WideNine

Some folks forget how dominant our d-line was with those two in the middle. Pat had a good post-Bills career in MN too. Impossible to run between the tackles, and our ends were able to clean up when knock-em-back Pat flushed QB's out of the pocket. Could generate plenty of pressure with just that front 4 too. Remember a Favre-led GB at The Ralph pinned in their EZ trying to safely call a run to get some breathing room and either Pat or Ted or both pounced on their RB and drove him into the turf like a nail for a safety. Favre in a half time interview said something like any team that thinks they can run against that are just fooling themselves. Was a great defense ol' Wade pulled together and it started with plugging Ted in the middle and having a penetrating 3-tech in Williams.

I think that teams that can be successful with their front 4 without blitzing are stout in the interior of their lines while rotating fresh bodies at End. Tampa has an embarrassment of riches with Vea and Suh manning the middle of their lines which allowed them to be strong against the rush and avoid having to commit to blitzing players to manufacture pressure on passing downs. Against better offenses (KC and GB) as soon as their QB sees a blitz they know where you are exposed and can exploit it. I think a solid-to-impact DT at the 1-tech will help this team take the next step they are trying to take against elite teams. That, and we will finally see if a "clean" Edmunds can play downhill/instinctive football from his MLB position. I think we have serviceable players now, but they are not players that I think teams have to really game plan around or force changes in blocking schemes. Star is a big question mark coming back in with one year left. It is not an every-down position and potential upgrades I think could be had in the draft around our 2nd or 3rd pick... will be interesting to see how highly the Bills value addressing that position.

If the Bills go this route I think there are a few OLB prospects that are a bit light for that NFL role that could easily transition to a heavy nickel role. The Bills need to do ensure they do not run into the same developmental struggles they have with Edmunds by finding prospects that are instinctive diagnosing plays and can get off blocks to make tackles while still being solid in coverage.

OMG - I remember that guy. OT that we picked up 4th overall and he was too slow and fat and lost his job to Peters who we had picked up after he went undrafted... the irony. The Bills finally had to release him and he showed up for another NFL team weighing over 400 lbs. Add him to Doc Brown's list and that is a pretty good list. Thought about adding friggin Lonnie Johnson to that list, but I think he tried hard he just had a penchant for bone-headed mistakes.

This is exactly why I despised the Russ Brandon years. A guy with a marketing background who was less focused on building and nurturing a team always looking for that splashy signing for Buffalo that would magically turn the franchise around. We would land some pricey FAs and yet year-after-year our team slogged away in the basement. You have to build a team from the ground up and you have to have a QB that can make it all work. I like the way Beane and McDermott have approached transforming this team. I don't know if I wanted them to resign so many of our starting oline FAs with the struggles they had run blocking and holding up against better interior DL players, but there is something to be said for rewarding loyalty and tweaking a roster rather than overhauling it. If anything Beane has insured we have good depth and a foundation to build off of if they inject some fresh blood in the trenches via draft of FA signing.

Fairburn had a decent article a while back regarding the Bills draft and Beane's past strategies of trading picks to move up. Beane is fairly aggressive as a GM and the quote of his in the article I think it captures some of his draft philosophy. “When we want to acquire someone, seeing if there’s a guy that I think fits a need and the value, that’s probably where some people think maybe I get too aggressive in the draft,” Beane said last year. “But if there’s a guy that I think is a real sure fit, if I overpaid a little bit, so be it. It’s better than waiting, sitting on my hands and I’m not really fired up about a guy when my pick comes up. That’s just my viewpoint. That may not be for the 31 other GMs, but that’s how I see it.”

Part of conservation is culling too. Look at all the pythons taking over the everglades... I think they all have bounties on all those as an invasive species. No problem if using legal permits and licenses. Means the state's wildlife conservation authorities are controlling the bag limits. Folks that get upset with hunting don't understand how hunting organizations like ducks and pheasants unlimited have pitched in to ensure stable populations of the wild game they enjoy hunting.

I think it is a smart move by both camps. I also thought they should have been grooming their next center a year ago, but this does give them a bit more runway. I do think for health reasons that Mitch needs to hang up the cleats sooner rather than later, but this gives him a bit of time and perhaps he can retire a more on his own terms down the road. It is not desire or technique that are lacking in Morse's game. It is that he takes a small rap to the head and he is out, or should be. Will be interesting to see where they go in the draft.

"They" I think were talking about "crazy politics" from the WH - you know, non-stop tweets spouting conspiracies and voting fraud and barf, barf, vomit....endless churn and drama. People are crazy 24/7 365 days of the year. You don't have to look too far, plenty of Twidiots and QAnonsense folks out there believing lasers from space are starting forest fires and such. Just depends if you want to go down the rabbit hole with them. They stopped print on 6 books made in the early 1900's. Waaaaay to much reactionary drama. Don't listen to Cardi or her wet v-jj either, but they say sex sells. And there will always be some singer pimping herself out marketing for $$. Bar seems to get lower every year.

Just silly right? That term originally came from a mark used on a ballot. No racial anything.

Can kind of tell you did not read my full reply either... "Now completely trying to black ball all the man's work that has enriched so many lives because of a few misteps. That would be the essence of cancel culture. To those proponents who cannot grasp moderation I wonder, who is their perfect human author that is capable of avoiding any level of offense from their work these days? No such person or author exists."

So sorry to hear - I know, there are no right words. All I can say is that there is no such thing as you will "get over it" like it is some kind of hill you travel over and is forgotten, but in time you may find a corner of your mind where you can pack all those bitter-sweat memories and learn to live with them. Glad she was able to see and enjoy a much better Bills team last year. Peace.

Not sure if it is as extreem as all that America doom and gloom. We just live in an age where media and social media serve as echo chambers for extreem reactionary takes on the mundane. 10 or so years ago the Suess foundation taking an action like this would be meh...books cease publication all the time for a variety of reason, usually because they are not profitable to print. If anything, the racially divisive early works of Seuss are now limited edition works and may be worth more to those that collect such things.

In my experience there seems to be a religious fervor to both sides. Conservatives of late showing a propensity towards excessive hyperbole, conspiracy rhetoric, and demagoguery. And Liberals with such narrow tolerances for what is acceptable both politically and socially they are anything but.... liberal. Both are absurd oxymorons of their alleged platforms.

As soon as this was posted you could predict the usual instant backlash by the usual suspects citing the usual cancel culture. Theodor Seuss Giesel (like most humans) a man whose views changed and refined over the years. He was known to be pretty embarrassed by his early work, much as a political cartoonist. If a few of his early books were offensive and does not really honor the man he later became, I can understand his foundation making that call. The cry for links is getting old. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/01/dr-seuss-protest-icon/515031/ Some of these books were written around 1904, and had images like "If I ran a zoo..." with barefooted black men in grass skirts. Times change folks. https://apnews.com/article/dr-seuss-books-racist-images-d8ed18335c03319d72f443594c174513 Now completely trying to black ball all the man's work that has enriched so many lives because of a few misteps. That would be the essence of cancel culture. To those proponents who cannot grasp moderation I wonder, who is their perfect human author that is capable of avoiding any level of offense from their work these days? No such person or author exists.

Yeah. I have heard this twisted logic and it makes no sense what-so-ever. Starting with the fact that some are trying to take something that varies by individual and apply it negatively across anyone light-skinned. Its ridiculous and laughable. Seems to be a uniquely American thing.

This actually has merit when you consider human nature is to distrust anything different and to congregate around like-minded individuals, like beliefs, and languages. We see this play out in pockets of ethnicity in NYC (Chinatown, Italians in Bensonhurst Brooklyn, etc...) as well as in social media all the time - it is not lacking in empirical evidence. In those larger towns I always liked the borderlands where ethnicity collided. Great food! The root is that as humans we "pre-judge". This can be based on our personal experiences, ethnicity, religion, wealth, media, situational, or Hollywood. The only thing that dispels prejudice is getting to know folks better. That does not mean throw caution to the wind, humans have evolved a bit to sense danger and in reasonable situations pre-judging a situation as dangerous allows us to exit safely from it. But calling the police on a black man walking in the park is a bridge too far. But for most situations, we just need to take time to get to know folks better, or respectfully agree to disagree. (I know, I am a poor example of that unless "respectfully" means something completely different.

Yeah... I have never been a fan of the faulty overly-broad use of "systemic". It is one of those buzzwords that are too often thrown into any diversity discussions as if it lends some kind of undeniably reasonable, practical, or enlightened higher ground. Those politically-correct terms and their overuse are a pet peeve of mine as they limit and cheapen honest dialogue. I know for a fact that I cannot speak for the experiences of folks of color, but I am pretty sure they cannot speak for my experiences either. That is both fair and reasonable, and in my own experience working with different cultures around the globe, that has been a good place for most folks to start to better understand each other. Perhaps folks can have a more meaningful and productive dialogue if they did so without trying to preface it with a liberal application of blindly prejudiced blaming from the get-go.

Surprisingly good point - and I mean that. I did not read the full article. Still, it does seem like a face-saving comment regarding his quixotic mission. The Justice Dept sans Barr running interference for Trump is not going to put much effort or resources into an investigation mining the same vein that has been pretty tapped out by first Mueller, and then Durham whose initial investigation came up with no FBI campaign spying and one FISA email edit. Would still lay money on Durham coming up with zilch and GOP leadership quietly shelving the whole effort. We will see.

This is a practice that has been in place since Reagan and it is customary for appointed AGs to voluntarily resign when a new administration takes office. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-mar-23-na-talking23-story.html I am not a fan of it at all, as it leads to too much partisan play in our country's justice system. Bush did it too in the name of Dem-appointed attorney generals failing to properly pursue GOP empty claims of voter fraud at the time (sound familiar.. it should, as voter suppression via baseless fraud claims has been a GOP political tool for too long). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy Unfortunately, the way this story has recently been presented is another attempt at sensationalizing the news. I think it an irresponsible practice that US major news outlets have morphed into, preying upon partisan divisiveness in the name of pursuing clicks and ad revenue.

I do TRY to make points using valid sources, reason, and logic. But it stands to reason that you cannot use reason and logic to unwind someone who takes an illogical and unreasonable position from the get-go. Someone who is misinformed and open to better information, you have a chance... I think this forum becomes a better place when you have more of this and less polarized echo-chambers. And yes...the name-calling just means they checked their inventory of material upstairs and came up empty.

So the FBI spying on Trump campaign nonsense. Which was already shot down by a bipartisan investigation. Nothing burger #1 Hunter Biden consulting gig Biden election smearing effort??? Nothing burger too? I never really cared if Hunter was a guilty POS or not, I never believed his company had any direct ties to Joe. The whole thing was flimsy. If Russia had real dirt on Joe they would have fed it to their stooge Giuliani in time for the election.

So yes, guilty as charged, as I do take some perverse joy out of folks getting wrapped around the axle when they defend a poor position on a topic or statement of fact. I take some comfort knowing that I am probably not alone on this forum in that regard. I have been caught out at times here, once recently when someone corrected me that the Hilary campaign did indeed sign onto a lawsuit questioning the Trump election results. I could have twisted in the wind tried to defend my misstatement, but he was right, I was wrong. I just conceded his point quickly. Life goes on and I learned something new.

In the first case you said the Unions had the final say because a judge determined the Union had valid grounds to request schools remain closed for teacher safety. Now, in appeals, the appellate judges reversed the ruling in favor of the States having final say in Fla. So a State has the final say....at least in Fla, but any win in court (even if misguided) creates precedent that greases the wheels for other cases. Tennessee has a bill in front of their GOP Senate to give their Governor final say. Since the Supreme Court Janus ruling Unions have been defanged even further. https://www.vox.com/2018/6/14/17437832/janus-afscme-supreme-court-union-teacher-police-public-sector The power of a Union is their ability to collectively resist a decision by an employer to better negotiate for change - at least in theory. They do not run the employing entity, but can influence decisions. As I stated earlier it was inaccurate to say Unions had the final say on school reopenings; that power resides with the State's Dept of Education, but of course they could try to leverage their collective bargaining ability to resist a decision. That would leave the State in a situation where they would have to fill the teaching voids with contract educators and those willing to cross the picket line, or accept union demands. IMO The Fla teacher's union has a case that should be reheard and appealed to a higher court. The idea that folks that work for state and federal entities (outside the obvious military and law enforcement roles) can be forced into potentially unsafe working conditions merits more debate.

In other news, some of us were discussing today the need to fast track new vaccines for Covid-19 variants: looks like that is in the works. Pfizer and BioNTech Studying Third Covid-19 Vaccine Dose to Fight New Strains - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/pfizer-and-biontech-studying-third-covid-19-vaccine-dose-to-fight-new-strains-11614253507 Others are doing the same.