mannc

IIRC, he had had both shots and was a day or so shy of two weeks post vax when he caught it. Doesn't seem like a great spokesperson for the vax.

I did not say they necessarily are under fire. I posed the question. The fact that many players are vaccinated doesn't mean they favor the protocols or even wanted the vax; many probably got vaccinated because they didn't feel like they had a viable choice, and many who are vaccinated may nonetheless believe the protocols are silly and counterproductive.

And he was vaccinated...

I agree. I wonder if the NFLPA leadership is under fire from the membership for agreeing to the current protocols. If so, that might make them less likely to back down on this issue. I suppose the league could take the position that vaccine mandate is a work rule that is not a subject of collective bargaining and just try to ram it through. I have no idea what the law is on that, but it would seem to be a stretch. Also, I think the league operates in states where vaccine mandates are illegal, like Texas, IIRC. Given that many people (especially in the media) thought the season should be cancelled, I thought last season was hugely successful. I don't think any games were cancelled and no players or coaches got seriously ill.

How so?

Nagy's definitely on the hot seat; no maybe about it. Ownership might give him a reprieve if he rolls with a rookie QB and the team struggles a bit; it's a built-in excuse for a head coach. No such leniency if Dalton plays most of the year and they suck...

Maybe. But Nagy is on the hot seat and probably won't survive a 7-9 Andy Dalton season. The only way he survives is if Fields plays and shows promise and the team wins a reasonable number of games...

So they’re just going to hide Fields on the bench every time the Bears go up against a good defensive player? What’s Aaron Donald going to do to him? Kill him? Under the new rules, AD is barely allowed to breathe on him. Anyway, Fields was the starting QB for Ohio State, ffs. I think he can handle it.

They have zero chance to beat the Rams with Dalton starting. Why not throw Fields out there and give the team at least some shot?

I understand this argument, but the problem is that it's not clear what's out of bounds and what's not, what is "focused" and what's not. We're going to be hearing a lot about covid, vaccinations, and the NFL's protocols all season because it is going to have a major impact on this season, and it doesn't make much sense to just prohibit all discussion of it. I've yet to see a covid-related football thread that has not been shut down and I think that's unfortunate.

Only on TSW…

It’s a very good thing. Hopefully, they give Tua a third year to prove himself. OTH, I think Jones and Wilson are the real deal…won’t be a big problem this year, but I think the Jets and Pats may have found their QBs of the future…

It's just a damned shame that the Jets or Dolphins didn't give up three or four first round picks for him in January....

Imagine if they had cell phones at Rich Stadium in the mid-80s...endless material like this

It is kind of odd...Kumerow is being talked about like he's a budding superstar, and yet he's 29 years old and has done next to nothing in the league up to this point. So what happened? I know there are a lot of talented guys who never really get a shot, but this seems hard to fathom.

Exactly. This would allow them to keep seven WRs...

We don't know if the schedule will be tougher this year. Last year everyone said we had a killer schedule and it turned out to be meh.

He certainly should be no lower than 3. Who did they have ahead of him?

It's not a crazy, clickbait take just because you (and others on social media) disagree with it. He ranked Hill higher than a bunch of rookies who had not played in the league. Big deal. We still don't know if Hill is going to be a good QB or not; he hasn't played more than a handful of games and I'm not sure he's ever started one. What did Simms rank him this year? 27? 28? Doesn't seem crazy to me.

Agreed. In some sense all these sorts of lists are "clickbait", but Simms is not one who throws out crazy takes just for the sake of clicks. For what it's worth, in his post-draft analysis, Simms said he did not really love Rousseau, but he absolutely understood why the Bills selected him and acknowledged that it could turn out to be a great pick, especially for a guy taken at the end of round 1.

OJ really had only 5 exceptional seasons as a pro, but that has to be put in context. His first great season (1973), he was already 26 years old, having played four years in college and four years with the Bills, mostly as a decoy/blocking back due to almost criminal incompetence on the part of the Bills' organization. Nowadays, Simpson would have been on his second contract when he had his breakout season...We really only got a glimpse (magnificent as it was) of what could have been...

Campbell or OJ?

One thing people forget…at the beginning of the 1975 season, OJ was already 28 years old, an age at which most modern RBs (even great ones) are on the scrap heap…if only the Bills hadn’t used him as a decoy in his first three years in the league. And as these videos show, OJ had very good hands….in today’s game, would he be an WR1? That’s where the alpha athletes end up now…

I could laugh much harder about this if the Bills had not hired Rex Ryan…

To answer your question, I would take Herbert 10 times out of 10 over Murray. I really like Simms’s draft analysis, but I agree that a lot of these QB rankings are garbage, especially his ranking of Cam Newton, Wentz, Hill and Jameis Winston. I mean, Wentz and Newton were easily the two worst starting QBs in the league last year and he’s got them in his top 20??