Richard Noggin

Think he did individual, but not team, work.

So you'd argue it's more a dearth of defensive talent, especially up front, that has doomed the Bills in the playoffs? (Minus 13 seconds, because obviously no one can reasonably defend the situational and special teams/defensive coaching at the end of that one.) So, more Beane than McD and his staff? I wonder, though, if it can't be both? Sure, the 2023 playoffs were a nightmare of defensive injuries, BUT...the coaches just CANNOT leave a retired AJ Klein manned up on Travis effing Kelce. That's criminal. They needed a better plan than that. I don't care how limited the practice snaps were gonna be in Klein's leadup. You just don't let that happen.

Love both these vids, but what's with the ZERO CONTEXT / NO THUMBNAIL links? And yes, I clicked on them both because I love and trust all of you implicitly.

It looks like a bed pan, not a toilet bowl. Come ON, people.

A 305+ lb DT with length, strength, and explosion can absolutely help against the run. The Bills don't do much 2-gapping overall, so the DTs can interchange at least a little. DaQuan Jones isn't much bigger tbh. We get so incredibly pedantic and prescriptive at times as observers and fans, when there is room for nuance and guys who can do more than the "pundits" proclaim.

Cook isn't going to sit out the season; that has never worked. Therefore, trading him now hurts the Bills for the 2025 season, which by all reasonable expectations is Super Bowl or bust. Would Beane make a move if someone absolutely wows him? I don't know, yeah maybe. But who would do that? And Cook is super valuable on the field to the Bills. They have a nice RB room with him. They're suddenly meh without him. Maybe if a RB with some degree of unrealized pedigree plus a day one draft pick are coming back, maybe that could work? No clue who and what teams fit that profile.

I mean, rookie deals are heavily regulated and prescribed at this point. Guys don't have much leverage at first, especially outside the 1st round. And we all know the teams can cut a guy at any point, which means the player stops receiving paychecks. This is why players use leverage from past performance and with current offseason participation to seek new deals/additional guaranteed money. It's also a way to minimize injury risk while the player still has no future guarantees.

Hairston could have some height/weight challenges defending a Tee Higgins type, but might (eventually) be better suited against a speed/separation beast like Chase. Which theoretically works out really well in tandem with guys like Benford and hopefully Strong, who are the opposite. (If I may be so reductive)

He's less a CB1 to me, at least in his first couple years with Benford around, and more a dynamic matchup guy with some early dime/slot inside flex. On obvious passing downs in his 2nd season, 2026, would love to see Benford and Strong on the outside with Hairston kicking inside (not unlike what KC has often done with McDuffie, especially prior to last year).

Echoing the general sentiment of "ouch."

TJ Sanders is not at all small for a DT. He's plenty tall, and he'll likely play at around 305-310 this season, and possibly end up heavier than that down the road. He's said so (about nis weight this season in particular) already.

I just hope you enjoyed the self-own I've further emphasized above.

I think that's exactly it: risk tolerance and a certain degree of uncertainty regarding "randomized" testing schedules and results. Probably super common: limited offseason "training" regimens with targeted, incremental goals and conservative allowances. Seems like the infraction announcements happen largely during the offseason, but is there an NFL policy that defers such judgements once a season is officially underway? There must be in-season positives, given injury management and whatnot, so is there an NFL process for keeping a lid on those under a certain recurrence threshold? Or is my perception of this as a largely offseason phenomena inaccurate?

Literally buying into the wedding industrial complex is insane and old fashioned and decadent behavior; while a night before dinner and drinks meetup is super helpful overall, and just plain awesome when the goal is to share things with people you love, but having some kind of intricate/pedantic ceremony that requires actual rehearsal is so oddly obedient to a consumerist and ridiculous event economy that I will never (again LOL) align with.

Seems like an athletic dude still with a big season in him, almost like Engram was, but unlikely to sustain elite production YoY. Isn't a Y at all to my knowledge, especially in an offense that seeks to be physical at the LOS and run the ball with a higher than avg frequency and effectiveness. So he'd basically replace Kincaid, which is fine I guess. But not a lot of "value" there. Kincaid's potential for improvement might be a better, cost-controlled asset, at least for one more year.

That sounds like Beane tbh

Do you hear yourself?

What would they be "juicing" in the locker room immediately before a contest? I'm assuming "juicing" means "injecting"? Are/were injectable anabolic steroids "fast-acting"? Sounds a little cliched. More about extreme diet and water restrictions in the immediate leadup to a show, to my understanding. The "juicing" is more of a training thing than a gameday thing, innit? (Sure there's something to contradict my take, so let's have it.) I don't think creatine has documented long term side effects, when used reasonably? Also, you don't share a single actual downside to its use, so is your argument that: just because some square Doc way back when said NO, and listening to that Doc resulted in minimal growth for you, we should abstain? (My 5'11" azz, who was maybe 5'8" as a high school junior, gained like 30 lbs throughout that spring and following summer, fall, and winter, while participating selectively in an alleged Soviet olympic weight training pyramid routine for just the bench press LOL. I played soccer and ran track but my bench press buddy was a big friendly giant of a sophomore offensive lineman who I drove to school sometimes. Neither of us supplemented beyond protein, but wow was it easy to get stronger and bigger with puberty's tailwind. I know other somatypes, like you, need "additional assistance" to add considerable mass. I need extreme discipline and/or "assistance" to get very lean, on the contrary.) They don't claim ignorance/betrayal because they mean it. What is the professional/monetary advantage to publicly "accepting responsibility"? They all say the same thing because that's the broadly accepted, legally/commercially advisable messaging. To be honest, there should probably be guidelines/allowances for responsible and monitored HGH use in a gladiator sport like football. Not much downside in legalizing something with multiple, valuable benefits and minimal side effects.

Makes one wonder about Epenesa's prescribed, dramatic and counter-intuitive transformation from a big, long, physically strong and stout DE to a long but lean DE with questionable explosion and bend for his avg weight. Coming out of college, he seemed like the perfect fit for an odd-front defensive scheme that would value his natural strength, length, and leverage. Like a Pitt or GB or Bal type of landing spot. A 5T DE in a 3-4 alignment. Someone they'd want to see ADDING weight and strength, leaning into his traits. He'll never be twitchy and bendy, so why not maximize what he CAN be? A big, tall bully on the edge. That was my take on AJ Epenesa's best NFL projection. Still is, to be honest. The fact that he obviously overshot his weight loss targets in year one, thereby neutralizing his previously natural strength and leverage, was a multi-layered failure. The 2020 pandemic offseason was no time to ask that rookie to radically redefine his body composition and effectively weaken his strengths. Coleman and Rousseau, conversely and correctly, should both be steering INTO their strengths and lengths and getting bigger and stronger. Hell yeah.

What an awesome post. The bit about our smaller (often banged-up WRs) getting bodied in the playoffs is accurate. So then it was best when Allen had a diverse/transitional WR crew in Davis, Diggs, and Beasley (and Sanders, sort of), and the bigger outside deep threat was able to beat the Chiefs man and maybe sometimes quarters/cover-3 (?) pressure looks all game long. Also, the slot WR reeled in some vital 1st downs. WR1 disappeared utterly and completely (3 for 7yds WTF). But still they did enough. Possible they've got similar depth and diversity of skills in 2025. No one as good as Diggs, but maybe a grittier, deeper, more physical WR room (especially in weeks 19+).

(I actually get what you're saying here and agree, but) what an insane thing to read lol "cerebral" is just a wild term to apply to a guy like him, in any capacity. For example: those early tweets, which were harmless, were clearly the musings of a very special buddy. Josh Reed had exactly ONE pro season where he absolutely displayed the hands and tenacity that had previously won him the Biletnikoff in college. (But outside that year, those hands were SUSPECT.) This highlight reel is a solid retort to the more comprehensive negativity about Kincaid in this thread. I share many concerns about him, and more after last season, but it's not impossible that he'd improve in year 3. Sure hope he's putting in the work.

'Shakes, or milkshakes, specifically require ice cream and liquid dairy (or something(s) similar). Smoothies don't have such a requirement that I'm aware of. Unless you see "smoothie" as always short for "fruit smoothie," in which case, you got me. I'll bet Shedeur Sanders could help us understand how football families define these terms. And finally, I guess we both chose screen names that reveal something identifying about us.

Difficult to argue with this (plus I mostly agree). But to be fair to me, I was specific about it being a "volume/production" thing with Roman's passing offenses. Efficiency wasn't at all my focus.

Guess the initial thrust of this thread is that fans aren't literally seeing the "growth" there's so much room for (in that one image, mind you)