Shaw66

I thought the same thing. Cook accelerates better - instant speed

Yes! OJ always wore short sleeves. He said he could feel tacklers better that way, even before contact.

I think someone pulled him aside and showed him how easy it would be to get injured doing that. Contract time is coming, and an injury could cost him millions.

I was noticing yesterday how patient Cook has become. He gets behind the line and waits. And waits. When he sees the opening, he has a remarkable burst of speed and takes off to the hole. That burst, together with his ability to change direction quickly, has made him really effective running between the tackles. His speed at the edge is obvious. He has also been impressive getting the last yard or two in his runs. He is by no means a power back, but he keeps working th extra yard, especially around the goal line. For most of his rookie season, he couldn't win the starting job, but the Bills knew what they had.

In his press conference after the game, Geno Smith gave credit to the Bills fans in the stadium. He said sometimes it sounded like he was playing on the road. I was sitting pretty far up in the lower bowl on the Seahawk sideline, and there was a lot of noise coming from all the Bills fans from goal line to goal line on the Bills sideline. Great job.

I heard it exactly the other way around. I went to those games, but I certainly was no expert in defensive line play (then or now), so I can't say one way or the other. Either way, that defense was stifling.

Actually, I heard it said that Dunaway was the best player on that defense and that Sestak was able to make the plays he did - which were great - because Dunaway drew double teams on almost every play. Not worth arguing about. Jacobs was outstanding, and Tracey and Stratton were very good. Edgerson and Byrd were an outstanding pair at cornerback, and I loved Saimes. The Bills had trouble controlling McDole's weight. There was story that one year he came to camp substantially overweight, and the Bills put him on a strict diet. After a couple of weeks of dieting, McDole hadn't lost a pound. The Bills were baffled. They decided to put his room under surveillance. That's when they discovered that McDole was sneaking out of room late at night and going to a nearby McDonald's, where he pounded down multiple double cheeseburgers. He was a character.

Yes, maybe Fitzgerald was better than Cooper. The fact that he may be top five in one separate category of skills is really irrelevant. I just took a look back, and I think Cooper has been in the top 10 in receiving yards three times since he came into the league in 2015. As I've said, I think he's a good fit for the Bills. He's better, clearly better than any receiver on the roster (only Coleman has the talent to even hope to become what Cooper has been). He's a good fit because he fits what the Bills are trying to do generally, which is to have a collection of receivers who can run the entire route tree from many different formations. He's made a career of doing that. And he's important because in critical situations, the defense takes a big risk if they don't double him. That's exactly what the Bills need, because Shakir, Coleman, and Kincaid all are good enough to take advantage when the defense is focusing on Cooper.

I think you seriously misunderstand Beane, McDermott, and the Bills. Yes, Beane may think that this team isn't as talented as next year's team may be, but McBeane think they are competing for a Lombardi this season. They've thought that since the Bills lost to the Chiefs in the playoffs, and they've thought that whether they got Cooper or not. They know, and I think most Bills fans know, that with McDermott and Allen, the Bills are in the hunt every season.

Top 50 may be harsh, but I basically agree with you. I wasn't dissing Cooper, or didn't intend to. I agree that he's top 15 (or thereabouts), and that's great for the Bills. Cooper isn't Lamb, isn't Jefferson, isn't even Mike Evans. I'd compare him to Larry Fitzgerald - a guy whom I wouldn't call explosive, but I guy I definitely want on my team. What I like about him, and what I liked about Fitzgerald, is that he knows his role and he does his job, and he's able to do it at a very high level. As I said in my earlier post, he's a perfect guy for McDermott - and unless Cooper hits a wall this season, I fully expect that he'll be back next season.

I hate to say this, but I think Cooper may be the prototypical Bills player - the kind of guy McDermott loves. He has talent and he does his job, and he doesn't let anything else get in the way. Put another way, his play isn't animated by burning passion; instead, it's animated by excellence at his position. That means he's a guy who is very productive but isn't a big-play star. He isn't Justin Jefferson or Chris Jones. He's like Rousseau - really talented, good size, does his job. It's why the Bills took Coleman instead of Worthy. If I'm right about that, then he's a perfect guy to drop into this receiver group: all-round excellent receiver, better than anyone else in the room, will make everyone around him better. Just the kind of guy McDermott loves. Cooper will make the Bills better, game in, game out, but he isn't necessarily going to make the big play that a guy like DHop does. I "hate to say" it because I think every really successful team needs at least one truly outstanding guy at a key position. Cooper isn't that guy, at least I don't think so.

I will be at the game.

Bills Titans is pretty boring in the stadium.

I commented about this in response to someone else. They take the video output from the cameras and then digitally zoom in to fill the screen with most of the players in the formation. That means that at the snap, you sometimes cannot see all 11 players. That makes it harder to understand what the teams are doing. And their closeups on the players are tighter, too. It creates some visual overload, so far as I'm concerned. I suppose that younger viewers, video game players, are used to these more intense visual presentations. Again, I know I don't like it, and the NFL probably knows I don't like it. But the NFL doesn't care, because I'm no longer in their target demographic.

Maybe we just don't remember accurately, but I do think the game has gotten less interesting. It was simpler, easier to understand in the 80s. Big hits, teams that were known commodities, etc. I really appreciate the comments people have made here. Most importantly, I think it's the old guys like me who are complaining, and the NFL doesn't care about us. We aren't buying beer or cars, just medication. So, the games are being produced to appeal to a different generation. However, I think your point is important. Football has been, by far, the best TV sport ever invented, but I think the same thing may be happening to football as happened to baseball. In baseball, the teams figured out the best way to win games was to hit homers, regardless of how many times players struck out trying. What that meant is that the game evolved to maximize winning, but the evolution went in a direction that made the game a less interesting TV product. I think the NFL may have thie same problem: The thing that coaches are figuring out to maximize winning are making the game less watchable. Add to that the rule changes to reduce injury, like the new hip-drop tackle rule that is necessary, make the game, and officiating the game, baffling. When teams played straight man to man with occasional double teams or straight zone coverage, when they lined up in identifiable ways (3-4 or 4-3 on defense and more standard formations on offense) it was easier to understand what was happening on the field. Thanks to everyone for their comments.

Yes!

Good point about IR. It feels like tams almost welcome a chance to put guys on IR for a break early in the season. Yes!

You misunderstood my point. I was only using the Bills as an example of how teams aren't really put together until October. Up until then, everyone is still assembling their teams. As a result, these early season games feel like preseason games. That's all. I think Beane is great. He says all the time that he is prepared to do anything and everything at any time to make the team better. I think the Cooper move is excellent. Right kind of player to add to the team, both on and off the field. He'll know his role and fit in. He'll be a senior voice on the offense who will back up Allen. support him. Great move to get him without any significant cap hit. Excellent management of draft choices - the second he got for Diggs covers the third he gave up for Cooper. The whole thing strikes me as a solid move by Beane. He's doing his job. The amount of impact Cooper will have is yet to be determined. It's the kind of move Beane should be making, even though not every move works out. If we're talking Beane, I'll admit to being a little concerned that Bishop hasn't flashed much yet. It's early, I know, but not that early. I'll be happy if I see him starting to get more snaps.

Thanks. That's quite interesting, seriously, but wasn't what I was talking about. I'm not a video connoisseur, so I don't notice these things you're talking about. I'm talking primarily about the framing of the picture. Their standard shot of the line of scrimmage presnap is zoomed in a tad, so you feel a little closer to the action. Problem is, the screen feels full of too much stuff, and the action is busier. And other aspects of the visuals are like this - the closeups of players feel more in-my-face. I think both what you're talking about and what I'm talking about are efforts to use the technology to make the broadcasts more entertaining (addictive?). And I was interested that someone else said it's the NFL pushing these changes. They should be the ones controlling the output, because it's their product. Whatever they're doing on Thursday night isn't doing it for me.

Yeah, I agree. I'm sure other owners from time to time have objections. The point of Jones's critics here, however, is correct. He's supposed to keep it quiet and deal with it, if at all, professionally and behind the scenes. And yes, Jones is an anomaly, and yes the NFL loves it. He sells newspapers. But this behavior is just one example of why he's an unsuccessful owner in terms of team building. (Obviously, he's a successful owner in another sense, because his teams makes a lot of money.) But it terms of winning, the Cowboys are bad, and they're bad because Jerry is a lousy GM. Even he admits that his advice to other owners is don't be your own GM - hire a pro and let him run the team. It's a horrible idea for the owner to have his own weekly radio show. Horrible. During the season, the coach has to speak for the team, and no one else. During the off-season, it's the GM. (GM during the season when the GM makes a move, like we heard from Beane this week because of the Cooper deal.) The owner cannot and should not be in the news. He's a rich guy and he can do what he wants. It's a free country and all that. But being rich does mean that he should treat people like crap.

I'm watching less NFL that I have in recent seasons. Sunday I didn't start watching football until 6 pm or so. I'm less interested, and I think the quality of the product is down, which adds to my disinterest. I think Prime's broadcasts are terrible and actually leave me less interested in the NFL. They almost encourage me to turn it off. They do some tricked up digital manipulation of the images to give you a more in-your-face-sense to the whole thing, but all it does is make it more difficult to watch the game. I think they do the digital manipulation to try to cover up the fact that their shows are produced more cheaply, with fewer cameras and less talent. Al Michaels and Herbstreet are horrible. Everything about the product I see and hear makes me want to turn it off, and sometimes I do. I turned it on last night late in the third quarter, watched 15 minutes, and turned it off. Bills-Jets on on ESPN on Monday night was a flop, too. A lot of penalties, and a lot of indecisiveness by the officials really chopped up the pace of the game and the broadcast. And instead of saving the day with quality talk, Buck and Aikman stumbled through the broadcast all out of sync, too. At one point, no one seemed to know which team had taken a timeout, but the refs were proceeding with the game, unaware that everyone lacked this information. And Aikman and Buck were slow to pick up on the problem. Meanwhile, fans wanted to know. And the teams played sloppy, things were too chippy . Add it all up - bad play, missed opportunities, too many penalties, indecisive officiating, broadcast team that fails to save the show, I can understand why some fans may start saying, "I don't need to watch every game." It's not very good TV. If I were the NFL, I'd want more control over production. I wouldn't let Prime screw around with the video presentation. I'd want better, more professional broadcasters from Fox and CBS. The color commentators, particularly, are weak. Former players trying to talk comfortably into a microphone about something meaningful but not too technical for about 25 seconds. That's hard to do, and if a former player is really good at it, he's Michael Strahan or Peyton Manning and he's not going to be doing color commentary. So, you get a lot of amateurish chatter about the same old things - momentum, smash-mouth football, etc - coming from guys who simply are not professional talkers. I don't know what's to be done about it, but if I were the NFL, I'd be worried that people like me are finding it easier to turn off games. I said this to a friend of mine who sent me the following, which was published somewhere: One of the reasons I'm less interested is that it still feels like preseason. More so than most years, teams are trying to figure out how to play, and week to week they look really good to really ugly. Denver's defense last night looked spectacular, playing the way the Bills want to play. They had speed at every position, they were getting pressure on the QB every play, challenging the entire offensive line. How much that had to do with the Saints being bad and not having Carr, I don't know. Whether Denver will be playing like that in December is anyone's guess. So, I view these games as expendable. In late November and December, we'll know which teams are at .500 or better, and that's when the real season will start. In the meantime, I don't care all that much what happens except, of course, to the Bills. And speaking of the Bills, they've given a good example of what I'm talking about. It used to be that teams fixed their rosters in the off-season, and then they played the season. It's almost as though the good teams now don't fix their rosters until October, when they make one or two splashy acquisitions. We spent a lot of time this summer talking about what the Bills' receiver room, and it was all rendered moot when they trade for Cooper. NOW the Bills have the receiver room that they intend to play the season with. In a sense, the first six games have been preseason games. The Bills have been resting their stars - Milano, Miller, Bernard, Cooper, Johnson while they've been giving other guys (Williams, Epenesa and Solomon, Spector, Coleman and MVS, and Lewis) opportunities to work on their games. I know the "rest" they were giving these guys was forced rest, not true rest, but the effect is the same: the Bills have 11 games left, they're 4-2, and in the coming weeks they'll be putting their real starting lineup on the field for the first time. You can add Oliver and Cook to the list, too. The real season is about to start.

There was, it seemed a lot of friction, and to my knowledge there's never been full disclosure about what happened. And I don't think full disclosure is required. It was back when the Bills decided to fire Rex Ryan, Ryan quit before the last game, and Anthony Lynn took over. The Bills had pretty high expectations for the season, and they ended the season looking pretty bad. Jerry Sullivan and his crony went after the Bills viciously, for weeks as I recall. They called the Bills a "dumpster fire" and other things that they were free to say but that were an exaggeration of the situation. What was worse, however, was they ambushed Lynn in his very first press conference, trying to trick Lynn into saying things that contradicted what the Bills GM or someone else had said a day or two earlier. Their questioning made it very clear that they were looking to lynch someone (and I don't mean what they were doing was racist - they were just an angry lynch mob of two or three journalists whose objective was to satisfy they're own unhappiness by crucifying one or more Bills front office people). It was mean-spirited and lousy journalism. The Bills were not a dumpster fire - with a new coach and a new GM they went to the playoffs the very next season. I've always thought (and I have no evidence) that when that happened, Terry Pegula went to the editors of the Buffalo News and complained. It wasn't good journalism, it wasn't helpful to anyone, and I think Pegula made the News recognize that a responsible newspaper in a large city should not be tearing down local institutions just because they happen to have a nasty guy writing columns for them. I've always assumed that the Bills pointed out to the News the relationships the Bills had with various companies that were big advertisers in the News. And I've assumed that they made it very clear that Sullivan and his buddies, and maybe ALL reporters from the News, were going to find their access to the team and the coaches limited unless the News began to exercise appropriate editorial control over their writers. What Sullivan was doing was bs, and the Bills simply made it clear to the News that the Bills were not going to sit back and take it. Sullivan was gone within about six months. The Bills' view of Sullivan's journalism has been validated by the fact that Sullivan's career trajectory since leaving the News has been straight down. He now writes of the Tonawanda Pennysaver. Other sportswriters who have left the Bills have moved to other legitimate news reporting services, including the Athletic. So far as I know, no legitimate news outlet has published Sullivan's writing since then. It's too bad Sullivan went off the deep end. He's a good writer, and he often had insightful things to say. Bottom line is that the Bills were responding to bad treatment by a journalist with questionable standards, which is a lot different from what Jones did in response to journalists who were asking legitimate questions.

No. I think the Bills are in transition. They will either become good, this year, with this team simply continuing to improve, or after one more season of talent added to the team. There's no need to go after more speculative, maybe shorter term talent and also giving up the ability to add talent the following season. Just be patient and play it out. The team is close, Allen is still relatively young, get better by buidling every season.

Yeah, that's a fair assessment. In my mind, I compare him to Taron Johnson, and that's how I can see that Hamlin isn't as good as I think the Bills need. Johnson is solid, over and over. Tight on his assignments, and I don't mean tight on his man every time, but when he gets beat he still keeps himself in the play. Solid tackler. Smart. Hamlin has learned the position well and really applies himself, but I don't think he has the instincts. I think that's difference between him and Johnson. I'm excited about Dorian Williams. He has instincts and explosive quickness. He closes so fast, and he too is a sure tackler.

Congrats, Dawg! You and the whole family. Be kind to your wife - three men in the house is a handful.