Shaw66

WOW! If that's accurate then the Bills have a problem. I find that hard to believe, but anything is possible.

Thanks. QB certainly would be an issue. Although I'm sure there are other areas where the differences between vacc'd and non-vacc'd could be problems, I'm still not convinced it's an elephant. In any case, I think McDermott will get every player to the right place over the next month or two. I'm not losing any sleep over it.

I just don't agree it's an elephant. It may be raccoon - that is, something that eventually may become a problem. I don't think it's an elephant. I'm interested in you second paragraph. I have read practically nothing (in part because the Bills have said practically nothing), but I've always assumed that the Bills didn't have a "reasonably large number of non-vaccinated players." I've assumed that the Bills are pretty close to whatever the numbers are that would give them relief from the COVID rules. I've assumed that because it isn't very logical to assume the Bills are far from the limit when thirty teams have gotten there easily. Statistically speaking, the Bills would be an extraordinary outlier if they were far from the limit. I've assumed instead that this situation was informed by how teams handled the kneeling issue and the George Floyd issue, which is to give serious respect (some might say too serious) to how each person felt about the subject. My sense of what the Bills did was agree that if they could be 100% behind something, they would be completely private about it - like, for example, they would stay in the locker room for the national anthem. I think they've done that here. I think they've said each man's view about the vaccine (both his view with respect to his personal health care and treatment and his political view of the situation) is personal to him and deserves to be respected. I think what you say about McDermott and "educating" players is correct. McDermott is working to find a way to persuade players to get the vaccine by getting them to balance their personal views and the personal commitment to the team. He's probably telling these guys, or helping these guys see, that the team is standing behind them and that they also have a duty to stand with the team. Will the COVID rules be a significant disadvantage to the Bills when they hit training camp? I don't know - the Bills did very well getting ready for 2020 under those rules, and given the extent of the non-contact rules that the league and players' association have with respect to team practice generally, I'm not so sure that McDermott sees a big disadvantage. Most business functioned just fine once they adapted to the COVID rules, and there isn't necessarily any reason why a football team can't flourish under those rules. And in a perverse way, this gives McDermott an opportunity to do what is at the core of his philosophy - to build solidarity. There's no doubt in my mind that there are guys on the team who are pissed that some of their teammates haven't been vaccinated, and McDermott is working to bring the team together in the face of that conflict. When he does that, he will have a team that truly is ready to die for another. Is there any evidence about how far from the limit the Bills actually are? Is it three players or 20? Thanks for chatting.

Each of us has his own reaction about these things. I'm not bent out of shape about the fact that they've agreed not to talk about it. I think that shows their solidarity as a team, and I like that. And it doesn't hurt the team, unless and until it becomes a distraction. I'm bent out of shape because some guys aren't getting vaccinated. Now, I don't care if people in the general public are deciding not to get vaccinated, but these guys have a job where getting jabbed with needles is a pretty common occurrence. They put all kinds of things in their bodies. I believe that refusing to get jabbed with this particular needle is selfish and against the team's interests. I mean, Beasley's attitude last season was "shoot me up with anything, just get me on the field." I think these guys have chosen a profession where you're expected to do everything possible to help your team win, and that should extend to getting the COVID shot. I just don't think there's anything wrong with the team deciding they aren't going to talk to me about the subject.

I think that's a good take. Frankly, what I think is going to happen is that guys will get the vaccine and the problem will go away. The guys who aren't yet vaccinated will begin to feel too much pressure, even if it's self-imposed pressure. The Bills just will announce one day that they are no longer subject to the restriction. I seriously doubt the Bills will enter the regular season operating under the COVID restrictions. And you're right, it's the team, not Poyer. But I don't think it's fair to call it a cop out. The established rules in this country, whether any of us may like it or not, is that medical information is personal and private and may be shared with others only with the person whose information it is. The team isn't talking about this subject because the team, including the players, have chosen to respect those privacy rights. Now, one might argue that they are using that argument to hide beyond doing the opposite, but that's a problem that comes along with granting people rights - the rights may be exercised for purposes other than we might have thought was intended.

I dont know why people are having trouble understanding this. Of course it's a reasonable question. It just isn't reasonable to keep asking it when you've been told it's not going to be answered. Its evidence that you're trying to trap the player or the team, and the players and coaches don't like that.

Thanks. That's interesting. I appreciate it. As to 1. There's a difference to a subject being newsworthy and the existence of actual news. Google's privacy policies are newsworthy, but that doesn't mean there is actual news about it on any given day. There was no news about the Bills' vaccine policy on that day. The Bills hadn't changed their policy as to the vaccine, and the players hadn't changed their policy about talking about it. No news. That was made clear by Poyer before the press conference started. Wawrow was trying to get Poyer to say something that would have been newsworthy. He was trying to make Poyer the news. As to 2. That's very interesting. Thanks for explaining that. As to 3. It's not only the reason you left journalism. It's the reason a lot of people left. It's become "vacuous, pointless and extremely unfulfilling." That is the world that Wawrow works in. The Associated Press doesn't want the Bills complaining to them about Wawrow's behavior, and the Associated Press certainly doesn't want the guy they've assigned to cover the Bills to have limited access. News papers are struggling to survive, and they don't want their writers creating problems. They just want quality content. Among journalists on the beat, I'm sure they give each other big huzzahs and pats on the back when one of them breaks a story like "Poyer disagrees with Edmunds about the vaccine." The Associated Press cares very little about that. Now, maybe, once in a while the AP gets to sell an article Wawrow writes because of the content - the Denver Post picked up his article when Beane said he'd cut a guy to get to the vaccine limit, but his value to the AP is much more just about his ability to cover the news competently. Several years ago I read that sportswriters at local rural papers were losing their jobs because someone had created software that generates articles. All you had to do was enter the score, the winning pitcher, the losing pitcher and some other facts, and voila! - you've got your article about Regional High's win over Wheatfield. The problem Wawrow and many journalists have is that, talented as they are, ambitious and insightful as they are, increasingly an article written by a computer is good enough for the newspaper.

Yeah, I actually agree with most of that. It's just that we won't know any of it until the fall, and what Dawkins says about Epenesa in June is not convincing me that Epenesa is going to be the cause of the defensive improvement. I think McDermott, Frazier and the Dline coach have been scheming for months to create pass rush, to stop the run, and to make the defense stingier, and I have a lot of confidence that they will succeed. Part of that scheming will include figuring out how the particular skills of Harrison, Oliver, Epenesa, Rousseau, and Basham are going to be utilized.

We just don't agree about this. His job is to write content about the Bills. A journalist goes to where there is news, gathers information, and reports on it in accordance with certain established principles of journalism. It's not a journalist's job to create news, and that's what Wawrow was trying to do. He already knew there was no news about vaccines, because he'd been told there wasn't anything Poyer would say about it. Nothing had changed. So long as Poyer said nothing, there was no news. There only would be news if Wawrow created a circumstance where Poyer said something that Poyer already had told him he didn't want to say. Poyer had already told Wawrow twice that there was no news. Wawrow asked again. A good journalist knows when there's no news. Now, an investigative journalist asks tough questions, looks for inconsistencies and all that, but in my mind an investigative journalist is someone who looks to uncover news of significance - like some government official covering up information, or a hacker gang skimming money from millions of bank accounts. A guy trying to find out if some movie star's girlfriend slept with her latest costar is not an investigative journalist. He's just someone looking for something sensational to write. Every other writer at Poyer's press conference knew the drill: We all ask some questions for 15 minutes, Poyer gives us some answers. Whatever he says is the news we have for the day. That's what we cover. After the press conference, we each sit down and write an article about what Poyer said. If we want, our articles can say Poyer declined to comment about the vaccination issue. That's the news, that's what journalists cover. After the season ended, the press asked Beasley about his injury. He said he had a broken fibula. That's news. People asked follow-up questions to get the complete story. That's what journalists do. They didn't ask him if he was pissed off at Barkley for having thrown a ball that led to his injury. Now, that would have been an in-your-face question, but no one should be surprised if someone asks it. Beasley, of course, would have said no, it wasn't Barkley's fault. If he'd then gotten a follow-up question asking again if he was pissed at Barkley, Beasley would have been justifiably unhappy about it. You ask the question, you get an answer. If you don't like the answer, too bad, you don't ask it again. Wawrow was trying to create a controversy where this is none. If he wants to write an opinion piece that says the Bills are making a mistake by not forcing their players to get vaccinated, he's free to do that. If what he writes is persuasive, great, he's created his controversy. I might think the controversy is stupid, and I might not like that Wawrow created the controversy, but I'm not going to complain about it. But when he sets out to get a Bills player to do something that is not in the interest of the Bills,, something the player has already told him he doesn't want to, then he's trying to make matters worse for my team, and I don't like that.

Yeah. I think we misperceive how this stuff actually happens between GMs. I agree. Beane was clear. There was interest. I fully suspect Houston told the Bills what they were looking for, Watt's agent told the Bills what Watt was looking for, and Beane told Houston and the agent what the Bills initially would be willing to offer. And these negotiations don't start with low-ball offers from Beane or pie-in-the-sky asks from the other team. These are sophisticated business people who give each other a fair statement of what they're willing to do. Nobody wants to waste a lot of time going back and forth to find out what really will make the deal. So, in this case, the Bills found out pretty quickly that they weren't willing to pay what Watt or Houston wanted, and the parties stopped talking. If Watt and Houston hadn't been able to make a deal with Arizona, maybe they would have called back with lower expectations. Who knows? What we do know is that Beane was interested until he learned the price. That's how these things go. Last year at this time we all hoped Ed Oliver would do something, too. Hard to get excited about comments out of OTAs.

I've been lurking around, looking at what people are saying here since I said my piece, but something Happy Days said got me to want to get reengaged. First, to be clear, I want to apologize to JW. I think what I said may have been misinterpreted. I didn't mean to disparage him by saying he was not a journalist. My sense of the guy is that he works at his craft, he's written a lot of really good stuff, and I'm sure he does his best to adhere to the principles of journalism. However, that doesn't change what his job is. He is job is to create content, day after day. His job is to write a couple hundred words about the Bills every couple of days that are meaningful, informative, and seem fresh. Yes, scooping the other writers sometimes helps him write something that attracts extra readers, but Wawrow was not going to scoop anyone by asking these questions at an open press conference. Everyone else would have been in on it immediately, and there would have been no scoop. Second, also to be clear, I've said and I continue to believe that he's free to ask whatever questions he wants. That's up to him. What I said was that by doing what he did, he will tend to limit the access he gets to the Bills. It will tend to limit the quality of the responses he gets from the team, because if they're unhappy with the way he pursues them, the natural tendency of human beings, including the Bills, is to stay away from the guy. From his point of view, it's bad for his business if he antagonizes the Bills, because it will affect his ability to write the kind of content his employer wants. So, as I've been reading the comments of people, I've been wondering why it is that what Wawrow did bothers me? I mean, why do I care if he's doing something that may affect his job performance negatively? If he can't figure out what's good for him and what isn't, that's his problem. Then I read what Happy Days said - that the real reason that Wawrow asked the questions and persisted was that he was trying to create controversy, which Happy said is the currency of the internet these days. Why create controversy? Because it's easier to write a couple of hundred words about the Bills if there is a controversy pending. If there's no controversy, it takes some creativity to write something that engages readers. And then I realized it: What I don't like about Wawrow asking those questions is that he's trying to create controversy, and controversy is bad for my team! That's the problem. This is my team he's talking about, and he's trying to make my team look bad and he's trying to get the players on my team to argue with each other in the press. He's trying to disrupt the community of players that McDermott works hard to create and maintain. Is he trying to do this because he WANTS to make problems for the Bills? No. He's trying to create controversy because it will be easier to write about the Bills, easier or more fun, or more interesting. He's trying to disrupt what's going on within the Bills organization for his own benefit or entertainment. I don't need that and I don't want that. Controversy is not good for my team. It's not good for my team if Wawrow tricks Poyer in talking about something that he promised his teammates he wouldn't talk about. It's not good for my team if Poyer says something about one of his teammates and then his teammate tweets a response. The Bills are going to do whatever they do about the vaccination, and none of Wawrow's questions are going to change that. But Wawrow's questions CAN change the team chemistry - I don't want that, and McDermott doesn't want that. There is nothing good for my team that was going to come out of Wawrow's questions to Poyer, and there was potentially something bad. (And please don't try to tell me that JW's probing questions might cause Poyer to reconsider his point of view and that in turn might cause him to lead the Bills in a different direction that might be beneficial to the team. It's true, it might, but a mid-air butterfly could have created an instantaneous micro-draft that might have pushed Norwood's kick inside the right upright, too. Wawrow wasn't trying to improve the Bills' decision-making, and the chances that his questions actually would have an impact were miniscule.) The simple fact is that I don't want my beat writers trying to stir up trouble with my team. It isn't good for team, and I don't want it.

I think you seriously misunderstand the role of people who cover modern pro sports teams. And you misunderstand the balance of power between the teams and players on one hand, and the writers, on the other. Wawrow isn't a journalist. He is just a guy who produces content that the print or online sources use to attract readers. He isn't an investigative journalist on some highly principled search for the truth. He doesn't have to ask the tough questions to succeed at his job. His bosses want him just to write something interesting about the team. So long as readers like what he writes, Wawrow's bosses don't care at all if he's sucking up to the players and teams. Peter King has made a fortune sucking up to Favre and Manning and Brady. And they don't care if Wawrow is ahead of his fellow writers on a subject like the vaccine. A scoop isn't worth very much, because all the other writers hear his questions and see what he writes, and if it has any legs, they all write it, too. So there's no advantage to be out ahead of the other writers on an issue like this. The one way that a writer like Wawrow can make a name for himself, to set himself apart, is to have better access to the Bills than the average writer. For example, it's a big deal for a guy like him to get a one-on-one interview with a player or players, and even better with McDermott or Beane. A lengthy article about Poyer is worth a lot more to Wawrow's bosses than some paragraphs about the vaccine. If Poyer is in the mood to do a one-on-one interview with someone, how likely do you think it is today that he'll give that interview to Wawrow? Not very. How likely is it that Frazier will choose Wawrow? Not very, because Frazier wants to back his player. If the players don't like you, they aren't giving you the stories. Look at Jay Skurski's interview with Trubisky in Buffalo News. Do you think anyone on the Bills would sit down today with Wawrow to do an interview like that? The plain dynamic at work here is that Wawrow needs the Bills a lot more than the Bills need Wawrow. The sports media can always find another guy to write stories. So when Wawrow keeps asking questions the Bills don't want to answer, when it's clear he's asking Poyer to talk about things that are not in Poyer's interest, Wawrow is putting at risk his ability to do his job.

Of course. The press doesn't have any greater rights than the interviewee. The player only has to talk to the press to the extent the league requires it. And if a reporter wants to have access to good interviews with players, the press has to treat the players with respect. Wawrow pisses off Poyer, the Bills will circle the wagons around Poyer and Wawrow will get bupkus when he interviews them.

Diggs is a quite interesting animal. And I think Beasley is much the same. They are all about getting better, every day. The McBeane Bills have a really tight rein on information. Nothing goes public until someone in charge says it can go public.

Yeah. What on earth did he think he was doing? Someone will talk to him.

It's true that the press often ask the came comp questions of Beane and Josh, and they get the same answers each time. What's different is that they don't start their press conference by saying "I'm not talking about my contract." So, in those press conferences, the subject hasn't come up and hasn't been dealt with so, sure, the press take another shot at it. But in this case, Poyer DID start his press conference with a clear statement, and within 10 minutes JW asked a question Poyer had just said he wouldn't discuss. And when Poyer said, again, he wouldn't discuss it, JW asked AGAIN! Nobody does that when the subject is compensation. It may come up once, but when the press is told "we're not talking about that," the press respects it. JW just should know better. It's journalism 101 - you respect the ground rules. If I tell a reporter something is "not for attribution," the reporter doesn't say I'm the source. If I tell the reporter something is for background only, the reporter knows that I'm just helping him understand the situation, without his having any authority to say a source told him these things. Journalists who don't respect ground rules like those lose their access. Anyway, JW will do what he wants, and you and I will read what he writes, usually. And we'll disagree about things, as we often do. That doesn't keep me from enjoying what you have to say.

Yeah, I agree. Wawrow can ask, although this is the second time he's tread there, and he should realize that people within the organization see him doing it. As to the contract issue, you've just agreed with me. Yes, the vaccine has some football connection. So does the contract issue. They both have a connection. My point was that no reporter persists in asking the contract question after the Bills have said we aren't talking about it. Somehow, Wawrow thinks it's okay to keeping asking this other question. That will have only one effect - to reduce the kind of access Wawrow gets. As Sullivan's situation proved, the old adage - don't argue with someone who buys ink in 55-gallon drums - doesn't always apply.

So I'll ask you the same question said Wawrow should ask himself: What part of "we're not going to talk about it" don't you understand? Teams and players set ground rules for press conferences all the time. The Bills have set theirs. You and I can discuss the significance of the vaccine to football operations all day long. I get that. But Wawrow is being stupid if he doesn't realize that his access to the Bills is going to become more limited if he persists in pushing issues the Bills don't want to talk about. Sullivan lost his job because he couldn't see the obvious. Wawrow ought to know better.

If Allen sprains his ankle at home the week of the Chiefs game, of course, it's an issue - in October. Whether Allen is maintaining his house in an unsafe condition in June is not an issue. Nobody's asking Allen this week about whether he has had his house inspected for unsafe conditions. Yes, the NFL has rules COVID. The Bills are following them. Might the Bills have more flexibility if some players were making different choices about their own healthcare? Yes. Might that impact the outcome of a game in the season? Yes. The Bills have disclosed all that, and they've said that they aren't going to talk more about it. That's their choice. The NFL has rules about how much players can be compensated. The Bills are following them. Might the Bills have more flexibility if some players were making different choices about when and how much they get paid? Yes. Might the fact that some players aren't willing to take a pay cut impact the outcome of a game in the season? Yes. The Bills have disclosed all that, and they've said they aren't going to talk more about contract negotiations. When some reporter asks how the negotiations are going to extend Allen, Beane politely says he's not going to talk about that. When they ask Allen, he says that's for his agent to handle. Nobody complains that the Bills aren't being forthcoming about Allen's contract. The press is in the business of getting people to look at what they write or broadcast. That's how they make money. During the football season, the football writers have plenty to write about. In the off-season, they don't. Their job in the off-season is to find things that attract and capture the attention of the people. Some writers have decided that they might capture attention over this vaccination issue. They're writing about the vaccination issue instead of whether Allen should give a hometown discount only because they think it will be easier to get someone to say something that will excite fans when they read it. Think about how disrespectful Wawrow's behavior is. The Bills say we're not talking about this issue. Poyer opens his press conference by saying he's not going to talk about the issue. Wawrow then says, "I know you're not going to talk about the issue, but maybe you'll answer a question about the issue." What the heck? Wawrow doesn't say to Allen, "Well, I know you aren't talking about the issue, but would you be willing to take $5 million less per year if it would help the team?" Now, in Wawrow's defense, he wasn't obnoxious about it. He didn't lecture Poyer about why Poyer should answer his questions. Wawrow just gave it the old college try. I don't fault him for that. You just have to wonder what part of "we aren't going to talk about it" he doesn't understand.

Sure, players can talk about any issue they want, but that doesn't mean they MUST talk about any issue the press wants them to. This coach and these players have decided they aren't talking about the vaccinations. It's a personal issue about individuals' health and/or politics, and there is no reason they have to talk about it to the sports media. And just because some guy may not be available in October because he got COVID doesn't change anything. If the team discovers today that the guy has a heart condition that may affect his availability in October, that doesn't mean the team tells the press. It's a personal health decision, and it's confidential information. Might the fact that some guys on the team haven't gotten vaccinated affect the team in some way in October? Sure. So might any one of a hundred other decisions players make affect the team in October. That doesn't mean that the players or the team are required to talk to the press about every one of those decisions, especially those decisions that are personal.

Well, I think there are tough questions and then there are tough questions. This whole vaccine thing is not a football issue. It's an issue that the press thinks they can turn into controversial headlines, so they pursue it. Does it matter how many players are vaccinated? Yes, in some sense, because it affects the rules that govern how the team can practice. But think about it - during the 2020 season, how many times did the press ask McDermott whether the June COVID-19 rules affected the outcome of last week's game? Never. The vaccine issue will have about as much impact on the season as how many reps Basham is getting this week. It's just a non-issue. Sure, JW can make up some BS why this is an important issue affecting the future of the team, but that's just BS. There are literally hundreds of operation issues decided every month; not every decision is ideal. You do the best you can and move on. Then there are tough questions, like "why did you decide to punt on 4th and one with three minutes left?" or "why didn't you run for the first down instead of throwing the INT in the third quarter?" Those are tough questions - somebody made a mistake, and the press asks the guy to talk about it. The team has been clear about what it's doing about the vaccine issue, and clear particularly that they're keeping the discussions about the issue strictly in-house. Questions to the players in the face of that clarity are just attempts to bait the player into saying something that will make a headline. Now, if the team says "we aren't talking publicly about how we feel about last week's loss," okay, that's outside the ordinary rules of team-press relations. But not talking about the vaccine is a completely understandable and justifiable position to take.

Oh, yeah, I don't disagree with that. My only point was that team A can have more talent than team B without having more elite players. I think in the case of KC, they have both, because they have a lot more elite or near-elite players. Bills can't match the Chiefs on high-end talent, like Mahomes, Hill, Kelce, Jones, Clark, Mathieu. That's six special playmakers. I don't think you need six to be great, but that's a lot of talent to overcome if you don't have comparable playmakers. Even if you call Mahomes-Allen a push and Hill-Diggs a push, Bills don't put guys on the field who are special like the other four.

I would have said it differently. Bills are the most solid across their starting 22-35, Chiefs have more collective talent. They also probably have more elite players, but the true measure is not most elite players, it's most collective talent.

This is a good question, and I don't have a good answer for me. To be honest, I think being sold on the process was, well, a process. For me, there wasn't an "ah, ha!" moment. At his first press conference, I was impressed by how clear, direct, and committed he was. I liked that. There was no BS, no predictions, just "we're going to get to work." But I'd heard a lot of first press conferences, and I remember thinking that no matter how impressive he may seem, the proof is very much in the pudding. For me, the second big event was when Beane was hired. I watched his first press conference, and read a little about him and McDermott. It was clear that there was coordination here, two guys on exactly the same page about where they're going. That first year we began to hear about their principles - 24-7-365, continuous improvement, love of competition, commitment to team and to family. Then Watkins and Dareus were gone, and it was clear that they meant what they said - they were looking for a certain kind of guy. I could see the process at work. That first year, I could hear some of the players mouthing McDermott's mantras. I liked it, but it seemed a little hokey, like they were buying into a cult. The 2018 draft was perhaps when I first was sold on what was going on. McBeane just had this air of certainty about them - it was clear that they knew what they wanted to do, and they knew how to do it. They explained how they were building, how they were going to keep players so that year after year they knew more about how the team worked together, so that there would be continuous improvement. It didn't hurt, of course, that a few months later Josh Allen jumped over a linebacker for a first down - that was the process at work. In fact, it was the 2018 season that I become sold. In part, I could hear it in Allen - Allen was a natural practitioner of the process. Allen just wanted to get better, and he loved his teammates. It wasn't a cult. What McBeane understood was that there were guys out there who just lived the process - that's who they were. McDermott wasn't going to teach the process; McBeane just were going to continue to acquire guys who lived the process. When they had a team full of process guys, they would take off. A defining moment for me was when Kyle retired. Kyle is a process guy. It came to him naturally. The Bills filmed and showed the team meeting where McDermott introduced Kyle and Kyle announced he was retiring. I think it was in that introduction that McDermott said that he first saw Kyle at a Pro Bowl practice, and he stood out among all the players there. He stood out because of his commitment and his work ethic. Kyle was the one guy in Buffalo when McDermott arrived whom he knew he could build around. The fact that McDermott made a team event out of the retirement, that he elevated Kyle as the example of what a Buffalo Bill should be, finally got me to see the process.

I see. Thanks.