colin

i'm 42 and about the same size as gronk was while playing (about 6'4", a smidge under 260, perhaps 15% body fat so i'm not quite as lean as he was). over the past 6 years on two separate occasions i've torn each biceps. while barely moving and feeling sorry for myself while recovering i ate a bit less and lost like maybe 15 pounds over about 3 months. i came back pretty quickly and in clothes most people couldn't tell i stopped lifting or got injured at all aside from the elbow brace i was in. there is no way on God's green earth that these guys are just force feeding themselves and lifting to have that kind of mass, only to lose it SO QUICKLY after stopping. dieting and not lifting at all for a few months would have me lose a bit of mass, but i'd still look like i lift. Gronk looks like a guy who has never lifted, and he was a top flight pro football player one friggen year ago. all of his mass was built with the assistance of PEDs (and i have no problem with that, what kind of pro football player wouldn't use steroids?). Hines ward cut down and did triathalons, and a few years after retiring you could still tell he had some solid muscle mass. gronk's transformation is nuts!

he looks SOOOOOOOOOO OLD! what a broken man. also, has he been abusing drugs/alcohol? I'm sure he has some kind of CTE, but NJ resident Dykstra is off his rocker, and he never got his bell rung that much. He's just a sociopath with a still in his prime ego and substance abuse issues. methinks rippy may have some of the same demons. i second the notion on his daughter. that all girl football league blows my mind.

so what's interesting to me about nfl players and their physiques is how these dudes change post retirement. gronk and that C from San Diego a few years back (hardwick?) went from Atlas to scrawny beach dork. clearly they were not just using PEDs, but had been using them for more or less the duration of their entire football career (that LB for the texans who went to Bergen Catholic and then USC was the greatest example, gain and lost an Arnold physique between high school and college and then got ultra yoked up again. total hero!). Wood went from a chubbed up big man to a strong and healthy looking big man. i'm certain he used PEDs (I think less than 10% actually don't) but clearly he had developed some mass prior to going on like donkey kong. Joe thomas looks terrific now. he looks like he's at least using a therapeutic dose of test, but he also looks like he built up quite a lot of muscle prior to being a pro athlete. the size of gronk's arms (i mean the length and thickness of the bones) and his hands is still nuts to me. at the highest level these athletes are purpose built for their sport.

i'd say ours wasn't run well, and we had one LB, just edmunds, dude from BC was out.

didn't he have like 75 yards of big passes on like 3 plays lost due to easy pass drops and penalties in that jests game? also, didn't our special teams basically lose the game for us? allen's career is starting like elway's or Favre's did, and that's who he is, FavrElway, a future champion and hall of famer!

a healthy murphy is a very solid NFL starter, 10 sack kind of guy. i'd be quite shocked it week 3 of training camp has a rookie OT beating him more than the other way around. i think ford ends up RG, which gives us a Dawkins, Spain, Morse, Ford, Ty line, which is pretty friggen good and a massive improvement over last season.

big tre was pretty bad to start and pretty great to end. mcbean looks for guys with huge talent and a stacked toolbox, and figure they can corch em up to play. cam, star, josh allen, tre white (big play tre, vs big tre who is edumnds), and the rest are all huge athletic talent guys. with a balanced 4-3 d stacked with talent up front, i think all the backers and edmunds in particular are gonna have a monster year. it seems like the closer to the ball you line up, the more raw talent mcbean wants, the further away the more they prize skills, at least on the d side of the ball. our DTs are physical monsters, DEs a mix, LBs err on the side of transcendent athletic ability, safeties are much more cerebral and skilled players. the corners IMO are a bit of a special case all over the NFL, it's just hard to find someone who can cover, but i think our guys play with a lot of skill.

rock paper scissors bro, totally bang on. the balanced 4-3 d that mcbean and co run is actually ideal in that case, because it's not super focused on one single thing so it can (when run well with good talent) be effective vs multiple types of fronts

slam dunk for a 3rd. possibly 3rd and shaq. clown houghs oliver and star is a monster monster front 4. w the LBs we have behind them we'd do as well as we did last year in terms of yardage (#2) and allow way fewer red zone conversions, along w more sacks and turnovers. that kind of talent lets you be scheme diverse on D and actually be at an advantage (or not at a disadvantage) when facing the pats and other smart teams.

people who pretend that the pick someone was drafted at, the personality of the qb coach on the rookie team, etc etc is what makes or breaks a qb make me chortle. it's a sport, if a guy falls apart it means he sucks, period. you can argue that like phillip rivers might have won a super bowl if he were the qb of the giants, or that sam cowart would be a goat if he never got hurt, but you can't argue that a write of joke like ej manual, or jp losman, needed a different play book and then they are a 10 year starter in the nfl. the suck, they always sucked, and no matter what happened, the were gonna suck.

EJ was just the most low confidence zero heart guy ever. high wonderlick, physical gifts, jimbo fisher coached FSU QB, drafted in the first round, had some decent talent at WR brought in to help him out, but he just couldn't help but suck. he made kyle orton look like brett favre out there. He is the opposite world Freddie jackson, who would take anything on the chin and come back, and performed with a ton of heart.

i'd give a third for him, a third and shaq if needed. most i think i would do is a 2nd and shaq, but i think a 1st is too much. clowney can play at a super high level, he and houghs and star and oliver is a MONSTER line. 4 first round picks on the DL, including 3 top 10 (i think star was a top 10) picks? are you joking? combine that with our young backers and solid secondary, i think we stay around where we were last year in yards, and get way more turnovers and sacks and give up less points, and that's with a run d that's less likely to implode like it did at times.

for O, we are following the pats system, which is put players in a position to do what they do well, and selecting players that do what you need them to do, not what a traditional O does. Speed over the top, getting open underneath, and dynamic physical play are emphasized. also, being called upon when it is advantageous vs the D instead of calling dude's number early to get him involved. on paper, jones SHOULD be able to do a few of those things, but he just hasn't shown it consistently. for him to make the team, he's going to have to find a role (or roles) in the O and show that he can execute them better than whoever else is ahead of him on the depth chart. i honestly think he does have that in him, but he's against the wall and the clock is ticking, he's gonna have to make big improvements fast. he's honestly super lucky DK didn't fall into the 3rd round, or else i bet we woulda picked him and it's good night zay.

in this context, someone who gets paid for his knowledge, like a pro scout or front office employee. cowherd gets paid to entertain, which the numbers show he does, not to be accurate or insightful what do you think a pro is?

he's good at what he does, heck he has us talking about him, but he is a fan like someone pointed out above, not a pro. to me, Rosen sucks. he's physically weak and has attitude problems on top of that. he was developed really early in his life as a QB, so he is skilled, but i don't think he will deliver the goods. i do suspect, assuming miami put some talent around him, that early in the season he may play a couple good games, but when the cold comes and he gets worn down over a season, he will fold.

at first glance this blows my mind and makes me think no one really does wanna play in buffalo. do we know how this compares to other teams? % kept in that time and number of 2nd contract draftees on roster?

with Spain i think we have our best LG on the roster right there. Clearly Morse is our C. So that leaves Dawkins at LT, where is at the least decent and has been good/solid. So RT and RG are left, and they were a total disaster last season, just disgusting. If Ford can be a sturdy RG, nsgalalalala (SP) who we got from the skins could for sure be our RT. That's an upgrade at 4 of our 5 positions, and we have long and teller to fight for each G position (almost said G spot but nope), and if either tackle goes down we can move Ford, Dawkins, or Ngkchicicicic. and then we have all the other guys who can fight for depth spots. also, adding that converted LT as a TE, as well as dude who we drafted counts big time too. just having lots of solid blockers in front of the QB will inspire confidence and buy JA time to make some magic happen. I'm excited!

i think our FO really really hates lazy asses. i dunno if williams is one, but marcel was, and that was his downfall.

bro, are punters and holders not special teams players?!?!? i feel like i've been taking crazy pills around here...

our front office is all about ceiling. they clearly go for that over all other traits.

we will definitely make some kind of trade, and prolly up into 1st or 2nd round, but we also need some special teams players, cuz ours suck. i could see some young guys brought in and some of the garbage at the bottom of our roster getting sliced.

without saying hock will be an all pro (if i have to pick and they are both there i'm taking him or DK at 9, assuming all the pass rush studs are gone), but the idea that a specific starting 11 position shouldn't be drafted in the top 10 is silly. They used to say you shouldn't take an S or RB in the top 10, but multiple teams have in the past few years and with success. they also said you can't take a guard, but indy did last year and that looks like an awesome pick. if the bills FO think hock is gonna play like gronk then you run up to the podium and spend the pick. keep in mind, QBs are special and you always over draft them, and OL and DL are picked high because it's hard to find big guys who are sick athletes/players (only so many men on the planet with size, let alone size and other traits) and you play with 5 OL on every down, and 3 or 4 DL on nearly every down and you gotta rotate DL too. beyond that, any position can get a top 10 pick IF the player is great enough vs the other plays available. the only draft prospects i was super high on in the past while von miller, khalil mack, and josh allen (altho i also liked darnold and baker at qb), and other than that i usually just deffer to the brain trust, so it's not like I'm super duper high on hock or DK, i just think they look like potential great players at positions we need, but make no mistake, if you think a TE is an all pro, you throw the 9th pick at him.

exactly. people forget before gronk there were two top flight TEs in NE (graham and watson, I THINK, prolly have names wrong), and they got 3 chips in 4 years. people like to talk about quick white WRs running 4 yard routes, but they miss out on the mauling o line (who are better as a unit than as individual players, not a squad of stars by any stretch) and the combo of power backs and speedy wheel route running guys, and the TEs who are a mismatch. it's basically rock paper scissors with subterfuge, and i think that's what dabol is going for and i like it.

the fact that we don't have the roster spots elsewhere makes me think we go TE in the draft. maybe that top guy from Iowa if he is there at 9, maybe noah font if we trade down, or trade back up into the 1st after our first pick. top guy (hock) makes a lot of sense since he's a good blocker, so that helps the OL too.

well, they did it last year. I think they just throw a bunch of picks from this years draft, and MAYBE next years first if they are going up and getting the edge rusher the covet at the top of the draft. i think that would take a run on QB/DT/CB/WR/OT to happen