Richard Noggin

If I may, I'm reminded of Hard Knocks with the Rams back when Fisher was still the head coach (and our own Rob Boras was heading the offensive play-calling?)...anyways, who was that DE who believed in Mermaids but NOT dinosaurs? I'll never forget his "logic" about it: the impressive volume of unearthed evidence of dinosaurs (you know, their actual remnants/fossils) was actually suspicious to him, whereas the complete LACK of evidence of mermaids (save for dubious anecdotal accounts) was a sign to him of something suspicious, like a coverup or conspiracy. His logic was entirely inverted. I think alternative medicines and treatments sometimes lead people down a similar path, where distrust in the mainstream healthcare machine (which undoubtedly gets things wrong sometimes) becomes belief. Some of it must be the demonstrable efficacy of belief/placebo effect, as you point out. Players find alternative treatments and therapies and medicines that help them more than the standard accepted practices. They both reap the rewards AND feel smarter or more resourceful for circumventing accepted best practice. Anyways, it's a compelling storyline for this team and for others. I'll do my best to stick to football-related angles on it.

Without getting too deep down the fraught path of vaccine discourse, I must agree with your posts here on a strictly football-related basis. Many/most NFL players probably voluntarily ingest substances (orally and through syringes) FAR more dangerous or at least FAR less tested than a vaccine like this one. They do this to stay on the field and to be more productive (which are intrinsically linked ends), and ultimately to maximize their contracts. One could easily argue that choosing not to get vaccinated logically runs counter to all the work they put in and all the stuff they allow into their bodies otherwise, because they're choosing a path of more likely (and more severe) infection and thus, of unpredictable time OFF the field. Again, this is thinking about it purely in terms of football availability. It's a bizarre choice with respect to the myriad other choices made in the name of availability and productivity. And this says nothing of a broader responsibility to the team (if you care about such virtues in a cold-hearted business) and its prospects this season. Also, I really do wonder if the roster's vaccination rate could be a factor in Star's absence to date. Of course, other d-line vets are also absent, so who knows?

While this is off-topic, I recall a quick nugget or two from OTAs this week about in-breaking routes being a new wrinkle/focus for the passing game. Apparently something we've not featured much or at least excelled at yet? Not sure about the veracity of that. Anyways, it's one way to stay ahead of defensive adjustments: continually evolve the offense so opposing DCs can't simply "catch up." Sure seemed like defenses in the playoffs had a decent grasp on what the Bills were trying to do on offense (that. and banged up WRs of course).

This video was posted a little while back. Not sure what it means, other than Star is in fact training, and looks fairly lean. Whether and when he, who opted out last season due to COVID concerns (ostensibly), wants to report to the facility of a team whose roster is mostly unvaccinated (allegedly), remains to be seen.

"We aaalll see it."

But I see no highlights in this thread? I came here for highlights. I was promised highlights.

Agreed. He would pull the curtain back when cornered, rather than publicly face the music. That brand of defensive "honesty" (I don't see him as dishonest) comes off as scapegoating and deflecting when under scrutiny. I've witnessed him, in front of scouts and players, openly mock other teams' overdrafted/overvalued players before, so I tend to believe the scout in him wasn't sold on Manuel. He came off as a tough evaluator. He was just so damned candid/unfiltered, probably too much so to be a top football guy for an NFL franchise. Exactly. He's too shifty and opportunistic (I'll bet none of what he's saying in this quote is dishonest, exactly, yet he could be omitting important context) to be a public-facing leader. And while I often imagine him being very blunt with his own guys, this kind of thing calls his integrity into question.

Re: the bolded (emphasis mine): it IS, in fact, "that Trubisky is necessarily "better" than Barkley." It is ALSO preferable that this demonstrably better QB is athletically "similar to Allen." Both can be true. Barkley did some good things in his time in Buffalo. Probably more important to Allen's development and the team's overall cohesion than we fully understand. But now that Allen has taken the steps he's taken, it's time for a guy with better tools to serve as our backup plan.

Disagree completely with your first line. Agree completely with your second line. (There is no "reaction" that fits.) This is closer to what I think of the majority of his answers. Which is fine, I suppose. Smart, at least. And boring. Closer examination of Crash's list reveals Trubisky nailed all of them, in spirit, minus the last one.

Wow, do I miss 'Zo on this defense. Criminally underrated, even by many Bills fans. That dude made plays at every damned position in the front-7. Kind of ILB Belichick has coveted over the years.

This could be a sneaky important (and likely controversial) line of inquiry regarding these counter-intuitive (with respect to simple weight-based) positional correlations to heart disease... Probably would be easy-ish to compare demographic data of o-linemen versus d-linemen in the NFL, thus helping us to contextualize the reported disparity of heart disease death rates between those two position groups comprised primarily of very large athletes. (I'd think the inclusion of DEs would bring down the average weight of d-linemen to something WELL below o-linemen, even when considering that 3-4 DEs are typically much stouter than their 4-3 counterparts; again, I'm sure this data is out there and I'm just ignorant beyond my own assumptions. O-linemen are basically ALWAYS 300+ lbs; d-linemen are often MUCH lighter than that.)

That's a cynical slip of the keyboard, all right.

Thanks. I parked in roughly this location (front left) for the last Patriots MNF game, which was my first and only time using Hammer's lot. I've consistently used the ECC lots otherwise (those lots, and the Twin Oaks lot, are fairly young and rambunctious as you may well know). Hammer's lot was cool. Lots of enviable tailgate tents and well-established alcoves. (That was a frustrating night of football in the end.)

I love that this is the first reply to my query. Your characterization probably describes my ideal tailgate approach to drinking: get really shmammied but don't go to the dark place. Translation: have a ton of fun you can remember. Oh, and audibly help the team. I effing love Bills tailgates, increasingly now that I'm less spectacle and more spectator (never been belligerent; just boisterous).

Anyone have a moment to clue me in on exactly what this tradition is/was? I've got seasons for the first time (always made it to a few each games each year since I got back in town in 2012). I like to boo-gie.

You know, I'm something of a genius myself

Oh thank gawd

Feel like I got a much shorter clip (only 21 seconds). Hmmm.

Minor correction for out-of-towners: Hutch's isn't a steakhouse.

I know we're all really broken up about this.

Sorry. It's more difficult some days than others. That Isaac Asimov quote keeps taunting me. I'll do better. See also: my most recent post.

That's brutal, if it's even close to accurate. Let's hope the organization is effective in educating its players, dispelling myths, emphasizing the football-related positives of vaccination, etc. There are a couple months left for players to get on board.

Do we know if the (annoyingly, by me) emphasized part is true? WTF is going on with these guys? Forget all the layers of American ignorance, let's just look at this from a football standpoint: if unvaxxed players test positive, they'll likely still miss games, and bring other players with them. So, it stands to reason, that getting vaccinated is just a good football decision (again, ignoring all the other more important layers of this debacle).

I welcome any and every reminder that the New England organization is rotten to the core.

This oughta go well.