Hapless Bills Fan

That's possible. Per Pelissaro, post cuts to the 53 man roster: So JC Tretter may be speaking for the interests of ~160 players divided among 32 teams, vs the interests of about 2,150 players on 53-man rosters, PS, and IR

IIRC, Rochesterfan who posted above actually has connections to Bioreliance and likely has accurate gouge on the testing cost, so plug his $ into your per-test cost. Also see my caveats about cost impact of the MESA POC test and possible transition to saliva testing. I'm pretty sure daily testing for all would cover more than 100 people. It's 72 players counting practice squad and players on IR who may rehab here. It's 91 people counting coaches and S&C Add in Trainers, Medical Staff, Equipment, Performance Science, Player Engagement, FO people on the pro-player side, Food service, maintenance, security...could easily be 150-200 people who need to be tested every day.

These are good points - "follow the Money" - and I think that only counts the actual testing costs, not the costs of courier services to deliver the samples. Except - I can't find the regular season protocols yet but here are the preseason protocols https://static.www.nfl.com/image/upload/v1627485241/league/z62pmhkip5is8ohxmqza.pdf There are two interesting points with regard to testing cost: 1) One is agreement to transition to saliva-based testing as soon as it meets sensitivity and selectivity standards. If it's the Salivadirect test used by the NBA, it is said to be less expensive (p 60) 2) The other is use of the so called "MESA test" or Mesa Accula Rapid PCR Test, which is actually called out as acceptable daily screening test for unvaccinated players and weekly screening for vaccinated players and personnel. This probably has higher reagent cost, but may be cheaper overall due to lower personnel and transportation costs. (I'm personally surprised it meets the sensitivity standards). It would also likely not have the throughput to support daily testing for all Perhaps you know how these factors enter into the costing equation? And last....the cost to the NFL of additional daily testing of vaccinated players and staff could easily be countered by a pooled testing strategy, an approach that has been thoroughly vetted (see what I did there?) for application in low positivity situations by a large surveillance testing program nearby. (Follow the cows.)

It's a good question. Here is an article on the NFL's protocols for reference https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-nflpa-agree-to-covid-19-protocols-for-regular-season As an educated thought, I would guess 1) The NFL likely has a transmission model for intra-facility spread where, given the most recent data including from pre-season, they believe weekly testing will suffice to prevent intra-facility spread. All players are required to fill out a daily health check and to report symptoms immediately and be tested It's whether asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic infections of vaccinated players who are not known close contacts pose a transmission risk, that is the question. (Vaccinated close contacts are now required to test daily) 2) It's easier to step up testing as needed than to step down - once you have a program that works, the pressure is typically "on" not to back away from it. 3) Additional testing is not "burden free" - in addition to logistical issues, all tests carry a burden of false positives and negatives I think it's possible that the vaccinated staff and players would yell "bait and switch!" if they in fact got jabbed to avoid daily testing, but if the NFLPA is doing its job, the players, at least, are supposedly on-board. So "incentives for vaccination" should not be a motivation to not test. From the article linked above. Changes I see as significant highlighted:

The difference is, none of the posters here are, as you say, putting ourselves out there as experts on a monetized service which solicits subscriptions.

Hi Debbie. Tomlin is a great coach, and Roethlisberger legit in the convo as having a HOF career. The Steelers clearly took steps to improve their run game by drafting Harris and two OLmen and signing Trai Turner. They clearly took steps to improve their short passing game by signing Ebron and drafting Freiermuth. But there's a reason why the OLmen who were the Bills 3rd and 4th draft picks are listed as backups, and our 2nd round pick is #3 on the depth chart right now, and that reason does not favor the thought that Najee Harris will automatically equate to the Stillers ability to run all over us. He is a rookie playing behind a young raw OL. That OL also may impact Big Ben's ability to get the ball into the hands of their playmakers. Just granting them the "palm" of an improved offense, would be like granting the Bills the "palm" of a vastly improved DL and defense, on the basis of preseason. Yeah, Rousseau and Epenesa have looked good, but they have to show they can "Bring It" on Sunday in the regular season. Big Ben looked great against the Lions - and "Ditto". The Steelers elite defense got taken by the Bills last year for a solid 335 yds, and that was after needing to make offensive adjustments. Their star DE is on IR and they lost two excellent CB in FA. So they have some questionmarks, which they have a need to prove they have filled adequately. For reference what you wrote:

All the Cover1 guys seem kinda twitchy if you disagree with them. IIRC there are a couple of other posters here who clearly know their football and have been blocked by one or the other of those guys.

The whole "Edmunds would be much better at OLB than MLB" appears premised upon the theory that observant, football-knowledgeable fans on a message board have superior player evaluation and football acumen to guys who are paid multi-millions per year by professional teams to evaluate players and win football games. Huh. In defense of this theory, the Bills had years during The Drought (aka the Long Mediocrity) when arguably, a group of knowledgeable observant fans off this board could quite likely have drafted better, and possibly coached better. On the other hand, now that the Bills have had winning seasons and gone to the playoffs 3 of the last 4 years, I think this theory is open to question. Maybe Edmunds is playing MLB, a team captain, and just had his 5th year option picked up because he's doing what McDermott wants of him, more often than not (of course, McDermott wants more)

Your Kink is....O.K.?

I agree, I thought Marcel L-J did a good and fair job and was a huge improvement over whoever that was who went before him. He also embraced Buffalo food and culture That said, now that he's covering the stinkin' Marine Mammals, he's Dead to Me.

So. On the one hand, the Steelers did a pretty good job of shutting Beasley down last year - 5 receptions on 10 targets for 41 yds. On the other hand, the Steelers CB in that game were Steve Nelson, Cameron Sutton, and Mike Hilton. (Joe Haden was inactive) Nelson and Hilton are gone. I think Sutton was their slot CB last season? (not sure) So Sutton and Haden are listed as their starting corners. I'm sure Tomlin has a plan, I'm equally sure he wants to wait until game day for us to find out what it is.

Turncoat! Traitor!

It's a point that IIRC, Tuitt and Cam Hayward gave our OL fits esp. in the 1st half of the game TJ Watt spent the game being escorted out of the play by Darryl Williams.

You are apparently correct but "the rule is not strictly enforced"

Officially, the captain of the unit that is on the field serves as a "field captain" to accept or decline penalties etc. (In reality I expect the coach makes the call and the player just informs the officials). There may be other "field captain" roles, where it makes sense for the guy with the radio helmet to be a captain. Also officially per NFL rules the maximum number of captains is 6, and that' the maximum that can go out for the coin toss. Interesting when McD was miked up in the SF game, it was clear he was calling Hyde over and using him to communicate to the defense, even though Poyer and Edmunds were the captains.

Yeah but then there's this:

Question: How do you tell the difference between "took our foot off the gas" on Offense vs. stalled out/couldn't move the ball against defensive adjustments? (3Q syndrome) How do you tell the difference between "allowed the other teams to move up and down the field" and "couldn't stop them, resulting in a comeback where we had to re-take the lead"?

Last year's captains: https://www.buffalobills.com/news/bills-elect-these-team-captains-for-the-2020-season Josh, Dawkins Poyer, Hughes, Edmunds Ferguson, Roberts 2019: Josh, Dawkins Edmunds, Alexander Ferguson, Hauschka So we're trending up in # of captains, from 6 to 7 to 8 Which I think is a little strange, but whatever...

As I understand it, the players vote. That's not saying the coaches can't sway it though

Last season Dawkins was quoted saying he wanted to take the "C" off his chest and give it to Diggs. So this year he did.

There are fumbles and fumbles. There are fumbles where he is running with the ball, and stays up and gets stripped. Those are bad. There are fumbles where he's strip-sacked. When Aaron Donald is allowed to horse-collar a QB in the pocket and spin him into the ground, or where Allen's protectors totally whiff on a block and let him get blindsided by Judon, a certain number of those are inevitable But people bin them as though they're the same. I think a deeper dive would show that Allen's fumbles have moved towards the latter predominating and away from the former (which used to predominate).

Wentz had 13 games in 2017 where he was playing at a very very high level indeed. He had a good season (not as good) in 2018 and again in 2019 - maybe even better The Wheels didn't fall off until last season, when Don Peterson fired his OC and decided to Do It Himself Now, whether the wheels can be bolted back on re-uniting him with the HC he had success with as an OC, remains to be seen There's this idea now that Wentz was never good, or only good for a flash-in-the-pan, I don't think that's true. But there is stuff out there about how he was perhaps given a "rockstar" status by Roseman and allowed to move away from taking "hard coaching" To me what The Curious Case of Carson Wentz implies is that it doesn't matter how much talent a QB comes in with or how well he plays, if he stops working full-bore on his craft and stops working in the right way, things can go downhill fast.

I'm a bit puzzled by this, because we have the same OL players as last year starting on OL (not at the same time, I grant). We have the same WR bar swapping Sanders for Brown, which because of Sanders age many pundits overlook We have the same starting RBs So how can all these things be assumed to be better? We hope they're better. We hope the guys we're starting are our "best guys" and playing at their best positions on OL We hope Sanders is an upgrade, and that Davis and McKenzie have both taken a step and Kumerow is an upgrade over Roberts at #6 We hope Motor has revved up But in the end, those are only predictions, not certainties

Difference between points scored and points allowed. The Bills finished at +126, which is respectable at 7.9 ppg and higher than the Chiefs at 6.9 ppg But that's largely driven by 3 games at the end of the season (Denver, NE, and Mia) where we kicked butt and took names. In a lot of the early games, we barely squeaked by and of course, we got embarrassed in Tenn and by KC. I seem to recall a bunch of regulars here sounding a warning note early in the season because our point differential was so slender, hovering close to 0 for 4 weeks before the bye. Jim Kubiak has an article up on TBN about it (I value his QB analysis every week, if you're unfamliar, and they have a Deal) On the one hand, I see the point (haha): differential is a straightforward metric that asks if both offense and defense are Doing Their Job. And it would be less nail-biting to see it be more consistent On the other hand, I fall into the category that "a win is a win", no style points. Thoughts?

I would say that Tomlin will do his best to have them prepared But yes, this is a big test for a young OL - not just a rookie C, but a rookie LT and a young LG