colin

i was one letter too excited!

garnett to bills? clap your hands kids!

IMO aside from the adjustments the game script changes really help our D in the 2nd. teams not being able to just grind out with runs because they fear the bills scoring quickly puts them in a worse position vs the mcDefense. clearly the adjustments showed improvement vs houston, zona, and to a lesser extend bmore even tho they had solid leads on us early. The O laying eggs early is our biggest issue. giving the ball back to the opponents early in the game lets them build confidence and do some creative stuff on O against us, it took some mana for us to have a nice first half lead vs the seahags, but they clearly lost compsoure. i will give the o a lot of credit for overcoming some really crummy penalties in several drives on sunday. i think that helps the d, who just don't do well off of 3 and outs where the opponents get some mo.

he's not always impressive based on the eye test because he never rushes his feet, so he looks like he's not going fast while blowing past everyone. i remember watching him after the dallas blowout yesterday thinking "well, maybe he is gonna be nearly as good as i thought he was coming out of georgia" and then looking up his stats and being kinda socked he was like top 6 from scrimmage. imo, he's our best "feature" back considering we don't actual use a feature back. he produces coming in and out of games, and with limited touches. he's developed a nose for the endzone and really trucks hard when he's near the goal line, and that's basically exactly what we need. he's gonna have double digit running touchdowns and his season high for touches will prolly be under 25. the big difference of this team vs say the 13 second team is the blocking from the line and the production we can get from the RB and TE positions. hopefully we have figured out how to beat pressure man Ds because we have absolutely been eating up zone d's.

I didn't like the 2nd down QB draw, but my gosh we just kill ourselves w penalties

Seen a lot of zone and cover odd (1,3). Motion has been nice too

I'm not gonna say mana again, but Seattle showing way less composure than our bills is worth like 14 or so points so far.

Consecutive droves where we got from heaven!

positionally we need S, maybe LB, K, and DL more than anything. carter having a bum wrist and von coming back soon makes DT a greater priority than DE. but, what we actually need is a play maker/difference maker. i'd put buddah baker juuuuuuuuuuust below the top level of that for his position, which is a need, but garrett or crosby or simmons (if he's healthy) would make the bigger imact. garrett can fit under the cap easy for one season, after that all kinds of stuff is needed but we can move money around and the diggs, miller, knox, and milano contracts are gone after next year. an extension for josh is possible too. crosby is a bit younger, and imo a slightly better pure pass rusher, but garrett would also bring an insane physical presence that would super charge the D. i'd do 2 firsts for him in a heartbeat. if we can get him and cooper under contract after this year, it means we gave up 2 firsts, and a 3rd to swap diggs and miller for cooper and garrett. that's an absolute no brainer super move. we have a legit oline (bad at picking up blitzes games and simulated pressure, but that can be coached) i'd say top 5 or 10. garrett would but our dline over the top, making it a top 3 or 4 unit. football is about the big uglies, and getting mashed around by baltimore made me sick. w the ability to beat their corners outside and physical ability necessary to play a team like that with a light box, the rematch in the playoffs would look really really different.

As a player the knock on him is the drops, and that's it. I think he's a guy who takes his profession of football very seriously, but he doesn't sit around thinking about celebrations or endorsement deals. He's a chess nerd, so he prolly loves that aspect of nfl football, and looks at scheme and film as a way to make the winning move, but he doesn't see his worth as a human being as being a big star or a leader of men. people talk a lot about players as if they all are or all can be leaders. coop is an example of someone who is simply not a leader. he doesn't want to be and the bills have plenty of leaders on the team, with a youngish roster and allen and dawkings being the clear top two personalities. we don't need a diggs or another fired up guy as much as we need excellent football players.

amari cooper is a bit unique in that he has elite traits and skills at wr, has always been elite (top 10 pick), but just does his job. he reminds me of a lot of the players that the pats had during their run. todd collins, vrable, graham and watson at te, ty law, welker and amendola and edlemen, etc. they all had some elite ability, altho they were more scheme fit and did have holes, but they just did their jobs. they were reliable, worked exactly to the specifications of the scheme, and won 1 on 1 match ups or just put themselves in the right spot so that applying the correct technique got them the best results. he does a lot for the O just being someone that makes D's not want to be in cover 0/1/3, but he does it by winning his rep rather than drawing attention or "taking over a game" or whatever. getting open early is something only bease ever did for the bills, and bease destroyed zone coverage but had issues vs man because he just wasn't fast or big. cooper does that but with the skills to win quickly on the outside vs press coverage. i think eric moulds was the last guy who did that for us. i think for these reasons coop is way better for us than hopkins, who is basically an older version of what we really hope coleman can become.

If Milano is 100% and g2g then he's the starting outside linebacker. I could see some 3 lb sets at that point tho vs heavy formations. The real question is will Milano be healthy? He's played what, 3 games since our playoff loss to Cincinnati? I think they'd have to put him on a snap count for the final 4-5 games of the season for him to be confirmed totally ready for the playoffs. It's possible Williams keeps improving and is the clear choice by then vs a healthy Milano but MCD would need to see overwhelming evidence to choose Williams.

I've heard stories of young pitchers getting optional Tommy John surgery to make their throwing arm stronger

yea, i think i coulda been more clear -- im saying players don't only use to recover, and never use anything else. i think most players use peds most of the time.

im not the biggest scout/draft guy, but i remember when this pick was made, i was wondering what makes this guy good enough to take this high, and after we added AJ, oliver, and groot. i was hoping the front office had secret knowledge, but my goodness this guy sucked out loud from day one.

i hope so. people talk about the bust rate at qb in the first round, but if you look at the top qbs, they are so overwhelmingly guys who were picked super high (brady and brock being exceptions, obv). what is interesting to me is how many WRs come out at different points and are just monsters. Jefferson was a high pick and a silly good college player, but he was what, the 4th or 5th guy taken that year? diggs, adams, ayuik, our own coleman and many others fell past the first round. It seems like there are mental and less measured traits that lead to top flight wr play.

I didn't even think of script drug exceptions. Stims, beta blockers, etc. that stuff is used in top colleges and gets kids to move up a quartile, im sure it helps guys in what might be the most high pressure business in america. I had an extensive discussion w my Derm about BPC 157, TB500, and hormone therapy while getting an irregular mole removed. His stance was that the industry of using and prescribing this stuff has essentially matured from gray market and unmonitored to main stream, and is caught in between the world of regular way meds and luxo clinics for the rich, which is exactly what he saw with plastic surgery (he's been doing it for a long long time). He said when he was new to medicine cosmetic dentistry sort of occupied this space, and now I don't think you can find a dentist who won't offer services to whiten your smile and other purely cosmetic treatments. the nfl exists in the same america as all of the above, so you'd have to buy sand in bulk to stick your head in if you don't see the reality of performance enhancement usage in a sport where an extra few percent of performance can mean the difference from never being in the NFL to making 8 figures. also, im curious what you mean about except the highlighted? to be clear, i don't think that people won't use drugs to recover from injury, but they are not likely to never use drugs except to recover from injury. like, if you are an actual freak and can be an nfl player totally clean, i don't see that person just starting to use and stopping because of an injury.

imo the use of ped's is normal and too be expected in nfl football. getting caught is the issue. and it's in other sports too -- tyson gay got popped along w a lot of other track guys, after his suspension he was still running at the top level in the world. didn't von miller get popped for peds years ago? still came back to a HOF career. and brian cushing, who went from hero to zero back to hero from HS senior, training camp at usc, and then 2nd year at usc, got popped his rookie year, and was huge powerful and jacked when he came back and stayed that way. spare me comments about "coming back from injury", it doesn't work that way and no one actually does that. the ped testing in the nfl and a lot of other sports are a tax on the dumb. in other sports they can also be a tax on the poor, but that doesn't count in the nfl.

brady is better at how the offense is executed consistently (so far) vs daboll, mainly because of the run game and getting production out of backs and tes. daboll was better at just calling plays. he'd drive me insane with his like random set of seemingly unrelated formations and plays, but they were effective and lead to a lot of scoring and efficiency. talent differences matter tho, if anything you have to say daboll was better so far than brady, because his teams produced some crazy offensive numbers in the playoffs. if brady can figure out the first half of games, and get us 2 or more playoff wins, then at that point you give him the edge of daboll.

coleman isn't up to where we need him to be yet. some of his routes have been kinda awful, and he's not a polished blocker yet. he also, as advertised, does not get much seperation. the special thing about him to me is what he does with the ball in his hands. he does have good hands too, but when he has the ball his balance and coordination lets him make small moves that lead to big gains. he did it vs tenn and vs baltimore. turning short catches into big gains breaks the D's back. if he gets his routes better and builds more rapport with josh on the scrambles he could crack 1k this season.

with those contract numbers, if garrett is actually available, i'd just pay what it cost. a couple of firsts, maybe a couple of 2nds. if we have him for 3 years (including this one) for basically minimum, we can move stuff around to keep cooper if we want. its early to say, but coleman does things with the ball in his hands that we have simply not gotten out of players. him along w coop and shakir and the backs and tight ends gives us a mix of talent on O that legit exceeds anything we have had with allen on the team. 2020/2021 was nice w brown and beaz and diggs, but the oline was much worse than it is now, and our backs and tes were not a threat in anyway. a super star dline is what mcd needs more than anything. we've all talked about how he can make a secondary better than it really is, and it seems like we've been able to do that at LB as well. our corners are actually a really good trio. i'll say it again, garrett, miller, groot and oliver is not getting blocked at all on 3rd and long, we'd be able to get mahomes in the playoffs off of his super efficient streak vs our d, and lamar would have 3+ turnovers. burrow would likely get hurt. those are the 3 teams we have to beat to get to a super bowl, and it's hard to think of one additional player to add to the team that would get us there more than garrett.

Baltimore's O is sick, but that d kinda sucks. Only Brady doing his best Hackett (bills era Hackett) impression has made them look good this season

our d got trucked badly vs baltimore, but bmore has pure cheeks pass d. not being able to get a single thing on passing the ball really shows our corches were out to lunch in a sad and big way that game. yes, we didn't have cooper etc etc, but we can't just get pantsed every time an opposing coach changes a single thing.

2 firsts and elam or whatever and maybe lower value picks too if the contract can be structured in a way that works w the cap (basically we can pay chunks of what is getting burned on samuel, knox, milano, miller, diggs and other dead cap as it comes off). that guy would make this d line go from really good at times and zilch at other times to really good almost all the time and disgusting nasty some of the time. garret, oliver, miller and groot is a shocking nascar package on 3rd and long. no oline in the nfl would block that effectively and the intimidation factor would be off the charts. also, it means w aj, miller, groot and garret, you'd never be without one edge matchup that you can win as you rotate. if anything makes mcd's d work it's a sick four man rush, and that would be about the best in the nfl.

given how nasty baltimore and kc are, and how we've managed to lose two consecutive years at home in the playoffs, i think home field advantage is a like 8% or lower probability thing now and not as crucial as we all thought it was after the 13 seconds game, so winning the division is kinda close as makes no difference to the best likely outcome of the regular season (obv being healthy is so HUGE). also, kc won two on the road last season to win the chip, no excuses we just have to ball in the post season. because of that, while i will panic and black pill in the game day thread, if we just keep our division lead we are kinda in the best place we can likely be this year. we play NE twice in 3 weeks near the end of the season, as long as they don't figure it out late and pose a challenge, we are prolly gonna be in about where we can be for the remainder.