Hapless Bills Fan

You like to throw shade at others like "you present yourself as a medical expert.....at least on the internet" Would you care to share what your own background may be that qualifies you to pronounce on -how consuming 8,000 calories per day all year round to hold weight is not a healthy lifestyle -the exact off-season training regimens of NFL OL and DLmen -when/why OL and DLmen tend to develop back and joint problems I mean, you don't have to or anything, but it does seem a bit ironic that you're apparently questioning the qualifications of other posters while speaking as a medical, nutritional, exercise/fitness, obesity specialist etc. (at least one of the other guys you dismissed has a pretty extensive background in the medical field and as an athlete - he backed away because it's kinda clear you're not into actual discussion) In the meantime for general amusement, here is an article about some OL offseason training from Jon Feliciano https://www.instagram.com/p/CCT3GGWDxBE/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again

Wow, I can remember the angst and anguish when the Bills failed to draft him

You know, when this thread started, @SDS was on here expressing constructive concern about when the ads were being seen - were you logged in? from the News section? In Community? What kind of ads, were they generally perceived as intrusive and why? So Kudos for you for finding the old thread instead of starting a new one to grouse, but how about providing some more details so that he can understand what you perceive as "worse"? -when you see the ads you find "worse", are you logged in, or not logged in as a member? -where are you seeing the ads you find "worse" (eg where are you on the page) -what make them "worse"? That would probably be helpful and of interest to Scott. Sometimes new ad strategies do show up and can be tweaked by him so that they are less annoying or certain advertisers with sketchy ads can be blocked. But just "they're worse!" doesn't help with that.

Yes! Apparently McKenzie was here for the OTAs though. Flew to B'lo from Miami after a food festival last weekend, and flew back to Mia from B'lo after OTA yesterday

Just a little note here that the combine test was in late February, while the repeat Echo and MRI were in early April. So about 5-6 weeks between the tests, which is potentially time for a transient virally-induced condition to resolve. It's certainly possible that the Combine echo was erroneous, but it's also possible that it was a correct result, and detected a condition that resolved. I'm not sure why one would consider one possibility "simpler" or more correct than the other - AFAIK there were not other anomolous results from the Combine screening. It's certainly possible to produce erroneous results but We don't know why Star was paid (apparently) the higher amount for opting out due to a known preexisting condition

I dunno if this will link properly but it looks as though Dion Dawkins showed up for the Grand Opening today. McKenzie looked a little bashful but happy to see him. Videoed a little exhibit up on one wall with one of McKenzie's jerseys and a display case with his Game Ball from the Jan 3 Dolphins Game. Just thought it was nice to see McKenzie get some props from another player on the Bills, and also good to see McKenzie working hard and having some recognition/success for diversifying outside football. The failure rate for new restaurants is high, but it seems like McKenzie & friends have been building up a following through "pop up" BBQs at various local breweries and food festivals, so hopefully they'll make this work. By having the only (or one of a few) Texas BBQ spots in Miami, they seem positioned to create a niche for themselves.

The first test done at the combine was likely not an MRI but an echocardiogram. A repeat echo and MRI were normal. And I'm not quite sure how to interpret "no evidence of lack of dysfunction" in this context. The usual interpretation of a medical result that shows "no evidence of dysfunction" is that there is .... no dysfunction, the test result is normal. Most people would interpret that as evidence that there's "no evidence of a lack of dysfunction" but that's not the way it's normally phrased or interpreted. So I'm not exactly sure what your point is here.

Well, they had a 10-6 season in 2019. They felt they under-achieved last season and took a while to get going with their new OC and DC. I haven't followed, but when a team was 2 games into the playoffs 2 years ago it's not uncommon for the fans to feel they've made off-season improvements and will not only return to the prior result but exceed it. Wouldn't we think so? They are counting on his return from neck surgery, Yes.

Diggs was actually the #1 target for the Vikings in 2019 (in part because Thielen missed games); Jefferson was the #1 target last season. So Diggs could have been the #1 WR for the Vikes except that he and Cousins reportedly just weren't "in sync". The main thing is that the Vikings offense is very close to 50/50 pass run (49% pass in 2019 under Stefanski; 52% pass in 2020). I didn't watch many Vikes games, but judging by his Y/R of 15.9, Jefferson was used primarily as a deep-ball guy (as Diggs was in 2019, 17.9 Y/R). I thought part of Diggs beef was that he wanted to be involved in a more complete passing game and not just become "pigeonholed" as a deep ball guy. I think Diggs may feel the training he goes through in FL (House of Athlete and Receiver Factory) may be better for him at this time than OTAs. There's also a benefit for the team in that this way the young guys get more reps and the coaches get more chance to work with them.

And they really should. The Vikings were able to get one of the most promising WR in the class in the bottom-third of the 1st round, to pair with a mature veteran QB in Cousins and a run-heavy offense. Jefferson was the most productive of the 1st round WR last year and should be high quality cheap labor for them for the next 3 years. The Bills needed something different with Diggs and they also got it - a wily veteran route runner who could be the go-to guy for a young QB to take that next step, who could also inspire the room and make the other WR better. It comes at the cost of higher salary, but that's a cost worth paying for what he contributed. It really should go down as a trade that worked well for each side, and be tucked in and put to bed as such.

This was my thought

I'm curious why you feel Sweeney would be a sho-in for #2 TE in 1-2 sets? Seems to me it would be Knox and Hollister, who I believe is a pretty good blocker. Yes, Sweeney blocked well in college but he just hasn't seen the field much in the pros to say "yes" or "no" yet.

I see what you did there.....

I'm sure you're right. My guess is a lot of players don't feel that strongly and the "carrot" will influence them - by dangling the "carrot" of similar protocol choices, Cornell got 14,999 students to roll up their sleeves in 7 weeks, for example. But, there will most certainly be players who feel very strongly and nothing will change them, and I think they should have that right. Then they have a set of protocols to follow. The question is how many will fall into each group, and will there be any fall out (such as key players who wind up having to quarantine and miss games). 🤷‍♂️ Just as a for-instance, if we're playing KC and publically-known-to-be-vaccinated Mahomes and (hypothetically) not vaccinated Allen are both exposed to a positive tested individual. KC gets their QB and we play with a backup (assuming at least one is vaccinated or not exposed). Big disavantage: Bills.

I'm surprised at the idea Kingsbury might be on the hot seat already.

LOL I suspect it's more their health advisors are pulling info from the same studies/CDC advice (or maybe they have the same advisors)

How so? Titans had their entire facility closed during an active outbreak. LOL

Oh, the INhumanity! They did this last year. and Lee Smith talked about building a sauna in his garage so some of the players could use it instead of the facility....Law of Unintended Consequences

Now that it's merged with the other threads quoting the same DC Magazine interview is it less confusing?

I didn't say that you did. You said: I said that if you go to the twitter responses to the OP tweet, you would see that not everyone agrees with you that it's amusing. I could have misunderstood you and you may have meant that those were unreasonable restrictions (in fact from below it looks as though I did) Why not, especially if it's for a limited "Dog and Pony Show" while the media is in the building or while a PR video is being shot? "We're trying to keep vax status confidential, masks are a tell, take one for the team and mask up during press hour" I don't see this at all. The full stadiums are a matter of revenue. The less restrictions on vaxxed players are trying to induce players to vax. But the clubs hate unfettered press access to the locker rooms and buildings. If they're not allowing actual employees access to players/facilities without being vaccinated, I don't see why they'd let press in - sure, they could require vaccination as part of the credentialing process, but there's no real way of assuring it's valid, and it's just more exposure to the team. I see a distinction between the NFL doing things that are to its benefit, and things that are kind of a PITA to them anyway. Yeah, I misunderstood your point. I actually expect there will probably be a kerfluffle over this.

I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone is insisting that obese people aren't more susceptible to disease concerns. The question is whether general population statistics are applicable to elite athletes, even heavy obese athletes. I googled Matt Birk and while I could find stuff about him losing weight, I couldn't find anything that he was so cardiovascularly unfit he couldn't walk down stairs or go for a walk when he played. Since these big guys usually manage to get out in front of RBs and block all game, I'd be very surprised indeed if any issues with going downstairs or for walks involved cardiovascular fitness vs. injuries to knees and feet lingering into the off-season.

I'd appreciate a source for this statement (the prevalence numbers I've seen are higher) but even taken as read it probably has little bearing on this topic. First, to the AHA, "heart disease" uses an inclusive definition encompassing hypertension, coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure, stroke, and atrial fibrullation. Of these, by far the most prevalent is hypertension (usually controlled with medication), but which the general public doesn't necessarily think of when they read "more than 1/3 of adult males have heart disease". Conditions such as CHD and CHF are much lower prevalence - CHF, the condition associated with low ejection fraction, being estimated as 2.5%. Second, like many health conditions, heart disease incidence is strongly age related. So the incidence at age 18-44 is less than half the overall incidence (20%) and again, predominantly hypertension, and skewed towards the upper end of that age range. Third and most important, it's not appropriate to apply statistics developed on a whole population to a non-random subset of that population. And elite athletes such as football players are most definitely a non-random subset.

I think the earlier allusion was a statistical argument that based on population incidence, there are probably more we don't know about. I'm not sure that's correct. Per the CDC, between 3 and 5 per 1000 adults age 18-44 are diagnosed with diabetes. There are ~2200 players on an NFL roster each season (counting PS). Therefore just using that metric, we might expect that there are between 7 and 11 diabetic players. Two counters: 1) like a lot of "bin" statistics, it probably skews towards the older end of the range, as type II diabetes becomes more frequent with age. I'm not inspired to dig for an actual age/incidence chart with finer gradation 2) bigger point - which you have made in an altered form - is that statistics established for a general population should not properly be applied to a non-random subset. And elite, professional athletes are most definitely a non-random subset.

Hi. The article quoted by NewEra said that the repeat MRI back when Star was drafted found "no evidence of dysfunction". A low ejection fraction would be a dysfunction, usually caused by an underlying abnormality detectable by MRI. Therefore it's a reasonable presumption that the low ejection fraction found on the first exam was a transient condition. If it weren't transient, the abnormality would have been found in the MRI. The most common cause of a transient low ejection volume (to my knowledge, not a cardiologist) is cardiomyopathy due to a recent viral infection. However, it's a valid point that none of us have access to Star's medical records since the draft, therefore it's an inappropriate conclusion that he has no medical reason for wishing to opt out. His heart condition may have evolved, or there might be a different preexisting condition (such as diabetes) that puts him at higher risk than just being a big dude.

It's basically asking them to live over last season, as far as I can tell. If there weren't a tenable alternative, it wouldn't mean very much for the NFL/NFLPA to say "vaccination isn't mandatory", would it? But not everyone shares your view that it's reasonable. If you go to the twitter thread there are a bunch of comments to the effect that it's "bull####" or "forcing players to get vaccinated" I would doubt that press would have access to the facility, or only very limited access - just like last year. But if the Bills are serious about privacy on vaccination status, they would simply tell everyone to mask up when being videoed. There's a lot of stuff in there I can see as potentially divisive to a team