Billy Claude

I think the original plan was probably Diggs + Shakir + Samuel + rookie. Assuming Diggs returns to form and add in Kincaid and Cook and you gave a pretty good set of passing options. That of course got blown up when they decided the Diggs situation was untenable. It would be interesting to know when that decision to get rid of Diggs was made. So if you want to blame blame someone it has to go to Beane for giving Diggs the extension but they needed to do it to sign Von Miller.

The stats don't tell the whole story, it wasn't just the playoffs. After the Giants and Patriots game, McDermott lost confidence in him and Bass did not attempt a 50+ yarder in the last 14 games (12 reg + 2 playoffs) after attempting 6 in his first 5 games. In fact, Bass finished the regular season on a 6 for 6 streak which would seem to be pretty decent but all 6 were under 40 yards. Definitely agree that its hard to pin this on the holder unless Martin suddenly got terrible at holding in the middle of his 10th season in the league. There was a lot of speculation at the time that Bass was dealing with an injury. Either a undisclosed injury or the yips seem much more likely to me than holding issues. Overall he was 7 for 9 in the 2020 playoffs so he was 10 for 12 (83.3%) from 2020 to 2022 which is not good but not terrible. Adding in last years playoffs he was 12 for 17 (70.5%) which is terrible. He has also been surprisingly bad at extra points in the playoffs going 26 for 29 (89.7%) and was only 9 for 11 with hold-god Matt Haack in the 2021 playoffs.

It is a shock these days when people act like reasonable adults instead of spiteful teenagers. I am glad that we appear to have reasonable people here. I actually wasn't bothered by the article very much. How many head coaches are not micromanagers and control freaks? The last one the Bills had that wasn't was Rex Ryan and that was not a good experience. The 911 analogy may not be the most appropriate but it was just a one time mistake and Daboll does not appear to be the easiest guy to get along with. The only story in the Dunne article that bothered me was that McDermott was upset about the players buying the WR coach a car.

The problem with new kickers is always you never know if they are any good until you throw them into actual games and by that time it is too late. Look at how many kickers the Jets have gone through the last 4 years or so until they seem to have finally found someone reasonable. Of course, if Bass continues to have issues during practice it would be malpractice on Beane's part to not bring someone else in to compete.

Little bit of topic but if you felt the Bills were unlucky last year you were right. Opposition kickers hit 93.5% of kicks against the Bills in 2023. OTOH, opposition kickers only hit 64% against the Bills in 2019. That was the year the other team's kickers kept getting cut right after the Bills game. Just shows you how big a role luck plays in the NFL. Just thought it was an interesting tidbit.

It was an easy one to win since the players who would benefit from lower rookie salaries got a vote while the ones who would be hurt in the future did not since they were not in the league yet. It was great for the league and the fans, up to that point NFL news during the summer was mostly about which draftees were holding out and how much they were asking for. In the early 2000's, many people regarded a top three or four draft choice as a detriment due to the amount of cap it was going to take up and the high bust probability.

No one really noticed because even average is pretty good these days., not like in 1990 when Norwood was 69% in the regular season (sorry, too soon?). Also, until last season, the Bills were usually winning by so much, missing a field goal here and there really didn't matter.

Bass was never close to 3rd: 2020 82.4% (20th) 2021 87.5% (15th) 2022 87.1% (11th) 2023 82.8% (23rd) GunnerBill did a deeper dive and found that Bass was 33 out of 35 from the 2nd half of his rookie year thru the first half of his 2nd year. That is the reason people have the impression that he is elite. Outside of that span he has been slightly above average (except for the 2nd half of last year where he was just bad).

To be fair he did have a broken thumb the last 12 games of that season.

He wasn't overdrafted in the sense that people would not have been surprised if the Browns picked him at 4. However, the general consensus both among the local and national media at the time was the Bills substantially overpaid for him, especially given the recognized strength of the WR draft class that year. This was one of those lose-lose trades. The Browns used the Bills draft choices to pick epic bust Justin Gilbert (1st 2014), ordinary bust Cameron Evans (1st 2015), and a JAG 5th rounder, Ibrahim Malcolm-Campbell.

He had three so called arm punts, all within the first five games of last season. None after and none before (at least within the last three years). I am guessing the coaches told him to stop it.

That was a fake statistic. The numbers were about the same. However, I agree that randomness plays a much bigger role than folks are willing to admit.

The only thing the two have in common is they both don't play defense.

Yeah, it's all s guess but I assume have models. Like I said, the NBA offers single team packages but at 80% to 90% of the full package. I assume if forced the NFL would do the same.

They would lose a lot of money. Like you said many people really just want one team but a lot of those people are paying the $350 even if they are not super happy about it. For your scenario to work, they would need to pick up 6 new subscribers for every subscriber that downgrades from the full package to the single team package. That isn't going to happen.

I didn't know that there was a lawsuit. It wouldn't matter, because the NFL would offer a single team package at 90% of the full package, however ,if the NBA and NHL are required to offer single team packages why isn't the NFL also required?

With NBA League Pass you are allowed to choose games just for one team but the discount is only about 10%. I would think very few people choose this.

Returning to the original question: Karlos Williams -- looked like a beast the whole 2015 season behind Shady McCoy but especially in two wins against the Dolphins, 21 carries for 220 yards and 3 touchdowns total in the two games.

The Letterman Top 10 List was great. I never saw this one. Loved the replacing Warren Moon by Suzanne Vega line. Surprised no one has ever tried to revise the Top 10 List.

It is a pretty interesting business model. Ticketmaster claims the venues set the fees and then Ticketmaster (and other companies presumably) bid on how much of the fees goes to the venue and how much goes to the ticketing agency and what guarantees are given. They claim that fees are typically 1/3 of the face value of the ticket and on average 2/3 of the fees go back to the venue. Therefore Ticketmaster actually ends up with 7 to 8% of the total cost of the ticket. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but that is what Ticketmaster claims. Here is the version of the story from Ticketmaster: https://blog.ticketmaster.com/the-truth-about-ticket-prices/

I assume a large part of the "fee" goes back to the venue to obtain exclusive rights to sell the tickets. This is what makes it difficult for another company to come in, especially if Ticketmaster is willing to take a loss and increase the payment to the venue to eliminate the competition.

There is zero correlation between the NFL adding a revenue stream (in this case, an extremely small one) and PSL/ticket prices being reduced. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the correlation was negative.

OK. I certainly agree that Kobe believed that you had to work hard to be your best no matter how talented you are. Some of ths stuff he said was probably shade at Shaq who probably was the most talented player in the NBA at the time but definitely did not work as hard as he could.

Sorry for being a PITA but maybe you got Kobe Bryant mixed up with someone else? Kobe was well known for worling hard but it wasn't because he didn't think he was incredibly talented. He was well known for his supreme arrogance regarding his athletic ability. The guy was drafted into the NBA out of high school . A player (especially someone from a well off family) does not declare for the draft out of high school if they didn't think pretty highly of themselves nor does the NBA draft players out of high school because they try hard.

They are playing some of the T20 Cricket World Cup in the US and what is less American than cricket?