Rew

Game is definitely out of reach, as predicted by general consensus of TBD ~1 hr ago

I'm more worried about who is going to get his special teams snaps. It's easy to go find an OBJ, but much harder to get an experienced gunner.

They will definitely want to bring in a DB for depth. As everyone else said, we have safetys and cbs that can play safety ready to play in this system. Expect some 2-4 year talent that never impressed his former team, but was well rated in draft to join our practice squad or active roster as a backup sometime in the next few weeks. If they can't find the right guy, then they probably feel comfortable with who they have, baring another injury.

Correct

This really didn't come across the way you intended...

Ravens didn't look that strong against the jets, and the dolphins aren't a good measuring stick. I'd like to see them play some real competition before concern.

Never stop please. If you're taking requests, can you commit to an encore of "Rockin around the Lombardi", if appropriate in Feb?

Ah, I was suspicious of someone but didn't know it was confirmed. He/she is much more tamed down now, or maybe it's just that we have less concerns the last few years.

I'm concerned that I haven't seen highfootballiq in years

Who sees more snaps with modern day rules, your gunner or wr6? No matter how you cut it, the guy you would put in the roster in place of some of the ST players is depth only. He'll take very few (if any) snaps at primary position or not be active most games. You want him for injury depth, but that can easily be accomplished on the PS. Assuming the the 3 aforementioned ST players make the roster, who is the hypothetically cut that you'd rather have? Do you really think they'll play more snaps per game or over the course of the season? Why would you want someone who will in all likelihood never play over someone who plays a dozen snaps per week on plays that are very punishing if you F it up? The only way ST is sacrificed is if one of our depth/developmental guys they love overperforms and looks like he won't make it through to the practice squad. We want guys who will actually play on our game day roster and use inactives, PS, and ongoing communication with free agents to be the injury hedge. Not saying it will be the exact same guys as last year, but expect a few "ST guys" on the regular active roster indefinitely.

Does Rosen classify as "journeyman", or do you actually have to play meaningful games to enter that elite club?

People who think cap management is about "kicking the can down the road" as a debt are usually missing the objective. The strategy isn't at all similar to a using a credit card as personal debt. You have to look at the cap as the real currency you are spending, and ignore the dollars. That is the point, with sufficient cash reserves you can ignore what you are "spending" and optimize your consumption of the cap to get an advantage over the competition. You actually prepay. In a growing cap situation (which has been the default for awhile and will continue for the near future at least) you can take advantage of the cap. Imagine that you structure all deals so that the cap hit for what you are paying this year is recognized next year. This isn't a growing debt "that will catch up with you". You can conceivably do this indefinitely. Next year the cap is expected to be 10-11% more than this year. If you regularly structure cap hits like this you will be able to spend 10% more than a competing team with "this year" contracts. You gain the ability to pay more than the competition. In theory you could push this out years or decades in the future. The balancing factor is that the further you push it out the more cash ownership has to commit up front. Ultimately, if you committed the cash too early and need to move in from a player you have dead cap. It doesn't matter that it's money wasted, it's cap that is wasted. This ends up restricting decision making. Secondly, you can't push dead money back, and you can't restructure dead money. Dead cap reduces the efficiency of what you spent on the cap as well as reducing flexibility to optimize the cap. If you make commitments too long the dead cap will end up canceling out the advantage you had by spending future cap. This ends up as a balancing act for gms to structure deals where the cap hit is as far out as possible, while still watching owner's cash flow, and not creating undue dead cap. This is why it's not a debt styled payment deferral. The act of pushing back the cap hit has a risk element associated with it that you will end up treating that as a loss. If the concepts are too abstract, just go look at cash spent or contract summed AAV. On average, teams are spending 10-20% more than the salary cap. Check this every year and you will see that teams are averaging spending based on the cap in 1-2 years. The ones that are too agressive (regularly 3+ years out) are the ones that have cyclical good/rebuild performance. The ones in the top half consistently are playoff contenders. The ones that spend below or to this year's cap regularly are pretenders or bottom dwellers. TLDR: Cap is real. Cap is a soft cap. Owners with strong cash flow and willingness to outspend competition have a competitive advantage if they have the right management spending the cap on the right talent to leverage the soft cap.

There are many tools available to play with the cap, but they ultimately rely on two elements. 1. Structure contracts to ensure you have the flexibility to spend every cap dollar. This typically means over commiting but with flexibility to restructure or defer as needed. 2. Push cap hits out to later years. With increasing annual caps, the guy you'd pay 5% of your cap this year only costs 3% of your cap in 3 years. This is the finance and account aspect of it. "Cap inflation" if you will. These two factor combined allow teams with sufficient cash to pay 10 or 20% more to players than teams which are conservative and don't take advantage of the full cap or expected cap increases. The 2nd half of this only provides value in a rapidly increasing cap environment. At some point it should stabilize, bringing actual cap spend closer.

1. In a salary cap world, assuming you spend equally as wisely as your competitor, you will have a better team by spending every cap dollar than a team consistently under the cap. Over commiting in the short term with the flexibility to push it out allows for you to optimize to cap. 2. Inflation. Not currency inflation, but salary cap inflation. If you're familiar with the concept of net present value of money, put it in terms of cap %. A player being paid 10% of the cap this year is only going to take up 8-9% of the cap if you can push it out 2 years. Let's say you push all cap hits out 2 years indefinitely, you can afford to pay 13% more than a team that is putting all the cap in this year. 3. Marketing. You sign good players with high AAV contracts with long term flexibility so that you don't end up paying them the actual AAV from signing due to restructures lowering overall cost and cost averaging into years of lower pay. Ultimately, with a salary cap, you will generally be the better team the more efficiently you use the cap. #1 is to get the best talent. #2 avoid dead money (from failed signings). #3 spend to the cap. #4 defer wherever possible to keep spending to cap and pay better talent this year. Add to that the short term incentive to win soon or lose your job for GM and coach. They will sometimes "kick the can" even when it doesn't make long term sense in order to have short term success to keep their job.

Flores claim of being offered $100k to lose a game sounds alot like a bribe to lose the game. Flores was in a position to affect the outcome of the game and Ross allegedly offered to pay him per game to lose. There is grey area in where does an effort cross from the frowned upon, but legal, "tanking", into the illegal "bribe" category. Given that the incentive was offered off contract, on a per game basis, I think it could qualify. Flores' rejecting the bribe has no impact with respect to what was allegedly offered by Ross. Maybe you don't understand that the act of attempting to influence a game with a bribe is illegal under the sports betting act of 1964, whether the bribe was accepted or not. The only question to be answered would be if the act was committed as Flores described and if the act constitutes a bribe. Given the current information available I'd be surprised if he's actually charged with anything, but the possibility is there.

Preface: My main point in original response was that we will be unlikely to ever hear testimony about what Ross did/did not do under the current class action. I suggested that the means we will hear any details is if there is a criminal case. I don't feel this is likely, but it is possible and the most probable way for us to know what happened. It seems most likely that the NFL will aggressively investigate and punish Ross if necessary while publicly divulging as little information as possible. If the current case isn't thrown out, the NFL will settle to keep any more information from leaking out and tarnishing the reputation of the game, making the below legal possibilities very unlikely. Bribery of participants and officials of sporting contests is a federal offense if the contest involves crossing state lines (most NFL games do). While Flores claims to have turned down the bribe, someone wanting to make a name for themself could decide it is worth investigating and seeing what other bribes Ross has offered that weren't turned down. There is not really enough information public to convict on this right now, but it could be a witch-hunt based off of suspicion. Depending on how invested Ross is in gambling and if any further bribe information comes out there is a path for racketeering. This is the most far fetched and would require him to have a significantly higher interest in gambling that we are aware of or if he had conversations with people influential in the gambling arena about his intent to influence games. Both sports betting and RICO are interesting in that they don't require the bribe to be accepted, merely "attempting to carry into effect" constitutes a crime.

The class action that Flores filed has been widely viewed by legal professionals to be a stretch. Paraphrasing here since I don't have the same legal background, but at this point there doesn't seem to be enough of a "class" defined and offended in claims and that most of the claims seem to be very individual oriented. Flores may have a chance of success with an individual case against the giants (still low likelihood due to the case riding on belichik's heresay). However, it is quite possible that a totally different path regarding cheating and integrity of the game could uncover something specifically with MIA. This could come out of the NFL's investigation (private, no subpoenas involved) or could come from a public suit that hasn't yet been filed regarding the NFL/Ross's ties to gambling and impacting game outcomes. I don't believe that Flores' suit is going to get to the point of any public testimony being heard, especially relating to MIA. It's possible that it gets far enough to force a settlement, but it seems unlikely that the class action suit will directly result in us knowing more about what happened in MIA.

First, the kickoff result didn't matter. I was fine with a touchback and giving 0 chance for a wacky return. Other coaches have also said that a touchback would be a circumstantial call for them too. The overall coaching mistake was on the last 2 playcalls. If KC has the ball at the 10 or the 25 with 13 seconds left there is not a significant difference in win% and you eliminate the risk of a return. On squib kick:. The point of the kick is to force the team to make a decision. Either you take it at the 10 and burn no time or you try to get it to the 20-30 and burn 4+ seconds. Depending on your returner and blocking you will most times take the free yards with a full head of steam and go down quick if you don't see an opening (no dancing). It seems most likely that the communication failure referred to here was an "either or" call and not some "he didn't tell him". Presumably Bass was supposed to touchback with 1 alignment/returner or squib if they trotted out something else. When Heath or Bass read what was on the field they kick it with the desired technique. Or the original call was to kick it and McD changed his mind late and nobody told Bass the change in plan. Someone between the coordinator and kicker obviously screwed up.

So the NFL can subpoena individuals to testify in their investigations? Come on, it's the NFL not some underground society secretly taking over the world. In order for such a subpoena to happen, Flores' case will have to go to trial (it won't) and his lawyers would have to make a case on the relevancy of such a witness. The situation with Flores and Miami does not seem to have anything supporting a racial bias claim, unless there were racial undertones to the overall relationship that the witness could testify to. The actual offer to pay him per loss is more of a character framing on Ross and does little to support his suit.

I'll try to avoid some game specific complaints for you NewEra. The bills have a great team in a league of some of the best athletes in the world. They are not lucking into wins and they will be favored in most games for up foreseeable future. The old adage "it's hard to win in the NFL" is entirely true. To win it all in a single elimination format you need great players, a great team, good coaching, and a bit of luck. Some of the best teams the NFL has had never won a Superbowl. A reasonable expectation as a fan is to have a shot every year. For most teams this means making it to the championship game and seeing what happens. We had the misfortune of the AFC championship happening in week 2 of the playoffs this year. I enjoyed watching and following the Bills more this season than at any point in my life. The early 90's we're fun, but as a kid you didn't appreciate the game in the same way. I'm with the players. Disappointed because they had a great team this year and had a good shot. I'd take all the same players and coaches next year with no changes if it were possible to ignore aging and contract situations. No team has 53 players that are All-stars at their position. If you look at the team as a whole you try to get to a "net sum" that's greater than the competition. We're there. The specifics of this season or game have several areas where we could have been better. We'll pick up some there and get new weaknesses somewhere else. Prepare yourself for it so it's not so traumatic for you. Prepare yourself for some roster and coaching turnover. And last, prepare yourself for several years of awesome football with us in the top tier of teams.

In Buffalo it seemed like Hackett was a problem, was pulled up to NFL by marrone, and should go back to college. By the time the rumor mill told us inner workings in Buf after marrone left and he did what he did in Jacksonville it seemed like he might not have been the problem for us at all. The ringing endorsements coming out of GB essentially ensured that he'd get a chance. Also, did anyone else not know that he was on the offensive coaching staff for the Bills for 2 years in 08-09 before Marrone ever got here?

Given McD's response on the kick and execution I wouldn't be surprised that he wanted to kick it differently. It didn't look the like execution was Bass, hence it making sense that somewhere between McD and Bass was a communication problem. The rest seems to be pure speculation.

Working to keep Haack off the field. Seeing if we can go with no punter next year and open up a spot for duke

"a buffalo barrage"

I tried to check the pats GameDay thread but their site is not playoff ready