Dr. Who

You may want to edit your post. You forgot to mention how inaccurate Josh Allen is. There was a perfect opening where you mention really wanting to get the run game back in high gear because you know . . .

Ugh. Does this mean talk of Chris Taylor to the Sabres will die down?

I think Beane likes Tillery. I don't believe we are locked into needing to take interior DL in the first, though I'd take Oliver or Q. Williams ahead of any other prospects. Just don't think they'll be available.

Okay, thanks. I prefer Oliver as well, but it's starting to sound like there's not much chance he will be available at nine. I have a hard time valuing TE that early in the first. I guess I'm emotionally the reverse. I'd be happier with Metcalf, though I agree he's more of a risk. I'd be okay with Hockenson, however.

You can find a good DT outside of the first round. They could always go for Tillery or Simmons in the second round.

Your evaluations are solid, so maybe I am wrong on this. My sense is Sweat on defensive side is the same boom/bust risk that Metcalf is on the offensive side. I'd rather take the shot with Metcalf personally.

Yes, you misinterpreted and you continue to do so. Nor are you sorry, of course. It is revealing that you find it necessary to scrutinize the ephemera of a message board and subject quickly written declarations to the scrupulosity of a petulant proofreader. Further, it is interesting that I merely brought up my education in passing as a response to a condescending riposte that did not address the substance of what I wrote. Nor is my habitual mode of expression affected or an attempt to cow those who use a more casual diction. I’ve been on this board for years and I generally coexist quite nicely even with those I disagree with. If you surmise that rhetoric beyond the mean of what one might encounter in USA Today is inherently dismissive and contemptuous of those who speak more plainly, that is an expression of your own prejudice. I’m not going to alter my speech to accommodate your problem. Much more invidious is the claim that by objecting to the reactive attitude that hastily casts aspersion on the dead who cannot defend themselves one is somehow implicated in the sins of the past. Is it really decent let alone just to claim that being a Christian compels one to justify religious wars, the Inquisition, slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, etc.? Is it intolerable that a religious person thinks that piety has a meaning other than a mask for wicked deeds? Such exquisite tolerance, this liberal compassion. As David Bentley Hart wrote in response to Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great and Religion Poisons Everything --- “Does he really mean precisely everything? Would that apply then – confining ourselves to just things Christian – to ancient and medieval hospitals, leper asylums, orphanages, almshouses, and hostels? To the golden rule, `Love thine enemies,’ `Judge not lest you be judged,’ prophetic admonitions against oppressing the poor, and commands to feed and clothe and comfort those in need? To the music of Palestrina and Bach, Michelangelo’s Pieta, `ah, bright wings,’ San Marco’s mosaics, the Bible of Amiens, and all that gorgeous blue stained glass at Chartres? To the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, and contemporary efforts to liberate Sudanese slaves? And so on and so on?” In short, it’s a pretty neat trick to ascribe the failures of religious people to live up to the intrinsic meaning of their faith as prima facie evidence of what that faith intends, whilst ignoring the excellences both achieved and made imaginable by the lives of saints, artists, and ordinary people seeking a good greater than their own individual benefit. I am not invested in defending Kate Smith as Kate Smith. I am not a populist, nor an uncritical admirer of America or capitalism for that matter. The founding in my judgment suffers from an unstable mixture of Enlightenment ideals, elements of an ancient virtue ethic, and concepts drawn from biblical revelation. Hence, typical notions of what constitutes freedom, happiness, and the common good are at some level vague and incoherent. Yet for all that, America remains an intriguing experiment with many admirable qualities. What seems vile to me is the easy contempt thrown towards the honored dead who lived in times with differing sensibilities. The left makes a virtue of what C.S. Lewis called chronological snobbery. It’s a simplistic ethic that takes contemporary certitudes as warrant to dishonor and destroy those who lived before the current enlightenment and thus lacking in varying degrees. Further, its vindictive fury mimics an idolatrous conception of an outraged deity. The leftist discerns hearts with easy aplomb and self-righteously decides who will be celebrated and who should be shunned for the rest of history. Ironic that Christians are condemned for the hysteria of Puritans at Salem whilst progressives routinely seek to publicly humiliate those they disagree with, often to the point of threatening their livelihoods and declaring traditional religious belief a form of hate speech liable to ostracization or perhaps even incarceration. But I am told there is nothing totalitarian in their attitudes and behavior!

You're very free with ad hominem attacks and surmising based on scant evidence. I wasn't the one who argued from authority. I responded to a fella who instead of answering what I said decided his accomplishments in life likely dwarfed my own and implied I didn't know how to use language. If you don't like my vocabulary, don't read my posts. Aggressive bullying is generally a hallmark of contemporary progressives. You are true to your tribal type.

Well, okay. I have a PhD and am a published author, but if you think my grasp of language is insufficient, point out where I have abused language the way diatribes against religion often do.

I'm willing to go DT or Edge early, but I want one of the first two picks on the offensive side of the ledger. Developing Allen is priority number one and he still needs more weapons imo.

You're tendentiously or erroneously failing to remark equivocity in language. Piety in the proper sense implies recognition of the inherent value and dignity of the other. The fact that religious zealots have committed all sorts of attrocious acts has nothing to do with how authentic piety would militate against any such action. Ascribing evil particularly to religious folks would also be injust and probably a culpable blanket statement as you don't appear to be brutishly stupid.

Of course, many abolitionists and those who promoted the civil rights movement were motivated by religious beliefs about the spiritual equality of all people. MLK was a Christian minister. The notion that religion is intrinsically intolerant and a pernicious force is demonstrably false. Twentieth century is full of genocides inspired by secular, atheist pursuits of utopia. The dialogic tradition one sees in Aquinas is one of respectful encounter and attempts to mutually discover truth (as exhibited in Summa Contra Gentiles, for instance). The intolerance dominant in contemporary western societies is almost always secular and liberal towards those they silence by making blanket statements about bigotry and racism as a means to shut opposing views up. But believe what you like. No desire to impose any views upon you at all. Happy Easter.

Well, that's the toxic progressive view of the American founding. You're welcome to it.

Progressives still love their bigoted grandmas.

Isn't he Astro? Agree on your assessment. I very much like the training camp updates. Can't remember ever liking his drafts.

It's not a great year for rb. Next yr when maybe D'Andre Swift and Travis Etienne are available is likely much better. So, if a fella you like is there in the 4th okay, but I wouldn't use a pick before then.

Not a good pick if you're passing on Ed Oliver. Josh Oliver and Dawson Knox later in the draft are worthy TE prospects.

I'd actually be happy with either one of them, though I prefer Oliver.

It's unpopular to argue the point, but sensibilities are historically situated. What is eggregious for folks today was not contextualized in the same manner in the past. Retrospectively, its easy to characterize everyone in the past as bigoted, unenlightened knuckledraggers. I don't think that is just, but the current frenzy to destroy (implicitly also to signal one's "moral purity" so as to deflect the danger of the mob coming for you) really is the hallmark of totalitarian societies. In any event, its likely not everyone intended racially pejorative meaning where it seems obvious today. But folks will come after you with pitchforks and fire for suggesting it or at least try to make it so you can't hold a job or speak in public, that's the way we've been moving for decades now and it's accelerating in the age of social media.

Well, piety in the sense of reverence for being, including past history, understanding of complexity and therefore decency towards persons who have lived without summarily dismissing their achievements when demagogues with moralistic hammers act like the Taliban destroying Buddhist statues, etc.

Given the propaganda initiated in pre-K through the Ivy elites and everything in-between, Hollywood, media, Google newsfeeds, etc., unlikely to ever change short of complete societal collapse. We are technologically sophisticated barbarians without piety or wisdom.

I have it on good authority that we're going to draft him and play him at cb.

I am still hoping Oliver is there at nine. If they want DK, I would try and trade up from the second and get him in the twenties if he is there.

I think you can make a case either way. Lot of second round wr possibilities I like. Harry and Isabella are two of them. I can see Tillery in the second at DL, but my first choice is Oliver at nine. If they go DK in the first, I'm okay with the gamble.

Trent Edwards with Jay Cutler's personality.