oldmanfan

I will be in my basement screaming on opening day as always, but there are parts that have me saddened for the upcoming season. One is that I am in an elevated risk group for Covid, so I won't be going down to Orlando to Kitty O'Shea's to watch a few games with my daughter and the the other crazies down there. I also wanted to do a trip to the Rich because my daughter has never seen a game live, and I wanted her to experience that. As for the other stuff, the league and owners say it's OK for players to express their concerns about what's going on in our country, and I'm fine with that. Some may kneel, some may not. It's America; you get to do that. And the two minutes or so they do so during the anthem does not affect the game itself.

Because after the big contract he decided to be a big fat pile of goo

The mark of a good team is you have to start cutting pretty good players.

Prayers for Fitz and his family

Always feel bad for veterans who near the end of the line and get beat out by rookies. $$ came through in the clutch several times but got beat out by the younger, stronger leg. Hope for the best in the future for him and his family.

Jealousy is an undesirable trait.

Not a chance. Let Bass be the kicker and let Edwards punt.

Josh has played two seasons. You imply he’s played three.

In this bizarre season with no preseason games, limited practice you go with the guy who knows the offense.

He improved from year one to year two. There is no reason to think there won’t be continued improvement from year two to year three. The idea that it’s make or break is silly.

Beane is the epitome of the younger GM generation. Close relationship with the HC, not afraid to make trades, good with cap management, helps establish with the HC a philosophy of play that guides personnel decisions, good player communication. I hope Kevyn sits down with him to get advice on the Sabres. Speaking of which, they have a HC in Kruger that is process oriented like McD, with a GM of similar mindset. I hope we see the same results as the McD/Beane combo.

You're a college president, and you have to figure some of these players get it. If just one dies, and you did not have to play, you might as well shut the doors to your school.

Best football game I ever saw was the Monday night season opener in 1974.

Couldn't agree more.

It was not luck that we have McD and Beane. The Pegulas used the list of suggested assistants put together by the NFL, interviewed a couple guys, liked what they saw in McD and hired him. Then they listened to McD and interviewed Beane and brought him in. The Sabres? They brought in two young, up and coming GMs in Murray and Botterill, and both as I recall were on short lists around the league. Botterill probably more than Murray, and they gave each authority to the point where they ever let Murray tank a season. Each of these guys brought in coaches either ready for a shot (Housley) or had won cups (Bylsma). Just hasn’t worked. I think Kruger is a process guy like McD; let’s hope he gets the same performance McD does.

Interesting thought but no. White is a building block for the defense.

No players should be criticized for making decisions they feel using the best interest of their family. Covid is the real deal.

Where did I say that? We don't know what the ultimate number dead will be. because people aren't using mitigating strategies across the board and in the absence of a vaccine or effective preventive drugs right now it continues to press on. Thank Go for the excellent health care providers in the tenches As an aside, if the only way you can debate is to simply make crap up that you claim people said and throw it our there like manure I won't waste my time with you anymore.

That's a big if.

Just to give you a little perspective: The American Heart Association reports that cardiovascular disease was the leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2019 with approximately 850,000 deaths. If we take the American population at 330 million the rate is 0.2% or about what it is with Covid. I don't think anyone denies cardiovascular disease is a real health problem in our country, and it has the abou the same mortality rate as Covid. Do you not think cardiovascular disease is a problem?

I would have to look at the data on other corona viruses. It is likely they did not receive as much research or attention; the current pandemic is much more damaging which attracts more research attention. Not hat it makes that right. Yes, it was not advisable to gather in large groups. I did not condone that anywhere. What I did say is that protests are outside which helped mitigate, and that in the walk I did outside everyone was asked to wear masks or not participate. We had about 100 people total. How you do science is to make an observation, form a hypothesis to explain the observation, then do experiments and/or gather data to test your hypothesis. That is the scientific method. And yes, it should be used to address police shootings and other social issues.

I think you misconstrued my percentage estimate. I thought you meant the percentage of deaths from protestors in a given community, not for the overall country. So take say say in LA where they had a lot of protestors, that to me would be around 5-10% of the number of infections in LA at the very most. The 150,00 deaths attributed to Corona should rightfully be attributed to the virus in my opinon. I know the hospital network I work for does not fudge that stuff, or there'd be hell to pay when we get audited. I'll give you an example of a friend from church who unfortunately died from Covid. He had a recent bout of pancreatitis, and had some underlying respiratory issues (mild COPD). Both of those were pre-existing conditions, but were managed very well with different medications. But when he got the Covid virus, it kicked his respiratory issues into overdrive, and they in the end could not compensate for the added burden. another example would be patients with diabetes, again a chronic condition but can be managed. When they get hit with Covid though, Covid exacerbates the damaging effects of diabetes, in that diabetes is really a vascular disease, and Covid ravages the vascular system. I don't envy governmental leaders right now. I agree some of the decisions don't make sense. Like why in Nevada casinos can be open but churches can't. I think if we all went along with the recommendations of hand washing, masks, and distancing, we' could go a long way in knocking this thing down. But it seems clear that the public won't do that on their own (at least not in my city). So I understand the mandates for masks, etc. - it sucks to be sure but they have the charge of the public health. I would rather focus on Covid, and really do not understand how that somehow gets conflated with the protests and such. All I can say to that is I am pro-police, and I think saying defund the police is stupid. Retraining the police, adding funds for that and for more social workers to de-escalate things before police need to come in, and using funds to get overstressed police counseling, or to increase training, I'm all for. But I am also all for using the justice system to charge and imprison police that overstep things and criminally abuse their authority. Appreciate the dialog. Don't mean to sound cranky with the other guy, but I get tired of the insults. Thanks for reminding me to be above that level of discourse.

As I said I have a 40 year career in science and research so take your pithy little janitor thing and stick it. Science progresses as more data is obtained. Experiments are done in many labs to inform on things like how the Corona virus is spread, and that it is spread via aerosols and droplets, and that masks can help slow down that spread. We were advised not to wear N95 or surgical masks early on in the crisis to make sure front line health care workers had access to those supplies. As the science advances our knowledge of how to combat things increases and advice changes. Scientists are right now working feverishly on developing effective vaccines and treatments, and these will hopefully lead us out of the pandemic. In the interim, we use the mitigating strategies that science tells us will help to decrease transmission. I'd explain more but you apparently have neither the ability to understand, or the willingness to under stand. As for the protests, I participated because I have friends who have been impacted negatively by racial profiling. And yes accumulation of data on that will help us understand the issue better, and figure out how to move forward. And that includes gaining data on crime and how to help police get rid of that as well. I am very much pro-police, thank you. So again, in your words go **** yourself.

Yes. they probably do. I have been doing science for 40 years,, so I am trained to look at the data and the variables therein. So one of the variables there was number of individuals. Too many for the Covid era to be sure; defeats the purpose of distancing. . One of the other variables is mask wearing. From videos I saw many protesters were wearing masks. In the one walk I did in my hometown folks were asked not to participate without wearing one. The biggest variable was protesters were outside which allows better dissipation of droplets and aerosols. What percentage would I attribute to the protests? Minimal, maybe 5-10%. Just a guess of course, but the bulk of transmission would be from individuals in enclosed spaces who refuse to adopt mitigating strategies.

I've been pro-mask since the beginning because I work in a health care setting, and because they help. Because that's what the science tells us. And I also walked in one of the walks in my hometown, at which everyone had on masks. And from what I could tell, many in the larger marches did as well (not to mention they were outside which helps alleviate spread). And those who didn't were stupid (including those who, for example, stormed the Michigan statehouse, who as I recall were on the right side of the political spectrum). and before you even try to get into the violence, I want anyone, right or left, who gets violent and loots and such to be thrown in jail. So, in your words, you can go **** yourself.