BillsFanForever19

Cool. Oliver got hurt for 4 weeks. Is that worth "the message"? Can you not get across the message without physical punishment? That's kind of my whole point. Again, I'm speculating. I don't know this to be a fact. But we're *constantly* taking mid week injuries. More so than other teams. I can't help but wonder if things like "sending a message" (as you put it) and in general how he conducts the physicality in practice isn't more to blame than the board whipping boy of the Strength & Conditioning department.

I've mentioned this before but while everyone makes post after post bemoaning the strength and conditioning staff anytime an injury occurs - I've begun to wonder if McDermott isn't pushing the guys too hard in practice on a weekly basis. Obviously, this is just speculation on my part. As the media only sees the opening walkthroughs and no one knows what a McDermott in season practice looks like, besides the people there. But the thought popped in to my head the Wednesday following Week 1. Ed Oliver was doing a presser that day and he was asked about the difficulties of putting the pads on Wednesday following a grueling Monday Night Football game. He said something along the lines of 'we killed each other for 60+ minutes on a Monday night and we're here on a Wednesday morning going full go. But that's just what we do' (or something like that). Ironically, that was the practice he hurt his foot in. Again, no clue if it's true or not. But we've replaced strength and conditioning staffs at least once (maybe twice, I can't really recall). The results remain the same. And the number of injuries we incur outside of games seems to be more than others. The only thing I can think of is maybe McDermott goes full contact too much in the middle of the week.

Depends what you mean by ceiling. If you're talking about in the passing game, I think he's kind of hit his ceiling already. He's far too elite and important as a blocking Tight End (which is what we Drafted him for) to have him abandoning that for routes and/or designed pass plays much more than he already is doing. He's a better Lee Smith or Quintin Morris. A guy that's primarily going to pass and run block for you at a high level, but will sneak a route or come off a block and get open to catch the occasional pass. I wouldn't expect to see him be a primary part of the passing game.

But their owner meddles like crazy. .... that's a good thing now, right?

And he was AFC Defensive Player of the Week last week

***** - Benford has looked ELITE the past two weeks!

Sliding Ja'Marr Chase inside to match up with Cam Lewis is nasty work.

What is up with James holding on to the Football lately? F-ck.

That's the 2nd time Ty Johnson has been running the screen route a different way than Josh was expecting. Odd.

The OL can't stop the Bengals DL? I know we're down Spencer Brown - but Jesus...

Same as it ever was. If we're facing a passing game that lacks the ability to get up quick and are able to rely completely on the run game - we're fine. If we're playing from behind and need the pass game to stay in it - it's over.

Brady sucks. But he had nothing to do with Dawkins getting owned. What has happened to him of late?

This feels like a shot at Darius Slay and/or Drew Rosenhaus, by Darnell Savage's agent 😂

There absolutely is a reason to keep him on the list besides spite... When you claim a player on waivers, you take on the contract of the team that waived him (in this case, the Steelers). Had Slay not been claimed, he would then become a Free Agent and that contract would remain on the Steelers books. But since we claimed him, The Steelers are now free and clear of contractual obligations. It works the same way for us. If we waive him and he goes unclaimed, we are stuck paying him the remainder of that contract for the rest of the year. Considering the Bills and the Eagles were the only teams to put in a claim originally before all this mess - there's no way any team claims him if we waive him. Every other team in the league knows he won't report to any team but the Eagles (and weren't interested before all this, so why would they be now?). And bc of that, the Eagles know that they don't need to put in a claim. They can just sign him and pay week to week vet minimum, after he undoubtedly clears waivers. If we cut him, we would be stuck still paying for him for the rest of the season. Literally the only way to prevent that is to put him on that list and keep him there, unless he reports. Also, by putting him on that list and keeping him there, we could recoup a 5 game prorated amount from his 8.9m signing bonus. So not only could we not have to pay the contract we're currently on the hook for, we could stand to make money out of him being on that list, that we could then use to pay for other players. So we'd actually stand to gain something out of this mess. Long story short, this is the only move. It's not spite. It's the only logical move to make from a business standpoint. We'd actually be pretty stupid to waive him. Even if Howie Roseman called Brandon and swore he'd claim him, thus clearing us of our financial obligation - we'd have to do it on blind faith that he'd stay true to his word, when he doesn't have to.

I feel like we get one of these a day just with different worded titles. At this rate there should just a be a "B word about Brandon Beane and/or Sean McDermott here" pinned thread.