Hapless Bills Fan

It’s clear from that text exchange that Brown had some injury and that Arians knew about it. That said, at this point in the season I think every player is playing through various injuries and it’s a judgement call whether they’re serious enough to impair performance. The player has a right to seek a second medical opinion and to get additional tests at any time, and the time to do that is during the week, if the player is hearing from the team’s doctors/trainers “you’re good to go” and his experience as a baller says “no, something’s really going on here and I’m not”. What we don’t know from that text exchange is how often there might have been a similar exchange where AB wound up playing through the game. I wouldn’t put it past AB to feed and water his own personal Drama Llama about his injuries before every game or possibly to be willing to play through if he gets the right “Purple Heart Award” from his boss. The thing that really rings false to me is in the statement the lawyer released referencing receiving an injection that “turned out to be a painkiller the NFLPA recommends against that can be dangerous”. C’mon, man, Toradol has been injected all over the league for years, common enough to have the line of players queuing up to be injected before the game colloquially known as the “T-Train”. Now Brown didn’t know what it was or the risks before he received it? Also players have talked about the drawback of Toradol being they literally can’t feel pain. I don’t know, it just seems like if Brown were really in incredible pain, he could have told Arians “I’m in pain breaking through the injection, can you send the doc over here?” Or, since he was able to walk (clearly), walked up to the trainer himself and requested evaluation? I personally think our own Emmanuel Sanders wants to rest himself for the playoffs, and the Bills are rolling with it. But there’s always a judgement call in these things.

That’s actually a very interesting read. Thanks.

Unfortunately, the ability to win those close games is a needed skill.

Valid question to raise. I just have a sense that Trubisky is in a different place than Darnold is. For one thing, his career has had a different trajectory. He has a winning record as a QB overall and in 3 of 4 seasons. He has a pro-bowl appearance. Completion %, TD/INT ratio, all good enough for a team to win with him and his YPG in Chicago were close, good enough his 2nd season. And yet he got dumped by the team that drafted him, and that has done worse since moving on. I think Beane was speaking truth when he said for Trubisky, it was a reset year - a time to watch another team’s offensive style, another QB’s preparation, and to reflect on his own career without the pressure of starting every week (or, as long as Allen was healthy, even the question of whether he would/should). I think Trubisky knows he is good enough to start in the NFL and that watching the Bears with a different QB would give a different perspective on him to the league. Darnold is in a different place. For one thing, his numbers have never been good enough to win - completion % below 60%, more INTs than TDs 2 of his 4 years and too close the rest, etc. I think he is still chafing for a chance to prove he’s good enough to start, and he’s not ready to settle into the backup role for fear he won’t get another chance to start. I also think he wants to be in a city with more nightlife than Buffalo. Like I said, nothing concrete, just a sense that Trubisky is in a different place mentally than Darnold is.

I don’t see that at all. Darnold was the #3 overall pick. He surely has an ego. He is gonna want to go somewhere he has a legit chance to compete for starting.

I mean, one could argue that Allen is a more valuable player to the Bills because more of the offense runs through his hands and legs? Then there’s the point about the Pack being 0-1 without Rodgers because Rodgers made a medical decision which resulted in being unavailable, by rule

Yes

I don’t disagree with the first sentence. But the rest of it makes it seem as though you feel MVP is an award for being a prominent player on the team with the most wins. For what? He broke the protocols and got fined for it - maybe not as much as the various violations should have justified, but the punishment at that point was fines, not suspension. He lied to or misled reporters about his vaccination status, but both the NFL and the team say he was honest with them and followed the protocols (with exceptions).

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It might be worth noting that a reporter could object to Rodgers misleading or lying to reporters about his vaccination status on moral grounds, which would not appear to be “political”. This behavior has been considered unethical since the time of Moses, maybe before. Rodgers also made a medical choice that impacted his football availability. A reporter could consider that un-MVP like behavior: “the best ability is availability.” Then there’s the issue of a celebrity using his platform to promote medical advice instead of encouraging people to choose a qualified physician and follow their physician’s advice. Some consider that immoral or unethical. Only the second of these would be strictly football relevant. But the others don’t appear political. Not relevant to play on the field, but not political. Some people make everything political though.

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Is he claiming he took an injection without knowing what it was? Or that he hadn’t had that same injection before? (Probably toradol, and probably yes)

Brees always had such pretty footwork. And he learned to operate within the offensive system Baker, not so much

Interesting. It also took Brees what, 4 years in Sandy Eggo and Phillip Rivers being drafted, to start looking like he could play QB at a high level. After which he had a career-threatening shoulder injury and signed with New Orleans, the rest being history

That last sentence is the reason some of us would prefer to see McKenzie. Stevenson has what, a muff and 2 fumbles in 5 games? That’s more than McKenzie has done this season.

My guess is they are going to leave it to the teams to assess football-relevant intelligence by whatever means they prefer - film analysis, explaining a play and then coming back to it after a while and seeing how much the player retains, possibly the individual teams will be able to administer Wonderlics or a different intelligence test if they believe it’s important.

Eeeeeeewwwwww!

I don’t care what the name is. I’ve taken tests of cognitive ability. I’ve taken standardized tests by the pound - SAT, MCAT, GRE. I’ve taken tests designed to find memory and cognitive deficits, subsequent to a TBI. I can kick standardized test Butt. I can kick test of cognitive ability Butt. I can even kick memory test Butt, just not as high and hard as I used to be able to kick ‘em. I know tests of cognitive ability, and unless the actual tests they give the players are vastly different than the ones online - that ain’t no test of cognitive ability or ability to learn and be coached. Ain’t a test of “random facts” either, though there are some “you either know this or you don’t” questions in there. Kind of a gamish, but reminded me most of the old SAT before they revised the vocab section.

Well, I disagree with you both. I just went and took one of the practice tests online to be sure I wasn’t misremembering - assuming the tests online are similar to the actual test…. It’s not about random facts, but there are a bunch of questions where you have to just know some stuff - notably vocabulary. It also requires facility in certain types of math problems - some algebra, some geometry Then it requires some careful observational abilities. Because of the short timeline, it requires a certain amount of test taking strategy - knowing which problems will take you too long and moving on - the online versions don’t allow you to go back and re-take the ones you skip or to check your work, don’t know if the real test does or not. So No, I would have to say it’s not a test of cognitive ability or the ability to figure things out or to learn. It’s a test of ability to answer certain types of questions rapidly. I think it’s fair to say that just about anyone could improve their score with some coaching and preparation, so the point that being willing to put in that work may have some bearing on how much a draft candidate “wants it” could be valid, as well as the point that anyone who does prep should probably be able to score above a certain bar. But let’s not imbue it with properties it doesn’t have - it’s not a test of “ability to learn” or “ability to be coached” and only to a very minor extent “ability to figure things out”.

It really stood out to me when McKenzie played the slot, we really gained some plays that weren’t there with Beasley. We probably would have lost some plays Beasley makes, too - plays where he’s got a PhD in figuring out where the gaps in zone defense will be - but the Pats were playing a lot of man and i-Mac smoked them in a way Beasley can’t. Let’s hypothetically say Beasley had cracked ribs, couple of points: 1) is injured and hindered Beasley really better and more contributory than anyone else on the team? McKenzie’s performance against the Pats says “maybe not” to me. I know Beasley is a competitor, and it’s hard to keep him out, but sometimes I feel the team is “letting him call the shots” too much on whether to play or not. 2) cracked ribs are usually a 4-6 week injury, call it 8 weeks if he’s still putting stress on them. This is 10 weeks. Really should be healed.

RoRow, what’s this “personal” thing for Dawkins? Sanders may be legit injured, but I can’t help remembering that he missed most of training camp and the first week of practice with a foot injury - was that “saving himself for the season?” ….and then his timing with Josh was clearly off in the first couple games. Anyway it wouldn’t surprise me if Sanders is “saving himself for the playoffs”, which could have its up-side, but again - I think all these receivers need their practice reps with Josh, especially “I’m here to cut through the wind” fastball hurling Josh. Glad to see Bates out there even if limited.

Could say the same about Josh - “will be interesting to see how he plays when he’s no longer an incredible athlete with elite escapability/ability to run” John Harbaugh says of Lamar Jackson “he’s very intelligent”. Now what’s the coach gonna say “he’s dumber than a bunch of rocks”? No, but at the same time, he doesn’t have to put that out there. As far as the baseline - it’s not Wonderlic, but there’s an interesting anecdote about our own Isaiah McKenzie in Ty Dunne’s article https://www.golongtd.com/p/the-buffalo-bills-secret-weapon-isaiah When coaches discussed college with I-Mac, he said “I ain’t never got one good grade in my life”. He went in to take the SAT cold, no prep, and scored a 700 which is rock bottom. Then someone set him up with test prep courses where he learned some strategy (leave questions he didn’t know blank, answer questions he did know first), and his second score was a 1300. (Then he got flagged because of the dramatic improvement in score and grades). (IMHO from taking the practice Wonderlics on line, they are very pre-revision SAT like) My points are: 1) sure, you can make a judgement about how much a kid wants something by whether they’re willing to put in the effort to improve at one of the hoops they have to jump through pre-draft. That’s fair. 2) when a score can be improved that dramatically by some test coaching and test prep, IMHO it’s pretty clear that it’s not measuring intrinsic intelligence at all, but rather a specific set of problem-solving and test-taking skills along with some basic education 3) I absolutely believe that a QB needs to have high intelligence and won’t succeed very well if he doesn’t, I’m just not persuaded the Wonderlic measures this. IMHO, setting an arbitrary “baseline to hit” is sort of the same deal as setting a completion % baseline to hit and proclaiming (as was done for our Josh) that anyone who didn’t hit it had no chance to succeed as a QB in the NFL. The problem with that logic is that it presumes all the candidates are coming from a certain comparable baseline - big college programs with a lot of talent around them, perhaps QB-friendly systems with high-completion-percentage throws. So when you have a candidate from outside that comparable baseline (like Josh, playing in a pro-style offense with very little talent around him especially his Sr year) then all bets are off. Then you get into intangibles like heart and effort and determination. IMHO, absolutely not “equal across the board”, and I think the answer to the second question is self-evident: if front offices and coaches truly believed the Wonderlic had bearing on player ability, they would fight tooth and nail to keep it. I think FOs have a lot of data on how relevant the Wonderlic is for football ability, and that’s why it’s getting deep-6’d.

At least the sample Wonderlics I’ve seen on line are not an amalgam of facts, but it requires a degree of success at a certain type of education to do well at them.

Yep. Although I personally believe Lamar and his mother were “crazy like a fox” with the whole draft process. I think they wanted Lamar to be drafted in the first round for the contract guarantees, but they actually did not want him to be drafted very high. Why? Because typically, being drafted high means you are gonna go to a bad team and there will be struggles. Lamar worked on stuff that mattered to them, like improving his footwork and passing and his ability to assess a defense and call appropriate plays. Lamar didn’t work on stuff that didn’t matter to them. There were a whole pile of things at the time - the lack of prep for the Wonderlic and the low score, also Lamar’s instagram account had some eyebrow-raising stuff - nothing explicit but quoting dope-related lyrics and stuff like that ( @BadLandsMeanie drew this to my attention, I wasn’t following Lamar). Nothing that would knock him out of the first round, but just enough to lower his stock a bit. At the time there was various tsk-tsk-ing about how Jackson was costing himself draft slots and corresponding $$ that an agent could have helped them bring in, but I personally think Mama Jackson and Lamar felt he would get enough money on his first contract and have a better chance at a more lucrative 2nd contract if he went to a team with a proven coach, good players, and a winning culture in place. The Ravens checked all the boxes.

I don’t think anyone would debate that intelligence plays a major role in pro football success. I think the debate is whether the Wonderlic actually measures native intelligence, vs. a specific set of educational skills which may or may not be relevant to football My understanding is that like the SAT, it’s been found to trend more towards the latter.