Inigo Montoya

Agree 100% Logic. Nice thread bye the way... MacCagnan was a terrible GM and knew the writing was on the wall for him and tried what a lot of GMs do to try and save their job when things start to circle the drain, bring in the big, flashy free agent signing to try and turn things around quickly. As usual, it didn't work. What good is a RB without a line to run behind? Joe Douglas is an Ozzie Newsome disciple and seems to know what he is doing and I expect him to bring the Jets back to a competitive level in just a couple of seasons. We have a two year head start on the Jets at this point. Douglas is building a stock pile of draft picks and clearing cap space to lure in a solid head coach after this season. He has a good QB already on the roster and is trying to rebuild the O-Line just like Beane did. They have some solid pieces on defense too. I think the Jets' head coaching job will be a highly coveted gig after this season. I wouldn't be surprised to see Josh McDaniels end up there. Lets hope the Bills can strike while the iron is hot with all three of our AFCE foes going through major transitions right now.

Yep, that’s why they brought in Lamar Miller. Not sure if Michel will be ready for Week 1, but he shouldn’t miss much time.

I've seen several reports that Cam Newton looks like he is fully recovered from his injury / surgery and is throwing and moving well in the Pat's camp. With Cam Newton being the QB Josh Allen is most often compared to, it will be interesting to watch those guys play each other two times this year. Of course they don't really play each other with both being on offense, but the match up will be fun regardless. How do the two teams QBs and teams match up head to head? I put 8 categories down in no particular order and my opinion on which team/QB has the advantage. 1.) QB Rushing: Advantage Bills/ Allen. I think Josh has the edge here. He is younger and his body is still in one piece. Cam saw his career on life support last season because of the punishment his body has taken. I think he might be a bit more conservative when it comes to running the ball going forward. Allen is a major part of the Bills rushing offense and is likely to remain so. Allen was responsible for 1 out of every 4 rushing yards last season and scored 9 of the offenses' 13 rushing TDs. 2.) System Knowledge: Advantage Bills/Allen. This one seems pretty straightforward. Allen is in the the same system year 3, Cam is in a new system with a truncated preseason. 3.) Coaching: Advantage Pats/Cam. I'm a big McDermott fan and he is getting better, but no one is Belichick's equal with in-game management. He just doesn't make mistakes. Bastard. 4.) Receiving Corps: Advantage Bills/Allen. The Bills offense clearly now has one of the most skilled WR1/2/3 sets in the NFL. The Pats always had Tom who could elevate the play of whatever WRs they fielded, but fortunately those days are now over. 5.) Running Backs: Advantage Pats/Cam. This is a hard one. I think Singletary is a hell of a back and I think Moss is going to be great, but he has yet to take an NFL snap. Behind those two are Yeldon, a rugby player, and Taiwan Jones. There's a lot of potential with Singletary and Moss, but they are not there yet. The Pats have James White, the best RB in the NFL that no one talks about, Sony Michel, Damien Harris, Lamar Miller, and Rex Burkhead / Brandon Bolden who are likely competing for the same roster spot. If you add Josh Allen to the equation it might be different, but this is about RBs. 6.) Offensive Line: Advantage Pats/Cam. The Bills have closed the gap considerably and the Pats have lost their starting RT Marcus Cannon to a COVID19 opt out, but they will still return a top five O-Line in 2020. 7.) QB Passing: Advantage Pats/Cam. I think at this point Cam is the more accomplished thrower. If his shoulder is healthy and he can still throw with velocity, I think he has the edge here. Cam's game has never been about pinpoint throwing accuracy, but his career completion percentage is a respectable 59.6%. Allen's by contrast is 56.3%. It's fair to note that Allen's percentage was much improved last year at 58.8%, and there are many other metrics beyond completion percentage that comes into play evaluating a QB's throwing ability, but I think it is fair to say that the onus is on Allen to improve as a passer and not Cam. 8.) Defense: Advantage Bills/Allen. You know that Belichick is always going to field a solid defense, but I'll give the lean to the BIlls because they are bringing back more of their defensive starters this year. The Pats have lost more key players to free agency and COVID opt outs than the Bills have; Kyle Van Noy, Danny Shelton, Patrick Chung, Dont'a Hightower, and Jamie Collins. The Bills lost some players to free agency/retirement but I think they did a better job plugging those holes this off season. We have also only lost two players to COIVD opt outs, Star and Gaines. Many of our replacements on defense have played McDermott's system before. That continuity will be especially important this year with no preseason. The end result is a 4-4 tie. I think the gap between the Bills and Pats has closed considerably. These two teams in their totality are now pretty evenly matched with the BIlls moving up and the Pats falling back. I think this season series will most likely end up with a 1-1 split. If either team can sweep the series they will win the division. Anyone who thinks the Pats are going to be an easy out this year is crazy. I think both games will come down to the final possession.

I’m not going to pretend to have an informed opinion about how much Milano should receive. There are three things though that I feel pretty confident about; 1. Milano should not be the highest paid LB in the League 2. Milano is not even the best LB on the team 3. Milano is a stud and a vital part of the D and he needs to be resigned I’ll leave the rest to Beane who I trust to thread the needle again.

Dear Victory Formation, I've always enjoyed innuendos but didn't use the word much before the advent of spell check because I could never remember how to spell it correctly. As for your impassioned plea to Sherlock to abstain from "posting inappropriate sexual innuendos" on the message board, it clearly states on the TBD membership contract that innuendos, hints, allusions, and suggestions as well as phrases such as, "wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean?" are perfectly acceptable for this message board. However, your use of the phrase "rub one off" does clearly violate Rule II, subparagraph 3, section 8 of the TBD membership contract. Please refrain from "rubbing one off" on this board in the future. I would hate for you to get in trouble with the moderators. Your friend, Inigo

Lol! I’d love to see Gase stick around too. The problem is their new GM Joe Douglas seems to know what he’s doing. He learned from Ozzie Newsome who was a top 3 GM in football before he retired. We have a two year head start on the Jets. Let’s hope we can take advantage of it.

Roster depth will be more important than ever this season for teams that are looking to make a playoff run. This is another solid move by the Bills to add O-Line depth. Cutting Winters was a good move by Douglas to free up cap space for next year. I think Douglas and reasonable Jets fans know that the Jets are a long shot to make the playoffs this season. Douglas is marshalling cap space and draft picks to build a real foundation for the future. Bring in a new head coach next year and have the resources to put together a winning program.Ultimately this was a good move for both teams.

I don't know what you feel I'm being a skeptic about. I actually do follow the science because it's my job. I admitted a COVID19 patient with pneumonia three hours ago. You say that I am "slanted away from science" which is completely off base. The science as it currently stands supports my position. If the science changes, then my position will change with it. I don't have a dog in this fight one way of the other. I have taken this pandemic very seriously from the start. I lived in my garage for the entire month of April sleeping in my backpacking tent and had zero personal contact with my family because I was worried about infecting them with COVID19 if I contracted it at work. We knew very little about the virus then. We know a lot more about it now. The article about heart issues with COVID19 sited by the TBD member I replied to is typical of the "science" the public gets their information from. It was not a peer reviewed or controlled study. It wasn't even a real study, it was a collection of data. The article was written in a way to gin up fear about heart complications from COVID19. Did the article mention that many everyday infections also cause myocarditis such as the common cold, the flu, mono, and strep throat? Or did the author simply state that COVID19 is causing serious heart issues without providing any of that context at all? Does it compare the rates of myocarditis between patients infected with influenza or strep versus COVID19 ? Did it quantify the severity of the myocardits in these patients? Are any of them actually symptomatic with the myocarditis? My guess is that the overwhelming majority of the patients had no idea they even had it. This virus is only going away in one of three ways. 1. We develop herd immunity as a society. 2. We develop an effective vaccine and people take it. 3. It burns out on its own like many viruses do. I don't think any of those three are happening in the near future. Take away message is that we are going to have to live with it for a while longer. Back to the issue at hand.... the risk of serious illness or death to young healthy people like football players from COVID19, according to the science, is almost zero. That is not in dispute. People with significant comorbidities and the elderly should self quarantine as much as is practically possible until one of those three things listed above occurs. That too, despite what you assert, is not in dispute. How this pandemic has become a political issue is simply beyond me. Appreciate the conversation my friends, but I'm done.

As of this weekend there have been 4.7 million confirmed cases of COVID19 infection in the US. Many epidemiologists suspect that undiagnosed cases are probably ten times that number, but even if we use a very conservative five times that number for undiagnosed cases, that means that 25 million people, or 1 in 12 Americans have already had COVID19. I don't think that any of those people contracted the virus playing football. They were simply going to work and the grocery store and doing their regular activities. I would imagine many NFL player will contract the virus even if we don't have a season when they go to the grocery store and Walmart, just like everyone else. As I noted in a post above, since young healthy people (insert NFL players here) are more likely to die from the regular seasonal flu or pneumonia or car accidents driving to the stadium than they are to die from COVID19, I don't see what is to be gained by shutting down the season. I don't recall the NFL shutting down during bad flu seasons in years past, and the flu is more deadly than COVID19 for the typical NFL player. If someone wants to opt out of the season that's fine, and that is exactly what some players are choosing to do. I guarantee you that some of those players that opt out are going to contract COVID while they are at home opting out. I'm not a big Goodell fan myself, but you insinuate that Goodell is forcing the players to play out of greed. That is clearly not the case. I know plenty of people that have been going to work since day one of this pandemic making $12.50 an hour to put food on their family's table. NFL players should have the same opportunity. Let each player weigh the risks and benefits of playing and make their own informed decision just like I have and my friends working for $12.50 an hour have.

Thanks for posting the link. Context is everything. Inflammation of the heart is called myocarditis. Any systemic infection, including regular seasonal influenza can cause it. The fact that people with COVID19 infections have a higher incidence of myocarditis than people who are not sick is not surprising at all. Just so you don't have to take the word of a random internet poster (the irascible Inigo Montoya ?) claiming to have a medical background, here is a quick link to an information piece that talks about myocarditis. It clearly states that common viral infections are a very common cause of myocarditis. Time will tell if there is a higher incidence of myocarditis with COVID versus all the other viral respiratory infections. I suspect that if they did an MRI of people following an infection with influenza, the regular flu, they would get similar numbers. It would be more surprising if COVID didn't cause myocarditis in some patients. It would also be surprising if the vast majority didn't recover with no long term consequences, especially young healthy patients. https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000149.htm

There have not been "many studies" that demonstrate that COVID19 causes lasting cardiac issues or any other long term consequences. The virus hasn't even been around for a year yet. How can there be any solid studies that look at the long term health consequences of this virus when it hasn't even been a year since the very first person on the planet contracted it? Any severe respiratory infection, COVID or otherwise, can damage the lungs permanently, especially if you end up on a vent. COVID is not unique in that respect at all.

If you are an older person or someone with commodities it is smart to try and limit your exposure to others until there is herd immunity or a viable vaccine for COVID19. If they choose to self-quarantine that is probably a good idea. Asking the rest of society to go bankrupt or stop living their lives to lessen their personal risk is a bit of an ask. To put it another way, If I contracted cancer and started chemo and had no immune system to fight off infections, I would stay inside and limit my exposure to others to protect myself. It would never cross my mind to ask everyone else to drastically change their lives to accommodate my condition.

I work in an ER taking direct care of COVID patients. We have had a handful of deaths in our community from COVID since February. Our medical region encompasses about 200,000 people. The youngest person to die from COVID19 here was 71 years old. NFL players are young and healthy individuals and statistically have a greater chance of dying from the regular seasonal flu or pneumonia than dying from a COVID19 infection. When was the last time you heard of a professional athlete dying from influenza or pneumonia? I know this pandemic has somehow, inexplicably, become a political football, but the bottom line is that if you are a young and healthy individual the risk of getting seriously ill and dying from this virus is practically nil. The players are at greater risk of dying in a car accident on the way to the stadium than catching COVID19 at the stadium and dying from it. That's just the science, not a political commentary. If you are an older person, or a person with co-morbidities who works around the League, those individuals need to decide what level of risk they are willing to accept just like all of the other people who lace them up and go to work everyday in factories and stores and offices across the country. If anyone wants to talk about the medicine side of the equation I'd be happy to have that conversation, you can message me. If anyone wants to talk about the crazy politics surrounding this pandemic, I'll respectfully pass.

Congrats to Gang Green. It was a bad situation and seemed like another self inflicted wound by the Jets, but it turned out the best it possibly could for them. A decent safety replacement and two first round picks is a great haul for Adams and much more than I though they could get . Douglas learned from Ozzie Newsome and looks like a legit GM. I think this move also works against Gase's security. The Jets roster takes a hit this season but could be stronger down the line. Gase needs to win this year to keep his job.

I have worked in the ER for 24 years and the job is a meat grinder. I follow politics closely because I think it's my duty to be an informed citizen and voter. Over the last several years the political world has become so vicious and personal and nasty that watching the news is now almost as bad as being at work for me. The Buffalo Bills and my fantasy football league have been a needed escape for me and I have looked forward to every new season like a five year old waiting for Christmas . Now that has changed. Despite the Bills looking better than they have in twenty years, I just am not excited for the season to start or to play fantasy football. Football has been polluted by politics to the point that it has taken a lot of the joy out of it for me. I can't listen to sports radio anymore because they don't talk about sports, it's all politics. The NFL, which used to be a treasured escape from my daily grind, is now just one more place where people are fighting and at each others throat. I'm not excited about the upcoming season. I'm mad that my escape has been ruined by people who need to shove their unsolicited political opinions in my face. I'm mad at the NFL for not standing up at the beginning and saying that everyone has a right to speak their mind and be politically active on their own time, but when you are at work you need to stick to your job and not talk politics. Just like I don't walk into my patient's room here in the ER and talk politics because it's not appropriate, the NFL should have said this is a place for unity not division, and the players, coaches, and owners should check their politics at the door. The NFL should be a place that brings all Americans together despite their race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation. If you're wearing Bills gear on Sunday then you are my brother or sister. We're family. Now that is being taken away and it's a damn shame. The NFL is going to suffer for this unnecessary and divisive embrace of politics and many long time fans will start to slowly drift away. Our country will lose another institution that brought us all together and we will all be worse off for it.

It’s clear that Dareus had the talent and the potential to be a force on the D-line, he just didn’t have the discipline to self motivate. If he goes to New England he may play like trash 14 games this season, but the two times he’ll bring his “A Game” to play will be the two games he lines up against the Bills. I’d rather he doesn’t end up in New England.

My suggestions for a non-offensive name for the former Buffalo Bills during these times of heightened cultural sensitivity; 1. The Buffalo Non-GMO Kale Chips They can be called the "Buffalo Chips" for short. Not the CHiPs that stands for the California Highway Patrol though. That would be terrifying invoking a mental image of the police. We would definitely have to specify that these are not the police CHiPs, but a tongue in cheek reference to buffalo scat. Maybe we could include a warning label or something making clear the distinction. 2. The Buffalo Snow Flakes We can bring back Flutie-Flakes! I mean as long as Doug Flutie isn't a conservative now, because, you know, conservatives.... 3. The Meat Substitute Tofu-Buffalo Vegans New Era can go completely Vegan! Because nothing screams football like meatless BBQ tailgating and sidling up to the concession stand at half time for a delicious 1/2 pound shiitake mushroom patty in a lettuce wrap with a side of veggie straws! Terry and Kim, feel free to use these suggestions free of charge. Just knowing that I helped prevent countless suicides and other severe emotional distress in all those people who are deeply traumatized every time they hear the words "Buffalo Bills" is all the thanks I need.

My suggestions; 1. The Capital Hill Swindlers 2. The D.C. Disaster 3. The Washington Monuments

Here's what I see in these videos. Josh Allen asked these guys to travel to Florida on their own dime, during the off season, coming out of a pandemic, to voluntarily work out together to get a leg up on the competition this season. As best I can tell, damn near everyone showed up. Hell, even the left tackle showed up. What I see is a Josh Allen taking the reins of the offense and leading them. If you want to minimize that, have at it.

This just in... Mr. Weo eats glue.

The point of my thread is that Beane's trade of the 1st round pick was the best use of that valuable draft capital. The players/situations sited only provided context for my position. An even bigger problem is whiffing on a 1st round selection. Thanks Process, I fixed it ?

Here are the first six picks of the 2017 Draft class. 1.1 Myles Garrett DE Browns 1.2 Mitch Trubisky QB Bears 1.3 Solomon Thomas DE 49ers 1.4 Leonard Fournette RB Jaguars 1.5 Corey Davis WR Titans 1.6 Jamal Adams S Jets Out of the first six picks at the top of the Draft that year, only Garrett and Adams have had their fifth year option exercised, and the Jets have Jamal Adams on the trade block right now. The other four have significantly underperformed their consensus Draft day projections. Stefon Diggs was drafted in the 5th round, #146, in the 2015 Draft. Who were the top three draft picks in 2015's Draft? Marcus Mariota, Jameis Winston, and Dante Fowler. What do those three have in common? None of them had their 5th year option exercised either. I'd rather take a surefire NFL talent like Diggs than roll the dice with a college player with potential. As long as this franchise doesn't need a QB, I'm fine with Beane trading our first round pick every year for a talent like Diggs who is locked up on a team friendly contract.

We all make mistakes, I'm certainly no exception. There are also consequences for your mistakes. I've worked in the Emergency Department for 24 years. I have zero tolerance for drunk drivers. I've just seen too much of their collateral damage.

I think it explains McBeane’s desire to have a strong veteran leader in every position room to help push, teach, and hold accountable the young guys in that room. That’s why players like Gore and DiMarco end up on the Bills’ roster. They are valued beyond just their on the field ability by Beane and McDermott.

Wow. Just wow. He makes Antonio Brown look normal. I’m not trying to be funny. I hope Sammy gets some help.