Richard Noggin

Did you just call yourself cool?

I wish we had 👀as a post "reaction".

So is that "few weeks" nugget the buried lede here? The admittedly non-linear progression/circumstances of the injury, post-London, is kind of super interesting, but otherwise, the juicy bit is the 3-week recovery forecast. Right?

I am not implying that actual vest batteries are dangerous lol. Apologies or maybe thanks that the dreadfully inappropriate implication was not more clear.

Gut-check time (at the risk of brutal cliche)

I went with a buddy who got in with his battery-powered heated vest during the Patriots blizzard game in...2021? I lack the expertise to know how the new scanners (maybe first appeared last season and might not be at ALL gates/lanes?) materially impact what gets in and what doesn't. Feels to me that as long as it's concealed, and as long as it wouldn't reasonably be misinterpreted by some monitor-less, automated body scanner as some kind of weapon...then you're good. Vest batteries probably DEFINITELY SHOULD be flagged though am I right

Yeah super mediocre rankings, but the isolated pass rush talent/success could be more valuable if the passing game took a step forward. But that's unlikely with a Canada/Pickett offensive ticket.

That lineup sounds fine. But has the on-field performance this year matched with that assessment? (This is an honest question with SOME pessimism, statistically. Gonna use the old googler now and probably learn about how wrong I am.)

Yeah? (Aside from Watt and maybe still Heyward)

No sweat. I wasn't a true believer by any means, but even if I was, I can handle eating a little 💩 -- it's good for us.

I'd like to thank this thread and its contributors for reminding me how much I effing hate Trey Hendrickson. Not a huge Joe Mixon fan, either. Come to think of it, the Bengals and the entire city of Cincinnati can get rekt. Don't get me started on the state of Ohio in general...

Hendrickson put some dirty plays on film last season, for sure. Gets my nostrils flaring a bit

D'oh (I was careful to not buy-in. but to share the material facts nonetheless)

There is a day-old Facebook post from an account for "Matt Milano" with a picture of him on the field after a play, with the caption: "Soon💙"...

And/or also maybe it was always going to wait until the trade deadline to see what developed internally and leaguewide. Put feelers out there to the top street free agents to establish fallbacks, then navigate trade market opportunities and potential practice squad prospects, then, if necessary or more appealing, circle back to those wily vets in waiting. In this case, it might be best case?

Wilson was a.WR who converted to safety, if memory serves.

But McDaniels is an offensive guy. Then again, that would track with Belichick's bizarre decision to have Judge and Patricia run the offense last season.

So how will you process things if the Bills come out and execute like they did against Miami? What does that look like? You seem convinced of future futility based on selectively highlighted past failures...but what about their past successes? To be fair, the Bengals essentially ended the Bills 2022 season twice last year. No doubt. And their offense still seems uniquely capable of abusing our off-zone cushions through the air, and our nickel and dime personnel groupings on the ground. But this is 2023 now. The teams are not the same. It's a new matchup. McD and Dorsey are not clowns, despite how fans feel after losses.

Wouldn't that be something. Cheers to that image of a healthy Tre, Rasul, Christian, and Taron locking it DOWN. I don't think White makes it back as a CB before 2025 tbh. If at all. A move to safety is intriguing, and would be welcome given our impending/expected losses at that position (can't see Poyer or Hyde still in Buffalo after 2023/2024). (Wow, Micah Hyde was SUCH a good signing. Such a steady cornerstone, that we often discount what an impact athlete he's been, too.)

That would be more like poking one's head into the clouds?

At what point in 2024 do you anticipate Tre White being ready to START games at CB? You do remember how long it took him to return from an ACL, right? I guess he can go to Rodgers' surgeon for the alternative procedure and get back sooner to be an absolute HUSK of his former athleticism. Still don't think that gets him ahead of Benford before 2025, if at all. Achilles injuries rob athletes of explosion. Maybe Tre eventually kicks back to safety (if he's even on the roster next season)? (Usually hate such suggestions, but he has the brain and flexible skillset for it.)

Completely agree with the first half here. The Bengals were like a reckoning for the Bills last year. They were unavoidable. Inevitable. But, there is an entire SPECTRUM of fan emotions/expectations that exist in the space between "confident" and that dependable, fallback brand of smug fatalism that a certain percentage of Bills fans use to protect themselves from getting hurt again.

Now, now...we mustn't blame the victims. Of course, I also kind of agree. The knee-jerk fatalism is a tiresome defense mechanism. But maybe I'm allowed to victim-shame here, being a survivor myself? (I was 12 when Jim Kelly kept playing into Belichick's bendable (but unbreakable) defensive trap, and none of our mere mortals on defense could actually bring down OJ effing Anderson. Norwood's kick faded right in ACTUAL slow motion as my adolescent heart broke for real for the first time. We all know it never got any better from there.) That being said, we're mostly adults here, now, and it's just corporate sports entertainment, after all; it's been extensively re-designed and refined as a machine that transfers wealth from the working class to the ownership class (like just about EVERYthing around us). At least a (very) small percentage of athletes actually get to earn a very good living, post-college, for a couple years, and an even smaller pool of luckier and better athletes are able to extract life-changing and even generational wealth from the machine. (Some guys now can even get rich in college and could conceivably avoid the punishment of the NFL.) It's okay to call out immature fan tropes, in my eyes. But I also get how one could fall into that hole.

The Bengals have shown each of the last two seasons that they are very dangerous, and they have proven to be an especially difficult matchup for the Bills. That's not really hype. That's just results. And now Burrow is apparently healthy, and they are clicking. It's a really tough matchup for sure. No shame in admitting as much.