SoTier

Thank you for posting this. A related issue to mental illness and CTE is PTSD. All of these conditions can radically change the behavior of people but they have different manifestations in different people -- and as you note, you don't know if one of these conditions actually caused a specific action.

I think that you are being totally unrealistic. It's easy to say "stay out of bars for the next 8 years" but what should a young rich guy with his pockets full of money do for entertainment then? "Going out" to bars, dance halls, and honkytonks to drink and have a good time has been part of American culture since Prohibition, especially for young guys in their 20s, and that's a prescription for trouble and always has been. How many "respectable citizens" today were hell raisers in their twenties? I think that Hunt's best course is to work with a counselor/coach/advisor to control his alcohol consumption and develop strategies for dealing with confrontation/provocation without resorting to violence (anger management) since becoming a monk or hermit until he grows up probably isn't in the cards.

I agree. The reality is that the NFL and/or the NFLPA getting involved in stadium issues opens that nasty can of worms called "violation of anti-trust statutes". Unlike MLB, the other professional sports teams aren't protected from anti-trust scrutiny by the federal government. If an individual team wants to threaten relocation to pressure local or state taxpayers to ante up for a new stadium, that's an "individual action". If the league or the NFLPA tries to do the same, the federal courts could very well consider that an action "in furtherance of a monopoly". Congress could hold hearings and possibly compel NFL teams to open their books to public scrutiny (which as privately held businesses they aren't currently forced to do). It could get nasty.

The opposite of models who have to starve themselves.

Priceless!

Tell me they couldn't be twins!!!!

Especially the hair cut ... he looks like the guard from the old tv comedy "Night Court".

That's pretty much the western Southern Tier. Between being cheek-to-jowl with Pennsylvania and Ohio, with West Virginia a few hours south, as well as having a couple of Seneca Nation of Indians reservations in Cat County, fireworks of the aerial and boom kinds are easy to obtain, and fireworks' illegality doesn't seem to enter into the minds of anybody, not even law enforcement. Maybe the local gendarmes figure better the rednecks shoot off ordinary fireworks -- as long as they don't burn anything down -- than they "improvise". I usually go with a friend to her brother's shindig in his house that overlooks Chautauqua Lake. He sinks probably $3-4 grand into his show, and his richer neighbor spends at least 2 or 3 times that. Between them, they probably put on a better show than most of the little burgs around here. Most of the folks at this party, especially the ones doing the fireworks, are at least in their thirties so there's a whole lot less alcohol involved than there were at some of my family events a few decades ago.

Was the dog sitting in his lap and hanging out the window? I see this all the time around here, and it po's me no end. It's dangerous for the driver and dangerous for the dog. I learned my lesson about having an unrestrained dog in a vehicle in an accident 30 years ago (also learned first hand about the perils of falling asleep while driving) when I nodded off on the Thruway outside Utica, woke up as I was veering off the shoulder, cranked that steering wheel hard left and rolled my ten month old Nissan pickup. Because I was wearing my seatbelt, I ended up hanging upside down for several minutes until somebody helped me down, but my dog, sleeping in the extra cab space, dashed out the broken window, and sprinted along the side of Thruway. Lucky for me and my pup, he ran along near the fence and some Thruway staff collected him and took him to a local kennel. Ever since, my dogs ride secured with dog seatbelts, even around town. My current dog, a 14 week old Aussie cattle dog mix, rides in a crate right now, but he'll graduate to a seat belt in a while. I believe 1 or 2 states now require dogs and other pets to be secured in vehicles, and I think there's been talk of NY doing the same. Great idea for both drivers and their pets.

I think that this is the crux of the problem. The NFL has to justify its disciplinary actions, both according to US law, its own rules, and probably the CBA. Individual player contracts may also make it easier to dismiss one player and not another, depending up the wording.

That's essentially my point. You make it costly for those who break the rules, you make others aware of the consequences, and you offer alternatives (like designated drivers, free taxi rides, etc.) -- and you make the penalties fit the seriousness of the offense. Mandating that all drivers re-test every so many years is not going to do anything about drunk driving. It's not going to lower the number of accidents involving texting while driving or speeding or other bad behavior. People who behave badly know their behavior is bad but they don't care. All it does is unnecessarily punish people with the threat of losing their driving privileges when they've done nothing wrong.

Hunt got in trouble 3 times for his violent behavior just in 2018. All three incidents were documented on film. My guess is that KC warned him more than once, and finally just showed him the door.

No, just pointing out that he's not infallible.

This is why I don't think mandatory re-testing is a realistic solution. It's a simplistic reaction to a complex problem that advocates can say, "see, we doing something", but it just lumps the innocent in with the guilty. Most people are not bad drivers. We don't notice them when they do the right things simply because there are so many vehicles on most roads that bad ones are easy to spot Sometimes they do stupid stuff that they know they shouldn't do. Sometimes they don't actually know the absolute letter of the law in regard to a certain situation. Sometimes they're in situations where in an instant, they make a wrong decision. Education for the general driving population and targeted punishment for rule breakers is a much more productive strategy, although it's a harder solution to implement. The dramatic decline in traffic fatalities from accidents involving alcohol demonstrates that it can be done. In the 1970s, 60% of traffic deaths were caused from alcohol related accidents. Today, only 25% of traffic fatalities stem from alcohol/drug impairment. That was accomplished by anti-drunk driving campaigns, significantly raising the penalties for drunk/impaired convictions (license suspension or revocation and even jail time), lowering the thresholds from alcohol impairment levels, and raising the drinking age in almost all states as well as a change in attitude on the part of police and the courts about the seriousness of DUI. Mandating a safe driver/defensive driving course prior to license renewal seems to me to be a sounder approach for dealing with general driver attitudes than simply requiring re-testing. It provides a vehicle (pardon the pun) for reminding/refreshing the average drivers' knowledge of the best safety practices/rules of the road without threatening those who aren't good test takers with loss of their licenses.

"Illegals" are already driving in NY and in every other state -- without licenses -- so how is being able to acquire a valid drivers license -- which means learning the basic rules of the road, having basic safety training, and proving they can safely operate a motor vehicle -- going to make them worse drivers?

What makes you think that mandatory retesting is going to do anything about these problems? In the first instance, that's one question on a written test. People study for tests, and just because people know the rules doesn't mean that they follow them. People practice for road tests, too, and are on their best behavior. Most of the problems you described have to do with attitude not with knowledge or skill.

This is an interesting development. I think that a lot of predictions about the Chiefs in 2019 were assuming that Hill would miss half or all of the season.

Cook was the 5th player taken in the 1969 draft, and he started 11 games as a rookie -- for an expansion team in its second season. He had a decent rookie season in a league that didn't have the size nor the talent pool of the NFL, but like Robert Griffin, was his career truly derailed by his injury or was he one of those numerous first round QBs who fail to live up to where they were drafted? Nobody knows. Your quote from Mike Brown was a comment from the son of the man who drafted Cook, Paul Brown. Bill Walsh thought Trent Edwards was a great prospect.

This is just nonsense that has absolutely nothing to do with any "requirement" for "a good knowledge base" except for participants in a pre-1970 pro football trivia contest. Brown is a commentator on the NFL today, specifically the Bills. Why should anybody be expected to remember a QB who only started 11 games in the last year of the AFL in 1969 (40+ years ago) unless they had some kind of connection to him, such as being a long time Bengals or U of Cincinatti fan?

I did. I no longer am a season ticket holder.

If it's "fluff", how can it be "very, very depressing" -- unless you secretly fear I'm right?

Yes, all hail the supreme knowledge from a rookie HC and a rookie GM who was in charge of administrative personnel and logistics, not player personnel, from his years as an assistant GM in Carolina. I've already said it many times, if the Bills succeed I'll be glad to eat crow, but I don't think McDermott is the guy to do it. I'm not sure that Beane is either. I never said that Watkins wasn't a disappointment. They didn't have to find a replacement for Watkins after they traded him -- if somebody on the Bills had been smart enough to re-sign Robert Woods -- and don't give me the line that he wasn't interested in re-signing. For enough money, he would have re-signed. When and where have I ever complained about the Bills paying too much money to a player??? I consider Nathan Peterman a waste of a draft pick and a waste of a roster spot. Kelvin Benjamin was a waste of the third round pick and a roster spot. I've called both Vlad Ducasse and Russell Bodine bottom feeder OLers but I never begrudged them the money they're paid. I disliked the Dareus trade because I think that McDermott wanted him gone for personality differences, and Beane accomplished that without regard to his talent or the cap implications or the fact that the Bills had no one to replace him. A GM's job is to take all those things into account and do what's best for the team, and I think Beane traded Dareus because it was better for McDermott's ego rather than it being better for the team. Oh, and before all the McDermott defenders point to all their examples of how they couldn't work with players or people, etc, I'll say "suck it up". Before I changed careers, I spent 9 years teaching in Buffalo schools. Teachers don't get to pick and choose their students. They suck it up and deal with the kids they have in their classes or they do something else. One has to wonder just how you developed your expertise in identifying losers. Do you see one in the mirror every morning? BTW, Jason Peters, Marshawn Lynch, and Stephon Gilmore all say "hi" -- all "losers" with "All Pro" on their resumes and Super Bowl rings on the fingers. Snoring between the pipes. A bad signing, no, but it's a gamble because unlike many other kinds of injuries -- like Cordy Glenn's foot issues that some posters whined about -- concussions can't be "fixed". They tend to make players who have one likely to have more -- and more serious ones that take longer to heal. Morse has had 2 as a pro IIRC. He may have others in HS or in college. Ummm .... McDermott and Beane trashed the OFFENSE, dude, which was respectable if not great under Ryan. It was the DEFENSE that Ryan put on the field that sucked ... and McDermott and Beane kept more of those guys than he did on the offense. Dareus is better than Loutelei and Taylor is infinitely better than Peterman.

Well said! Unfortunately, you will be crucified here for daring to say that maybe the emperor in his new suit looks very much like a guy in a birthday suit. In the era of the salary cap, reasonable rookie salaries, and expensive veteran players, the time frame for building a team has been shortened considerably, and that means that teams have to be aces on player evaluations so that they don't let Stephon Gilmore or Robert Woods walk in FA without having youngsters already on the roster who can step in or continually waste draft picks trading up for Day 2 and Day 3 prospects. They cannot build an OL via FA nor can they afford to trade away really talented players for used athletic equipment because they're difficult to deal with. Almost all the good teams -- teams that have regularly gone to the playoffs and won there, including several of the recent Super Bowl participants and winners -- in the last two decades that had a several poor seasons and changed coaches/gms have made turnarounds within two or three seasons of bringing in the new leadership because they opted to build on their existing talent rather than start from scratch. Off hand, I can't think of any team in the last decade or two that completed a successful rebuild that took 4 or 5 years just to see positive results.

That's the Bills' specialty, junior. Reid and McVay have been a whole closer to winning championships than any of the Bills teams since the last time the Bills got routed in a Super Bowl, more than 25 years ago. The correct word is "peculiar" not "particular". Actually, it's neither peculiar nor particular, though, because you have absolutely no proof that there's any correlation between those being critical of the current Bills regime and those "making excuses" for Sammy Watkins. My objection to the Watkins trade -- and I think it's the same objection that at least a couple of other posters have voiced here -- is that it left the Bills without any viable downfield receiving threat for almost two seasons. It's still questionable if they'll have one in 2019. Excuses, excuses, excuses. You do realize that you're describing every Bills fan ever, right? The Bills have not only never won a Super Bowl, they've only had 23 winning seasons in their entire 59 years of existence (38.9%) -- and 5 of those winning seasons occurred during their ten years in the old AFL. Since 1970 -- 49 years -- the Bills have only won more games than they lost in 36.7% of their seasons.

Nothing I've seen from Pegula so far suggests that Pegula knows what he's doing. I began to suspect he wasn't the owner to bring winning football back to Buffalo when he sent most of Ralph's minions packing but not only failed to remove Russ Brandon but promoted him to head up both the Bills and Sabres organizations. How does the CEO/President/GM of an organization that had a winning percentage of less than .400 over the length of his nearly decade tenure merit being retained by new ownership -- and then given a promotion?