Beck Water

And yet, if your team holds the opponent to a FG, while they score a TD, over the course of a game, they win

I don't think the latter is necessarily that, at all. I doubt Jessica published her Player's Tribune piece without running it by the family. Thing is, Laura has business executive experience and is available NOW while Jessica is still able to play tennis at a high level. In the dynamics of "blended families", it's not uncommon for the kids of their first family to keep their distance from the 2nd wife, and perhaps not want to be involved in a business the 2nd wife is leading. But, with the 2nd wife out of the picture, Laura may have expressed interest and willingness.

Just for clarity, what does defensive stop mean to you? Punt or turnover? What about FG?

I think the Bills would be foolish for that. Look, no one can doubt Claypool's talent, but teams have literally thrown him off the bus the last two seasons. Pittsburgh after 8 games in 2022, and Chicago after 3 games in 2023. Literally, Chicago deactivated the guy they'd just traded a 2nd round pick for the previous season, then told him to stay the ***** home and out of their facility. That's last season. Then, he missed a couple games for Miami due to injury, and played mostly on special teams. OK, great, he's coming in hot at the Bills OTAs and saying/doing all the right things. But 1) is he a guy you can trust to stay positive and high-energy and team-focused mid-season if the team loses 3 out of 4 or 4 out of 6 as they did last season? Or will he start yapping to the media and phoning it in on the field? I don't bet, but if I did, I *would* bet the rent you can trust Mack Hollins for the former. I wouldn't bet a limp biscuit on Claypool for that. Nothing against him, but he's demonstrated some bad team habits x2 and needs to show us more than a good pair of preseason hands.

'Cuz they were actually leading the division last year until the Bills snuck up to a tie and beat them in the last game And 'cuz no one knows what level of play Rodgers will return to The game starts at 8:15 EDT. Sun set on Sept 12 in Miami is 7:27 meaning by 8:15 it's twilight So, No

Say more about this type of WR Allen loves throwing to?

I wasn't even thinking specifically of protection, but of whether at >40 yrs old Rodgers can get through a season without, for example, soft tissue injuries that supposedly increase in frequency with age

I would go with Eric Moulds. He put up numbers with Doug Flutie, Rob Johnson, and Drew Bledsoe throwing to him. I think with Allen he would be on fire.

That's because there's considerable uncertainty as to whether: 1) Rodgers will be able to return to play at QB by the start of the regular season? 2) If he does RTP, will he be playing at a comparable top level? It's been noted that it can take a year of lowered level of play before the player returns to form 3) If he does RTP and play at a top level, will he hold up all season?

I mean, you're not wrong....but we kind of laugh at them anyway, right?

"They've got to show me first" - exactly. Does the WR have the potential to be good? Sure. Can we say at this point that they're better? Hell to the noes - any more than we could say, before the season, that the Bills got better at MLB. Obviously Beane saw the potential with Bernard, but he had to prove he could do it on Sunday. Same with the crew of WR we have at this point.

Oh, No argument. The question was who did the Beane/McD Bills draft or sign in FA as a ST player, later clarified to "in the 2024 off season" Daequan Hardy is one answer, with a "possibly" to the FA signing of Mack Hollins My point was that there are a couple of Daequan-sized slot CB playing well in the league so while it's a long shot, it's theoretically possible and the Bills do have a need there with Neal's FA departure. It's not exactly stupid to draft a guy who might contribute on ST this season and whose college football position aligns with a roster hole he might develop to fill; teams draft late rounders with that profile all the time. As a 6th round pick, Christian Benford contributed on D right away, but that's very much more the exception than the rule on a good team, MOST 5th round and later picks have no business playing on O or D their rookie year and need some development. But yeah, he was 100% drafted for ST potential. As a 6th rounder, though, even with roster churn, it's a long shot to make the team. Last season we had no 6th rounder and 2 7th rounders, and neither made the final 53. 2022 6th rounders, one made the team one didn't and one was out of football for a year.

I dunno about college, but players pay for the jerseys they exchange. It's not free laundry to them. Your right to "all the feels" about how meaningless it is, other fans and players right to value memorabilia, frame their favorites and keep them in their family rooms etc.

Mike Hilton (Bengals nickel, developed by Steelers) is 5'9". Kader Kohou, who was made to look foolish by Diggs but actually made a list of top slot corners and did ok overall, is 5'10"

Oh. Well, nominally Daequan Hardy. In his post draft presser, Beane said something about thinking "why not look at a returner?" before taking him near the bottom of the 6th round, so I think it's fair to say that's primarily how the Bills see him. Though it's worth noting that he played Nickel, and our backup nickel (Siran Neal) is no longer with us, so I'm sure the Bills hope Hardy can grow into that role

Eh, back in 2020 and 2021 when he was 28, 29 yrs old, Matakevich saw snaps as a backup LB and he did OK. Pretty well in one game actually, though that may have been against a Dolphins team that was looking for the bus. Thing is, he had to play in Overdrive the whole game to make that work, and it was pretty clear last year if not before he could no longer do that.

In other words, Rodgers intelligence lacks regular, vigorous pruning and checking to keep it under control and in balance, so like Kudzu it is sprawling unchecked all over the place

It would be fair to say Tyler Matakevich was signed because ST coach Heath Farwell wanted him - though to be fair when he was younger he was a decent conventional LB Taiwan Jones was signed for his ST chops Andre Roberts was signed as a return specialist I'm probably missing a couple, but those are the primary that come to mind.

C'mon man, that wasn't a player-to-player exchange. Would you say that about a different jersey exchange between two athletes?

What part of this was insufficiently clear and how could I express myself in a clearer way?

I just don't think Beane would trade a player because of a tweet. The GM has all the goods - the GPS tracking his speed in practice and games, the specifics of what route he was supposed to run and how he ran it, how often he was open on-time against man. He gets info on what's going on in the locker room. Some of the stuff that's been rumored here - Diggs being chronically late, having a special parking spot, being an asshat to police officers, some stunt he pulled that hurt the team, that in 2022 he ranted at Allen about missing him in games to the point where the WR room was uncomfortable and Allen was fed up and stopped talking to him. I think Diggs may have forced himself out, I just think one small tweet weighs pretty small against everything else that may have gone on and against leaving a gaping hole while taking on $31M dead cap. And yes, I think the tweet was a shot at Josh. In the interview with Dunne if I recall correctly Beane pretty well said Diggs didn't want to be here any more. So yes, he got exactly what he wanted.

Oh, I hope not. Not that I don't think the man deserves his propers. He's done well when called upon. 78% catch % and some of those are routes, not pitches. I just hate a prediction of injuries, so I got to give you the "thumbs down" Sledge was used more in 2022, so I hope Brady has clever ideas about how to use him more *without* injuries. Yeah, I thought so. He hates that we've signed guys primarily for their ST chops, not that we have some "core STers" who are playing on rookie contracts or not much more, and who are developing players in the league, like Dorian Williams and Kingsley Jonathan, or who are budget backups the Bills developed, like Damar Hamlin and Quintin Morris, and have contributed when called upon. The thing is some of the players who get hate, like Siran Neal, actually have specific (albeit limited) roles as rarely-used defensive starters. Neal is our dime DB. He doesn't get a lot of snaps because the Bills have barely played dime. Gilliam is our fullback. He doesn't get a lot of snaps because the Bills have spent most of their time in (1,1) sets and rarely (2,1). So we really have only glimpses of how they play in their primary defensive or offensive role, but the glimpses we've gotten have been pretty effective, actually.

I dunno about "majority of his drops", but I know there were drops on short routes where the ball was a little off but the commentator or film breakdown reaction was "you gotta reel that one in"

I don't think the tweet had anything to do with the Bills making a deal. I think it was a snarky reaction to being informed of the deal. But, that's just my opinion I got nothing to back that up except a believe that Beane is a professional and wouldn't make a decision to throw a man overboard based on a snarky ambiguous tweet. So I think he pulled the trigger, Diggs was informed, and THEN he snarked out the tweet Concur.

He's griping about Mack Hollins. He outright says so in the OP As for core ST'ers (not counting kicker/punter): Of the guys who played the top-10 ST snaps, we still have 1. Reggie Gilliam 84.9% 4. Cam Lewis 74.9% 5. Q Morris 72.6% 6. Dorian Williams 60.7% 7. Taylor Rapp 44.4% 9. Kingsley Jonathan 41.4% Gone are #2 Tyler Matakevich, #3 Siran Neal, #8 Tyrel Dodson, and #10 Trent Sherfield. I don't think OP is really beefing about guys who are "core STers" in the sense of playing a lot of ST snaps. A number of those guys are on rookie contracts, like Dorian Williams, Baylon Spector, or Damar Hamlin. Or, very cheap vet minimum contracts like Kingsley Jonathan and Reggie Morris. OP is beefing about guys who are paid more than vet minimum or rookie scale and who primarily play ST, like Reggie Gilliam ($2.2M) or very slightly, Cam Lewis ($1.48M). And of course now, Mack Hollins ($2.48M) But ya know, an experienced backup by definition is not going to play at starter level at his offensive or defensive position. Lewis is a valuable backup to the Bills because he can come in the game and play boundary corner or nickel. Of course he's a drop off from Taron Johnson or Douglas/Benford, or else he wouldn't be the backup. And the backups have toi play ST, or who else is gonna do it? I'm not sure OP knows what his beef really is.