law that required mothers to give up their organs if their child needed a life saving transplant? Would you support forcing people to sign up as organ donors after death? Should a pregnant woman given a diagnosis of likely death by her obstetrician be forced to carry the fetus to term and sacrifice her own life for it? You can have whatever opinion you want on the morality of such choices, but ultimately I will never support forcing a person to violate their bodily autonomy.

Sure, too many people in this country rely on the Supreme Court to make their preferred policies for them. I'm cool with the Supreme Court deciding in favor of legalized interracial marriage, gay marriage, etc. because that's focusing on comparative rights among American citizens. Abortion doesn't fall under that umbrella for me. Laws like that should be enacted by the legislative bodies in this country. Of course such a thing will never happen but it isn't the Supreme Court's job to play the role of tiebreaker.

The issue is I don't trust legislators to build laws around that science. Not even a little bit. In my mind it has always seemed simpler to leave it up to the person that carries the fetus, period. I get that abortion is a moral grey area but in a free society we have to accept those grey areas because the alternative is stripping people of their freedoms.

In terms of pure constitutional law this is probably the right decision. Roe v Wade was always an activist decision. But it really sucks for women that live in states who are going to criminalize abortion. Abortions will still happen in those states, just unsafely. Millions of unwanted pregnancies being carried to term will lead to an increased crime rate in about 20 years. I don't have a problem with the court decision but illegal abortion in many states is a net negative for the country IMO.

Damn, RIP. It's been an awful year. This is three young players that passed away over the last year.

It turns out if you buy into a new market after watching a celebrity Super Bowl ad, you're not getting in on the ground floor.

Not invested in it as our primary option, but we're talking about a potential injury to Diggs or Davis. There isn't going to be a perfect solution. And based on everything we've heard this offseason it sounds like they plan on McKenzie taking some snaps outside so they must feel somewhat comfortable with him in that role.

There's been some implication that they'll be using McKenzie more on the outside this year. Matt Parrino said on his minicamp recap podcast, after watching both minicamp practices, that he thinks McKenzie is ready to take more outside snaps this year. Hard to think he didn't see something there that gave him that idea. Then there was this: It's very possible they're giving McKenzie the hybrid outside/slot WR role that Davis had last year, with Shakir (or Austin?) backing him up in that role. He performed well when called on last year. I think they're ready to elevate him beyond a gadget player only role. The Bills 100% have a plan at outside WR if Diggs or Davis go down for an extended period of time, and I highly doubt Kumerow is the entire plan. More likely they would let some combination of McKenzie and Shakir and Austin take that spot, and start funneling more passes to the TEs and RBs to make up for some of the lost production. In a real emergency situation you keep a player like Julio Jones or TY Hilton on speed dial. There's a pervasive idea on this board that if the Bills don't have a true #2 outside WR waiting in the wings behind Davis that means that they aren't prepared in case of injury. I don't think that's true at all. Like any other team that falls into that position we would find a way to make it work.

Yes. Because when you're talking about investment you have to start with what's already there. If you were going to condense the goal of every team in every offseason into a single statement it would be something like "Build the offensive and defensive personnel to be championship caliber." The offense finished the season as a championship caliber offense. No it wasn't perfect, nothing ever is. Anyone with a pair of eyes that watched the Bills in the playoffs will tell you the same. The defense clearly was not championship caliber. I don't care about the rankings. If we had ultimately won the Super Bowl last year it would have been because Josh Allen and the offense dragged the rest of the team there. So that's where the offense and defense finished the season. Then in the offseason the defense lost more, period. Your own snap count numbers make that clear. The Bills offense had 120 more snaps than the defense in the regular season last year. That's cute of you to throw in Feliciano's 442 snaps in favor of your point. Greg Van Roten alone replaces him. Obviously when I mentioned "major losses" I was referring to players that require more than vet minimum investments to replace. So let's take out Feliciano and Butler. Now it's 2,817 snaps lost for the defense compared to 2,600 snaps lost for the offense, even though the offense played 120 more snaps total. And that's before taking into account that the defensive players share snaps much more than the offensive players do. Yeah I feel pretty confident saying the defense took a much further step back at the start of the offseason when they were already less talented to begin with. And here's something I mentioned earlier in the thread that you never bothered responding to - Josh Allen represents the single greatest investment on the team. Every single offseason for the duration of his career the offense will already be 2/3 of the way to championship caliber because he is on the team. So every single offseason the defense will need more added than the offense to even out the total investment distribution. The fundamental flaw of this whole discussion is that we're talking about offense building and defense building as if they're equivalent. They're not. The offense revolves around a single position. Once you have that position filled with an elite player you inherently don't have to add as much around him to have an elite offense. That's not to say zero investment is needed. An offense with an elite QB still needs a true #1 WR, a franchise LT, and a decent supporting cast on the o-line and skill positions to fill in the gaps. But the Bills started the offseason with all of that already in hand. Defenses don't revolve around a single man, and require more depth especially on the d-line. Just for fun imagine the Bills offense as of March 15 playing against the Bills defense on the same day. Even assuming Tre White is fully recovered and back to his exact level of elite play that game would be a laugher. You know in your heart this is true. Which means you have to accept that the defense started the offseason at a much lower level of talent.