Rochesterfan

Hapless - absent some additional information coming out - the Denver issue seems to be different than others based upon the delay in identifying contacts and “film” review the NFL used - I think these are related. My guess and it is only a guess, but based upon how the league has handled this situation: The positive came back on Thursday and the devices did not list any contacts and the discussed contact tracing (if they had followed stated protocol) was done and nothing was noted. Standard and works just like how it happened with the Bills. The league then begins reviews the film from the facility (most likely on Friday or Saturday morning) and notes that the QBs in question had the meeting but they did not wear masks as was stipulated in the protocol. That fact then changes the contact tracing because now even though the time was less than would be considered a contact by the device - because it was inside with no masks (against protocol) they move them into the positive close contact situation (they are still most likely a very low risk for infection, but that would explain the change at the later date). As low risk contacts - they most likely are also now reviewing other potential contacts and may have determined none exist and as they are low risk: the medical information says everyone else should be fine and medical clearance is set to play. That would be my take. I think if Denver had properly followed protocol and masked during the meeting - the other QBs never get popped and there is no issue. They either went without masks or took them off for a period of time and that changes the timing set on the device to identify close contacts.

I don’t get this - this is exactly consistent with how they have been handling these throughout the season. We had Knox knock out the TE group and we had Norman knock out half the DBs. The only difference is this is QBs and this is why some teams took extra precautions with the QB by having one Quarantined. Titans and Ravens have games moved when there are additional positive cases spreading within the team - not a single player or two with identified contacts.

Tell what to Denver? The Denver situation is similar to our Knox and Norman situation. They had a positive, identified contacts and are sitting them as contacts. There is not rampant positives still coming from the team like the Ravens. It has been consistent even if you don’t like it.

Nope - as has been stated multiple times in this thread - after the trade deadline every player released must clear waivers.

With Patricia now gone - we have 1 of the 3, but I expect McCarthy to be back unless something happens with Kellen Moore (that is who I expect to be the next Dallas HC). I think they let McCarthy have 1 more year and then pull the plug no matter what. Gase is interesting as the owners like him and he picked the GM. Joe Douglas has some other people he knows, but I would not be shocked if Gase gets another year or until Philly pulls the plug on Doug Pederson.

I will wait on the Jets. The owners likes Gase and Gase picked the GM. I am not convinced that they move on from Gase at the end of the year. I think they allow the GM and Gase to decide on the roster for next year. The Jets hate having a lot of term on the contract when eliminating coaches and paying 2 guys at the same time. They should move on, but I am not sure they do. I think they want the GM and HC to get the next QB.

They can do this easily this week because the Baltimore/Dallas Thursday game is already cancelled. Therefore it really has little impact on teams. If they think this will help to stop the spread (as they recognize the issue in Baltimore was allowing the 2 walk throughs on Monday and Tuesday) - I would watch for the next shoe to drop - rescheduled Thursday night games to Sunday or Monday and continuing having 2 no contact days for teams to stop or lessen internal spread. They recognize it is going to get worse before the end of the season and are making more aggressive changes to get through the last few games.

Doesn’t matter - they have already said it will not be fair - it is no different that the Bills Titans and the NFL figured out how to make it work. They are not going to Forfeit if it can be helped. They just are not going to do it. It sucked for the Bills and it will suck for the Steelers and may end up costing them home field, but it is the season they are going to have to live with. Additionally - now prior to the game they will have 9 days off - yes they have to figure in practices, but like the Bills during that Titan week - the coaches are giving guys time off - so they should be rested.

We will see, but the NFL has always said a forfeit is the last/worst case scenario. They are not going to use a forfeit while they can still figure out ways to make it work or for games that will impact the playoffs. My guess is as we approach the last couple of weeks if set of teams out of the playoffs have this happen - they might use a forfeit or a straight cancellation, but as they showed with the Titans - they are not going to do that unless there is nothing else they can do. We will see what the punishment for the team is at the end of this as they admitted fault already. The interesting part is the NFL allowed the Monday and Tuesday walkthroughs and that expanded the issue - so that is not a Ravens issue - that was a flaw created by the Thursday game.

They have already admitted that a coach did not follow protocol. They admitted this was caused internally and disciplined the coach. The internal spread was caused because they allowed 2 walkthroughs to try to get ready for the Thursday game. A normal week and no one comes to the stadium Monday and limited on Tuesday and the spread would have been easier to control. They and the NFL recognize what caused this and now have to determine how to fix it and maintain the season. These takes are just flat out terrible. The change in date has nothing to do with Lamar and in reality if they had played last evening as they should Lamar’s results may have been delayed. Moving the date back makes it more likely that more people test positive and miss the game. They need to allow 4-5 days from the exposures Monday and Tuesday to catch the people infected on site during the walk through. That means that Sunday was going to be the first day where if everyone tests negative they could think about getting together. That is why the Ravens have closed their facility until Monday. They will meet remotely, but the players can not get together until Monday. This is exactly what the league needs to do in this situation and is exactly what was expected when the outbreak occurred. The League is not suddenly Favoring the Ravens - most of these players including Lamar will still not be cleared by Tuesday to play and there is a chance even more people become positive.

That is exactly what I am expecting. A Tuesday/Wednesday game this week and push back their games next week to Monday/Tuesday to fit it in. My guess is Tuesday this week and Pittsburgh/WFT next Monday and Dallas/Baltimore on Tuesday because then Baltimore has a Monday night the following week. I imagine like the Tennessee game - they are going to find a way to fit it in.

I think for an average person - your doctor is correct - they tend to trim because we are not abusing the knee to the level an athlete does. For NFL players they typically review options and make a decision based on how long they expect the player to play and how bad the tear is. If they can repair - most doctors think that is the better option because there is a good chance later in the career this is going to happen again and you want to maintain as much of the meniscus as possible for as long as possible.

I believe 3-4 weeks is if they scope and remove part of the meniscus. It sounds more likely they are doing a full meniscus repair/recover attempt rather than a removal and therefore the recovery is typically 3-4 months. The repair/recovery is the better long term option, but many players in season opt for a partial removal to allow them to get back out there. Not sure what all went into the decision.

He still could not get on the field for most teams in the NFL - including this one. He is on a team in Washington with a QB that utilizes the TE a ton. Smith went an entire year basically throwing all his TDs and a good percentage of completions to TEs - so I am not surprised at all. Add to that - WFT’s lack of talent at WR and the TEs become even more relevant. I prefer to see the Bills utilizing the WRs as the main receiving weapons and they use the TEs as H-Back/Blocking backs to help pick up blitzes and protect Allen. I would imagine here - he would not beat out Knox or Kroft and would probably be behind Smith due to his blocking. I am happy for him, but I do not confuse the numbers he is putting up in that system with thinking he could do something here.

This is just terrible and then for the Cowboys to come out on Thanksgiving and lay a stinker out there - just crazy. I actually thought maybe some guys like Elliot that seemed to really love Markus - I thought he might explode and have a monster game, but they just seemed defeated. It breaks my heart 😥

Why - the Titans screwed up 2 of our games and the Pittsburgh game and the NFL did not force a forfeit. Move the game to Tuesday/Wednesday and then move back Pittsburgh/Baltimore’s next game to Monday/Tuesday if needed. I thought the Titans should of forfeited against us, but if they can jerk around multiple teams and play on weird nights for the Bills earlier then they can do it here also - get the game in. I will be interested to see because this is the work of 1 bad coach and just spreading within the team from that. The Titans was a coach and a PS player that had not been cleared, but the real harm was when the team did not follow protocol and practiced together outside the facility. To me that situation warranted a forfeit way before this one.

Ok, but it might take me a couple of hours to get there. After that I will have dinner - thanks for the invite even with COVID. LOL. 😂

Actually in fact there are a lot of fan bases that think that exact thing about Allen. The various Jets message boards have that debate all the time - what would have happened if they drafted Allen and we had Darnold. The assumption is Darnold would have succeeded because of Daboll and stability and Allen would have struggled in that mess. I have seen Browns boards wonder about Allen versus Mayfield and would they have been better off with Allen or if Allen is a product of Daboll’s system. The Broncos are another message board that thinks and wonders if Elway missed on that call. Most seem to agree that Allen (like Mahomes) is in a good situation now and that has allowed him to become the player he is. No one knows what would of happened on any of these other teams.

I just think all of this speculation is silly - fun, but silly - and no one should be hurt over it because that is all it is speculation. 1) No one knows what actually would have happened had Mahomes been drafted to that Bills team. What we do know is instead of learning under Alex Smith (career year) and Andy Reid as OC with an offensive oriented team - he would have learned under Rick Dennison (OC) with Tyrod Taylor as his mentor on a Defensive oriented team. I just do not see the growth potential there that he had in KC. 2) A few people in the organization know exactly what was going on, but even those of us on the outside recognized that Whaley was done after that terrible end of year press conference. There was no way that McDermott was going to entrust the drafting at that point to Whaley and Monos (it was even noted that McDermott did not even trust the Bills draft board) and basically Whaley was just a glorified page to make calls and field calls for McDermott. So whatever the article tries to say about what Whaley and Monos thought about Mahomes - it really matters very little - they were not really involved once McDermott took over - so everything they say is all coated with knowing the outcome because they were not making the choices and after the draft - they and the scouts were all let go and said they had little input into the entire draft. 3) Pegula may have been slamming his fist to draft Mahomes, but there is little proof of that. Pegula hired McDermott with an obvious plan to go out and get him a GM that he was comfortable with. I can’t imagine that Pegula at that point was watching film and able to identify talent that really based on pre draft assessment would have been over drafted by 10 spots. I can believe that on their evaluation trips - he may have like Mahomes, but I really do not see pounding the table and saying Mahomes would have been a good fit in Buffalo. They did say that exact thing when talking about Allen - not only was Allen a good player, but they believe he was a culture and community fit. In the end - the article is whatever. Ty Dunne was a decent writer at TBN, but I don’t believe he had the information or leeway to write something like this. Now he can freelance and take what he has heard and mix-in what he thinks and create a totally speculative article without having to go through an editorial group and cross check references. People can believe what they want - it is part of the problem with Internet media - whatever opinion you hold - no matter how obscure- you can find a article that fits it. I look at it this way. The Bills were in position to draft Mahomes (along with 10 other teams), but chose not to. They took a package that made senses for the new leadership team. That group then identified their franchise QB in the next draft and went and got him. We can forever look at Mahomes and Allen, but trying to compare what would have happened is just too much for me unless someone has been to that alternate universe and can provide absolute feedback. What I know from listening to and talking with lots of former players - who drafts you and the team and style you go to matters. Players put in a great situation excel and go on to have great careers and players drafted to bad teams at all positions can fail. We know Mahomes in KC was drafted into an ideal situation- we have no idea if Buffalo pulled that trigger how the different situation would have worked out, but there is very little to suggest the lack of WR talent would have allowed him the same type of growth.

I agree with that, but what we don’t really know is what triggered the close contact. It could have been them practicing and trying to have a discussion about how to handle something like a stacked look and you end up with Norman, Wallace, and Marlowe for example all talking game planning and they happen to exceed a time limit. They are assuming (which is part of the issue with the pandemic) that they are negative as they are all getting tested, but sometimes - especially when trying to work out how they want to handle parts of the game plan - need time together to talk out switches or ensure they are all on the same page and it bit them this time. Based on the fact that several other Safeties and CBs were not exposed - I think it was not necessarily meetings that triggered it. It more likely was a small group working on a part of the game plan to try and be ready for the game. The dining comment was more associated to the Pats situation where Cam had dinner out with Gilmore and both ended up infected from that meeting. Overall - It is tough to play. Complex style of defense and not spend time together working on it. The Bills have done an adequate job of keeping players safe, but like every team they have things they could do to get better. The Knox TE room is an example of that. They all need to learn and adapt.

No one, but 4 players were considered close contacts and had to go on the COVID report until they had multiple negative results over a course of days - causing them to miss the Arizona game. That is why there was no need to postpone the Bills game - they isolated the potential contacts and used the COVID Squad. To me that shows the Bills are following protocols in house and that the risk of transmission during things like practice are limited. The positives all come from sustained close contact (coaches during a meeting/work-out or in a meeting room, Dinner at a restaurant where 2 players dine together for an extended period of time, etc.).

Terrible Post - that is exactly what they are doing. They are following their policy - several positives came up - they are tracing the contact and working to determine cause (turns out it was a coach). Now they need to isolate players and find any additional positives prior to allowing them to travel or play to minimize the spread. They are properly delaying the game 3 days and the Ravens will be missing the same people (and perhaps more) as Thursday night. I do not see what people are missing - they are not pushing the game back to give time for guys to get back - it is to identify positives and limit transmission any further. This is very much akin to what happened with the Titans and the situation is 100% different than what the Bills just went through. The Bills had 1 positive test in Norman (did not seem to come from the facility) and they had several “close contacts” based on tracing that had to sit because there was not enough time between exposure and game to be cleared (none of them seemed to become positive meaning the protocols are working). The Ravens (like the Titans) had a coach that did not properly report symptoms and spread it to several players that have all now tested positive. Now they are contact tracing and have to determine how many others might be impacted. They also need the ectra couple of days for any additional stragglers to become positive. This is part of their policy and is exactly what they should be doing. Unfortunately (just like Buffalo earlier in the season) their opponent also gets screwed and it is unfair, but they have to do the Best they can.

Agreed!

I think this is an interesting (and very unfortunate) question. The have a good shot at a top 3 pick. Before the injury - I thought potential trade down and begin to rebuild the OLine to support Burrow. Now if this is a legitimate 1 year injury - so he is missing part of the 2021 season - it becomes a legitimate question because it potentially kills another Bengals season. I still expect them to draft support pieces because of what Burrow has shown, but I can’t imagine that coaching staff having a lot of freedom with how bad that team has been since they got rid of Marvin Lewis. It could be an interesting time as they decide how to move forward and I really feel for them.

Man this is exactly what you fear in that situation. With multiple ligaments and other structural components- you are looking a a full year rehab. So sad for someone that genuinely seems like a decent guy playing for a heartbreaking team.