Hapless Bills Fan

Bills tried winning that way in 2015 with Rex, right? That was the blueprint, right? we got a top-4 defense, we're gonna bring in Greg Roman who took the 49ers to two conference championships and the Superbowl with a top-5 defense and top-5 rushing attack plus a bottom-of-the-league passing attack that was just effective enough to keep teams from playing the run. So we'll bring in Shady McCoy, we'll use Tyrod Taylor as a dual threat QB who can throw a pretty nice deep ball to a wide-open WR. The Bills went 9-7 and just missed the playoffs by one game the previous year with a #4 D and #18 offense, so it kind of made sense - if you can just improve the offense to middle-of-the-pack or better, you should be able to win 1-2 more games and "get ready, we're going!" Well, we know how that story ended. The offense improved from #18 to #12, but the defense plummeted from #4 to #15 (19th on yards). To do the Browns justice, I think they have good coaching, strong defense, and a lot of offensive pieces. But it all has to come together, and a re-focused Baker needs to take a step and be more consistent game to game.

Ooooh now there's a thought. But isn't that what former Panther Greg Olsen is doing?

It sounds as though SJF did all the safe things with the school year, but I have no idea what the NFL/NFLPA IDER (that's Infectious Disease Emergency Response, not the post-genre rock duo) Plan requires - and when they started mentioning air handling and ventilation requirements - yikester! I think it would be very understandable if the Bills say "know what? let's stay home in OP, where we already have that IDER plan and stuff" On the other hand....this source claims "The Bills will present a proposal to the league for their plan to handle camp with any necessary Covid protocols. If approved expect the Bills to be back at Fisher in late July". https://13wham.com/buffalo-plus/bills-latest-news/bills-could-be-back-at-fisher-this-summer SowhaddoIknow?

Sean McDermott may like the atmosphere of a training camp at a remote site, but here's the actual NFL memo YOLO linked above... When you get into"submit a full IDER plan" and "include information about the air flow and filtration at the alternative location", unless the site already has that information at the ready to provide to the NFL, I think the clubs be like

I grant you that superstar players do retire, then return to play. But it's still a gigantic leap between "I resigned from my scouting job" and "I want to return and play"

I think they're safe. I haven't seen anyone smoking an ice cream, Ever .....much less a dog

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I'm told that several blind taste tests that had oenophiles testing cheap vs. expensive wines, had them giving some of the best ratings to the cheaper stuff. I myself would like the opportunity to personally investigate my abilities in that regard, but I'm too cheap. https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2019/07/can-professional-wine-connoisseurs-really-not-tell-the-difference-between-expensive-wines-and-cheap-wines/

Ha, I throw like a girl! No joke! And I don't mean "girl like Mo'ne Davis" either.

Does anyone know if the interview is available online somewhere? Youtube? Buffalobills.com?

Evvybody sleeping on Jamil Douglas! He's not conceding the fight. I saw some pretty horrific run blocking out of Ford. Titans, for example. It may have been injury related.

Some things were different I'm sure, like in-person assessment of games, but the film watching and overall evaluation process probably the same. I can see where a guy who was a student of the game as a player might feel like watching other guys film and evaluating them would be interesting, but then do it for a while and decide it's just frustrating if part of him still wants to play, and he needs to just change course. Wouldn't that be likely Brian Gaine?

Or maybe he thought he would be interested in scouting, but after doing it for a season he realized it wasn't his cup of tea and he wants to do something else. Seems like world championship "leaping to conclusions" to go from "Keuchley resigned as a scout" to "Keuchley might return to playing football"

On further social media, it looks as though Diggs was there as well, and both Trubisky and Davis Webb were down there. No sign of Josh Allen yet.

Exactly. Even if they cut him, and he goes to another team and produces more than the guy they kept - that has been happening for YEARS in the NFL, sometimes because GM's and coaches make flat-out talent e v a l. mistakes; sometimes the guy is a better fit for another scheme; sometimes getting cut lights a fuse in the guy. The guy would need a smoking gun, like a tape recording or notes from a personnel meeting where they say "Sam Smith is playing much better and has higher athleticism than Jim Jones but we're gonna move on from Sam because he's not vaccinated and Jim Jones is". The likelihood of this reminds me of an old joke about Airforce Flight down in Florida. Background: it's illegal to cuss on Air Traffic Control frequencies. Air Force Pilot doing practice approaches: "Aw, I'm all ***** Up" Controller: "Pilot who made that last transmission, Please Identify Yourself." Unknown other Pilot: "He said he was All ***** Up, he didn't say he was Stupid"

Ah yes, the Mystery of the Missing Breida. Dolphins were 16th in the league for attempts, but 22nd for yards. 3.9 ypa. So in general their rushing attack was AWOL. I don't quite know what to make of it, except that was better than their #32 ranked rushing attack the previous year. Maybe their run blocking sucked worse than ours and they needed a bruiser back who could make his own holes? I think they signed him to have a speed option to the edge, which neither Singletary nor Moss can manage, the question is how much of his problems last year were with the scheme/coach/blocking and how much were his? We'll see. I wish the Bills would move on from this business of having many roster spots given to guys who are listed as "RB" or "WR" or "DE" or "LB" but are really 100% ST'ers, like Taiwan Jones and Andre Roberts. It is hindering us offensively and defensively. Sometimes I think Heath Farwell has naughty pictures of McD and Beane.

I will def. give him a follow. Christian Wade has also gotten hooked up with some pretty elite RB training and is working hard. I know Moss has posted pics of him working out at Adpro recently so perhaps he's there for an evaluation.

LOL Stefon Diggs says he's working out with his "nephew" Gabe Davis and Davis giving him crap "Out of all the pictures...yo choose this one" Note that Diggs is not working out with his "nephew" Isaiah "Big Mouth" McKenzie

That's why I wondered who was throwing to them. Well, that and the balls just didn't look like they had the 'zip' of an Allen throw, to me. I had wondered if Josh is in OP for...duh dah duh....contract negotiations Nah, it's Trubisky. I thought he had an arm though?

He's a well traveled guy. KC, Rams, now Ravens.

I would think it would depend upon how many guys actually get vaccinated - if they're at a point where they still need social distancing in meetings and the like, that would be pretty tough to achieve in dorm rooms and shared showers. It was probably tough enough on the support staff to enable all of that (set up for meetings in the field house, then take it down for indoor practice) on their own turf. I had been hoping to attend training camp at SJF last year because my kid is in college in NYS. I could visit and attend training camp was the plan. So much for that. Maybe if they stay in Orchard Park they would have some practices open to the public.

Exactly. And in the NFL, even if they cut or trade the guy who later goes on to demonstrate superior skill with another team (Spencer Long vs Wyatt Teller), that happens all the time, pro personnel evaluators and coaches make mistakes or sometimes just getting cut is a "wake up call" to a player who goes on to improve.

Of course they wouldn't cut Josh Allen. Or Jordan Poyer, for that matter, who would shock me (pleasantly) to the core if he got vaccinated. They're starters. For the Brave Soul (or ***** Disturber, depending on one's perspective) who brought up Kaepernick and kneeling, Shady McCoy at the time called it out perfectly. In the NFL, it's all about the mix of talent and controversy/disruption a guy brings. If Kaepernick was lighting the league on fire when he started kneeling, he'd likely still be on a team. Is he more talented than guys who are still on rosters as backups or fringe starters? Almost certainly. But when you're a fringe player, the team has much lower tolerance for any controversy or distraction you might bring. In the case of covid-19, the league will force a team to operate in a horridly hindered manner if enough players aren't vaccinated, so if you're a fringe player and the fringe guy next to you is vaxxed up, whether or not a GM says it out loud in the press, the writing on the wall is there. Josh Allen can't "challenge this idea". What he can do, if he forgoes vaccination is: 1) put more pressure on the bottom of the roster guys because more of them will need to be sacrificed to "make the quota" due to his personal decision (the ***** flows downhill principle) 2) put himself at risk of going out for the season due to cardiac effects or playing hindered due to pulmonary (Garrett) or neurological (implied by Beane of Cam Newton) effects, or even just being unavailable to the team for 1 or more games. I think Josh is a very smart guy and he needs to do a very careful investigation of possible long term health effects of mild virus infection, risk of unavailability to the team, vs possible vaccine risks to make a decision.

It absolutely would be discriminatory (to cut someone for being unvaccinated while vaccination is not required). But you know, as an industry vet, I can tell you that discriminatory termination for "legitimate" reasons happen all the time. As long as it's cloaked in a legitimate reason, it's pretty damned hard to prove, certainly on a case-by-case basis. The NFL has made clear Beane can't call a player into his office and say "we're releasing you because you're unvaccinated". But he can call a player into his office and say "we appreciate how hard you've worked, but we need to cut a cornerback and we think the other guys offer a better fit for what we're trying to accomplish here". If one of the reasons a different guy offers a better fit happens to be because he's vaccinated and helps them meet their NFL mandated numbers, that's between Beane and the mentally-stored portion of his confidential player evaluation file. As Jay Skursky wrote in The Buffalo News,

I'm really not going to go there here, BillsVet. It's general and beyond the scope of NFL-relevant discussion. You may educate yourself by googling "Mandatory vaccination supreme court" or "When did vaccination become mandatory in the US?" or "Can Covid-19 vaccine be mandatory in the US?" I suggest you look for hits involving Wiki, Law Schools, and Public Health Schools. The relevant information here is that 1) it has been repeatedly held by the courts that state and local governments, employers, schools etc may mandate vaccination that is relevant to job performance or significant for public health, provided exceptions for legitimate medical and religious reasons are allowed - if you don't believe this, go educate yourself from reputable sources, it's not an "alternate fact", it's historically true 2) the NFLPA and NFL have agreed that the NFL WILL NOT (emphasis mine) mandate covid-19 vaccination for players 3) the NFL (and some other sports leagues) have said that employees who are not fully vaccinated will not be allowed contact with players.