Logic

The Dead have definitely always been the quintessential "just go out and play" band, with very little "show" at their concerts, other than the liquid light shows in the ballrooms in the late 60s in San Francisco. Ever since then, they've been about as anti "show" as a band can get. If you know about the audience of the Dead, though, you know that they tend to enjoy imbibing certain recreational and botanical substances that would make something like a three dimensional immersive 4K sphere rather...interesting? Terrifying? Life-changing? Not sure the right word. Hokey light shows don't really appeal to me either, but if you've taken a peak at the stuff U2 did at their show at the Sphere, it's certainly far beyond a light show. Futhermore, I've seen Dead and Co a bunch in recent years, and save for John Mayer, they really aren't much to look at Most of the time at Dead concerts, I experience much of the show with my eyes closed. This'll be the first time in a while that I (and my mycologically enhanced brain) will be doing some watching. Can't wait to see what they have in store. And lastly...Yes. Prices for this residency are/were outrageous. I don't blame anyone who doesn't wanna shell out this kind of cash. Highway robbery. I'm gonna take in two shows (maybe three) and make a weekend of it with my Deadhead pod of friends. The circus that is 20,000 Deadheads descending on the circus that is Vegas. Gonna be a hoot.

I posted an article from The Ringer on this forum not long ago that came to two very convincing conclusions, which it backed up with data and charts and everything: 1.) Generally speaking, the later it gets in a game, the worse Tua plays. 2.) Generally speaking, the later it gets in the season, the worse Tua plays. So me, personally? I'm fully on board with the Dolphins giving big money to Tua. He's a very good -- borderline elite -- September and October quarterback. Once Thanksgiving hits and onward, he folds. He's just good enough to give you hope, and just bad enough to repeatedly break your heart. Give him all the money. Sign him for all the years. I'm here for it.

Just a reminder (and I'm not the first to give it): If you rank your primary needs as, let's say: 1. WR 2. S 3. DE 4. DT That does NOT mean that the draft needs to go: Round 1: WR Round 2: S Round 3: DE Round 4: DT Now, I'm absolutely in favor of spending our 1st round pick on a wide receiver. Heck, I'm fine with spending our 1st AND 2nd round picks on a WR. I'm team "load up the offense" all day long. It's just that, far too often, people look at the draft as an opportunity to go down your needs list and match the need priority to the draft round. This is an overly simplistic way of looking at things, and far too often, the draft board doesn't match your positional priority wishlist. All of this is to say: Yes, you, me, and Farfel the dog all want a wide receiver early, but if the value isn't there at pick 28 and a great safety or DT is sticking out like a sore thumb on their board, be prepared for them to take said player, and circle back for a WR in round 2 and beyond. I know that, even with this warning, there will be a torrent of anguished howling from many Bills fans if they take a defensive player 1st, and I get it, but...the draft just isn't as simply and elegantly laid out as you'd like it to be, and draft value NEEDS to be a factor, or you end up reaching for inferior players just to fill needs.

I voted "yes". I understand the argument of all who don't want to see it happen. I understand the "we have lots of needs" and "it could just be another Watkins situation" arguments. I'm just here to say: I think fans sometimes overrate draft picks. They clutch them their chest like pearls and refuse to give them up. Sometimes I think giving up those picks is warranted. Case in point: I was fine with the Bills trading a 1st for CMC. I felt he was the rare RB that warranted a big trade and monetary investment because he impacts the passing game so much as well, and because he would take an ENORMOUS amount of pressure off of Josh Allen. The Bills didn't do it, and instead used their 1st round pick on Kaiir Elam. CMC, meanwhile, was a finalist for league MVP and helped his team reach the Super Bowl. The point is that yes, there is risk in trading away draft picks or trading up in a draft. There is ALSO risk that the premiere player you DON'T make the big time trade for could post elite production, while the player you stand pat and draft instead winds up being a nothing burger. With where the Bills are in their build right now and with a full youth movement in effect, I'm okay with them making a big jump up the draft board and taking a swing on a game changing offensive playmaker. I have faith in Beane to fill in the roster gaps with bargain free agents, as he always does.

Rodgers will come back and the Jets will have a good (not great) season, making the playoffs as a Wild Card and losing to the Chiefs or Bengals. The team will then proceed to implode because they're built on a rotten foundation, Saleh is not the guy, Rodgers is an egomaniac, and the other players are going to be increasingly alienated by the special treatment of him (which it sounds like is already happening). I view the Jets as a short term threat to make life a little harder for the Bills, make the playoffs, and get way more ESPN hype and TV time than they deserve. Long term, though? I am not worried about them in the least.

I feel like that's a statement on concert prices in general these days. Outrageously priced across the board. The only way one can see a live show is if one is willing to part with $500 for a pair of tickets. It's insane. Case in point: You can get a general admission ticket -- meaning it's on the floor, directly in front of the stage -- in the Sphere for this Friday night's U2 show for $236. In the grand scheme of concert prices across America, that's actually pretty good. In a vacuum, that's a crazy amount to have to pay to see some live music. I blame Ticketmaster, mostly. I bought three tickets for a show to the Sphere and the service charges ALONE for those three tickets came to $230. That's outrageous. That's highway robbery. Legalized price gouging and monopoly. I hate it so much. Alas, life is short and I love live music so much, I'm a willing (if grumbly) hostage to their nonsense.

Awesome! That's what the video I linked to is of, the U2 show. Probably don't wanna watch it much because it'll spoil the good parts. Holy hell, looks like it's gonna be more fun than a frog in a glass of milk.

100%. Vegas is already a place with weird and sinister vibes. Now Add THAT video screen madness to the mix?! Yeeeeeee.

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with The Sphere in Las Vegas, but...it's am approximately 18,000 seat venue, inside which the the entire ceiling/walls comprise a 3D, wraparound 4K video screen. Bands are starting to book residencies there and put on shows with crazy graphics involved. It looks like a pretty incredible sensory experience. I just got tickets to two Dead and Company shows for May, and based on video I've seen from other bands' live shows, I fear that if If I, um....apply certain stimuli known to be associated with Grateful Dead related concerts, I may completely depart this dimension. Anyway...Technology is an amazing thing. I'll report back if I make it out intact.

Y'all are just jealous of Hailee. You want to wear Josh's Letterman jacket. It's okay. It's 2024. You can admit it.

I enjoy mock drafts as much as the next guy, and I'm guilty of running about seven thousand mock draft simulations each offseason myself, but... These simulators are often horribly inaccurate in terms of realistic outcomes, particularly this early in the offseason. I often see mock drafts that have less chance of happening than I have of going home with Scarlett Johannson tonight.

It feels like it happens over and over again: Genius Coach X comes in and lights up the league with some revolutionary scheme and high scoring offense. They are hailed as the can't-miss "next big thing" in football. Breathless articles are written about how they're CHANGING THE GAME FOREVER. ...Then a couple seasons go by, opposing defenses get a good read on what that team likes to do, reacts to it and finds ways to defend it, and the coach doesn't have any meaningful counter punch, and then they're gone, and the NEXT "next big thing" comes in. Wash, rinse, repeat. Steve Spurrier, Mike Martz, Greg Roman, Chip Kelly, Mike McDaniel. Some coaches are able to find counters and evolve and stick around. Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan come to mind. But far too often, these guys are crowned geniuses before they've even got three seasons under their belt, and they're out of a job within a year or two. Adding to things in Mike McDaniel's case is that I think he's got a schtick/personality that go down nice and easy when you're winning and things are going well, but will quickly lose their charm once the winning stops.

Fangio's an old school coach. A football lifer. McDaniel is an odd duck with odd affectations. Unpopular opinion: I think the Mike McDaniel thing is closer to souring completely and blowing up than it is to breaking through to championship level football. I think the team will continue to thrive in the early season, continue to falter later in the season and in the playoffs (if they make it that far). I think that, once they consistently start to not be able to break through, McDaniel's act is going to wear thin quickly and things are going to go south fast. I also think Tua is just good enough to get your hopes up every year, and just bad enough to dash them when the stakes are highest. I do not buy this version of the Dolphins, with McDaniel as coach and Tua as QB, as being long term contenders to the Bills for AFC East supremacy.

I feel like maybe you buried the lede. Did you actually want to talk about the Bills-Cowboys Super Bowl, or was this just a cleverly and elaborately disguised "McDermott should be on the hot seat" post?

I think that fully fixing the league would just be too difficult. Far too many moving pieces. It's not realistic. Also, for the league to be fully fixed, all the players would have to be in on it, and what do you think the odds are that that many human beings could keep a secret like that? It's just totally, beyond-the-pail, through the looking glass, ridiculous. There's no way. Now...Do I think that it's possible that the NFL emphasizes or de-emphasizes certain officiating points before key games, particularly in the playoffs, in the name of aiding/encouraging certain more "desirable" teams to win and advance? Yes, I think that's possible. The NFL is first and foremost a business, and if having the Chiefs (and the Taylor Swift show) in the Super Bowl equals X amount more dollars in revenue than having the Ravens would, then I absolutely think it's feasible that the NFL would lean on officials to call a game a certain way to help ensure that outcome. And it could be done in a pretty subtle way, too. Not like "make calls that hurt the Ravens!", but more like "be extremely lenient on defensive holding and pass interference calls" (since the Chiefs have a grabby, physical secondary and the Ravens have a speedy/finesse WR group). Fixed? No. Influenced/swayed/finger on the scale at key moments? Very possible, in my mind.

I can't really quantify which one hurt more. I CAN say that seeing the Ravens be the same old playoff Ravens -- and knowing how well we've matched up with them in the McDermott/Allen era -- made the Bills loss hurt a lot more. I, too, am confident that had the Bills gotten past the Chiefs, they would have beaten the Ravens. For what it's worth, I'd also feel really good about the Bills' chances of beating San Fran. I actually feel MORE confident that this year's Bills would've beaten the Ravens in the AFCCG than I feel that the 2021 Bills would've beaten the Bengals in the AFCCG. Simply because we've seen how hard a time Allen and the Bills have against Lou Anarumo's defense. Whatever. I can only live in the "dwelling agonizingly on past defeats" realm for so long. Not good for mental health. I'm on to the Senior Bowl.

In the regular season over the past four years, McDermott's defense has given up an average of 19.83 points per game. In the four playoff losses over the past four years, McDermott's defense has given up an average of 33.5 points per game. For frame of reference, the worst scoring defense in the league this year belonged to Washington, who gave up 30.5 points per game. So McDermott's defense is three points WORSE than the worst defense in the league this year in the Bills' recent playoff losses. I could be mistaken, but I don't think the Bills defense was incredibly unhealthy in all four of those playoff losses. Obviously this year's missing players are well documented, last year we didn't have Von, the year before that we didn't have Tre. Either way, injuries or not, McDermott's defense is giving up two full touchdowns more per playoff loss than it does in the regular season, and that's a huge and unacceptable swing.

A local reporter who soured on the organization they used to cover, harnessing their malice to write a targeted hit piece that uses info from 20+ sources to attack the character of the head coach and paint a picture of paranoia and dysfunction, throwing the fan base into hysteria and causing endless arguments over whether said paranoid coach is the right man to lead the organization moving forward or whether the author is just a hack with a vendetta. Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Sure. No problem. And likewise, if the Bills are great defensively in the playoffs next year and Babich turns out to have been a great hire, I trust you'll be here with bells on to eat crow?

Like I said, I definitely agree that the defensive injuries played a huge part and were possibly/probably the biggest factor in the loss. With that said, nothing the Bills defense has done over the past several seasons of playoff games makes me confident that the defense would've been gangbusters even if Bernard (and, heck, Matt Milano) were in the lineup. Yes, things would PROBABLY have been better, but based on previous matchups against the Chiefs in the playoffs (or the Bengals, or whomever), why should I be particularly confident that things DEFINITELY would have been better, ya know? My main gripe with McDermott at this point is that his defense is perennially top 5 in the regular season, but drops to below average in the playoffs against the elite opponents. If you're gonna roll with a defensive head coach, that's fine, but his defenses better damn well show up in the biggest games, and they all too often don't under McDermott. Even in past seasons when our defense WAS relatively healthy, they have gotten shredded by the Mahomes and Burrows of the world come playoff time. That has to stop.

Let's see... Golf at Pebble Beach, or play televised dodgeball with Kevin Zeitler and Evan Engram? Hmmmm....Tough choice. (btw that's no shade on Zeitler and Engram specifically. I'm sure they're lovely chaps)

While I agree with the notion that the defensive injuries were likely the most prominent and identifiable reason for the loss to the Chiefs, it doesn't change the fact that it was a loss. Even with those injuries, the Bills had the ball at the end with a chance to score a go-ahead touchdown with very little time left on the clock. They didn't get the job done. Now, obviously you can say "well, it was Josh that opted to throw to Shakir in the end zone rather than bleed more clock, and it was Dawkins that allowed Chris Jones to affect Allen's pass, and surely McDermott isn't to blame for the plays that the PLAYERS themselves didn't make to win", and you'd be kind of right. But one could then point out that it should have been a critical coaching point by McDermott to instill in Josh that he needed to bleed more clock, that going for a touchdown right out of the two minute warning was maybe NOT the best strategic choice, and that in that instance, the matter of WHEN they scored was maybe the most important element of that moment in the game. It's like the 13 seconds game. One could point to the execution by the defensive players or the kicker at the end and say "that's on the players", but one could just as easily say "it's the job of the head coach to know the key factors of importance in that moment and to impart those factors to the players in a way that they understand". What I'm trying to say is this: You can pretty much always blame players on the field, because they're the ones who are or aren't making the plays. But in the big moments of big games, a great head coach will make sure that he has explained the most necessary and pertinent strategic components clearly to the players. McDermott doesn't seem to have done that in the 13 seconds game, and it seems possible that he didn't explain them in the most recent Chiefs loss, either. All of this takes us back to Dunne's primary thesis: That Sean McDermott -- while a good head coach overall -- will always get too tense in big moments, freeze up, and demonstrate an inability to seize those moments, win those games, and get his team over the hump. Put more simply: McDermott has yet to disprove the primary thesis of Dunne's piece.

As someone who found a lot of what was in the Dunne piece to be illuminating and probably truthful... Two things that have happened since have been kind of damning to that report: The first was the Wink Martindale/Brian Daboll fallout. Whereas it looked like the rather public breakup of McDermott and Daboll was more on McDermott, seeing Daboll be unable to make it work with a second consecutive defensive mind makes one wonder. The second was the fact that, as the OP mentioned, two coveted young coordinators chose to stick around in Buffalo rather than go elsewhere, even though both garnered significant interest. Babich, in particular, was surprising, choosing to stick around under a defensive-minded head coach who may still continue to call plays rather than potentially spread his wings under an offensive minded guy. Lastly, the way the team rallied around McDermott after the piece came out also sort of poked a bit of a hole in the "no one likes playing for this control freak" narrative. The more that time has gone on and the more that's happened, the less accurate Dunne's piece has looked. With all of that said, the Bills still lost in heartbreaking fashion in the Divisional round to the Kansas City Chiefs, and the major thesis of Dunne's piece was that McDermott tenses up in big moments and that the Bills need to move on from him to ever reach the Super Bowl, so.....he hasn't entirely been proven wrong thus far.

Does my heart so much good to see Senior Bowl drills happening on the timeline. It's the first major salve on the "didn't win a Lombardi and now the season's over" wound for the year. It's the official turning of the page from "season in review" to "offseason/FA/draft time", which has always been a time of year that I've enjoyed immensely. Spilt milk cried over. OC hired. DC hired. Now let's go build this roster.

If I was the hottest HC candidate in the league, I'd spend another year burnishing my resume with that Detroit offense rather than go to a team with no QB, too. Guys like Johnson have the luxury of waiting for the perfect opportunity. No need to jump at the first jobs that come available, especially if one of them involves being employed by the Washington Commanders.