Hapless Bills Fan

Dude, this is the policy of the board. Go reread @SDS pinned post. The reason for the policy is that when we "gave it a chance to play out" and had everyone putting up studies and arguing what is or isn't a "fact" about covid (and politics) this board had become a politics and covid board and football convo was getting overwhelmed with other crap. There are gazillions of places on the Interwebs for that. And you can see this happening here, one guy does it and a bunch of folks WHO DAMMITALL KNOW BETTER jump in. If you don't agree with the policy and appreciate the ability to mostly talk football here, maybe one of those other places would suit you best. Just sayin'. I haven't even finished my 2nd cup of coffee and I'm deleting and warning by the handful. I may be turning into a cold-hearted bahstahd but my reaction to this is "don't let the door hitcha where the good Lord splitcha". We didn't just wake up and set the policy because we were hungover and crabby and said "YEAH! Let's make more work for ourselves as mods and subject ourselves to all sorts of criticism and abuse! GREAT IDEA!" We set it because one mod returned from vacation and held up a mirror to how the board had changed while he was gone, and we all agreed we had a problem, then Scott (the board owner) made a decision and put up the pinned post about it. This is wearing my last nerve, you guys who think you are entitled to debate board policy and post whatever the ***** you want. You have @Simon -ized me and any non-football general crap below this post is gonna get a week long ban.

What I bolded is probably correct. The part about "based entirely on perception" is probably incorrect as is the "NFL only wants cover from blame" bit. I think there's reasonable evidence to believe the NFL's policies were based on the science available at the time they were drawing them up last Spring, but have been slow to adjust to the changing reality on the ground this Summer. I put up some refs and calculations over in the facts thread if you want to understand what I mean. I mean, c'mon, the NFL's chief medical officer is a very sharp guy, a neurosurgeon from Vanderbuilt, and they brought in a lot of good talent as consultants. These are not guys with peanut-size egos (how many neurosurgeons does it take to change a light bulb?) who would sit quietly and lend their names while their science-based proposals were shunted aside by NFL bureaucrats. Their principal incomes are elsewhere.

I think there are 16 unvaccinated players (0.2 x 80) and it's a pretty strong guess, given what agents etc have been saying publicly, most of them are vets who feel secure of a roster spots and have made their money. That would mean (53-16)/53 or 70% vaccinated after cutdowns to the 53 It's a pretty sure bet that Mahomes publicly announcing he was vaccinated to protect his baby early on has a big impact on KC's vaccination rate, and Fitzpatrick being both vaccinated and everyone in his family including kids vaccinated and sitting and talking to anyone about it, had a big impact on WFT turning itself around from least-vaxxed to one of the most vaxxed. I just don't think we have anyone similar on the Bills who is a respected leader on the team and fully supports vaccination, but the truth is neither of us know what's going on inside the locker room. I don't think the mandatory vaccination thing will fly with the NFLPA. I think if they do push it through their membership will revolt. Just my opinion, for which in this instance I totally and openly admit I have no factual evidence.

That could be Did he say anything about Phillips? Reason I ask is that some members of our media have suggested Phillips and McKenzie will be IR'd to start the season. "Week to week" sounds plausible to return for opening day, 2 weeks from now, or maybe the week after. IR would make them unavailable for a minimum of 3 regular season games. I mean I guess Sal is doing his best but that's not much of an injury update on most of the guys who are injured

He came to WFT to be the starter, correct? That means he'll be amazing this year but the team at best will go 9-7 or 10-6 and miss the playoffs He'll get paid next year then he'll suck To his credit, I think he's improved his passing motion and velocity after his first year in Tampa. He talked to someone or started working with someone. His completion percentage jumped almost 8% and has stayed higher. How could he have stayed through EJ and Tyrod? But in hindsight it would have been better and probably cheaper than what we did (Kolb + Tarvaris Jackson etc)

I think the offense was running a passing play, but once Oliver got a hand on it, it became a "tip drill" for the defense.

I don't think Kumerow can be cut and re-signed on a "handshake deal". He would have to go through waivers, and seems very likely someone would claim him. He only has 3 years where he's played in NFL games, and I'm not sure he was even active enough games for all of those 3 years to count as accrued seasons (need 6 games I think, in 2018 he had 5). And you need 4 accrued seasons to not be subject to waivers. Pretty sure waivers works on accrued and not credited seasons. Very sure someone will set me straight if I'm wrong

Vosean Joseph. Another way to look at it is that 3 late round picks from 2018 are no longer on the roster (Teller, McCloud, Proehl); one from 2019 (Vosean Joseph) is gone and Tommy Sweeney may be IR'd again (which would almost certainly see him cut next year) or waived/injured, which would make 2; Jake Fromm is predicted to be cut from 2020. I don't think we can conclude that Beane will keep a guy just because he was a draft pick. What has Hodgins done that makes him seem so valuable to take a roster spot? Did he even have a reception in the Lions game before he left, injured? He just returned from injury this week, but we have no word on whether he's considered conditioned or recovered enough to play Saturday? Have we heard anything about him in practice? Is he even taking 1:1 or 11 on 11 drills yet? Maybe. But "That was Then, This is Now." I think we as fans always tend to overvalue our bottom of the roster guys, while to the rest of the league there's a new crop of talented WR coming out this season who haven't been on IR last year and injured most of camp this year.

It turns out part of Joe B's idea is that the Bills will cut Hollister and Taiwan Jones on a hand shake deal to bring them back, then IR Harrison Phillips and Isaiah McKenzie to make room for them and re-sign them. Now the Bills have done something like this before - I believe last year they cut Roberts on a handshake deal and brought him back after the IR'd Tommy Sweeney. I can't exclude the idea that Buscaglia may have inside info about McKenzie and Phillips injury and know that they need prolonged recovery. But we're still 2 weeks out from the regular season, and the IR rules are that the player must miss a minimum of 3 regular-season games (not 3 weeks). Right now I believe the Bills public statement from McDermott is that they're not that long term - something like two weeks. We're 2 weeks out from the season opener. So IR'ing them would make sense if we think they've got a 5 or 6 week injury But in that case, with McKenzie out, I can't believe that the Bills would leave the rookie Stevenson who has reportedly been a mixed bag in practice, as the only PR/KR option on the roster. I would expect them to keep Powell. There's also the point that is Hodgins even practicing yet?

Harsh viewpoint. But has merit. You, Sir, are a Bad Man. A Bad, Bad Man.

This guy (Micah Hyde was being interviewed when McKenzie walked by dressed like that in the cold and snow. Hyde: "I hate that guy!") Better now

Making the deal better for the Pats:

Linky? I would assume, media can come then. I think the "last practice with media" meant "last practice with media before 3rd game" or maybe "last practice with media before Turk Tuesday August 31 I actually had not realized for some reason that the Sept 1 Open Practice would be JUST the 53 man roster. Makes it more interesting.

As Conspiracy Theories go, I have to say, this is one of the most plausible I've seen crafted! 🎤 The news about the NFL proposal to test vaxxed players 1x week instead of 2 vs the every day the NFLPA has requested has been shared; most of us with a stomach for this stuff have had a chance to chew it over and agree/disagree; and I'm ***** if I want to wake up to a couple threads full of crap before I've had my morning coffee two days in a row. 🔒

I think the answer there is transparency.

Good job. I think a problem is folks don't see the posts we take out, which makes it harder to understand what we're trying to put a stop to. I agree - this isn't a happy thing, and we wish it were different, but It Is What It Is

I always say "TBD is educational" but please forgive me if I'm afraid to Google "Humpty Dance"

It's always possible that the NFLPA is "off the reservation" and not taking input from the players it represents, but since the player's union, the NFLPA, is the group proposing daily testing for all and the NFL is pushing back - I would assume that the ticked-off players are minimal. I think a lot of players who aren't stars or locked-in starters got vaccinated because their agents put it to them "if you want to forward your career, maximize your availability, and minimize the reasons a team might cut you, Get the Jab" and avoiding higher testing frequency etc were peripheral to their decision.

To the last question, yes. That's why the NFLPA wants it. To the first question, here is a link to a couple posts with references and calculations which address your question, conveniently located in a thread near you (read to the bottom)

He is wrong about a lot, and no point in rehashing - evvybuddy already got out their views in several threads and not gonna agree. But Beasley does have valid points that unvaccinated players can not be adequately protected from infection by Delta with vaccinated players and staff tested once every 14 days and not required to mask indoors, and it sounds like the NFL has taken a first step towards changing that.

Update of the best US study on vaccine effectiveness in the "real world" (vs clinical trial), initially published by the CDC in April. Summary: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e4.htm Full paper: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/pdfs/mm7034e4-H.pdf They studied vaccinated and unvaccinated health care workers - first responders, healthcare workers, and other patient-facing essential workers. Every study participant was tested every week, in order to identify all infections, not just symptomatic infections. Previously, from December through April, they had found the vaccines were 90% effective in preventing any infection (symptomatic or asymptomatic) They now extended the study to August 2021 and determined "Delta variant predominant weeks" They found the vaccines were 66% effective in preventing any infection (symptomatic or asymptomatic) during "Delta variant predominant weeks", which were also weeks in which a longer time had elapsed since vaccination They found a decreasing effect of vaccination by binning the participants into <120 or >150 days since vaccination, but the effect was not "statistically significant" given the small numbers of Covid cases in each group. Click to embiggen this table: I think a point that jumps out to anyone, is that there were 5x as many vaccinated as unvaccinated study participants - 2,352 vs 488 (a lot of the initial unvaccinated group apparently dropped out, possibly to get vaxxed). But, the number of covid infections were comparable (24 vs 19), in 5x as many vaccinated study participants. That right there says the vaccine is still reduces the chance of getting any infection of Delta variant Covid (including an asymptomatic infection) by ~5x, before any numbers gagiggery was performed. KISS, baby, KISS. The adjusted VE of 66% is a 3x reduction, lower because they adjusted for "local virus circulation, study location, and occupation" - the point is they aren't jiggering the raw data to make their results look better, in fact they're making them look worse. [The reason to do jiggering is because the vaccinated and unvaccinated study participants may not be evenly distributed over each study site or within each occupation, and obviously if more unvaccinated participants live in a community with high community infection while more vaccinated participants live in a community with lower community infection, it would bias the resultsl Same for occupation. It's a sign of a carefully done study.] Another finding was that during the Delta-variant predominant weeks, 94.7% of the infections in unvaccinated people were symptomatic (remember, they are testing every week so as to catch all infections). 75% of the infections in vaccinated people were symptomatic, meaning 25% of them were asymptomatic. I don't think you need to be a "genius in France" (or maths) to figure out that if asymptomatic infections can be transmitted and if it takes as little as 4-5 days from exposure to become infectious, testing every 2 weeks is gonna miss some asymptomatic, infectious people. OK, that's all I got. Questions -> PM me. (Be nice)

So Pelissaro threw out some other stuff: Since they are testing unvaccinated players 14x more often than vaccinated players unless the latter have symptoms, are they actually identifying all the Covid cases among vaccinated players and staff? Seems to me the right thing is to find out, by more testing.

I think the season will become very complicated if they don't test vaxxed players and staff. We just saw why.

I'm thinking it was the team trying to let Lamar experiment with his throws and not get embarrassed by the press, but WhaddoIknow? (I *think* Lamar's agent is still hs Mama, for whom I have the greatest respect - but I doubt the team lets her make policy)

Ha, it does seem that way sometimes. 16/200 or 8%. 200/32 would be ~6 players per team on average Amen